TSA Changes Screening Based on Blog Suggestion

hhavensteincw writes "Less than a week after it launched a new blog aimed at gathering suggestions from air travelers to improve airport security processes, the Transportation Security Administration changed a practice where some screeners were requiring passengers to remove all electronics, including Blackberries, iPods, and cords from carry-on luggage. Seems the TSA didn't know this was going on, and after the question was raised on its blog, it clamped down on the practice. The TSA also provided a detailed description of their reasoning behind the liquids policy. We discussed the opening of the blog last week."

Comments

Re:Liquids and a /. car analogy.

[SharpFang]

But that doesn't mean that locking the doors and setting the alarm (x-rays and searches) is a bad idea......

Unless you spend over 15 minutes in front of the door fumbling with the multiple locks and alarms, you call in locksmith twice a month to let you in, and you got arrested twice for attempt to get inside your own car.

Problem is with hijacking, not bombing.

[v(*_*)vvvv]

The true threat with aircraft security is hijacking. A hijacker can take over an aircraft and use the plane as a missile. As someone pointed out earlier, if the goal was to just kill people, terrorists could just blow up prior to reaching the security check point or suicide bomb a crowd somewhere else. There are plenty of places to just blow up that would kill more people that can fit on a plane.

If hijacking is the real threat, then the cockpit is what needs to be secured. Have it lock automatically prior to boarding, and have it unlock automatically after the plane is emptied. If terrorists can't get to the cockpit, then they cannot take over a craft.

Take two bottles onto the plane?

[itsdapead]

But that complexity, from what I can gather, is precisely the point (according to the TSA blog post) of restricting the liquids in secure areas of airport terminals.

Except the argument went something along the lines of:

Q: Why can't we take more than 100ml of liquid on board?
A: Because its possible you might mix up a binary liquid explosive on the plane!

Q: So why can't several people work together and each bring 100ml of binary explosive makin's?
A: Because you need the other people to carry the ice bath, liquid nitrogen, bunsen burner, pipette, magnetic stirrer, thermostatically controlled heater, fume cupboard and all the other lab gear you need to successfully mix up a binary liquid explosive; so making them carry the ingredients in several 100ml bottles is going to be the last straw that makes them abandon their dastardly plan!

Q: But they could all bring on small quantities pre-mixed explosives?
A: No, because liquid explosives are too unstable to carry pre-mixed.

Q: So you're confirming that its nigh-on impossible to blow up a plane with liquid explosive?
A: (mumbles) - we've found several bad 'uns manufacturing TATP.

Q: Correction - you found pieces of several people who attempted to make TATP in the comfort of their own homes - oh, PS, TATP isn't a liquid.
A: Oh look - butterfly!

Re:Didn't know?

[afidel]

It's not that the devices themselves are a threat per se, it's that the complex xray signature of an electronics device with a battery makes it difficult to interpret what you are seeing when there are things above and below them. Therefore they have you remove them to get a cleaner picture of both your luggage and the devices. I'm surprised this isn't national policy considering that laptops are already singled out to the point of them having to be out of any type of satchel.