Lawsuit Pushes TSA To Stop Taking Travelers’ Cash

Did you know that if travelers pass through Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents with more than $100, agents can take it?

A new lawsuit claims TSA agents have allegedly stripped money from more than 10,000 travelers since 2014, labeling them as criminals but never charging them, the New York Post reports.

A federal law, not widely known among travelers, bans taking more than $10,000 in cash into or out of the United States without an official form.

Dan Alban, the attorney leading the nationwide class-action lawsuit against the agency, hopes the suit will put an end to this.

“TSA has secret policies that tell its screeners that they must seize travelers’ cash,” Alban, who works with the Institute for Justice, fighting to stop airport checkpoints from becoming Constitution-free zones, said.

While traveling within the U.S. with large amounts of cash is perfectly legal, TSA continues to push back against passengers like Rebecca Brown, one of the leading plaintiffs in the suit.

Brown, 57, was traveling through Pittsburgh International Airport with her father’s life savings—a total of $82,373—which she was trying to deposit into a joint bank account close to her home in Boston.

Carried in a Tupperware container, the cash became a sore eye for TSA agents during a luggage scan, prompting a Drug Enforcement Administration agent to seize it.

It wasn’t until Brown publicized the lawsuit that the money was returned to her— seven months later. “I do think that this was unconstitutional, what the TSA did to me,” Brown said, according to CBS News.

Alban says the issue isn’t about the money being seized, but more about the limited guidelines on what amounts of cash are deemed suspicious. With the Drug Enforcement Agency’s unofficial motto being, “you make it, we’ll take it,” the federal agency doesn’t have to determine if a person is guilty or not of a crime, but can take the cash, forcing citizens to engage in a long and expensive battle to get it back.

Money kept in rubber bands, “store-bought bands,” or bundled with “handmade bands” can be seen as a threat, even if it has a handmade label, the Post reports. TSA agents can even seize money if all the cash has the same denomination of currency or different denominations. Carrying money in socks can also be considered suspicious.

Alban feels the suit is the first step in getting the government to iron out the guidelines for travelers carrying cash or other items that TSA has labeled as threats. “There is all kinds of stuff that TSA considers to be Sensitive Security Information that is laughable and nobody would consider this secret,” he said.

“The government shouldn’t be able to take money for no reason…” Brown said. “No one should be forced to go through this nightmare.”