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.
These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but that isn’t going to be happening to liquids in your bag. This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives notoriously popular with terror organizations can’t be detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.
It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.
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 passengers were able get weapons past TSA agents in 67 out of 70 tests — a 95 percent failure rate, according to agency officials."
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 well not be typical.)
I'm not sure what their success rate is when tested by professionals but the experience definitely left me wondering WTF the deal with the TSA is.
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 minute--" "No problem. Can you remove them? You can either surrender them to us or we can get them mailed back to you, but I'm guessing it's not worth it..." I was so defensive because to me it looked bad but they weren't actually after me in the way I thought they'd be.
The second time was that I had an "Arduino Starter Kit" full of bundled up wires and random chips and such. Once they saw the box they didn't even ask me to un-shrinkwrap it, and unlike the nails, didn't re-x-ray the bag.
Both times they rotated their screen and pointed to the box framing the item in question on the colourized x-ray.
Meanwhile, the TSA looks at me like I'm, at best an annoyance, and at worst a criminal, when I ask them to inspect my camera kit manually (film, not digital). And that inspection consists of swabbing 35mm film canisters - like, the shell of a 35mm roll is going to tell them anything useful?!?! It's a complete sham.
I guess they're probably operating on the assumption that at worst a few short nails stuffed in a small film canister are no worse than the metal handle from a rolling suitcase.
The swab is for common explosives. The canisters are a bit on the small side but I guess could still pose a threat if packed with high explosive and a bit of shrapnel.
The apparent annoyance (or worse) is the part that gets me. The entire process just feels needlessly adversarial. At least they didn't insist on patting you down or emptying out your bag!
I think for film specifically it might be for drugs? Seems like a very convenient way to smuggle contraband. You can’t open it to inspect it, you can’t xray it either otherwise it will ruin the film.
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.
Especially if you've been in New York for a few days, being yelled at shouldn't be taken so personally. Especially when you consider how many people badly need instructions yelled at them because they're so very confused, I can see why they do it!
While there's U.S. Customs agents in Pearson, the entirety of security is done by CATSA. I cannot imagine U.S. Customs doing any sort of pat down. I'm not sure they'd even be allowed to do anything like that in Toronto. I think they're pretty much only allowed to screen and admit or reject.
That's been exactly my experience recently in the US. Most recently it was some Hot Hands hand warmers. They just had me go to the end of the line where you get your bags ouf of the scanner and the agent brought my bag down there on the other side of the rollers. They set it on the table in front of me, and there was a monitor above the table where they pointed to the hand warmers on the screen. They said something along the lines of, "Looks like you might have some hand warmers in the main pocket, would you mind taking them out?" I pulled them out, showed them to them, they thanked me and I put it back in the bag and went on my way. This was in Juneau, AK.
In the 90's USA was sensible. I was flying with a thermos of hot coffee in my carry on. As soon as they took out the thermos and felt the heat radiating from the lid the agent said, "I don't think they would heat it", smiled and passed me thru.
Now when I fly I have to be careful. When they ask purpose of visit I say sightseeing. I used to say tourist, but with my accent that once caused alarm when the agent thought I said terrorist.
Man, all this time I've been playing Nethack, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, snapping my expensive camera, and applying my credit card, without realizing my character class was actually Terrorist.
On the other hand, if somebody said "I'm here for terrorism" and the immigration officer laughed that off, imagine the shitstorm if that person turns out to be a terrorist.
For the individual employee the cost of wasting someone's time by escalating the case and detaining them is zero, the potential cost of letting someone slip by is realistically tiny but potentially huge
The point is that the situation must be really crazy if we reach a point where someone (mostly foreigner) saying "tourist" is being confused as to saying "terrorist". Airport are full of tourists, and exactly 0 person on the planet would reply with "terrorist".
So when an immigration officer makes an error parsing the tourist's words, you think the security protocol ought to be to let the tourist pass through the gate?
> I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for saying "I'm here for terrorism"
Its like those stupid questions on US immigration forms, e.g.
"Do you intend to engage in the United States in Espionage ?"
or
"Did you ever order, incite or otherwise participate in the persecution of any person ?"
It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who should answer yes will really answer yes ?
Might as well just turn up at the immigration desk, slap your wrists down on the counter and invite them to handcuff you .... why bother with the form !
> the purpose of the form is to generate convictions for lying on the form.
Yeah but if the immigration officer has reason to question you about those sections of the form then surely they have more than enough evidence of the underlying crime anyway ?
It’s often an easier case to prove that you lied on the form when you said you came to the US with no intent to commit espionage than it is to prove that someone committed espionage.
It basically unlocks a second set of potential facts that they can use to bring a criminal case (or revoke a visa, etc).
Intent to commit espionage is not a crime (but committing or attempting to commit it is) Lying on the form is. It is probably easier to demonstrate intent to commit espionage than to catch them in the act.
Wouldn't it be easier to make those things illegal and then prosecute them instead of the lie? For prosecuting a lie you need to prove 2 things, the thing lied about and the lie itself, so it seems like a more difficult prosecution for no reason. Also how does every other country in the world manage to not have these questions?
> Also how does every other country in the world manage to not have these questions?
You sure about that? Many other countries have what would be considered odd questions on their forms.
Also, saying "every other country" is a mighty wide brush. There are a whole lot of countries where the rule of law doesn't come first and they can simply do what they want if they suspect you of anything regardless if they have a law or not.
This is what happens when a legal system and a political system is taken over by specialists with little to no other skills.
Instead of politics being about setting policy to work toward desire outcomes, politics becomes about ensuring the viability of future political processes. Instead of the legal system being about defining crime, establishing punishment and carrying out said punishments it becomes about ensnaring others in legal "gotcha" moments like lying on a form. Society is not safer because of the outlawed nature of lying on a form. Society is not better off because someone is convicted of lying on a form. The individuals who participate in the prosecution are better off because it gives them an opportunity to advance their career.
Making false statements to federal officials is itself a crime. The intent of having those sections is to be able to have legal recourse against people that lie on them, which hopefully deters people that would lie on them from attempting to immigrate in the first place.
Believe it or not it’s a question on the pre-clearance form for travel to the US: ”are you or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation” - I always wondered what the rationale for that was
No, being a member of a “terrorist organization” and the government allows itself latitude in defining that. It’s much easier to associate someone with an organization than to show personal acts of terrorism.
Right but to demonstrate that you lied about X they have to demonstrate X. So by the time you're deporting someone for the lie you could just as easily have deported them for the thing itself.
But the method of due process may be different, and the standard of proof to meet may be different. Revoking a visa is easier for the executive branch to accomplish.
Having formerly been a member of a terrorist group is different from currently being in one - it may not be illegal, but lying about it is a deportable offence.
You're making assumptions the thing they lied about and the thing they are being deported for are the same, and quite often the thing you're actually being deported for is not a reason to deport anyone at all.
You come to the US and make a social media post saying Trump is a big fat dummy head.
You get deported for lying about being in a terrorist organization.
This pattern of government behavior is everywhere. One common one is the yellow sheet (form 4473) for buying a firearm in the US.
Here is an example of a question
> “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”
No matter the state law, federal law says it's illegal.
So, what happens. At some point you buy a gun in Colorado. Then lets say you get on the news and talk about legalization, or you talk about anything that catches social media popularity and someone in the government doesn't approve of. Well, you better not have any record of a marijuana purchase anywhere, or pictures of you doing it because you've just committed a federal crime and the ATF/FBI can kick down your door as they please.
But is insulting the president evidence of being in a “terrorist organisation” ?
I thought free speech was the one principle that is untouchable in the US
Member of a terrorist organization. Did you protest for Palestine action? Then you're a member of a terrorist organization, and they don't have to prove you did any terrorism or planned any terrorism. It's a form of thoughtcrime.
> I always wondered what the rationale for that was
One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. An easy way to keep communists out of the country.
And we've seen how easy it is to expand that list with "antifa" groups just recently, with antifa groups in Germany having to deal with their banks closing their accounts because the banks were afraid of getting hit with retaliation in their US business.
It could probably be part of the premise for a gag in a hypothetical Liar Liar 2 after Jim Carrey haphazardly finds himself mixed up in one 30 minutes earlier in the movie, so there's that.
I am a strong believer in the "low-tech" solutions for this kind of thing. I seriously doubt the terrorist suicide bomber knows if drinking the explosive is going to prevent them from taking the mission to the end (ie. they will die in 5 min, in 30 min or in 24h), so they will start panicking when asked to drink from the bottle.
Just a guess but at a museum I assume they're looking out for vandals. If it's a water bottle the counterpart would be something like concentrated sodium hydroxide in which case a single sip is sufficient.
Not sure how they would handle dye in a paper coffee cup though.
This is/was fairly common, I've experienced it on the Chinese subway a few times and I've seen a few clips of it happening online. No idea if it's official policy or not, though.
Flying back from Beijing, I had bought a lot of books. I filled my bags with it, so they were very heavy. When the agent came to try to check my backpack, he casually grabbed it, and fell on the conveyor belt trying to lift it. He looked at me with shock. "I'm done", I thought. He opened the bag, and saw a box of zongzi the university gave me, on top of the books. He instantly became radiant, gave me a pat on the back, and just indicated the way.
I know it's a joke, and they probably get only a tiny minority of cases... but the Chinese government makes a huge show of executing people that do stuff like this.
Also not sure about the usage of theater there. I'd probably swap it out for "show". Never heard theater used like that although it is pretty close to a standard idiom, "to make a show of something".
Flying out of HK after visiting SZ, I was quietly and quickly surrounded by men with guns after my bag was xrayed. I like nice clothes, especially neatly laundered and pressed shirts. I had an Altoids tin with a few brass collar stays for those shirts. Brass. With a pointy end.
When I was kid long before TSA was even a thing my family flew up to visit the grandparents. My mom had us pack our own bags with some of our favorite toys. My brother decided to bring his Megatron, but sadly left it out of Robot mode. It was quite a scene at the X-Ray when every single agent in the area came running with guns drawn at once.
Interestingly, I had the exact same experience leaving Shanghai - I had picked up some nifty lighters at the wholesale markets. They took me to the room, had me take them out, and I was lucky enough to be able to hand them off to a friend who was staying. No fuss, waiting, or intimidation. They just took care of my honest mistake.
Heathrow is annoying in that you need to go through security every time you change terminal (or enter one for the first time when arriving internationally).
Had to go through security 4 times in a day due to a colossal fuck up by an airline.
