The new TSA rules now state that in many cities you now have to either 1)go through a full body scan or 2) go through a pat down.

I was wonder if these procedures will be enforced in Las Vegas and if so how this will effect those carrying significant amounts of money.

Many people may come home with their winnings or bankroll and prefer to keep that money as close to them as possible. Putting something like 5-10k in a suitcase or carryon is too risky, but not a big enough amount to be worth the hassle of a wire transfer to their bank.

Among other things, I think these new procedures are a major violation of privacy because of matters just like this. If they catch you will a large amount of cash on you, you may have to answer questions and draw attention to yourself you may rather not have.

Anyone know if Vegas is or will enforce these procedures, and if so, how can we get around it?

Thanks.

if it's over 10k you should be filing out a customs paper anyways

if it's under 10k, i was under the impression they didnt care?

only for international movements. they don't care what you do in the country. (or rather, there aren't limits on how much money you can carry around on domestic flights).

Ask Viffer if they don't care if you carry cash on domestic flights...

Any method of hiding this is going to cause so much more trouble if you get caught.

Just be honest if they ask. It's not illegal. If you don't lie or look like you are lying, you are really unlikely to be stopped for more than 3 minutes.

So the title is wrong and there aren't new rules about carrying money?

The existence of this thread suggests to me that it is worth the hassle of a wire transfer, to prevent the potentially much more significant hassle of some TSA agent taking an interest in why you're carrying "so much cash". And even if legally you're supposed to have the right to carry as much cash as you want on domestic flights (I don't know if that's the law or not but suppose it is), that doesn't seem to stop them from harrassing people who carry significant amounts of cash anyway. How much do you trust the average TSA agent to have a correct understanding of what your legal rights are? If the agent (mistakenly) thinks you're required to answer a long series of intrusive questions about the cash, unfortunately they're running the show and you'll be expected to answer. Maybe eventually they back down, or if they significantly overstep their bounds you might even have a lawsuit, but do you really want to deal with any of this? Wire transfer = keep the TSA out of it.

Actually, they know EXACTLY what they can and can not do. They know the limits, they know the questions they can ask and the questions they can ask and you don't need to answer. They know all the tricks and loopholes. A lot of times they are just probing with questions - and there is usually nothing illegal about asking questions and it is up to you to not saying something bad that may get you in trouble. 99% of the time it is the traveler who thinks they have a 'right' to do this or that.

So what should you say or not say? If it is legal to carry any amount of cash domestically, what issue could TSA have? Is it really any of their business? Is there any reason they could confiscate it or delay you? Is it better to just be upfront about it and tell them you have cash before they find it on a body scan? Or will they likely say nothing bc they are looking for explosives and weapons? Also if they do question you I would hate to have to flash a roll of money in public. Let hope they would at least have enough sense to be discrete.

I don't know...

Look up Viffer's experience on this, and it will scare the beejezus out of you. If they suspect the money is coming from drugs, they can just confiscate it. (They also took his rolex.) It took him a couple of months to get his stuff back.

They certainly should know what you are and are not legally required to answer, and I'm sure their training would address these issues, lets just say I'm somewhat doubtful as to the general competence of TSA agents. In any case what you're describing fits with what happened when Steve Bierfeldt was detained for questioning by the TSA while carrying $4700 in St. Louis a year and a half ago, which he recorded:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

He was asked about the money, why he was carrying it, what he does for a living, etc. And instead of answering he consistently asked whether he was legally required to answer the question or not. What I found interesting is that the TSA agent and the police officer who was brought in to question him later kept asking the same questions but, when Bierfeldt would ask if he was legally required to answer the question, they would never say he was legally required to answer the question. And then they would come back and ask the same questions again basically just trying to wear him down.

So yes, it seems they realized that they didn't have the authority to outright force him to answer questions such as "What do you do for a living?", but they wanted to go on their fishing expedition anyway and continue to press for answers and basically try to trick/bully him into answering. Pretty impressive to me that he never gave in and eventually they had to let him go. I don't know whether he made his flight or not.

