I think even terrorists are scared of getting too close to that vacuum demon from hell.
Back on the serious side: If a terrorist was going to commit suicide in order to bring down a plane, and all he needed was ten ounces of a liquid, why wouldn’t he just swallow it in a condom or shove a container up his rectum? Granted I get the somewhat amusing picture of a terrorist explaining the fuse hanging out of his butt to the TSA agent, but there’s really no rhyme or reason to these rules.
Or sew it into his abdomen … I know, there are a thousand ways around the security circus, which is what makes it so frustrating.
Wasn’t that part of what the whole mm-wave scanning technology was supposed to alert them to?
It doesn’t go below the skin.
Don’t forget that all your containers have to fit in a one quart bag. And apparently, bringing down a plane requires more 3 oz containers than would fit in a one quart bag. That’s right: it’s inefficient by design.
How is he supposed to get it out of his abdomen? You guessed it, a sharp knife and a very, very, steady hand. And that’s why you can’t have a molded grip.
All of the 3oz and 1qt stuff assumes a person working alone. Apparently, no terrorist has ever worked with a partner or team… well, except maybe that one time back in 2001, September I think it was…
magnet
I clearly didn’t think things through.
I always thought if I wanted to cause mass chaos, it would be most effective not to aim for the planes, but to aim for the checkpoint itself, a few bombs there could take out 1,000 folks waiting in line like sardines.
If I was a terrorist cell and wanted to inconvenience most Americans for longest periods of time, then I’d make sure to send members to get regularly caught by TSA so they can justify their existence.
First, I’d send someone pretending to be pregnant - so all pregnant people have to go through extra scrutiny.
Second, I’d send someone with a prosthetic leg or crutches - so anyone with a disability get harassed.
Third, I’d send a bunch of people with bombs in smartphones and tablets, so everyone with one get harassed.
Last but not least, I’d keep sending small children, so TSA permanently traumatizes future generation of Americans.
By the time my cell was done, flying would be unending hell for anyone involved.
That’s what I’d do to, but why stop with making flying hell? They’ve already mostly won on that front. How about terrorist bus attacks? How about rental cars stuffed with explosives? They can make all travel hell with just a bit of effort.
Imagine if they took out the line at the security gate at the airport, thus requiring a security gate for the security gate!
You joke, but one of the things ElAl does is carefully design waiting areas to minimise the effects of bomb blasts.
The attack on ticket lines already happened – 1985 in Rome.
I don’t know how much of a joke it is. The last few times that I flew there were several planes worth of travelers in a huge crowd at the security area. Each time I had the very same thought. Why would a terrorist wait to get on the plane? To make sure that they would be in the cabin and scrutinized by every paranoid passenger and the flight crew? It just doesn’t make sense. I used to be nervous about flying. Now I’m nervous about being in the damn airport.
No doubt but that TSA (like DHS as a whole) is exceptionally ham-handed when it comes to public relations. Part of that, I think, stems from the sheer number of people who must sign off on a statement before it is ever broadcast. Simply knowing that the longer the message, the more chance for scrutiny, presumably drives down the level of detail, and thereby, overall message quality. Then there’s the good 'ol “too many chefs spoil the broth” issue. Another part of the problem is simply that, like most government agencies, DHS has specialized organs for public interface that sit apart from the operational components of the agencies themselves, further degrading the signal.
John Pistole made an eloquent case for allowing small knives back on airplanes when presented on NPR the other morning. For one thing, he points out that there haven’t been any incidents with screwdrivers and other, similar objects in the past, even though those have been allowed in the passenger cabin for some time. For another, cockpits are hardened against intrusion, meaning that a small knife is unlikely to facilitate take-over of an airplane. Then there’s the fact that passengers have proven both willing and able to restrain people who start trouble on airplanes, even when they have explosive devices. Pistole pointed out that by forbidding something, you have to search for it, which diverts a certain amount of finite resources from other, potentially higher-priority missions. That’s economics as well as psychology. If officers are rewarded for finding knives, then they will look for knives. Pistole also stressed, and rightly so, the fact that despite its reputation as such, the TSA is not an in-flight police service: its purpose is to prevent terrorism, not to conduct general law enforcement or assist flight attendants who face unruly passengers.
There’s the obvious answer that security checks for bombs are theatre. A pessimistic answer is that planes are what the TSA is protecting, not the passengers.
Carry it one step further, the business of travel is what they’re protecting. I think that’s probably a cynic too far, the TSA operates with a silly mandate: examine billions of random transactions and detect the one anomaly of a certain type. False positives are really the only reasonable possibility in that scenario, along with almost no chance of a valid positive.
It can be done, Houngan.
Look at ElAl’s record. It just can’t be done with the low-wage TSA drones, in the way they’re doing it.