Each time they flagged something different on a different person. Still no idea what they were looking for in a purse 3 of 4 times.
It’s wildly inconsistent and I kinda doubt it’s intentional fuzzy logic.
The different Heathrow terminals have different security requirements. I suspect it’s based on countries they fly to from each terminal, but it could be age if equipment.
It is frustrating for security to act like you’re a total idiot for following a process another terminal says is fine (like leaving very small electronics like Kindles in your bag).
Indeed. Other airports in Europe even have separate terminals or areas for Schengen and non-Schengen destinations, with passport control and sometimes security scans again between them.
Bonus points to Zurich (Schengen but not EU, just to test the edge cases) - I think they have an airside metro where each car is segregated for a different security category of passenger.
That was one of my jokes going between terminals (always by bus): has this country thought about discovering trains?
Once leaving a terminal the staff said we’d take an internal bus and I asked if that meant we wouldn’t have to go through security again, but they just meant the same one as the rest.
All of our trips were non-UK-entry but possibly some terminals do have heightened security to meet one-stop-security requirements. Didn’t seem like it but can’t be sure.
I was flying out of Chicago and I had a big metal bolt that was hollowed out to store pills inside. They showed me the scanned image, and you could see everything clear as day - steel bolt, hollow core, Xanax.
I had exactly the same experience in 2008, the year of the Beijing olympics. It seemed futuristic then and I can only assume their technology is even better now.
A lighter is very different from a weapon. I'm sure they can see everything they need to see with X-rays. Do you think they find a white guy flying out of China to be a likely terrorist? (I'm assuming you are white or asian.)
I've never had a bad experience with TSA but I hate taking off my shoes and all. I really question the value of those security measures.
There are countries that for whatever reason do not allow lighters on airplanes.
One time my bag was searched furiously because they saw a lighter on the machine, but had trouble locating it. Took two people about 15 minutes. Finally found it. It was very tiny.
I haven't had any particularly bad experiences with the TSA either but I have been physically searched a few times. The entire process is definitely slower and more involved. The contrast of that coupled with the published failure statistics just leaves me wondering. I'd rather we got rid of them but if we must keep them I think we could do at least a bit better.
Almost every time I've had a secondary search I've thought "Yeah, I can see how that looks suspicious on x-ray". A large block of cheese as one example.
My two favorite pull-asides were for a three inch toy cannon my son brought back from a civil war site and my 18 inch plastic roller I carried to the Boston Marathon. I was allowed to proceed with both but the roller required a supervisor's approval and the cannon actually had to go up two levels.
> Do you think they find a white guy flying out of China to be a likely terrorist?
What does skin color have to do with this? And yes, oppressed groups in China, like the Uyghurs, have support in the west. Among white people.
Maybe the winning strategy is comprehensive mass surveillance which flags you in a database long before even showing up at the airport and then the security theater just provides a suitable pretense for an arrest.
Yes, although the US is genuinely one of the least racist places in the world, that's more about how bad the rest of the world is.
In China the CCTV view just tags you up as Han/Uyghur/African/whatever. Nobody would even think twice about it.
There's not even a forum to discuss it, not because it upsets people to be confronted, it's just so casual and matter-of-fact it'd be strange to even talk about. Like of _course_ the Uyghurs are the dangerous ones.
I routinely conceal large bottles of liquids on my person while going through airport security. I've probably gone through airport security in various places with a 1.5L bottle of water more than a hundred times now. Haven't been caught once, although of course the US-style scanners could presumably defeat this.
Same with hot sauces, perfume and the occasional bottles of wine. I really don't like to travel with a checked-in luggage, so this is a frequent problem.
Luckily I own lots of Rick Owens clothes with large hidden pockets.
They could theoretically revoke precheck for doing this, but my guess is they won't because it is a believable accident (just like people leave them in their bag all the time) and given that the sign warning about firearms mentions that even that is just a five year suspension, not permanent, my guess is they wouldn't even bother for an harmless item.
On the other hand, one can also question if the £16 cost for the flight makes any sense. A more correct price would be £500. It's about time that the airlines pay the same taxes for fuel as everyone else.
What is the correct cost for a flight leaving in 3 hours with an empty seat? What is the correct cost for a scheduled flight leaving in 2 months with no seats sold yet?
Tickets aren't the same price for everyone, and planes fill to variable levels. Plus there are addons like luggage fees and beverages that have a huge markup. What is the best way to solve for that?
Besides, it averages something like 53L of fuel/passenger to make that trip. Hardly necessitating £500.
You can do whatever calculations and speculations you want, but the fact is that airlines do not pay any tax on fuel and no VAT on fuel. Not sure why they should not.
Another thing with flying is that it is so easy to go long distances as it takes limited time. A trip London-Barcelona is a 1.5-2 day trip one-way by car. You think twice before doing that. An intercontinental trip London-Bangkok is impossible by car, but creates more CO2 than all energy one person uses in a year (heating, cooking, going by car to work etc). Dirt cheap and in the blink of an eye.
If you look into the details, in the US, aviation fuel is taxed very low and for international flights not taxed at all.
"Kerosene-based jet fuel used for commercial aviation (transporting persons or property for hire) is taxed at a reduced rate of 4.4 cents per gallon." [0] That is $0.044 per galon.
For cars the tax is between $0.31-$0.74 per gallon depending on state + federal tax of $0.184 so in total somewhere between $0.494-$0.924.
That means aviation fuel is taxed 1/10-1/20 of what car fuel is taxed. So in essence aviation fuel is barely taxed.
For international flights it is tax free:
"The tax code provides statutory exemptions that result in zero or near-zero tax liability for specific fuel uses. Exemptions generally apply to fuel used in foreign international flights, military aircraft, governmental entities, farming, or by nonprofit educational organizations." [0]
To be fair, I entirely understand the absolute necessity for this.
The reason for its introduction is before hand the PHVs (Uber etc.) of this world would, instead of using the car parks, go up to the drop-off area and wait there.
Because there was no charge and no penalty, what they would do is drop off a passenger and then sit there waiting for their next job to ping on their screen.
This became a particular problem at Heathrow T5 where the drop off area is relatively tiny.
The result would be that at busy hours, private individuals attempting to drop off their friends and family would be unable to find space and end-up double-parking and causing safety hazards.
For a while they tried to use airport Police to enforce it, but the volume of PHVs was just far too great. Hence the cameras, charges and penalties were introduced.
It should also be noted that at Heathrow, if you do not want to pay the £7, you can instead drop people off for free at the Long Term Car park and they can get the shuttle bus back to the terminal.
Rather than charge everyone £7 or more for a drop off, wouldn't it make more sense to charge the people abusing it an absurd amount? I'd much rather see a £25 fee after 90 seconds and an additional £125 fee after 5 minutes than £7 for 30 seconds.
It seems less about making things more efficient and more about just squeezing a little bit out of money out of everyone.
In San Francisco we have toll tags called FasTrak. You can pay for parking at the airport with it. Of course, there, it's just the normal, pretty high airport parking rates, but there's no reason you couldn't use such a tag for enforcing quick free drop offs and pickups with exactly that much precision. Enter the drop/pickup area with your toll tag, if you're out in 3 minutes, no charge. 5 minutes, $4, and if longer than that, $20/hour or whatever. It's not like computers mind doing that math.
Price of water from water fountain (to be found on basically any western airport and most non-western I've ever been to) - 0.
I get your approach, but say where we live (Switzerland) if you have something not tightly around your body like a fleece jacket, you have to take it off and put it through scanner, this is default. Sometimes they still ask me to go down to t-shirt even if its obvious I don't have anything in pockets.
Not worth the hassle for something that is mostly free and probably healthier compared to plastic bottles stored god knows where and how long. I'd imagine if they catch you, you are going for more detailed inspection since its obvious you didn't forget 1kg bottle in clothing you wear by accident.
Tangential, but given the myriad externalities of air transport, such low fares for flying are deeply unethical and a perverse incentive that we are going to need to address one day.
I've been all over the USA, continental Europe, and Japan, and there have always been water fountains. Granted, I've never been to one of the "don't drink the tap water" countries.
I just had this experience at CDG, at the AA gate. I really don't know why people seem to think this is a made up problem. You may have found drinkable water at your gate, but airports are big, and your experience is not universal.
Even in your own car dropping off your friends or family at a UK airport (at least the London ones) requires paying a £6 fee now. Just to get to the dropoff area, even for 30 seconds as you say.
At Edinburgh airport, you can park at the Park and Ride nearby but it costs a tenner to get from there to the airport - a distance you could walk in about 20 minutes.
Right, but what do you think the alternative is? There is limited space close to the entrance of the terminal, it has to be rationed somehow. Also what happens in practice is people take advantage. A trust-based 30s wouldn't work. Even with the current fees you can hang around Heathrow drop off and see the police having to move people along, check unatended cars, etc.
There's limited space everywhere. It is rationed by people not wanting to be there. There's limited space at the baggage claim but nobody is charging you to be at the baggage claim.
You think people don't want to drop off at the airport? There's literally a multi storey full of short term parking at every Heathrow terminal. They wouldn't fit in the drop off area at all.
You are charged to be at the baggage claim. The airline pays it on your behalf, from your fare.
And what's your experience of other world airports? Have you been to Heathrow? What about somewhere like Changi? It's not just the dropoff that sucks at JFK.
Public realm is almost universally terrible in America because Americans rarely leave and don't experience anything better. It's bad, actually, to wait in traffic for a large portion of your life.
See also: the revolt over NYC congestion pricing. The congestion fee in Manhattan should be $50 or more.
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 Asia, and Canada. Maybe South America can beat it though, TBD.
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.
London is worse _overall_ for traffic than NYC, so I don't think it's that. I like America and Americans, but it's a fact that they don't travel much. JFK is not just bad for drop-off, it's chaos and run-down in general.
Yeah it’s got out and out criminal at this point. Not sure why we should accept a £6.40 charge to drop someone or collect someone from an airport when that’s the actual function and necessity of using an airport. I got charged £100 at COUNCIL OWNED Manchester airport for picking up a friend who accidentally had put themselves in the drop off zone rather than the collect zone. Just completely vile and disgusting corporatism at every single level.
Yes. They have paid sneaks standing around and the second you do something like that they radio to the people who control the barriers so you can’t get out without paying it. Just completely f*cked state of affairs.
“
1.3 Breach of these terms and conditions may result in Parking Charges up to £100. An additional fee of up to £70 may be applied for the costs of debt recovery.
