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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."
Like it hasn't been all over the news. If they don't know something as simple as this, how are we supposed to trust that they'll know when a terrorist is lugging explosives on board.
The blog will close (or be neglected) in a month or so after the flood of complaints become too much for them. They might blame the abundance of unreasonable or irrational people on the internet for having a blog up not being practical. (Actually I think it is true a blog is a terrible medium for handling complaints - use a ticketing system instead.) I hope not though, this looks really great on the surface. What's the catch?
In other news, TSA is looking in to claims that some inspectors were unfamiliar soap, shampoo and other personal hygiene products...
What always gets me is the fact I cannot take 100ml of a liquid from outside the airport but I can buy a few Molotov cocktails worth of alcohol in duty free before I get on the plane. Fair enough I might not be able to take the plane down but I could certainly do a lot of damage to the plane and passengers.
Maybe the screeners were right to make people remove electronic goods? Surely I could string together several iPod/laptop batteries to make an effective Taser? Look at all the reports of exploding/igniting batteries in the news, yet it's normally ok to walk onboard with those.
No.
What reasonable suggestions come by, TSA will implement it.
Unless TSA wants to be scrapped completely(being a creation of Bush), they will continue to work with passengers.
TSA does not know everything that goes on in each airport. Its management by exception. they set broad guidelines for safety and leave it at that.
Airport TSA contractors then try to fulfill those outlines, and use whatever means necessary to achieve it.
If it involves strip-searching lindsay each time, so be it is the attitude of contractors. And TSA itself pays them based on the non-incidents they have. So if a contractor was pretty lax and allowed Reid to blow up something, then TSA would not only cut them out of the gracy train, but also blacklist them, thus making sure the contractor stays in line.
Pretty much every government office works that way.
The good point is TSA is taking suggestions seriously enough to warrant direct interruption in contractor jobs to make sure passengers are not complaining.
To what extent this direct intervention would go on, is the question. It will stop when someone gets through security and then TSA comes down hard on even clothes (So the nudist flight company has a field day), or berefit of any incidents, we may even go back to the 1999 era slowly.
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
but as a oversight board run by the very people subject to it.
In other words, the passengers can alert the TSA to practices that don't seem right and its up to the TSA to find out why. Like the part about removing electronics and such from bags. It simply wasn't policy. Yet the TSA as a whole cannot know what every airport out of the ordinary unless there is some easy to access place to get that information. Its even better that it comes from someone other than their own people. I bet the local screeners who were requiring these items removed didn't know they were in the wrong, it probably started with some supervisor or such and spread within the airport because it seemed like a good idea.
I fully expect most suggestions to be ignored because many should be. Some will just be impossible to implement and others would be physicaly impossible (GFY for one). Who knows, someone might suggest to the TSA something they are overlooking. Still I hope the complaints come in as some TSA setups are just damn stupid, having moved beyond abusive. Heaven knows my little old mother and her Shih Tzu are a threat; she hasn't made it through TSA once without them going over the dog and her luggage EVERY SINGLE TIME.
The TSA is yet another bloated and overbearing government organization that will never go away. The employees are unionized which furthers the impossibility of removing this mess. Considering its size I am amazed anyone ever thought we could get rid of it.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
It's right there in the summary.
No policies were changed as a result of blog comments.
What *did* happen was that a few bloggers indicated that TSA employees were searching bags in a manner that is prohibited by the TSA's own rules.
Given just how much organizations like the TSA love rules and procedures, the fact that they clamped down isn't a surprise at all. Although it's a big step for the TSA to actually be accountable to its own rules, we still have a long way to come.
If I walk into Safeway/Kroger/Food Lion, and tell the manager that one of their cashiers is stealing money out of the register, there's no doubt that he'll respond immediately. If I walk in and tell the manager that his store is dirty, and that prices are too high, I doubt I'll receive any sympathy.
-- If you try to fail and succeed, which have you done? - Uli's moose
regular drinking alcohol (i.e. 40-45% by volume) will not ignite if you put a match to it. It requires pre-heating an strong flame source to get it to burn. (Try making a molotov cocktail with room temp vodka, a rag and a match and you won't get very far).
