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Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

bbc.com

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Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#701

Post by WalterBright »

andrepd wrote: post #495
WalterBright wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist attacks far more. This can be traced to people in a car believe they can control whether they have an accident or not (and largely can). In an airplane, however, you have no control whatsoever.

Crucially, deaths among pedestrians and cyclists are skyrocketing in the last decade; those people can't really "control" whether the 4-ton SUV with a 6' high bumper mows them and their kids down.

I've driven around blind corners to discover people standing in the middle of the road. I also read in the paper about people being run over in crosswalks. I use crosswalks, too, and I make sure to look before I step into it. When I jog, I look at the driver's eyes to see if he sees me (if he doesn't, I step far off the roadside). Yes, as a pedestrian you do have a significant amount of control.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#702

Post by tehjoker »

grumbelbart2 wrote: post #346
KingMob wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of thinking is as legitimate as believing lie detectors work, i.e., not at all.

Israel is using those methods in their airport security, quite successfully given their threat level. The problem is that it does not scale well and requires very well trained and attentive personnel.

These guys turn up a number of "false positives" and use those backrooms to abuse Palestinian travelers.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#703

Post by sneak »

palata wrote: post #227
dingaling wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's about making people feel safe. I don't think that's a common perception of airport security. Few people take reassurance from it, most consider it a burden and hindrance that could stop them getting their flight if they don't perform the correct steps as instructed. The lifting of this restriction is an example, the overwhelming response is "oh thank goodness, now I don't have to pay for overpriced water" and…

I disagree. It is a burden and hindrance, but I'm pretty sure that if you just removed all the checks and let people board like in a bus, there would be complaints.

This is what JSX does and people love it.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#704

Post by Krssst »

altern8 wrote: post #263
jandrewrogers wrote: post #71

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…

I'm fine with some liquid potentially being explosives, but the fact that security just throws them all in the same bin when they confiscate them makes me think that not even they believe it makes any sense. Also, why 100ml? Do you need 150ml to make the explosive? Couldn't there be 2 terrorists with 100ml + 50ml? All these questions, so little answers...

Liquids are not explosive, they are assumed to be used to make explosives once onboard.

Regarding quantity, hard to find information, I guess they don't want to have a terrorist handbook to making explosives online, but I would assume that 100ml would mean multiple times this amount would not be enough to make an explosive large enough bring down an airplane.

In general, considering the overall cost of the measures, I would think that there is a valid reason and that "it does not make sense at first glance so it's just a security theater" does not hold.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#705

Post by necovek »

ascorbic wrote: post #104
necovek wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just large amounts of liquids: it was my understanding that this is both a restriction on large amounts of liquid, but particularly on large containers needed for an explosive of sufficient destructive power. You could always easily work around the liquid amount restriction (multiple containers over multiple people), but if you still need a large container, it becomes harder. I don't know if this is true or…

This might make sense if there weren't shops selling large bottles right after security. Ones full of highly flammable liquids, even.

I am not sure any of it makes real sense, it's just a variation of the "why" I picked up somewhere (that it's both).

But yes, that's easily worked around in the manner people brought up already (I did think of duty free bottles, but not camera cases, that is a good one).

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#706

Post by computerfriend »

Waterluvian wrote: post #617
fc417fc802 wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find it interesting to contrast this with my experience flying out of China. I was taken to a private room and shown the digital colored X-ray of my bag on which a box had been drawn around an empty lighter, I was asked to remove it myself and hand it over, and I went on my way. All in under 5 minutes, no pat down, no fuss, and no one physically rifled through my belongings. (Granted I was a tourist so that might w…

This sounds like my experiences in Toronto. It’s less adversarial than the experiences I've had in the U.S. My experiences were basically a form of, “Hey we saw something that caught our attention and might be an issue. Let's work through addressing this." One case it was a handful of 3.5" galvanized nails. "Whoops. Okay, so, this bag used to be my makeshift toolbag. My other one ripped and I had to get one last minu…

They thought I had a gun in Toronto airport and were surprisingly calm about it. (I didn't actually have a gun.)

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#707

Post by wat10000 »

0x3f wrote: post #694
wat10000 wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only transited through Heathrow, I haven't tried the driving experience there. I have tried it in various other airports in Europe and China. None of them charged money to drive up to the terminal either and they were all fine too. Sometimes the American experience isn't different from the rest of the world and it's your experience that's unusual, you know.

You understand that e.g. in Chinese cities they restrict car ownership and you have to enter a lottery/bidding system to get valid plates. Cars are a luxury. European cities have their own restrictions and discouragements. Rationing happens in many ways. I have still never experienced an airport with pick-up/drop-off traffic as bad as JFK, and I've travelled to almost every country in Europe, plenty of countries in A…

That's probably a "JFK is unusually bad" thing, not an "everything is terrible in America and those idiot Americans don't know any better because they never travel" thing. I haven't been driven to JFK since 2001 and I don't remember what it was like then, but driving anywhere around NYC requires great patience.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#708

Post by wrs »

Fervicus wrote: post #35

How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?

Don't forget to account for the risk we added by creating places where hundreds of people line up outside the security check. [0]

[0] https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2016/05/out-of-line-how... -- "The study also identified an easy way to make people a less attractive target — improve ticketing and security operations so that crowds of people aren't waiting in line."

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#709

Post by moffkalast »

red_admiral wrote: post #580
moffkalast wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah as we've seen with MH370, literally nothing stops the pilot from committing mass-murder-suicide at any point. We just need to trust that they're not feeling particularly depressed that day.

While MH370 is still "officially" unsolved, there were definitely industry wide updates to processes after the Germanwings crash.

Officially yes, unofficially there's really no other explanation.

Re: Heathrow scraps liquid container limit

#710

Post by VBprogrammer »

givemeethekeys wrote: post #692
Waterluvian wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds like my experiences in Toronto. It’s less adversarial than the experiences I've had in the U.S. My experiences were basically a form of, “Hey we saw something that caught our attention and might be an issue. Let's work through addressing this." One case it was a handful of 3.5" galvanized nails. "Whoops. Okay, so, this bag used to be my makeshift toolbag. My other one ripped and I had to get one last minu…

Worst and most aggressive pat down I have ever experienced was in Toronto for no reason that I can think of, so I have learned to be stoic about all interactions with gate keepers, regardless of country. You never know when someone had a bad cup of tea just before the met you.

New York is the worst security I've ever come through for just being needlessly horrible. Like screaming at people because they didn't literally put their feet on the "footprints" on the floor.

Toronto was fine. Just a slightly incredulous conversation about how we could take 3 weeks off to travel Canada.

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