9.1 Drop-off only: The Drop Off Zone may only be used to drop-off passengers and not for pick-up. There are separate designated areas for the pick-up of passengers. Use of the Drop Off Zone for any other purpose will result in the issuance of a Parking Charge.
The drop off is frequently clogged anyway so you have to plan for that. Where I'm at the airport will advise the use of the opposite one if things back up. Early in the morning the departures sign will suggest using arrivals if you see traffic backing up and vice versa in the evening.
When people say "water" here I have to assume they mean "vodka". Otherwise you can just bring an empty bottle and fill it on the other side. It's the toiletries that pose a problem.
I've been in many airports where there is no water on the other side of the X-ray. At KLIA and DPS they have none to buy even, and then you have to fight for it on the plane. At CDG you have to buy it, no water fountain. It's extremely aggravating.
I’ve definitely found free water fountains at CDG.
Now, one of the Bucharest airports literally does not have potable tap water. Their well, being under an airport and all, is contaminated. By email, they did inform me that the water is microbiologically fine. Unsure of their pipe to the municipal system was been built out.
Probably a issue with PFAS contamination. Stuff was used in firefighting water, and has contaminated just about every airport and the surrounding area's groundwater, all over the world. So while microbiologically safe, it has PFAS issues.
Disappointingly, in my case it's usually just water. I'm walking towards security with my bottle, I can either slip it in my pocket or put it in a bin. Not throwing it away saves a bit of time and quickly becomes the default choice.
Depending on the airport and terminal (e.g. shitholes like Frankfurt, especially terminal 2), filling it on the other side might mean a washbasin in a stinky toilet because they'd rather you buy overpriced bottled water. And many airports that do have at least water fountains only have some that seem deliberately designed to prevent you from using them to fill any reasonably sized bottle.
Also, don't count on security not throwing away your empty water bottle anyway just because they can.
Wow, it's refreshing to read that we maybe we don't have it the worst in the US, right here amongst everyone's beefs with TSA. Every airport domestically I've ever flown to has not just water fountains, but the convenient bottle-fillers (usually connected to the normal fountains). I always just bring an empty plain disposable plastic bottle, for its light weight, and security never bats an eye at it.
As for me, my our bags have been taken off the line to be inspected the last 3 times someone in my family forgot large toothpaste tubes in their carry on.
its very much about looks. Uk airports (used to?) seize aftershave in bottles that are the shape of grenades. Its very obvious what they are (made of glass, branded, spray out aftershave) but they are banned nonetheless.
I can't speak to UK airports but TSA policy is that any medication needs to be in the original container, including prescription medication. So if you have any unmarked pills they'll toss them if they find them, same with multiple different pills in a prescription pill bottle or similar.
Never encountered that over probably hundreds of flights. From what I read, it's recommended but not required. I'd probably be more conservative with any controlled substances. (And, based on some things I've read, it's probably not a bad idea to have a photo of the labels.)
Yeah I also regularly bring a razorblade (for my old fashioned safety razor). I have got caught once but it's worth the risk of wasting a few minutes.
If this was really about security, it would be set up so that just deliberately breaking the rules for the sake of minor convenience actually had some consequences.
If I wanted to blow up a plane with liquid explosives I would just... Try a few times. If you get caught, throw the bottle away, get on the plane, and try again next week.
> In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater.
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.
You gotta love the TSA. They serve no real purpose, but its a monster too big to kill, staffed by people who desperately cling to the notion they're doing something important.
They don't stop hijackings (locking the cockpit door does that), they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber), they don't stop weapons (lots of airports outside the US have simple metal detectors for that.)
They do however cost the govt a lot of money, keep a lot of expensive-machine-makers, and in business, improve shampoo sales at destinations, waste a lot of passenger time and so on.
The grunts working for TSA on the floor at airports aren't desperately clinging for the notion that they're doing something important, or working towards some lofty, noble, and/or altruistic goal.
It's just a job.
They're principally motivated to do this job by the promise of a steady paycheck and decent benefits -- the same motivation that most other people with steady paychecks and decent benefits also have.
In my experience many of them do feel like they're doing something important, and some seem principally motivated to do the job by the promise of being able to bully travellers.
First I agree TSA is mostly theater... however if you HAD to have it, you want the people to work like this. I might be old-school but I think everyone should have pride and responsibility in their work. Even if from the outside it is meaningless.
100% no reason to be a bully, that is not pride/responsibility. Every job has ass assholes.
>Yeah, but jobs that are police-adjacent have them at a very high rate. Almost like they select for it or something...
Proximity to violence is probably the measuring stick you're looking for.
Police spend the bulk of their day credibly threatening violence. Just about every word that comes out of their mouth, pen or keyboard while they're at work is implicitly back by an "or else". Everyone who isn't an asshole is gonna wash out of that job, start doing something behind a desk, start a PI firm, etc. etc. So you're left with rookie and assholes and the occasional exception.
The TSA, all your non-police state and municipal enforcement agencies, etc, etc, are gonna serve to concentrate "asshole lites" people because anybody who isn't will have issues spending their day dispensing what are basically "do as I say, or pay what I say, or else the police will do violence on you" threats on behalf of the state and so they'll jump ship as they become jaded same as cops do, but the pressures are less because they're not as proximate to the violence.
You can take this a third step out. There are all sorts of industries, jobs, etc, etc. that exist soley to keep the above two groups off your back. Nobody wants to hire these people, but are basically forced to under 3rd hand thread of violence. Same effect, but still watered down.
Even more removed are jobs where some fraction of the business is driven to you under similar circumstances. For example, ask any mechanic. People forced to be there by a state inspection program are consistently the worst customers. And there's the same wash out effect. People get tired of arguing about tread depth or whatever and they go turn wrenches on forklifts or whatever.
Proximity to petty power might be a better measuring stick. The same sorts of people gravitate to those jobs as the people who sit at the DMV window and tell you you need to get back in line, wait another two hours, and go to a different DMV window with the correct form.
Probably the reverse: obnoxious people who seek badge-given authority but fail police entry exams (e.g. the psych part), carry on to other forms of employment that offer badges and uniforms, but have lax standards.
At least one of us is being serious here; I'm not sure if you're included in that group or not. (Don't really care, either. It appears to me that you've demonstrated yourself to be uselessly snarky either way.)
> They don't stop hijackings (locking the cockpit door does that)
9/11 also stopped all future hijackings. Up to that point passengers were trained that if they stayed calm they would likely survive. Now? Short of the hijackers getting guns on the plane, passengers will absolutely fight back.
> they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber)
Suicide bombers are probably the main vector that TSA helps avoid even if they miss some items sometimes.
> Suicide bombers are probably the main vector that TSA helps avoid even if they miss some items sometimes.
Not really, but this is because there are pretty much no suicide bombers anywhere in airports. They are incredibly rare.
But if you're a suicide bomber, by the time you get to the TSA checkpoint you can do a ton of damage inside a terminal during a holiday season when all airports are packed. Until then no one is stopping you.
There used to be suicide bombings in the news all the time. Hijackings were the reason they instituted the metal detectors at airports.
Improved security seems unlikely as a reason, given how many tests they fail. Was it just a fad? Did they decide it wasn't getting them what they wanted at a high personal cost? Did they find something more effective?
Common things don't get into the news. How many people died in car related accidents in your country yesterday - it almost never even makes the morning news in your country, much less international news.
There's lots of suicide attacks in poorer African countries.
But the west by and large won the war on terror, it broke up all the state sponsored terrorist camps, and built a vast surveillance network capable of spotting people trying to build these devices. Israel was the flashpoint and they built walls and put cameras and AI everywhere and just flat out ignore human rights. It's just really hard to radicalise someone to that extent and not have them show up. Isis was also behind a lot of the attacks and they don't exist anymore. Afghanistan and Pakistan also don't shelter terrorists anymore because they might have kicked the US out but they don't want them back again.
Most of this is terrible from a civil liberties / human rights / sovereignty point of view, but if you wanted to stop suicide bombings it worked.
As far as the terror in terrorism goes, blowing up a plane or hijacking it and flying it into a building is a much bigger impact than blowing up a queue of people. It doesn't need to be rational.
I grew up in a time and place when terror bombings were "commonplace". And while actual bombs were rarish, bomb alerts were not.
The impact of a bomb at a post office or shopping mall or commuter train was way more impactful than planes. Only a small number of people flew, and that was easily avoided if you cared. It's a lot harder to process when a place you go regularly explodes.
Flying into buildings is not gonna happen again. That tactic didn't survive even a few hours as UA 93 demonstrated. Passengers won't allow it, and these days the cockpit door are locked.
I was hoping these events could be used to impose fines/jailtime for airlines/airports/security that have queues longer than 5 people, but you know, counter-terrorism can’t mean making life better for the public.
> I was hoping these events could be used to impose fines/jailtime for airlines/airports/security that have queues longer than 5 people, but you know, counter-terrorism can’t mean making life better for the public.
Not even at private airports or business terminal can you can manage not having a queue smaller than 5 people. So this is a really no-go from many points of view.
BRU did something incredibly retarded after the incident: moved the queue outside. I mean yes, in open air a bomb is less lethal than in an enclosed space, but will still kill people.
And like others said, we developed capabilities to track hostiles before they can actually blow up a bunch of people. That's why you don't see FRA or MUC or CDG or LHR being blown up daily.
The only reason you believe aircraft bombings aren't being stopped is because you live in a world where rigourous security has stopped all aircraft bombings.
Yeah. The "security theater" absolutely does play its part in stopping attacks. Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in. They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.
> Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in.
They still are, but I'm not comfortable spelling out details. The 95% TSA failure rate should lead you to this conclusion naturally.
> They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic.
People have plenty of such things with them as it currently stands. Plenty more can be trivially brought on board in a checked bag or even pocket. But again I'm not going to spell it out.
> I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.
Well that's unfortunate because it already is. I think the primary things protecting passengers are the cost of entry (the true nutjobs don't tend to be doing so well financially) and the passengers themselves. Regarding the latter, the shoe bomber was subdued by his fellow passengers.
> They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.
It is that easy for a random person to cause such a fire.
It’s probably not that difficult to figure out how to overcharge lithium ion batteries so that they’re prone to catching fire or exploding when connected to a resistor that will overheat them.
Wireless relays are commodity items you can order online from hundreds of vendors.
Did you drop a sarcasm tag? Anyone can make a fire on a plane as they allow lighters on a plane, and batteries, and any number of flammable objects. None of that is facing any scrutiny nor stopping crazy people from being crazy.