/. analogy of cars is required here - you *cannot* prevent a car being stolen (or aeroplane being blown up), the more you secure you make it , the more tempting a target it becomes to high-end thieves(committed, organised terrorists). But that doesn't mean that locking the doors and setting the alarm (x-rays and searches) is a bad idea......
Of course, stronger alcohols (80-90%) will ignite. And for that reason you'll have a tough job taking them on board a plane (and this goes back way before 9/11). You could possibly try and use aftershave / perfume, but the overpowering smell would probably alert people before you get a chance to make a molotov cocktail.
There simply is no way of covering every single eventuality and still ensuring an economically viable transport system. The whole point in airline security is to prevent some of the obvious risks.
The
echo $SIGNATURE
Unfortunately this practice of having all the electronics out has now spread to the rest of the world, as I posted a month or so ago (http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=400884&cid=21845314). Even if the TSA changes its practices, it won't make much difference for anyone travelling outside the US, unless those authorities choose to copy the TSA in this.
If you are European and don't want to visit the States occasionally, or if you're American and don't want to visit Europe, then I would suggest that you need to expand your world view.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
I regularly wear two almost identical fleeces -- one has a zipper, one does not; also, I fly rather frequently. I've noticed that security *always* asks me to remove my zippered fleece, and never requires me to remove the one without the zipper. Every time, I think that I should wear a trench coat, and nothing more. They ask me to remove my coat, and I calmly comply, and proceed to the metal detector... but something tells me I'd get in *much* worse trouble than indecent exposure...
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.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
The "binary explosive" plot involved TATP, triacetone triperoxide. Synthesis of AP requires time, ventilation, and an ice bath. The precipitate is NOT a liquid, it is a crystaline organic peroxide.
See: http://roguesci.org/chemlab/energetics/acetone_peroxide.html
www.isoHunt.com
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.
These cultists are ardent students of the Book of Genesis in the bible who consider that all evil stems from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden who were tempted to pluck a fruit from God's tree by the Devil in the form of a serpent.
The emblem of this fruit is carried openly upon the mind control boxes possessed by these cultists, who frequently gather in Starbucks and Internet cafes, openly displaying this emblem in order to attract other cultist colleagues into terrorist quangos to plan their revenge upon the rest of us.
Therefore, please keep an eye open for smartly dressed people carrying little white boxes bearing an apple emblem on them - they are not to be trusted. Remove their boxes from them and stamp on them, find out where they live, break into their houses and smach up their huge designer coffee tables and African dance memorabilia.
They MUST be stopped!
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I'm a frequent flyer, and fly around the world. By far, and I really mean by a far far way, the U.S. has the WORST experience you can ever have in an airport, and it's not just the security. I've been stuck in Dhaka Bangladesh without being told what was going on, and didn't feel as screwed as I sometimes feel in the U.S. (Full disclosure, I'm an American living in Japan, I might think twice about pulling off the same thing in the U.S. I did this in Japan.)
Long story short, I got really fed up with the way they handled my carry on, and insist on going through my personal belongings. I fly out of a local airport, and I KNOW that they know me (they see me once a week) and I know them. One day when I had time to spare, I went to the airport early on, and had sweet revenge. I had a laptop in my carry on... along with 3 rather vigorous vibrators, rigged to turn on at full speed when they opened the bag. Inside the bag I also had a homosexual porno magazine, along with a few tubes of personal lubricant, condoms, and latex gloves. Apparently dildo vibrators do not show up in that exact shape on the X-Ray machine, but the motors, wires and controllers, along with the batteries, sure do.
Security: "Can we open your bag?"
Me: "As if I have an option?"
Security: "Sir, this is security. We must open your bag for security purposes."
Me: "Like I said, I don't have a choice now do I. Just make sure you put it all back in place."
