TSA Chief John Pistole Gets Into a Knife Fight

One of the first things John Pistole did when he became head of the Transportation Security Administration in 2010 was to scrutinize the TSA’s “prohibited items list”—the catalogue of pocketknives, corkscrews, and snow globes that blue-shirted TSA workers at the airport snatch from pockets and luggage. Pistole and the agency’s senior officials spent the next two years consulting with terrorism experts to determine which items on the list were legitimate threats and which should be allowed back onboard. “We’ve received input from the flying public for years about the hassle factor associated with the number of prohibited items,” Pistole told reporters on March 14. “It’s been made very clear.”