Airport security

While I was reading «Genes, Girls and Gamow» by James Watson, I realised that I use quite an unusual bookmark [1]. Scrutinising the little carton told me it's from the US Transportation Security Administration (TSA) someone must have slipped into my bag after they searched it for whatsoever dangerous items.

Now the peculiarity/effrontery is the following paragraph.

If the TSA security officer was unable to open your bag for inspection because it was locked, the officer may have been forced to break the locks on your bag. TSA sincerely regrets having to do this, however TSA is not liable for damage to your locks resulting from this necessary security precaution.

TSA won't be viable for vandalising luggage?!? Doesn't that mean that any airport worker could easily abuse his/her power for cracking open suitcases and slipping the carton into the bag afterwards? «Sweet», certainly increased my trust in Airport services. I'm not sure whether it's still prohibited to take Laptops into the cabin as hand-luggage, but I would consider abusing the trick with the replica weapons [2].

I had seriously considered buying little pad-locks for my bag before I went to the US. Phew, lucky once more.

[1] I use whatever piece of paper that crosses my way.
[2] Unfortunately, it slipped my memory where I read about this. However, weapons and even replica weapons are (for obvious reasons) not allowed in the plane cabin and must be locked away in a checked-in suitcase. Not surprisingly, people were abusing this law to protect their valuable equipment they weren't allowed to take to their seat.