The following expression of the officer, along with his mixed reactions as to what to do next, were pure Kodak moments. I really, really would have paid good money to get a copy of the surveillance camera video!! He first tried to close it and just return it to me, then he realized that he better check it out since he was the one that said it had to be done. I think he took about 0.8 seconds of a "thorough" inspection, then closed the bag. However, that wouldn't turn the dildos off, and they were still buzzing away, quite audibly. I gave him the "turn them off. All of them." look, and he fumbled again attempting to get all 3 turned off. Next Monday I fly out again. I can't wait to see what they'll do this time.
So rather then a firebomb you have a nice broken bottle type knife to bring on the plane? Or are they shipping everything in Plastic these days?
Those represent two very differnt types of dangers - someone armed with a knife would be a lot easier for passengers and flight crews to subdue, even with makeshift weapons such as pens, laptops, and fire extinguishers etc. Given today's climate I doubt passengers would be passive anymore in the face of such a threat - witness what happened to the guy who tried to get in a cockpit a while back.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Surprisngly no. I'm a Brit and my first wife was an American. When her parents wanted to visit my mother in law wasn't keen on the transatlantic flight and, as I'd made the trip in the QE2 back in 1959, I suggested looking at going by boat. To my surprise there was nothing that suited. Air travel has completely killed the transatlantic pasenger trade. Ok, so I know that someone will reply to this with a link to 'EasyBoat' or whatever with regular sailings bu when my father in law looked back in 1989 he couldn't find anything.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
yes. have tried it. am a chemist. you can get 40% alcohol to burn but it takes a little heating and a good ignition flame. It's not a great candidate for a molotov cocktail.
echo $SIGNATURE
As the other poster noted, you have to preheat the alcohol. I make "cafe brule" for special occasions, which is basically coffee mixed with brandy, orange extract, and sugar. In order to ignite the brandy, which is standard 80 proof (40%), you heat it in a saucepan for a few minutes. After that, taking a match to it creates a nice blue (and extremely hot) flame, that's actually quite difficult to put out (it takes more than walking by). It's quite impressive when done in the dark, especially when you stir it, and remove a still-flaming spoon from the mixture!
"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Was this a real threat? Yes, there was a very serious plot to blow up planes using liquid explosives in bombs that would have worked to bring down aircraft.
And this is utter horseshit. If someone walked onto a plane with a water bottle filled with nitroglycerin, it would blow up when they tossed it through the XRay machine. So, they would have to make the explosives on the plane, and one of my best friends is a professional chemist and she said "Bullshit". You'd have to hole yourself up in the bathroom for a very long time with a magnetic stirring plate, a very precise dropper, dry ice, and a number of other bottles cups and things, and then in a very programmatic manner make the stuff, all while heaving and bucking on a jet liner and being exposed to some very nasty orders and chemicals. In short: it won't happen and isn't gong to happen and the threats about it are pure bullshit.
The TSA is just there to make people think the gov't is doing something about terrorism, and to keep people afraid. In fact, it's all bullshit, and a way to funnel huge sums of money into the military/industrial complex and keep the nightmare train rolling down the rails to an oblivion as it is headed directly off a cliff.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Wow. What a waste of good booze. What's with you people? Drink it - don't burn it!
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
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!
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
You missed the point. The whole idea is to limit the amount of liquids that could potentially be explosive or mixed together to be explosives because they CANNOT or DO NOT actually test for actual explosives. What other reason could there be?
You know, I'm not the biggest fan of the TSA, but I'm pretty impressed with them getting government approval and hosting a blog where they discuss this type of material. As someone who's been working for government agencies for years, this is definitely something that I haven't seen before nor would of gotten approved through multiple government agencies/directorates.
Kudos to the TSA to spend the time and resources to do something like this. It blows my mind that, in my opinion, a government agency did something practical for once.
You need to rent Around The World In 80 Days - not the fictional movie(s), the A&E documentary with Michael Palin.
/.: How about allowing <s> tags? It would bring the ^W joke somewhat closer to the 21st century.
While regularly scheduled passenger service is not available, there are places you can go to seek passenger accommodations aboard cargo vessels. It's not The Love Boat, but it didn't look nearly as uncomfortable as steerage^Wcoach on a passenger plane.