Thanks for linking to this. It is an interesting topic.

Clearly, TSA guys are trained to interrogate people. Just because someone may have a low opinion of them, doesn't mean they don't know all the best setups and comebacks to make people do and say what they want. Few people will know all the tricks TSA guys know, and how to best respond to each one. That is the reality of the situation.

There is another legal case that ended up at the Supreme Court that is similar. It is a case of some Latino immigrant who was going back home with all their money on his person. I think it was around 100k or so. He stepped into the airport, and never even got to the place where he could fill out the disclosure form because he was stopped at a security check where they discovered his cash. Because this was international, our Federal government confiscated all his money forever. I am not sure how the SCOTUS ruled on this, or whether they even took up the case, but that just goes to show you... I will try to track down the name of this case. I'm hoping someone knows the name of the case off the top of their head.

Its pretty ridiculous that someone would think repeatedly asking the same question over and over is easier than giving a clear and concise answer. Asking if there is anything they could do to expedite the process and then thanking the TSA for their time.

I don't think he thought it was "easier" to refuse answering, clearly he had an axe to grind with the TSA. He didn't think he should have to give an account of where he got the money, what he planned to do with it, or what he does for a living as a pre-condition for boarding a domestic flight. So he took a stand and refused to answer these questions (which by the way are entirely irrelevant to flight safety), unless his answers were required by law (what happened suggests they weren't). Of course it wasn't the quickest path through the security checkpoint.

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?se...ors&id=6285192 That is a link to two international flight stories. It looks like the Ghanan was boarding the plane, but the Guatemalan was just in the airport and didn't even get to the area where you can get the declaration form to fill out...

Tuan Le's story as told by Barry G

"Tuan took his share in cash, since he didn’t have a bank account. He bought a duffle bag at the gift shop and then took a limo to New York with his friends, so he could catch the next flight out. Hasan stayed in New York, but Thor Hansen and Nam Le accompanied Tuan to JFK airport. When they went through security, Tuan was asked what was in the bag. He told them he had over $1 million in cash. They laughed at the obvious joke, but stopped laughing when the bag was opened.

Tuan and his friends were allowed on the plane without much hassle, much to their surprise. When they arrived in Long Beach, they were immediately greeted by the FBI. Tuan showed them a printout with his picture, which told of his tournament win. After many questions and verification with the Foxwoods Casino, Tuan and his friends were released after being detained for over an hour."

Are you really equating a TSA questioning to a quasi-staged civil rights issue?

Sweet. You can be the person fighting for "freedom". I'll answer the questions and make my plane. You can post on the internet about the unfairness of the situation and link to blogs, and I'll seamlessly transfer through airports/countries without more than slight disturbances despite far more questionable circumstances than what happens to others.

Some people care about government staying out of their business. They don't want to have to answer what they had for lunch, why they went to city X, what they did there, if they have friends there, where they work, etc, just to board a plane and move around in their own country. As it stands now, the government can already take away all your money and expensive possessions. They can snoop through your laptop. And if you want your stuff back, the burden of proof is now on _you_ to prove to _them_ that your stuff is legit...

It is a slippery slope and it is getting worse each year as "security" paranoia increases. 20 years from now you will wake up to see you are living in 1984. Why? Because it was more convenient to be a sheep and answer everything they asked you and not protest anything they wanted you to do.

I don't know why I bothered googling to find out who that is, since you aren't making a coherent argument at all (unless the argument is "they have badges so if you don't submit completely and answer all the questions, even if you aren't legally required to answer the questions, you don't deserve the privilege of being allowed to board an airplane and I hope you are punished severely"). But when I googled Doug Fanelli I came up with this:

Maybe he's known for something else besides his "terrorists have dark skin, let whitey be" stance? As that would have absolutely nothing to do with this thread.

