Whatever bottle of liquid they fear you have you can literally turn around and hurl at the crowd of 400 people in the tsa line behind you. Its total theater, reactionary legislation that helped establish an entrenched for profit security apparatus industry that will lobby for its existence until the end of time. If people want to cause harm there's no shortage of ways.
I don't think that anyone is denying that liquids can pose a threat. The article stated that by allowing everyone to bring some small amounts of liquides defeats the purpose almost completely. All I would have to do is get 5 of my co-conspirators to carry on 5 little contains each of some volatile liquid and when we get past security we pour them all together to make one big batch of nastiness.
This example, and many more, is why we say the TSA's security rules are useless and arbitrary. About the only way to ensure a risk free flight is to force everyone to fly naked, not allow luggage, remove the cleaning crew, etc... and I don't think there are any airlines that are willing to go that far. :/
If anyone wants to kill a lot of people, disrupt air travel, disrupt the economy and spread fear they can just set off a suicide vest in the middle of a TSA screening line. We're not any safer by having a planeload of people all standing in line to be screened.
That is a topic in itself - everything the TSA does is pure security theater. There was never any danger from liquids nor any effort to prevent groups of people from coordinating to bring in a larger quantity. There is no explanation why 8oz of milk is dangerous and 8oz of cheese is not, nor why ice continues to be dangerous even though not a liquid, nor any explanation why the bbq sauce on the pulled pork sandwich I’m bringing on is magically not dangerous even though there is more then 100ml of it. I’m convinced it’s more or less a plot to sell $7 sodas in the terminals.
Batteries were dangerous and had to be removed until Apple started making devices without removable batteries then magically they are not dangerous anymore. Next you had to start turning your devices on as-if somehow it was impossible to make something dangerous that didn’t turn on. Security theater.
I used to have to take my belt and shoes off every time I passed through security but because I paid a $120 fee now I’m not dangerous anymore and can walk through security. I get to skip to the head if the line at the security checkpoints and coming back from international flights I get to breeze through the diplomatic lane at JFK (you can too! https://www.cbp.gov/travel/trusted-traveler-programs/global-...) Security theater.
Have you ever been in line in a long TSA queue at a major airport? See anybody get scanned before getting in that line? With a coordinated attack across multiple airports, you could kill far more people just while they're standing in line to get their TSA gaterape procedure performed than you could by attacking while onboard an aircraft.
The aircraft attack vector has already been played out. Lets keep sane regulations in place (metal detectors, armored/locked cockpit doors), and move on to better problems to solve.
It's actually time pilots + crew, security community experts, the airline industry, passengers and even the TSA themselves called out the current security procedures for the ineffective theater that they are.
Aside from the missrepresentation of how effective they are and the cost to resource, the current system is preventing real and meaningful security procedures to be adopted (things like behavior screening, etc).
To show how much of a 'theater' it all is, take some of these examples:
TSA have never noticed/asked me about the Swiss Tech Utili Key swiss-army knife type thing I carry on my key-chain.
I can take an Epipen on board a flight because I have a prescription (I have severe allergies but I'm sure it's easy for anyone to get one) - but if you inject it into the blood stream, esp at the neck, it will kill you (or someone else).
Print-at-home boarding passes mean that people who are on watch-lists can buy tickets in a false name and then edit the HTML of the ticket before they print it out to match their state ID. When you enter security the TSA agent never validates your paper-based tickets and ID with the passenger records database so security is by-passed.
If bottles of water can't be taken on board because they might be liquid explosive, then why are they tossed into the trash next to the scanner? If they show you on board the plane how to put on a life-vest in the safety demo because they have to assume the worst, then by the same logic they should assume the worst for each bottle and dispose of it accordingly.
The very security measures in place create massively dense lines of people at security check-points. These become greater vectors for suicide bombers then the planes themselves.
And even these new body scanners create new vectors. People are scanned with them instead of the metal detector which means a terrorist can hold a metal item inside an orifice or body cavity and it not be detected.
I support the pilot because I support the need for security at airports and borders - it just needs to be meaningful security that actually catches, and more importantly prevents/discourages, the bad guys.
Well I mean what stops anyone now from bringing a few gallons of chemical explosives and blow up the line at the TSA checkpoint, I think the locking of the cockpit doors was the fix and the TSA is mostly security theater/job creation scheme.
It's a nasty business, but in that scenario, the system worked by protecting society at large from an airplane as a missile scenario.
Security has different dimensions. The point of TSA security is to avoid situations where a hostile party can breach the cockpit or disable the plane in the air. All of the security theatre, random searches, etc are all there to make airliners a less attractive target and try to keep terrorism scoped.
Protecting your life as a passenger is a secondary priority, which is accomplished by the random placement of air marshals. Someone planning to fashion ad-hoc spears out of plastic utensils or whatever must account for the presence of a guy with a gun as well as passengers fighting back.
I, personally, would prefer to rage at the fact that the TSA has managed to export that liquid rule to everyone else in the world. I don't see why, when flying from Ontatio to Quebec, I need to follow the TSA's security theatre.
I really do wonder how many terrorist plots have actually been foiled by TSA/ security staff.
They seem to just be following guidelines with ZERO common sense. E.g. most screw drivers ok, but not safety scissors. My biggest pet-hate is the ban on liquids over 100ml, anybody with a basic knowledge of chemistry knows that explosives (by their very definition) are volatile and you really do not want to start drinking any.
Nobody is accountable though. Who do we yell at? We can't blame the line employees. They are just state machines with no free will [N]. Their managers aren't empowered do anything either except harass you even more.
Are there TSA "executives?" Politicians won't dare entertain the idea of defunding them.
There is literally no solution. There exists no recourse any person alive can do to stand up against the TSA.
[N]: Stop limiting liquid carry ons. Stop throwing them away in bulk containers that make no sense if you think they are potentially dangerous. I will give you $10,000 if you make my sunscreen or toothpaste explode more violently than the as-much-as-you-like-sir laptop batteries, phones, and iPads everybody carries.
And the security theatre in airports is more about terrorism. And not letting you pass that sunscreen bottle is about liquid bombs... There will always be a "reason" for the government to gain control over citizens.
I have a lot of anxiety about being trapped—once you enter security it's difficult to justify leaving before your flight, which is inevitably delayed, and all along you have to pay hand over fist just to get the same bottle of water you could have bought for a tenth the price at the gas station outside the airport. Oh, and all of this is on top of the stress of being mistakenly identified as a criminal.
And, of course, there's the taxpayer money wasted—if we're going to employ that many people it may as well be doing something useful rather than attempting to stop all possible methods of bringing down an explosive tin can tens of thousands of feet in the air.
To be honest, that's a huge fear of mine every time I'm waiting in a TSA line. What happens if they find a weapon and the person decides to use it right then and there? What happens if their equipment sets off a weapon? What happens if a domestic terrorist is trying to get back at the TSA directly?
Most of my flights are what Delta or United call "connector" flights, so there are only 40-50 people on the plane anyway. Not an attractive target, I would think. But standing in line at O'Hare, there could be 100+ people there. I'm not afraid of the TSA. I'm afraid of the massive crowd of people they create.
TSA lines are an obvious soft target and if someone wanted to take a lot of people with them, they could just use a suicide vest in the security lines. It would have the same chilling effects on the air travel economy and spread terror.
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