Large live lobster transferred through Logan Airport lands TSA in hot water

Transportation Security Administration agents stationed at Boston, Massachusetts-based Logan Airport were alerted pretty suddenly to the presence of “Dinnah,” a 20-plus pound live lobster cozy in a cooler among scores of checked luggage, waiting to be sorted at the airport’s Terminal C.  

The lobster was soundly screened and cleared “to continue on its way” on Sunday, 25 June, according to TSA spokesman Michael McCarthy in an email to NPR – but not before officers snapped a quick picture with the colossal crustacean.  

The picture – which the lobster’s owner Christopher Stracuzza, a 32-year-old auto-body repairman in Savannah, Georgia, is calling an “invasion of privacy” – was fired across prominent social media channel Twitter on Monday, 26 June, with the caption: "@TSA officers are skilled at screening all sorts of items in checked baggage...including this 20+ pound lobster at @BostonLogan."

For the TSA, the catch was lauded as a record-breaker, with McCarthy remarking to NPR that "I would be shocked if this isn't the biggest lobster TSA has screened, although I can't say for certain."

Record-breaking or not, Stracuzza wanted his catch – clearly labeled as “live lobster” on the top of the taped cooler, he told WBZ-TV – to travel in peace. “Very upset with tsa. . . I felt it was a huge invasion of my privacy,” Stracuzza wrote in a Facebook message to WBZ. “I honestly gave no one permission to take photos . . . for them to do that should be against the law.”

Dinnah’s shipper, Lisa Feinman, the owner of a Connecticut fish market where Stracuzza purchased the large lobster and a number of other smaller crustaceans also included in the cooler transport, was also not impressed by the TSA’s actions, telling WBZ that she was “personally offended” by what the security officers did. 

“This TSA agent should mind his own business,” according to a Facebook post from Feinman’s Atlantic Seafood Market page. “When is it okay to go through someones checked baggage and take photographs? I am personally angered by this because I packed this checked cooler with care and concern for the lobsters and my customers personal property. In addition to this lobster, my customer also purchased several other lobsters all of which were purposefully packed on top of this guy. This agent, (after seeing the contents on an x-ray machine, no doubt) had to dump out 12 other lobsters to get to this guy.”

“And who would be to blame when these lobsters show up with a claw broken off because the T.S.A. agent doesn’t know how to properly handle a lobster?" Feinman added. "Do your job and leave our personal property alone."

The TSA has since released a statement, in the wake of the backlash.

"TSA is reaching out to the passenger (sic) directly to discuss her concerns. During the busy summer travel season TSA officers will screen more than 2.3 million passengers per day. We share images through social media to provide helpful travel tips and to better inform the traveling public about TSA's mission. At no point does TSA reveal passenger specific information," the statement said.

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