201–210 of 252 posts
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The war on drugs is unwinnable because, in general, human beings want to take drugs. Or want to have the freedom to take drugs. Most people don't want to murder or steal.
Besides, taking drugs is a victimless crime. Theft or murder, on the other hand, both have very real victims.
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It is a degrees of separation thing. Logically derived and proven to be effective. Very hard to argue with the last part. I understand how someone who has been inconvienced might perceive it differently but that in and of itself is by design and "priced in" as the goal is not to make 100% of travelers feel good but rather keep 100% of travelers safe.
What????
For example, one of the questions asked is "did you pack your own suitcase?"
They aren't going to search your suitcase because of your race. That would be bad. It is bad not because of touchy feely reasons but rather because it isn't optimally effective.
They search based on a far more sophisticated probabilistic threat model based on real world data. All the questions and the way they are asked have logic behind them. It works.
Does that answer your indignation noises?
While flying itself is quite fun - nothing beats finding weird tchotchkes in the duty free shop - thinking about airport security gives me existential dread. I think it is great that British airports are relaxing their rules, but until that applies to the whole world, I will still arrive 2-3 hours before departure, knowing how unpredictable the situation at some airport security checkpoint can be. It is almost as if…
I've had my swiss knife taken off of me when going through security check for the London - Paris Eurostar.
Very annoying, still not sure why it's forbidden.
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In the 2000s I worked in Munich and exported ‘Leberkäse’ (a meat paste that you can bake in the oven) from Munich almost every week for family and friends. Although it looks quite similar to plastic explosives the security team had not once a problem with it.
oh yeah, candles. Expect a fun time at the x-ray if you fly with a scented candle as a christmas gift.
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The term you're looking for is security theatre
Right, but to their defense, there have not been 9/11 attacks or anything remotely similar since 9/11... so either it was all fake anyways or the security theater also deters potential low IQ attackers?
Passengers figure out it's not a hijacking they might survive, and that you're going to crash the plane into a valuable target. Then, having nothing to lose, they revolt and ruin your plan.
So that particular type of plan isn't going to work again. Passengers no longer assume "hijacking I might survive".
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Its a jobs program for the unemployable. That and political pork. The TSA is a complete failure at every level and is laughably bad at everything but draining money from the taxpayer and stepping on citizens rights. We should go back to metal detectors staffed by airport provided staff and scan checked bags for bombs (which is something that actually kind of works).
It’s well known that those who can’t cut it to be police will go be prison guards. And the ones who can’t even meet that bar end up at TSA.
Go find an average cop, a CO, and a TSA employee. The CO is somewhere between a violent felon and the cop (and is technically probably both). The TSA employee is closer to a DMV employee than a cop. The border/customs agents are cops and they act like it.
In Berlin at BER I had someone from security straight up tell me that water being sold at a premium after security, with a profit for the airport shops that pay hefty rents, is the only reason for keeping up the 100ml liquids rule. That was a heated discussion point for a while, since the airport had to stop people from drinking tap water inside because of an e.coli infestation in the water system of the airport. We'…
I really don't get the BER hate. It's not only a huge improvement over SXF and TXL (minus T1 at TXL, RIP turning up 10 minutes before boarding), but it's a perfectly good airport in its own right. The building of it and the budget overrun was a disaster, and demonstrated the worst of infrastructure building in this country, but will happily die on the hill that the result is good, actually. (If we want to get into co…
Recently at Stansted I had an encounter with a security staff member who was of the opinion that both clotted cream and butter were liquids. (Note, I wasn't the one trying to get either of these onto the plane.) Her entire argument seemed to rest on the case that they were spreadable. I don't think she did well in GCSE physics.
I once travelled with a 5kg vat of fondant icing on a transatlantic flight. "Yes, it looks very much like Semtex, but it's fine!" Still not exactly sure how I got away with it…
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Did you lick the cheese?
I should have. Or maybe that's what they wanted!