The more ludicrous the TSA gets with its bans, the better. In the long run doing that will only make them look like clowns and make the general public resent them more.
The woman already had the milk bottled. What's the harm in drinking some of it to prove that it isn't any dangerous compound? I thought liquids from outside weren't allowed in the planes, ideally they shouldn't have allowed her in with it at all, though, but that's a different point.
> did she fail to see the connection to stopping terrorism
The connection is that she could have been a terrorist, and a compound dissolved in the milk could be used to make a binary explosive.
Why is making her drink breast milk incredibly stupid? Because TSA already have equipment to test liquids for explosives without having passengers sample their own liquids.
Not to mention, breast milk has always been counted as medication, although the rule to not make passengers sample their own liquid is probably new since that incident.
Liquids from outside are allowed on planes depending on how you bring it in. My dad travels with juice/gel exceeding 3oz (with a note from his doctor). I've gotten a Costco-sized bottle of contact lens solution past TSA (so if you want to know how to sneak in some vodka...) One winter I was traveling a couple times a month with some terrible bronchitis+sinusitis issues and I had a gallon sized bag full of cough syrups and inhalers. Whatever. The only two things I remember TSA specifically tested from my bags from, at this point, hundreds of flights, is one mega sized bottle of purple drank (if you split liquid meds into a bunch of smaller but still bigger than 3oz bottles they don't seem to care) and one bottle of shampoo.
Banning people from bringing liquids on board and halfheartedly enforcing the 3oz rule when they can be circumvented so easily even with TSA approval (see TSA precheck!) is so incredibly dumb it baffles my mind.
Oooh ooh bonus points: I put something like 10 quarts worth of homemade jam in my checked luggage on one flight and TSA didn't even look at them (and good thing too, because they were all canned and I would have flipped out if the seals were broken). I wonder what you could do with 10 quarts worth of jam-consistency material in a bag. BTW hey TSA I'm not a terrorist, just someone that doesn't like you very much for making me deal with those terrible massages every time I try to get on a flight.
Maybe she, like many of us, simply did not see a point to "stopping terrorism" through airport security checkpoints. All they achieve is inconveniencing passengers and creating extremely attractive targets by concentrating large numbers of civilians.
I wouldn't be surprised if they start putting severe limits on all non-food shops in the terminals now. There seems to be no end to the ridiculous measures they'll take, no matter the inconvenience to flyers.
No, that's not the point. If you ever been through checkpoints enough times you will see TSA agents going back and forth skipping detectors all the time. If any of them can not smuggle hazardous stuff then we are living in a word where no cop is a bad cop.
Its all a show and unfortunately past examples shows that those who try to terror or did terror an airplane were either working with, willingly or not, the FBI/CIA or other gov agencies. And why wouldn't they? You take a mentally ill men, drug him big time, tell him government is bad and then you "catch" him on the plane with bomb behind his waist. Result? Another billion bucks spent on "terrorism" and Chertoff making $300MM on his radiation scanners.
So long story short; no, they are not interested in messing around with airport smallbusiness shops, even if this would stop a terrorist attack, because their mission is not to prevent one, but rather get american people used to deep searches, submission on demand and checkpoints everywhere.
The threats that the TSA itself admits are non-existent? (http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/tsa-admits-...)
The best I can see coming of this is that the TSA will start to ban braided leather belts and condoms.