Ironically, both India and China forbid lighters on planes. Famously you see a collection of them around the bins just outside the airport as all the smokers leave them for others.
Yes it's possible to make a fire on a plane, but it would be even easier to cause a big fire if there was zero monitoring of bags. As flawed as airport security is, it should generally catch things like somebody trying to get a carry-on bag full of gasoline or extremely large lithium-ion batteries on board.
I take security that catches 50 or even 20% of threats any day over 0 security.
I've heard that cell phones often catch fire on planes, and the crews know how to deal with that. I guess they have to because the odds of one going up are pretty good across so many flights.
It's easier to deal if it's in carry on bag. This is why batteries are forbidden in checked luggage. Once it all burns the airplane has got to land asap and it's an emergency.
My checked luggage did not pass xray multiple times because they detected powerbanks. I had to come back and take it out. However it also did pass xray a couple times with powerbanks so it's not a reliable system.
Trains are a much easier target in most countries. Generally only the high-speed / cross border ones have any security at all. Until maybe 10 years ago you didn't even really need a ticket to get access to one (now ticket barriers are common).
Those tend to have extremely limited usefulness. Good enough to assassinate a single person at point blank range before they catastrophically fail but (unless something has changed) not much else. Plastic just isn't cut out for the job.
You still need metal parts, notably a gun barrel capable of holding extreme pressures until the bullet gets up to speed. That isn’t plastic. The grip and frame might be plastic, but not the barrel.
This is either incorrect or only technically correct. In the context of smuggling a weapon through a metal detector at a checkpoint there are nonferrous and even entirely plastic variants. Possessing them is generally illegal because essentially the only purpose is for assassinations.
Those are exotic parts that would have to be manufactured specially. You don’t buy them off the shelf. They are costly to procure and difficult to work with. One doesn’t just load up the 3d printer and push Go. To be clear, I’m sure a homemade gun can be passed through a metal detector checkpoint, but that requires some real thought and skill. More than likely, the real weak link at the checkpoint is not the detector “seeing” the gun but the half-asleep agent missing it, given the red-teaming results which show even very traditional firearms have a good chance of slipping through.
the handle on roll type luggage. not the actual handle but that is where you would hide a long piece of thick wall tube. not that a long piece of would be nessacery. a short one would do, the point being the metal detectors do not stop you from bringing metal into the airport.
Of course. Lots of metal goes through the detectors. The point is that the detectors “see” it and that’s then your chance to catch it. Whether you actually do or not is another question. But 3d printing a gun doesn’t give you a “plastic gun.” Btw, this is the same reason why the “Glocks are plastic guns that go through metal detectors unseen” stuff in the 1980s was always a myth. Glocks have a polymer frame but they always have a metal barrel.
No idea. I only replied to the guy saying that "metal detectors stop weapons". Which is false.
The evidence is in US law. Because they would be undetectable, 3d printed guns are required to have some metal inserted into it to be legal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D-printed_firearm#United_Stat...). I think a guy who can 3d print a gun and wants to bring it onto a plane could probably skip that step;)
"I only replied to the guy saying that "metal detectors stop weapons". Which is false."
Taken in a strict boolean sense, yes, but real-world policy is rarely boolean, and mostly about tradeoffs and how many nines of reliability you want to spend on.
Metal detectors will catch the vast, vast majority of guns ever produced, which is their whole point of existence.
Not in the context of someone smuggling a weapon through a security checkpoint. At least not unless they're certain that it's small enough not to trigger the detector.
That said I will note that it is generally illegal to possess such nonferrous weapons regardless of circumstance.
How does a plastic pistol open the cockpit door? It is proof to small calibers. You might shoot someone in the plane and then you will be subdued and ghaddafied with a SkyMall magazine. Not the most effective form of terrorism.
Countries that didn't create the TSA also had a reduction in terrorism.
I agree. Such a pistol won't even get you many shots before catastrophically failing.
But upthread it was suggested that metal detectors are sufficient to stop weapons and a discussion of 3D printed guns followed. Nonmetallic weapons (and other tools) of all sorts are possible, 3D printed or otherwise.
If you want a gun you can use more than a couple times need metals. However if the goal is one shot plastic is good enough. Even plastic bullets will work - not well, but one well placed/timed shot is all we are talking about.
When flying international in to the US, we literally all stand in long lines watching the TSA agents. TSA serves as the introduction to America...
I can't think of another country where the personnel aren't groomed and 'height / weight proportionate'.
None the less, this is still effectively an entrance checkpoint to a 'secure area' aka the large airport you're flying to, as you've now already gone through security.
> Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled.
This is oft repeated, but as a federal job, the bar is at least slightly higher than those typical AlliedUniversal/Andy Frain/Etc mall cop guards you see all over the place. I have no doubt that many are incompetent, but I think it is a big unfair that it gets singled out as a "jobs program" given that the bar is on the floor industrywide for security.
An interesting comparison would be FPS, which is the agency that does security checks for federal buildings, also under DHS same as TSA. They are armed despite many of them having an indoor only role (a few do patrol larger campuses outdoors). Thus, I suspect the requirements are somewhat higher. They are generally more thorough in my experience, except for one time where they did not notice one of my shoes got stuck and didn't go through the X ray, which is funny because they insist on all dress shoes being scanned as they have a tiny metal bar inside. The same shoes go through TSA just fine.
> This is oft repeated, but as a federal job, the bar is at least slightly higher than those typical AlliedUniversal/Andy Frain/Etc mall cop guards you see all over the place.
Cool. So the TSA sucks up all the people slightly overqualified to be mall cops, which prevents them from outcompeting all the barely qualified people for those roles. And thus the barely qualified can have a job as a mall cop.
It is a government agency spun up to use way more bodies and funds to do the same thing that was fairly effectively being done by private industry, has no penalty for being genuinely worse, is not popular, and is repeatedly used to funnel cash to connected people, groups and companies.
FDR himself would be embarrassed about this jobs program. Digging holes and refilling them would be more productive to our country.
>An interesting comparison would be FPS, which is the agency that does security checks for federal buildings, also under DHS same as TSA
This is not an interesting comparison. DHS didn't exist until recently either, and should be abolished. The private security we had before was much cheaper and not less effective. TSA would not have prevented 9/11
The point of all of the DHS was to oppress internal dissent internally. What do you think was Bush's plans if they didn't get served an opportunity to go screw around in the middle east? His administration was pushing using Predator drones domestically in the mid-2000s.
Read "Big brother" by Corey Doctorow, which laid this all out in plain english (to literal children no less) 20 years ago. It's free.
No, none of them are federal contractors. They are direct employees but not sworn law enforcement. You apply on USAJobs.gov and go to FLETC for training, although the topics are very different than sworn/1811s going there, ex no firearms training. Some airports, SFO being the only notable one iirc, choose to contract their own security as an airport/municipal contract with TSA approval, in which case TSA only staffs some executive/oversight roles. Occasionally you see staff in green DHS uniforms rather than blue TSA ones, such as the dog handlers, however I believe they are still under TSA, not sure if they are armed though as it is not the typical blue TSO/STSO uniform.
I assume the technology part (secure flight) is heavily contractor run like most govt/defense technology, one of my old coworkers was briefly involved in that. Didn't say anything interesting about it beyond that they used one way fibers to upload the data into classified systems for processing without anything going back to the main system. The basic workings of the system are described in the SORN/PIA notices though IDK how up to date they keep them.
By outside I mean some of them actually drive around in patrol cars and within their premises would make arrests for any trespass or other crimes. The ones I had the occasion to interact with were just doing badge/visitor approval and baggage screening. A checkpoint officer could of course have the occasion to use force, but so could TSA and they are unarmed and generally do not use force, deferring to local police.
A couple of years before the pandemic I managed to make it all the way from London Heathrow to Auckland, New Zealand, passing through Dubai and Brisbane on the way, with one of those USB rechargeable plasma lighters and a Gerber multitool in my hand luggage.
Completely unintentional, of course, but due to #reasons I had packed in some haste and made the mistake of not completely unpacking my day sack, which I also used to carry my laptop for work, first.
I stayed in Auckland a couple of days and the items were eventually picked up on a scan before my flight to Queenstown. The guy was very nice about it: he had to confiscate the lighter, but he let me post the Multitool to my hotel in Queenstown.
A couple of years ago I did something similar flying out of Stansted but, that time, it was picked up at the airport and, again, I was able to get the items posted back to my home address.
Nowadays I always completely empty all compartments of all bags I’m taking before repacking, even when I’m in a hurry.
I no longer keep multitools in random bags that I sometimes also use for travel. I figure it's just a matter of time before I forget it's there when I'm packing in a hurry. (I don't travel as much any longer but still.)
You're very sensible, and that seems like an absolutely foolproof way of solving the problem.
I went through a stage where I'd keep the multitool on my belt because the carry case comes with a handy belt loop but, depending on what you're doing, it can dig in to your side/front/back or catch on things, which is annoying, and in a lot of contexts it's perhaps just one level of dweebiness too far. And, yes, I absolutely am a dweeb and have zero shame about it, but there are contexts where I need to mask at least to some extent in order to be taken seriously/function effectively which I've accepted as a "cost of doing business".
I'd believe that. I was in a situation where a bag started smoking _in the security checkpoint_ (it was a camera battery failing), and the TSA agents all abandoned the checkpoint. As a result, the FAA issued a full ground stop and had re-screen every passenger in the airport.
It’s so much worse than that. Because the department of homeland security was formed in the panic following 911, many of the laws meant to protect our civil liberties (which have existed decades/centuries before the DHS was formed) haven’t been amended to explicitly apply to DHS staff as well.
So what ICE is doing right now could only happen with the loopholes that apply only to DHS staff.
So if not for the security theater of the TSA, Stephan Miller might not have had a mechanism to get the ball rolling on his murder squad that is ICE.
Sure.
I am not a lawyer, but I can give one example to the best of my ability.
One Civil liberty I see Ice violating is the Fourth Amendment which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. But, for Boarder Patrol (under the Department of Homeland Security) there is a border search exception to the forth amendment. Border patrol can conduct searches without a warrant or reasonable suspicion.
You might be on the fence about that. We do have to protect our boarders... sure. but the way the law is written, this border exception is applicable anywhere 100 miles from the border.
That area covers 2/3rds of the population of the United States.
--
So if you are wanting a power grab against your own citizens you would definitely try to use that loophole in creative ways. And that starts by using DHS staff that can claim their actions fall under the border search exception.
This write up is a little off the cuff, so the details might be loose, but I hope this demonstrates the rough outline.
