TSA tackles tough issues of national security...

Keeping up with the recent regulations on what is and isn't permissible past the checkpoint can be pretty time consuming if you're not a regular flier. On my most recent trip I had to check (again) whether a can of shaving cream would mean I'd have to check my overnight bag. I still don't know the answer: it's a gel in the can, but it's a foam out of the can, and foams aren't regulated. It's like Schrödinger's Security - to observe that it's a gel you have to stop it from being a gel (NB, anticipating that this wouldn't tickle TSA quite the way it does me, I checked).

But I turned up the following interesting rules that, for one, make me glad that we have some of our top government minds addressing these touch issues of national security. From TSA: What To Know Before You Go (and I bet you didn't know this):

To ensure the health and welfare of certain air travelers, in the absence of suspicious activity or items, greater than 3 ounces of the following liquids, gels and aerosols are permitted through the security checkpoint in reasonable quantities for the duration of your itinerary (all exceptions must be presented to the security officer in front of the checkpoint):

...
Items used to augment the body for medical or cosmetic reasons such as mastectomy products, prosthetic breasts, bras or shells containing gels, saline solution, or other liquids; ...

(emphasis mine). There you have it. Probably based on some Echelon-type snooping of grand proportions, our government has found out that there are security risks in women exhibiting a different kind of grand proportion. My only real question here is, what are the guidelines that they give checkpoint staff for detecting these kinds of issues? What types of consequences are there for not declaring? Will they really confiscate a prosthetic breast from a mastectomied cancer survivor for failing to declare it? How does TSA even inspect a hermetically sealed gel-filled sack that is presumably well over 3.5 ounces? And for that matter, does the field guide have a heading for "suspicious busts"?