...If you think for one microsecond that a main stream government employee takes home what he/she confiscates/scraps you have no clue. Big time jail for theft while in office, other charges and loss of job...
Um, go to Wikipedia and search for "Transportation Security Administration," and look under section '2.1 Criticisms' for the long list of documented references for 'Theft by TSA employees'.
Yeah, and that stopped JetBlue's Steven Slater from not doing anything rash just the other day. I think someone went 'airline-employee' (that's the new 'postal') on my laser pointers, lol. Also search for: "LAX Tops Nation In Stolen, Missing Luggage Items", it's at cbs2. Actually I have SEEN what happens to most of the stuff that gets confiscated at the airport gates around the country. They put it in a large drum and seal it up and have a contract with a 'disposal' company which pays them for each drum and takes it and sorts it and resells what it can for profit and distributes the rest to various charity outlets or destroys it. I don't know about the 'luggage confiscation' stuff. With their supposed budget crunches, they probably send it to the Unclaimed Buggage Center in Scottsboro, AL and resell it. As far as WHO did it in MY case, I would have thought they would have taken the camera before the laser pointers if they were interested in resell value, so I haed to assume they were 'legally confiscated' rather than stolen or taken only for their novelty value.
Over the last 10-15 years I have had so many things 'disappear' from luggage that I usually don't pack anything in a checkon, that I don't expect to lose. Mostly clothes and liquids which aren't allowed to carry on. I can tell you about my mother-in-law's luggage being rerouted to SFO on a simple short flight from LAS to LAX for 'special inspection' because she was carrying unusually large quantities (it was a 4 week trip) of medicine which needed to be kept in a special cooler container en-route - suffice it to say, by the time she got the expensive medicine back it was ruined. Once in a great while there is a note (as in the medicine incident), but more often than not there isn't. And it is quite obvious, since I pack things in a particular order use the built in straps and wrap objects in clothing, etc and it is very obvious they have been gone through while other parts of the suit case are pristine. Heck in one case I had a simple plastic zip tie keeping the zipper tabs together so they wouldn't open en-route (since they won'[t let you lock them anymore) and instead of cutting the zip tie THEY CUT BOTH METAL ZIPPER PULL TABS IN HALF... AND STILL NO NOTE! I don't think that happened all by itself or by accident. Have you ever tried getting one of them tabs replaced?
In the past everytime I tried to report a loss, I got back an official 10 page long 'fine print' document which listed just about every item one could think of bringing on a trip as 'exempt' from loss claims. Wonder if laser pointers are now on that list?
Anyway, the point is, if you value anything, especially something as 'ominous-looking' as a laser pointer, don't let it out of your hands at an airport. After a few run-ins with expensive leatherman pocketknives and such which I forgot to remove from my pocket before heading for the airport, I now carry in my carry-on a self-addressed (both return and to: address) padded envelope with excessive postage, so that if there is ever any argument, rather than getting it confiscated (they KNOW you're stuck between a rock and a hard place and you're not going to miss your >$200 flight for a lighter or laser pointer.) I just back out of the line, put the item in the envelope and there is ALWAYS a mailbox somewhere at the airport to drop it into or one of the stores will be nice enough to post it for you.