We're not rational beings, so what do you do about an irrational fear? You invent a magical thing that protects from that irrational fear.
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.
You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what about the extremist who works for the airline?
So you invent some theater to stop people from panicking (a far more real danger). And that's a perfectly acceptable solution.
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 not "is this safe?"
I thought so too. But having talked to a few people who are generally afraid of flying, they absolutely do take re-assurance from the security theatre. They are very much not interested in having the ease of subverting this security explained to them.
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.
And the fact is that there's been some level of security since the 1970s or thereabouts after a fair number of hijackings. Any serious debate is about restrictions around liquids/knives/etc. (Some of which related to isolated incidents like the shoe bomber and others of which seem like pretty clear overreach--like I can't bring a hiking pole in carryon.)
Regular passengers tend to be the ones care about the price of water in the terminal while rare/first time passengers tend to be the ones nervous as hell about everything from getting the bags checked in to the engines falling off the plane during takeoff/landing.
There's room for both. You can have security checkpoints where they check your bag for liquids, and you should be allowed to fly with them once they confirm its innocuous.
I'm no chemist, but I can't imagine it's hard to test if something is an explosive or just body cream. To pack a punch, I have to imagine explosives need very specific compounds in them.
1) its way harder than you'd expect as many compounds are safe in low concentrations and have other uses. Take TATP- triacetone-triperoxide. yes, the peroxide and acetone(nailpolish remover) in most people's bathrooms should never be mixed.
2) might want to look up how often firearms make it onboard in carry on bagage accidentally. This isn't the typical snarky use of that phrase- it's just so insanely common people don't want to beleive it.
I think it's perfectly reasonable to forbid >100ml of acetone in flights, and allow people to bring in, say, a bottle of water or a can of orange juice. We can certainly test if something is acetone or orange juice.
> 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.
> This can be traced to people in a car believe they can control whether they have an accident or not (and largely can).
This is true. In France, about two thirds out of the people dying in a car accident are the actual drivers responsible for the accident, according to the 2024 Road Safety Report.
To add to this, here's a piece of anecdotal evidence. I've watched a lot of traffic accident videos in my life, and in the vast majority of the videos including two vehicles, both drivers are at fault.
They may not be legally at fault, I don't really worry too much about that, but by my judgement they could have avoided the accident by paying attention or driving slower or driving less aggressively etc.
Same goes for pedestrians by the way. The absolute vast majority of pedestrians who get hit by cars could have avoided it by paying attention and taking some responsibility for their own safety.
It's not about statistics. It's about control and knowledge. I know if a car I'm in is driving safely. I can ask the driver to calm down or let me off. In a plane I have nothing. I'm just sitting in a tin can, no idea whether the pilot is flying responsibly or not. No idea whether the landing is routine as hell or kinda sketch. Even if i could talk to the pilot the only thing we can do is land.
And have you thought about airplane landing? It's insane. This big clunky metal bird full of literal jet fuel coming in at like 400kmh or whatever, bouncing around on the tarmac as it's desperately trying to regain control and slow down.
Honestly I don't see how a rational person could not be stressed out in that situation. Yes we all know it usually works out, but we also know if it doesn't work out we're very likely going up in a ball of fire. And no matter what the stats say it doesn't feel like a safe situation. It feels like a near death experience. Seriously. Every time I fly I mentally come to terms with the fact that I might die. Every time we take off and land I'm feeling the bumps and jerks, listening to the sounds and wondering whether this is normal.
I fly at least a few times a year, and I don't take any drugs for it, but I fucking hate it.
> I know if a car I'm in is driving safely. I can ask the driver to calm down or let me off.
Do you know that all the other cars on the road that might hit yours are being driven safely?
How do you feel about busses and trains?
> And have you thought about airplane landing? It's insane. This big clunky metal bird full of literal jet fuel coming in at like 400kmh or whatever, bouncing around on the tarmac as it's desperately trying to regain control and slow down.
A car is a metal box full of fuel kept under control by four rubber balloons.
At least a plane is heavily monitored for safety, checked before every flight, and controlled by highly trained professionals.
> Honestly I don't see how a rational person could not be stressed out in that situation.
A rational person would not be worried. The fear is very much an irrational reaction and a psychological problem that a few people have. Most of us will happily go to sleep on a long flight and our biggest fear is boredom.
A lot of people (here and elsewhere) don't get how many people are just terrified of flying. I was on a flight many years ago (on admittedly a pretty rough transatlantic flight) when the woman next to me was basically in tears and grabbing my arm.
Personally, I don't love being bounced around in a plane but I'm reasonably confident that wings aren't coming off the Boeing jet--whatever the company's other faults.
I'm certainly a lot more nervous driving in a snowstorm or on a twisty mountain road.
If you're in a commercial plane, the driver is acting immaculately, with a margin of error so small you'd never be able to notice any problems. So you'll never need to ask the driver to calm down or let you off.
(But it's worth noting that all the control in the world won't keep you safe in a car. You can have/be an inhumanly perfect driver and it's still pretty dangerous to be on the roads.)
And then every other complaint you list is irrational. "how a rational person" avoids being stressed out is by knowing it's safe. The bouncing on tarmac is safe. Ball of fire is less likely than in a car. Bumping and jerking happens in lots of safe situations. The sounds are normal.
I'm not saying it's wrong to feel fear, but do not pretend the fear is rational.
It's not long ago that I saw a video of a plane landing in Canada, the right landing gear collapsed and the whole plane rolled around crushing the wings and creating a huge ball of fire. Miraculously everyone survived but passengers described being showered in jet fuel while a huge fireball was going off outside so they clearly weren't far off getting roasted.
It obviously isn't safe. It's a situation where if anything goes wrong, there is a very high chance that everyone involved goes up in flames. Now we all know it usually goes well but saying it's safe is a stretch in my book.
Shit happens all the time in aviation. Planes are told to land on a runway where another plane is taking off. Plane manufacturers install buggy new systems without informing pilots causing hundreds of fatalities. Planes collide in mid air. Birds fly into the engine.
And yes, pilots make mistakes. They are absolutely not acting immaculately all the time. They're human, we all make mistakes. Some, more than others. And some times things go wrong no matter how perfectly the pilot flies.
I never said I feel safe in a car at all times. I just said I feel more in control. But I often feel unsafe in cars too, particularly when I'm a passenger. A lot of drivers drive unsafely by my judgement - they drive too fast for the conditions, too close to other cars, they're looking at passengers, phones, the view, or messing with car settings instead of looking at the road. They get angry for no reason and drive more aggressively. They expect everyone else to drive perfectly and if anyone doesn't do what they expect they have close calls and blame the other driver rather than realizing they should simply have given them more space.
Basically, most people drive in such a way that if anything goes too wrong or goes wrong at the wrong time, they will be helpless to do anything about it. I try to drive in such a way that when things go really wrong I can still compensate for other people's mistakes. Of course it's impossible to be 100% safe but I am quite confident that I'm very significantly safer than most drivers.
> It obviously isn't safe. It's a situation where if anything goes wrong, there is a very high chance that everyone involved goes up in flames.
And "if anything goes wrong" in that strong way almost never happens. It meets my standard for safe, and definitely meets car standards. I'm not sure what your definition is, but I hope it's not that safe=perfect because then nothing would be safe and the word would be useless.
More importantly, you're missing my main point about cars. There are risks you can control, and risks you can't control. Pretend we completely solve the first category, absolutely pristine driving, zero possible mistakes, you have the driver's seat and you're being amazing. The remaining risk from driving is still higher than the total risk from taking a flight.
So while it's rational to prefer being in control in like-for-like situations, the vehicle factor overshadows the control factor. A rational person looking for safety will prefer the combo of commercial flight and lack of control over the combo of car and full control, and feel less anxious on the plane than when driving on a good day. Even if they're a really good driver.
And if France it's anything like the UK, the absolute vast majority of these deaths are people driving drunk at night. If you are driving in city traffic at 20mph commuting to work your chance of dying is nearly zero - there's always a chance someone else might be speeding and crash into you, sure, but it's nowhere near the general rate of deaths in cars.
As a seque to this - knowing the above, I find it insane that various institutions are pushing for more and more aggressive driving aids.
That not true. Drunk driving is not remotely the biggest cause, let alone the "vast majority". Speeding is.
And also: note you're only considering the pov of a person inside a car. In the last decade deaths among pedestrians and cyclists have skyrocketed, courtesy of society willingly accepting that it is normal and rational to have 4000kg vehicles with 180bhp being used ubiquitously to move 70kg humans to the grocery store. Since public infrastructure is completely designed around cars, with pedestrians and cyclists pushed to the edges or protected from cars by lines of white paint, it's no wonder this is happening.
I stand corrected - I looked it up and yeah, you are right, drunk driving is only the cause of about ~20% of road deaths in the UK.
>>And also: note you're only considering the pov of a person inside a car.
Well the person above was talking about how dangerous driving is, to which my argument still stands - if you are just commuting to work in or near a city, your actual risk is incredibly low(as the driver or passanger).
My perception is that drink driving is now pretty rare in the UK.
The biggest dangers I see regularly on the road is simple aggressive driving. Overtaking too much, tailgating, multiple lane changes in one go (on motorways), not driving slower in bad conditions.....
> This is true. In France, about two thirds out of the people dying in a car accident are the actual drivers responsible for the accident, according to the 2024 Road Safety Report.
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This is because a large number of accidents don't involve another car.
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.
A lot more people I've talked to about it say the theatre makes them feel uncomfortable and intimidated rather than making them feel safe. Airport security staff being so gruff and expecting people to know what to do (which casual travellers often don't), then not being able to properly explain what to do and shouting at people...
I really don't buy that the illusion of safety is high on anyone's priority list, it's more that a bureaucracy will grow as much as it can, employing more and more people who might not have better prospects, and no politicians want to be seen to be "comprimising people's safety" by cutting things back. Then "lobbying" from those selling equipment and detection machines probably helps everything keep going.
If it was actually cut back to a proper risk-assessed point of what's strictly necessary, people going thorugh would think "is this safe not having as much security" for about 30 seconds and then never think of it again.
Do not get me started on airport security staff in the Netherlands that cracked some insulting jokes about my nationality. I was not amused...
Or the idiotic "remove your shoes" so we can x-ray them... What next, go naked? O, that is what those new scanners are for that see past your clothing.
If i can avoid flying, i will ... Its not the flying, its the security. You feel like being a criminal every time you need to pass and they do extra checks. Shoes, bomb test, shoes, bomb test ... and you do get targeted.