Do you think refusing to answer questions constitutes harassment? Open a dictionary some time, you can say he was being uncooperative but "harassment" refers to an aggressive act and all he wanted was to be left alone. Seems to me detaining someone without probable cause that a crime has been committed, cursing him out when he refuses to answer questions (even though it seems he was not legally required to answer these questions), and later threatening him with a bluff about taking him to the DEA in a failed attempt to pressure him into answering these questions is a much better example of harassment.

As for why he was refusing to cooperate with low level agents instead of taking his case to the higher-ups, that's just the situation he was presented with. Later he filed a lawsuit against the TSA so it seems to me he's doing what he can.

So nobody should complain about the TSA, if they don't like it they should move to another country? I have no idea how to even respond to that, just LOL. I don't know why anyone would want to be a cheerleader for the police state but that's really all you're doing.

I began to write a rebuttal but it appears you're just blatantly trolling now. If you think the US is turning into 1984 in 20 years, enjoy your fight against "The Man". I'd rather just take my talents elsewhere. (Oh wait. I have.)

Did it ever occur to you in between your prior post of "an axe to grind" and this most recent one that perhaps the TSA harasses douchebags/rude people/etc? In a perfect world this wouldn't occur, but as is, no one of any competency works mundane jobs (soldiers/police officers/TSA agents/etc), until you can figure out a solution you'll likely find that power given to the powerless will summarily be abused in some fashion.

How is his lawsuit coming BTW? Who took it on? I'm sure it'll be quite effective.

to south beach?

The ACLU took it on pro-bono. Prior to a verdict being reached the TSA issued a new policy directive stating that it would restrict its screening of passengers to issues related to flight safety (why that should require a policy directive is beyond me but whatever). This satisfied Bierfeldt and the ACLU so the suit was dropped. From the ACLU of Northern California website:

TSA Fixes Search Policy After ACLU Sues

So you should now be able to carry large amounts of cash on a domestic flight without being detained and interrogated about it by the TSA. Whether OP wants to test that is up to him. Personally I'd want to get the money transferred to my bank account before I went to the airport, unless it was a really small amount.

Do I really have to explain this? Personally I don't want to have a run-in with the TSA if I can avoid it, or have my cash seized because I can't prove it isn't drug money, or whatever other stupid thing might happen even though it shouldn't happen. Why tempt fate? That doesn't mean someone who does carry a large amount of cash deserves to be punished for it though. I think in the Bierfeldt case (not positive) he was hurrying back from a fundraiser, and he probably wouldn't have chosen to carry $4700 in cash with him if he'd had time to get it deposited in a bank account instead.

Though I'd also say there's a good chance he knew he might have some trouble with the TSA (the fact that he thought to record his encounter points in that direction). Point is there shouldn't have been any trouble even though it was fairly predictable, he was within his rights both legally and morally, and when he was being interrogated he made a decision to not answer any questions he wasn't absolutely required to answer. And anyone knows the easiest and quickest way to get out of the situation would have been to answer the questions, but he chose to stand his ground. I know I wouldn't have done the same. I would have answered their stupid and unnecessary (and irrelevant to flight safety) questions out of expedience, as would almost anybody in that situation, but that's nothing to be proud of. So I admire the stand he took even though I wouldn't have taken it myself.

pot meet kettle?

Google for "TSA Screening Manual". It was leaked, completely unredacted. And its completely arcane. The requirements to become a TSA agent are a GED/equivalent and a background check. Oh, and they pay about $12/hour. The TSA is a slightly glorified McDonalds as far as employment is concerned. Assuming those employees know their regulations in and out is... optimistic.

And this is probably one of the major problems. You put individuals with minimal education in a low paying dead end job but one where they are given alot of power to harass whoever they feel like. What a shocker you end up with more than a few people who end up abusing that power.

An interesting coincidence: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-11811776

Just posted on the BBC today: "Airport security: US seeking privacy-security balance."

There's some interesting stuff going on like national opt-out day.