Note to
That's a Chicago thing, not a US thing.
Which is one of the reasons I left Illinois.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
He'll just build his own plane from the scraps he finds in the dumpster behind the terminal, and get there before his scheduled flight even takes off.
I agree. Some of the TSA really are exactly as you say. I had one stupid fucker angrily point his finger at me and yell "YOU come when I SAY you come". This after I thought he had motioned me to come throught the metal detector. I guess he was gesturing to some other loser behind me. Then he had to stand there and glare at me for a moment. I thought that if I had said anything, it would have been cavity search time.
If the TSA wanted to change, they should look at their screening process to keep from hiring monkeys like this guy.
I've experienced the same abuse in Los Angeles, Portland, and Atlanta. It's a TSA thing, IMO.
Bacardi 151. Or anything else that actually has a flame arrestor on the bottle. You need little more than to take off the flame arrestor and/or pour it into something with more surface area than the next of the bottle and the vapors will ignite with matches or a standard lighter.
Do not fold, spindle or mutilate.
Funny. The comment I posted on the TSA's blog that mentioned various scenarios not addressed by passenger screening never made it past moderation. For example, garroting a passenger or crew member with your shoelaces, or carrying on ammonia and high concentration chlorine in your allowed 3oz containers to create mustard gas. My point was of course that, considering the fraudulent nature of the the Justice Dept's claims regarding the so-called liquid bomber plot, there's absolutely no reason to ban liquids. If we want to cover every potential for violence, we'd have to take away everyone's belts, shoelaces, all liquids, all sharp or pointy objects, trim their fingernails, and bind all passengers' hands and feet.
When the threat of liquid explosives was first perceived, slashdot covered it, with specifics on what the real threat was (triacetone triperoxide) and some real chemistry behind it. It is interesting that now the TSA basically confirms what the original coverage stated, basically "But the Hollywood myth of binary liquid explosives now moves governments and drives public policy".
I have found that everyone who works at Atlanta is an ass. I hate that airport almost as much as I hate Delta.
The cancel button is your friend. Do not hesitate to use it.
You could try just wearing a "nude suit". You know, one of those skin-colored spandex leotards. You get the same basic effect, but you can't technically be arrested, since you *are* dressed.
(extra points for wearing an Afro wig, and mincing about like Richard Simmons once you drop the trench coat.)
Official Heretic from the "Church of Global Warming". Proven right thanks to whistle blowers. AGW = Flat Earth Theory
Funny, I've gone through TSA screening in Dallas, Las Vegas, and Orlando over the past couple of years and have never had a bad experience. Even when I (stupidly) went through security at DFW with an expired drivers license, they were friendly and quick to get me through the extra security.
Maybe in a lot of cases is has as much to do with the attitude of the person being screened as the screener.
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.-Ecclesiastes 1:9
During a brief period when I was flying often, I always got searched, so I statred wearing less and less each time.
FInally I am standing in line, barefoot, really short shorts and a tank top. My small backpack and sandles where going through the machine.
The guy looked at my ticket and start to motion for me to step said and I said.
I going to keep wearing less and less until I am naked or the stop searching me."
He covered his motion and just asked by to continue and have a nice day."
After which I went into the restroom and changed into the clothes in my back pack.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well excuse the shit outta me. It's not my fault you're too lazy to hold your hand UP in the universal sign for stop. Why she was moving her fingers, I'll never know. But there was no reason to be rude or condescending.
TSA folks know they can act like jerks without repercussion, so many of them do. They're not accountable like the police, and they're paid well for a mindless, numbing job, so there's less incentive for them to act responsibly or with respect.
What's stupid is treating an expired ID as being a lack of ID. If your face matches the face on the ID, the government knew who you were at one time. It's not like they just suddenly forget about your driving record if you fail to renew your license, so they shouldn't forget who you are for identification purposes, either. There are no words for how dumb that policy is.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
Try wearing a kilt and going commando, security screening turns into a whole different experience ...