The amount of times i got "random" checked in China as a white guy, really put me off going anymore.
Arriving, 50% chance of a check. Departing, 100% sure i am getting 1 check, 50% i am getting two.... Even won the lottery with 3 ... (one in entrance in Beijing: "Random" bomb check, one for drop-off luggage, and one for security) .... So god darn tiring ...
And nothing special about me, not like i am 2m tattoo biker or something lol. But yea, they see me, and "here we go again, sigh"...
I'm sure this exists too, but isn't the mundane rationale more likely? That gruffness is inevitable because the work sucks?
Overworked, understaffed, the days blur together because it is boring, mostly sedentary work. They are ground down from dealing with the juxtaposition of their role; internally TSA are told they are important because their vigilance is heroic and prevents catastrophe, yet the general public views them with annoyance if not disdain. _Everyone_ they interact with is impatient, and at the that scale of human interaction nobody is really a person anymore, just a complication to throughput.
My guess it's more about being able to say: 'We did everything we could.' If someone does end up getting a bomb on board. If they didn't do this, everyone would be angry and headlines would be asking: 'Why was nothing put in place to prevent this?'
I know literally nobody panicking from some idea of terrorist attack against airplane, this is not a thing in Europe. Neither my old parents, neither any of my colleagues etc. Its not 2001 anymore and even back then we were mostly chill.
But I can claim one thing for sure - people hate security checks with passion.
I think this is true but had to be seen in the bigger context: the Bush administration wanted people to feel that there were threats which required sacrificing things like civil liberties, balanced budgets, or not being at war because if you didn’t fight them “over there” the nebulous “they” come here in a never-ending swarm. Even at the time we knew that the threats weren’t serious but the people making those decisions saw it as part of a larger agenda.
The government who wages the wars and brings its terrors home invades people's privacy and comfort in the small amount of time they have away from the toll they put to pay their taxes, and the people are thankful, after all, all of it is for their safety.
> 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.
On the contrary, a competent and responsible government should counter the hysteria, not enable it. It should protect citizens from car crashes rather than making a 18-lane highways through residential areas, and it should implement effective measures that reduce effective risk and panic regarding airline attacks, instead of pushing the fear even further with TSA.
> You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what about the extremist who works for the airline?
This is said as an axiom, but we have protected against the motivated terrorist, as shown by the safety record.
As horrific as truck attacks, mass shootings, and suicide bombings have been, no-one have been on the same order of magnitude as airborne terrorism attacks.
The Bataclan, Las Vegas, Nice truck attack - all enormous tragedies. But compare to 9/11, Lockerbie, Flight 182, etc.
No, the vast majority of terrorist truck, car, bombing, shooting, stabbing attacks have single digit casualties due to the security measures in place and the level of difficulty (thankfully) in killing large numbers of people.
For a given number of people, money, resources, and risk, an attack against an airliner will have disproportionate casualties and effect. As above, a similar amount of co-ordination was required for Bataclan vs 9/11, with an order of magnitude fewer casualties.
My point is that if improved airport security just shifts terrorist attacks to other places, the overall safety benefit is not as great as it may at first seem.
If those attack vectors are intrinsically less effective at causing mass destruction then that’s an improvement.
A plane hijacking can evidently cause enormous destruction with minimal equipment and personnel. Even just a bomb on a plane can easily kill 200-500 people depending on the plane’s capacity.
Ground-based attacks since 9/11 have been evidently less effective because a bunch of guys with guns attacking a train station or a rock concert can’t do as much damage as quickly as a hijacker essentially flying a cruise missile into a major office building.
That's nonsense - if it was true, all anti-terrorism measures would be self-defeating, but they're not. Decades of aircraft-based terrorist attacks have been completely halted by airport security, and there's no been no correlated increase in other mass casualty events.
I think it is the opposite. It is supposed to be a visceral reminder that we are not safe, and therefore should assent to the erosion of civil liberties and government intrusions into our lives in the name of safety.
> You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality
Ah yes, the insidious opponent who learns the inherent vulnerability of ... huge crowds gathering before hand baggage screenings and TSA patdowns.
And these crowds are only there only due to a permanent immovable physical fixture of ... completely artificial barriers that fail to prevent anything 90-95% of the time.
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.
Airport security never makes me feel safe. It makes me feel violated and anxious.
I haven't really flown before 9/11, but I have used the subway in my city daily both before and after they installed metal detectors and started randomly asking people to put their bags through a scanner. I'm deeply nostalgic for not having to deal with this utter bullshit.
Just a lot more people are flying today. Better information flows about flights help to some degree but more planes that are more packed are on the other side of the ledger.
I seriously doubt that most people are happy with the tradeoffs of safety vs. convenience provided by the TSA. The general idea of x-ray, metal detectors, sure, that's all good. But the stuff with taking off your shoes, small containers of liquid, etc., no. I think if we reverted to a simpler system with fewer oddly specific requirements layered on top, most people would not feel significantly less safe, but would feel less inconvenienced.
The thing about shoes is just dumb anyway - I don't know if there was some period of time where it was required elsewhere around the world but I never experienced it. Literally the only times I've ever had to take off my shoes were during the two times I've visited the US (vs. a over a dozen trips to European and Asian countries).
Liquid restrictions were also lifted in my country four or so years ago for domestic travel, so it's still annoying when getting ready for an international trip and I remember I still have to do that...
It was a reaction to a very specific incident that happened just after 9/11 so the policy basically took effect at the same time the TSA started existing.
I flew out of the UK twice in relatively short succession in ~2018 and the first time was out of London City: did not have to take off my shoes. I was pleasantly surprised by this and concluded common sense had prevailed and it was no longer necessary. The second time was Gatwick, and based on my prior experience I did not take off my shoes. I got yelled at because "everybody knows you have to take off your shoes at the airport!". Then got subjected to an extra search of my luggage as punishment. Of course there was a razor in my bag of toiletries (one of those Gilette cartridge ones with a million blades - not an oldschool safety razor) and promptly 'got got' for that as it could have potentially injured the person searching my belongings. 0/10 would not recommend.
It doesn't make me feel safe. It makes me annoyed. Since TSA are government agents it also pokes a tyranny button for me. I despise TSA with a passion and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. They also have the gall to offer a paid service to get around the delays they cause with taxpayer money. If airport security checkpoints need to be done it shouldn't be government doing it.
On one hand, I think it's a valid criticism to say it's security theatre, to a degree. After 9/11, something had to be done, fast!, and we're still living with the after effects of that.
On the other hand: defence in depth. No security screening is perfect. Plastic guns can get through metal detectors but we still use them. Pat downs at nightclubs won't catch a razor blade concealed in someone's bra. We try to catch more common dangerous items with the knowledge that there's a long tail of things that could get through. There's nothing really new there, I don't think?
The post-9/11 freakout is a GREAT example of the syllogism "Something must be done! This is something, so we must do it!" -- IOW, a train of thought that includes absolutely no evaluation of efficacy.
Security expert Bruce Schneier noted, I believe, that the only things that came out of the post-9/11 freakout that mattered were (a) the reinforced cockpit door and (b) ensuring all the checked bags go with an actual passenger.
The ID requirement, for example, was a giveaway to the airlines to prevent folks from selling frequent-flier tickets (which was absolutely a common thing back then). (And wouldn't have mattered on 9/11 anyway, since all the hijackers had valid ID.)
One little know crazier example of how things linger around for decades is how the H1B program actually allowed for renewals of visa stamps within the US.
After 9/11 the only reason people were made to go to another country to do it is because the US State department wanted people 10 printed and face scanned at places that had the equipment to do them: the embassies outside the US.
Now all airlines are basically human cattle-herding boxes at 35K feet for the metaphorical H1B cows.
That something could have been lawmakers going on major media saying, unequivocally, that flying is safe, warning not to give away freedoms lightly and even making a show of flying commercial themselves.
That something didn't have to include trading freedom for surveillance/inconvenience/increased exposure to poorly trained LEO's.
The world we live has been shaped more and more by the funders of certain politicians and major media to make us fearful of boogiemen. The payoff is increased surveillance and more authoritarian governments.
There were plenty at the time insisting it was not needed, that TSA was an overreaction, that it was clearly grift to people connected to the Bush Admin, that we don't need to do anything even. They all pointed out that DHS was clearly an internal anti-dissent force, to be used against american citizens for daring to critique a government of grift and lies and authoritarianism taking away our rights.
They were all decried as "anti-american" or worse epithets.
They were all correct of course.
They are all being decried again right now.
It was literally called "The Patriot Act" FFS. You really think it was about security?
Note that the reason none of the passengers were ever able to regain control of the planes was the exact security measure that actually protects us now: The cockpit door. It literally doesn't matter what happens in the plane cabin, nobody can hijack a plane in the current system.
Again, TSA currently cannot catch someone going through security with plastic explosives, in their own self tests.
> The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids.
The limits were instituted after discovering a plot to smuggle acetone and hydrogen peroxide (and ice presumably) on board to make acetone peroxide in the lavatory. TATP is not a liquid and it is not stable.
This illustrates a point though. TATP you could synthesize on a plane is entirely inadequate to bring down a plane. It also requires a bit more than acetone and hydrogen peroxide. Pan Am 103 required around half a kilo of RDX and TATP is very, very far from RDX.
The idea of synthesizing a proper high-explosive in an airplane lavatory is generally comical. The chemistry isn’t too complex but you won’t be doing it in an airplane lavatory.
A small fire in the right place (like a wiring loom) can definitely bring down a plane, but generally attackers don't have the specialist knowledge to achieve that, and those places are not easily accessible between meal services.
From my understanding, the new CT machines are able to characterise material composition using dual-energy X-ray, and this is how they were able to relax the rules.
I am not up-to-date on the bleeding edge but that explanation doesn’t seem correct? The use of x-rays in analytical chemistry is for elemental analysis, not molecular analysis. (There are uses for x-rays in crystallography that but that is unrelated to this application.)
At an elemental level, the materials of a suitcase are more or less identical to an explosive. You won’t easily be able to tell them apart with an x-ray. This is analogous to why x-ray assays of mining ores can’t tell you what the mineral is, only the elements that are in the minerals.
FWIW, I once went through an airport in my travels that took an infrared spectra of everyone’s water! They never said that, I recognized the equipment. I forget where, I was just impressed that the process was scientifically rigorous. That would immediately identify anything weird that was passed off as water.
Neither of those articles seem to support the idea that you can do molecular analysis with x-rays. They are all about elemental analysis, which is not useful for the purpose of detecting explosives.
