111–120 of 839 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
No successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.
This is an asinine take - it literally has nothing to do with the theater we deal with at the airports in America
This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this. The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me. The…
Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater. TSA Chief Out After Agents Fail 95 Percent of Airport Breach Tests "In one case, an alarm sounded, but even during a pat-down, the screening officer failed to detect a fake plastic explosive taped to an undercover agent's back. In all, so-called "Red Teams" of Homeland Security agents posing as…
This matches my experience. I recently flew out of a small airport that flies 2 fairchild metro 23 turboprop planes up to 9 passengers. There were four TSA agents to check the 5 of us that were flying.
How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?
No successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.
And presumably they wouldn’t be shy about telling us if they had.
This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this. The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me. The…
Meanwhile, you get swabbed, the machine produces a false positive, the TSA drone asks you why the machine is showing a positive, you have no fucking idea why, and they just keep swabbing until they get a green light and everyone moves on with life.
We transited through LHR yesterday. Still had to go through security - not sure why since we stayed on the air side. Anyway, signage required us to empty our refillable water bottles. Odd. Thankfully we eventually found a refill station. The scanners flagged a still sealed can of ginger ale left over from our incoming flight. It was "fine" but she still swabbed it. Shrug.
The worst I had was in India, flying to the US. Not only was there the normal airport security (despite having come in on a connecting flight from within India), but when I got to the gate (with only minutes to spare), there was a whole TSA check at the gate itself. Bags x-rayed (again), metal detectors (again), guy with a wand (again), the whole deal. Just getting to the gate, I had to show my papers to at least 6 people; every time I turned down a new hallway. That was my far my worst airport experience.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why did you allow them to humiliate you like this?
Because flights are expensive enough that for most ordinary people missing one would set them back years or decades financially?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Won't asking people to take a swig solve a bunch of those issues?
People travel with liquids they don't intend to eat. Shampoo and all that. There is also nothing that precludes explosives from being non-toxic. Presumably your demise is near if you are carrying explosives through security. What do you care about heavy metal poisoning at that point?
My point is that security can never be strict enough to catch someone who's truly motivated and funded, without making it impossible to admit people at a reasonable pace, and the current rules don't really help with that except for cutting down on the riff raff terrorists. But maybe those are more common than a trained professional with high tech weapons, I don't know.
Let me get this straight. If the article is correct, the new capabilities are related to better detection of large liquid containers, not determination of whether or not the liquid is dangerous. So - you couldn’t take large amounts of liquids previously because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum total, or in containers that are too large) they…
I know it's easy to get the impression that's not the case. But when your stop making fun of / belittle such events / persons / decision and be curious instead you start to realize that more often than not you are just missing a piece of information.
The truth oftentimes is just not interesting enough and not clickbait worthy.