Not sure if they use dual-energy x-ray as in [0], but you don't need to if you take x-ray shot from different angles. Modern 3D reconstruction algorithms you can detect shape and volume of an object and estimate the material density through its absorption rate. A 100ml liquid explosive in a container will be distinguishable from water (or pepsi) by material density, which can be estimate from volume and absorption rate.
> FWIW, I once went through an airport in my travels that took an infrared spectra of everyone’s water! They never said that, I recognized the equipment. I forget where, I was just impressed that the process was scientifically rigorous. That would immediately identify anything weird that was passed off as water.
Something like 10 years ago, I had my water checked in a specialised "bottle of water checker" equipment in Japan. I had to put my bottle there, it took a second and that was it. I have been wondering why this isn't more common ever since :-).
No idea if it was an "infrared spectra machine" of course.
Cynically, it's so they can sell you another bottle on the secure side. If they spend money to give themselves a working mechanism to distinguish water from not-water, they lose the ability to create retail demand.
Then you have successfully circumnavigated a problem that more forgetful people will run into head-first. It doesn't have to catch everyone for the shops who are tenants on the secure side to complain about lost sales.
There's still no evidence that peroxide-based explosives are stable enough to be practical. And nobody every explained why the few liquid ones are so dangerous, but the solid ones get a pass when they are more stable.
It's a good thing that airport brought some machinery to apply the rule in a sane way. But it's still an insane rule, and if it wasn't the US insisting on it, the entire world would just laugh it off.
Not a chemist…but if someone can carry on 3 bottles at 3.4 ounces each, now they have 10 ounces.
Two people do it and it’s 20 ounces. All within the “TSA Standard.”
This is where the liquid limit never made sense to me…if we were serious about keeping these substances off of planes, we would limit the total liquid…right? Or require that any liquids get checked.
I just don’t see how per-bottle liquid limits are anything close to deterrent for motivated attackers…but they sure are deterrent for me when I forget that I put a hotel water bottle in my bag.
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.
> 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.
What’s your sense of the overall cost of the measures? It’s not clear to me if you’re saying that high or low costs help justify them.
most of airport security rests on the notion of going over a series of long tests will elicit unusual (fear, stress) responses from malicious actors and these can then be flagged for even thorougher checks which will then eventually lead to discovery, banning or removal of luggage
so it's not the test accuracy by itself but rather then the fact that these tests are happening at all
You have surprising faith that the system is well designed.
Malicious actors don't get as stressed as normal people who don't want to miss their flight about the long series of obviously pointless tests. Why would they?
And there isn't anyone who surveils the queues and takes the worried looking for further checks. This can happen around immigration checks. It happens for flights to Israel. But not in routine airport security.
Why would they? Because they are about to do the thing they planned to do for months or years? Because they may be risking their own life? Because they're worried about getting caught rather than following through? Because no matter how prepared they are they have never done that EXACT scenario before at that exact airport with those exact people? Because the human mind is a lizard brain even with training and preparation?
Still not a perfect systems, other countries manage this part much better (I've heard Israel is especially good at it, but I don't have direct evidence).
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.
I have not been recently to Israel, so I do not know if there have been any changes in their system.
However, some time ago, for a few years I had been a frequent flyer into Israel.
In my opinion their system of airport security seemed far more efficient than what is now typical in Europe and immensely better than the circus that seems typical for USA.
The disadvantage is as you said, that their system requires numerous well trained personnel.
At least at that time, their system had very little emphasis on physical searching and luggage scanning, but it was based mainly on interviewing the traveler, normally by 2 different agents.
During a great number of security checks, my luggage has been searched only once, and it was definitely my fault. That flight was at the end of an extremely busy day and I was very tired, so I just wished for the security check to end as quickly as possible, to be able to finally rest in the plane. My impatience was transparent, which made me suspicious, leading to this singular case of physical searching, instead of just psychological assessment.
No. They might believe it works quite well, though, but they're seriously mistaken.
My old neuroscience lab was approached 20 years ago by a three-letter agency looking to develop a rapid reaction time tool to measure the trustworthiness of new people in time-critical hostile situations.
Because of that proposal, I reviewed the literature on "lie" detector tests and their ilk. The evidence is great for them measuring stress, and flimsy for them measuring deception. Normal people get nervous when questioned. Psychopaths may show less autonomic responses. People can train to alter their stress levels. Data interpretation varies wildly by operator, as does accuracy. The only real value is trying to convince criminals they work, in the hopes they make a true mistake or confess.
tl;dr The accuracy is really low, and anyone arguing otherwise is trying to fool the criminals, trying to fool agencies into buying their equipment, or fooling themselves.
OP is talking about (mostly) TATP here. It's very easy to make, harder to detect with traditional methods and potent enough to be a problem. It's also hilariously unstable, will absolutely kill you before you achieve terrorism, and if you ask people on the appropriate chemistry subreddits how to make it you'll be ridiculed for days.
Yes, peroxide chemistries famously don’t show up on a lot of explosive scans. TATP is an example but not the only one and far from the best one. They are largely missing from common literature because they are too chemically reactive to be practical e.g. they will readily chemically interact with their environment, including most metal casings you might put them in, such that they become non-explosive.
That aside, TATP is a terrible explosive. Weak, unstable, and ineffective. The ridicule is well-deserved.
It was always theater, Bruce Schneier did a great set of blogs and tests back in the 2001+ time showing flaws throughout the process. At the same time, he pointed out that humanity had already adapted their response to airplane hijackings _that day_ (the Pennsylvania flight). An airplane exploding from a bomb is definitely scary, but not as scary as airplanes being turned into missiles by a few suicidal passengers.
> . This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it.
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.
After 4 years of Russia/Ukraine, does anyone think that a terror group would take down an airliner with anything other than a drone? Why take any operational risk of actually going through security?
The fact that nobody has flown a drone with a hand grenade gaffa taped to it right into the middle of some politician's security cordon says to me that either a) terrorists are not smart enough to go for the low-hanging fruit (and the Republican terrorism in NI demonstrates this isn't the case), b) it's actually a lot harder to do than that, or c) the intelligence agencies are really, really good at stopping people from doing that, and even better at keeping quiet about it.
> This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives notoriously popular with terror organizations can’t be detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.
I used to work at a place that sold a lot of fertilizers. We mostly sold stuff like Monoammonium phosphate or potassium nitrate.
One time while cleaning out a back storage room I came across an open bag of ammonium nitrate. I picked that thing up, carried it around, putting it on a cart and wheeling it around kicking up a lot of dust, all the kinds of stuff that you’d expect while cleaning out a storage room.
A day or so later I got on a plane and they swabbed me and my bag before doing so. I was startled when I didn’t raise any alarms.
I was completely under the misguided impression they something like ammonium nitrate would be detected on a person if they had handled it within a few days of being tested and that would have to explain myself.
The same reason used for WA emissions inspections (since suspended). If your tailpipe emitted 99ppm of pollutants, you were good to go. If it emitted 100ppm, you had to get it fixed.
I don't get your point about the tailpipe emissions. Of course there is a hard cutoff. What else could there be? Do you want them to gently suggest that you should maybe fix your car above 90ppm, and then rudely suggest from 95ppm?
The response they can do is that they either let you use the car or not let you use the car. That is binary. Technically they cannot even do that. All they can do is promise you that if you use your non-compliant car and they find it out they will fine you. Laws are after all just formalised threats backed by force.
You have to be able to fit those 10 100mL bottles into a single 1 quart resealable bag. At most you'd probably get about 9.46 of those 10 bottles in the bag but in practice it's fewer still.
...the rule wasn't implemented because you have quart sized bags, it's the other way around. Also it's not like 1 litre bags would be difficult to make and procure.
If those explosives are extremely powerful then do the limits actually prevent using them to do damage inside an airplane though? TSA isn't even effective at preventing you from bringing on sharp metal objects as long as they aren't particularly knife shaped.
The motivation was that we've run out of other things to scaremonger about so we'll come up with what Bruce Schneier calls movie-plot threats and go with those instead. The few explosives that are liquid are also incredibly impractical to work with in most cases except for perhaps perchloric acid which is nitrogen-free so won't be detected but then persuading that to detonate from a seat in economy class is going to be quite a feat.
The country I'm in abolished the liquids nonsense for domestic flights (which they can do because it's domestic travel) around a decade ago with the reasoning that it wasn't serving any purpose.
I would not be surprised if this started out totally unrelated to explosives. Say that some toddler spilled an entire 3 liters of grape soda all over the plane. Or a hypochondriac brought cleaning agents aboard and gave everyone a headache.
Mostly sarcasm, but man do I see this pattern a lot. The risk mitigation apparatus is called in for something, they see an opportunity to overgeneralize and prevent an entire new category of potential mishaps, and the everyday folk end up really confused trying to reconcile the rules with their intent.
Reminds me of the parable about the bench guards. Is there an aphorism for this?
Are these chemicals freezable? Because TSA lets through large quantities frozen matter that is liquid at room temp. E.g. you can bring through a liter of hot sauce if it's frozen when it passes through TSA.
Ahh, the naïvety of the scientific mind! The security theater is intended to prevent government beaurocrats' mates from having to get real jobs and keep them happily sponging off public money. Also, set themselves up for post-career high paid gigs with those same private sector beneficiaries, so they can't be done for corruption during their career. Yes, really. Ask an AI about mid to late career public sector transitions to private sector and cross-examine 100 top examples across markets perceived as 'low corruption index'.
1) People demand the government be accountable for their failing to protect them
2) Government responds by increased giving the appearance of protecting them, since that creates more lowest-common-denominator sense of feeling safe than the government actually protecting them does; votes protected
3) Complaints of "security theatre" don't alter the above - they just have to wait until people have forgotten their fear while very slowly, bit by bit, without it being noticed, stop doing the nonsense
I remember reading something around the time these prohibitions against liquids were rolled out that said none of the two-part liquid explosives were powerful enough to take down a plane unless you were carrying an unusual amount of liquid to be traveling with, or storing your liquid in an unusual way. For instance, there should be no reason you couldn't carry an ordinary sized bottle of shampoo in your luggage. No idea how accurate this is, maybe somebody could set this straight?
Explosives that are inert liquid binaries aren't really a thing. That is something Hollywood invented out of whole cloth. The chemistry of explosives doesn't lend itself to such a form.
Chemical weapons often have liquid binary forms though.
Is that the criteria used for restrictions? I don't actually know. I guess a firearm falls into that category. Does a wine corkscrew? A foam toy sword? A small fishhook? All items that are prohibited in the cabin
This was done! It created terrible publicity incidents like the TSA forcing women to drink their own breast milk to prove it was safe. And not all liquids subject to this are things a person should swig even if they aren’t explosives. The extremely negative PR rightly stopped this practice.
Is that practice not really common? I’ve seen that done as a matter of course on lots of international airports with baby food / liquid and no one seems to get too fussed about it.
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?
But also you can fill up a water bottle after security. Wouldn't it be fairly easy to make a pen or similar innocuous item out of sodium, and drop it in a bottle of water to make an explosion?
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.
FWIW, sodium in water is such a pathetic explosion that it would mostly be an embarrassment for the would-be bomber. It wouldn’t do any meaningful damage.
An explosion with real gravitas is far more difficult to execute than people imagine. (see also: people that think ANFO is a viable explosive) This goes a long way in explaining why truly destructive bombings are rare.
The USA mostly used .50 caliber machine guns, usually with a mix of ammunition including incendiary bullets so that a hole in a fuel tank meant a large fire. Fighters from the other major combatants usually had 20mm autocannons in addition to smaller machine guns.
Allied fighters were also equipped with self-sealing fuel tanks, so a hit doesn't automatically mean it burns. I don't have any stats on it, but they wouldn't have added the self-sealing if it didn't improve the survivability.
The sensitive part for a P-51 was the cooling system. Any hit on that, and you're done.
B-17s famously endured a lot of battle damage. The usual vector of attack on them was head on, and they aimed for the cockpit. (Attacks on fighters usually aimed for the cockpit, too.)
I know that tracers were used in WW1 to set observation balloons (filled with hydrogen) afire. Tracers in WW2 were used so the gunner could direct his aim. I haven't read that they were intended for the fuel tanks, but that could be true.
109's would frequently sneak up from the rear, and if the tail gunner was not paying attention, it was an easy kill. My dad (B17 navigator) said the tail gunners, once they spotted a 109, would fire a few rounds of tracers long before the 109 was in range - just to let the pilot know they were awake and aware. It usually meant the 109 would veer off.
Incendiary ammunition is distinct from tracer, though some projectiles have both functions, and tracers have a chance of causing a fire. Incendiary projectiles usually ignite or explode after impact.
> 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.
This is the classic HN developer arrogance and oversimplification, but let's accept this as true for argument's sake. It turns out that "riff raff terrorists" are the only ones we needed to stop as there's been no successful bombings of Western airlines in 25 years, and there have been foiled attempts.
The existence of master locksmiths (and door breaching charges) doesn't mean you shouldn't lock your door at night.
Literally none of these were foiled by the security circus we all have to go through.
If anything, they are evidence that serious attempts are foiled by intelligence services long before the perpetrators get anywhere near an airport, and the others were just incompetent idiots.
Nonetheless, I hope you recognise that incompetent idiots beget more incompetent idiots, if they think they'll get away with it. You don't want e.g. a spate of bank robberies, by idiots who've heard that rubbing lemon juice on your face makes you invisible to cameras. It doesn't matter that they'll get obviously get caught, the problem is a spate of idiots attempting bank robberies (because they're filled with confidence they'll succeed) could easily get people killed.
I don't like security theatre either, and clearly the whole thing is a job creation program and an excuse for vendors to sell flashy scanner devices. But you need visible deterrents, even if most people know they're theatre.
They also act as reassurance for idiots who wouldn't fly otherwise. Idiots' money spends just as well as clever people's money, and there's a lot more idiots out there than clever people.
Because we live in a society with a free press, we have the chattering classes asking "what can we do about this threat?", and government is expected to respond. People don't like to hear from the politician "you're idiots, we don't need that, you are no less safe if we do nothing", they like to hear "we're doing XYZ to address this threat, how clever and wonderful you all are, dear citizens, for recognising it. Your safety is my top priority", then we get the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
It's designed to protect consumer confidence so the economy hums along. A single plane is a few hundred people, but the effects ripple out. This is a big country, you need air travel to make it reasonable to connect the coasts, and the more people traveling the more cohesive and economically balanced the country is. They were fine with letting 1M+ Americans die from COVID to protect the economy. That's really all there is to it.
I believe the "theater" is needed precisely for this - to catch bad actors. There could just be a long queue with some blind dog and scary looking guy at the end. What it still does is makes a bad guy sweat, plan against it and etc. You just can't have free entrance for all. However you will never prevent state actors or similar with any kind of theatre because they will always prepare for it.
> It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.
That is a good statement. It IS a theater. So, the point for it IS the theater. The "evil terrorists" is just the scapegoat wrapper, similar to how officials in the EU constantly try to extend mass surveillance and claim it is to "protect children".
> extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids.
My understanding is that those are detected by the bag swabs.
I _thought_ that this was to stop people mixing their own explosives _on_ the plane? There was a whole court case in the UK about how people had smuggled it onboard and then were going to make it in the toilet.
They would need and ice bath, which is somewhat impractical.
> It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.
The liquids requirement was in response to a famous (at the time) plot by people in Britain to smuggle a two part liquid explosive onto the plane. So the context was, at the time, obvious and needed no explanation.
Is it really unclear what the theater is actually for? It was immediately weaponized that any opposition placed you somewhere between 'anti-american' and a 'terrorist'. A perfect environment to pass any legislation, no matter how ineffectual and illegal.
If you have access to nitric acid you don't need any obscure lore. 3 ounces of a simple concoction a high school chemistry student could make is enough to blow a hole in an airplane. You also stand a good chance of blowing yourself up on the way to the airport.
Is the capability of these explosives at a safe level if the liquid precursors are less than 3.5 fl ounces? If they are still capable of blowing a hole in the fuselage with less than 3.5 fl ounces then the limits on fluids are still pointless.
One theory that I've had for a while with regards to the no liquid policy is that it was somehow introduced by the food vendors on the other side of security, who want you to buy a drink and some food after you pass through.
Modern airport x-ray machines use two frequencies and then estimate the density of objects and liquids. In theory, the can tell the difference between water and vodka. I wonder if the change reflects trust in this tech?
So, security through obscurity mostly as a smoke show for the public, not actual terrorist countermeasure. It's like the TSA being unable to detect most traditional weapon in carry-ons. Business as usual it seems.
Maybe I'm being naive, but it has always seemed pretty trivial to me to use the post-security shops to assemble something that will meaningfully damage the aircraft - so the whole thing smacked of theatre.
Schiphol at Amsterdam had this for a year or so, you could bring any type of liquid and leave everything in the bag. But they reverted the liquid rule, if I remember correctly, because of the confusion it caused.
This happened due to a change in regulation in Europe.
Some airports, like AMS or MUC, invested on new machines with higher detection capabilities, and decided to allow all liquids and improve efficiency in boarding. The EU updated the rules claiming those new machines were still not sufficient and airports should go back to forbidding liquids.
It was a mess. I remember flying from MUC and being allowed all liquids and on my return flight, also from EU, when trying to fly with a normal water bottle, security people looked at me wondering what the f I was doing: "Don't you know liquids are not allowed, sir!?"
Schiphol has been very relaxed. I once had a water bottle with probably 200ml of water still in it in my bag. I was told to not do that again and they gave me the bottle back.
...or be very anxious and resent air travel. I don't feel any safe through body searches, coupled with belt/coat removal, not wearing glasses and what not.
Personally, I don't know a single person who feels more secure due to the checks.
Well, I watched the video of some former Delta Force officer, who said that you can sharpen your credit card to make a deadly weapon out of it. Let's ban credit cards in the airplanes.
Is a open flame enough to ignite those liquids and don't they need something to press against to "explode" and not just cause a giant flame like gasoline?
Whether they are allowed or not, probably depends on the place.
In Germany, at Frankfurt, I had to dump in a garbage bin a smaller Swiss army knife, to be allowed to pass.
I had it because my high-speed train of Deutsche Bahn had arrived more than one hour late, so there was no time to check in my luggage.
After losing the knife, I ran through the airport towards my gate, but I arrived there a few seconds after the gate was closed. Thus I had to spend the night at a hotel and fly next day, despite losing my knife in the failed attempt to catch the plane. Thanks Deutsche Bahn !
>Whether they are allowed or not, probably depends on the place.
It's a EU thing, even though the Swiss are outside... and I was sure it was a directive until:
The recommendation allows for light knives and scissors with blades up to 6 cm (2.4 in) but some countries do not accept these either (e.g. nail care items)[citation needed]
I thought it was universal mostly since I had no issues at the airports.
Prior to the 6 cm rule, once I had to run to a post office at the airport and mail a parcel to myself with the pocket knife (which is also a memento)
> These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but that isn’t going to be happening to liquids in your bag
There are more ways to find them. Look up Z score. TL; DR New detectors can discriminate water from explosives. Old ones couldn’t. None of them are doing IR spectroscopy.
Sophisticated detonators are very small. The size is well below anything you’d be able to notice on an x-ray. Trying to detect detonators is an exercise in futility. Fortunately, a detonator by itself can’t do any damage.
See, when the shoe bomber or the guys doing chemistry 101 in the toilets of the plane were discovered, they put a ban on liquids and almost shoes.
I was hoping nobody comes out with an explosive you can build with cotton (and a nuclear reactor, but that would be a detail for the "security compliance" people who will come up with new restrictions). We would need to fly naked and this would be annoying.
I sure like to fly a safe plane. The problem is that I am sure the people who actually want to do something bad will use, like you mentioned, alternative solutions - and I will not even have the nail file they took from me when trying to to defend the plane during the hijacking.
if normal people don’t know, criminals/terrorists do, and the materials are commonplace but not screened for, then everything about the current approach is wrong.
and when has a plane been brought down by the evil explosives or stable liquids in recent memory?
And yet .. nothing ever seems to happen! Even though it's so easy.
That means one of at least two things. Either the terrorists are stupid and easily impressed by the security theater. Or there are just not that many bad ombres out there trying to take down airplanes. Or something else I can't think of.
It's obvious. The harder you make it to down or hijack a plane, the fewer downed planes you will see. It didn't have to be perfect to prevent and deter. Some security is better than no security. If you had no security at all you would see planes go down all the time.
And it wouldn't surprise me if some of the detection technology were classified.
It would not be "great" if governments were more open about their detection capabilities; that would cause more terrorism attempts and is one of the stupidest things one could do here.
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.
These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but that isn’t going to be happening to liquids in your bag. This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives notoriously popular with terror organizations can’t be detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.
It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.