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TSA Bans Toner and Ink Cartridges On Planes
Grond writes "The US has banned toner and ink cartridges from passenger aircraft in the wake of last month's bomb plot. 'The printer cartridge ban affects cartridges over 16 ounces.' No word yet on whether that's a weight or volume measurement or whether it's a per-cartridge or per-passenger limit."
The ban comes alongside a prohibition on air cargo originating from Yemen and Somalia. Bruce Schneier's blog points out another potential consequence from the recent bomb plot: the end of in-flight Wi-Fi.
Nice. Its disturbing to see that the TSA is still behind the curve. Honestly, I am surprised that TSA did not ban underpants after the last idiot that tried to smuggle a bomb in his shorts and if they ban Wi-Fi., that is the only thing that makes cross country flights tolerable these days, especially in coach.
What is it going to take for us to realize that the TSA is simply not effective? All this reactionary effort is not helping us to be competitive in the business space and the costs are not insubstantial. My last flight on Thursday to San Jose got me a grope by the TSA agents who now apparently are permitted to do full on frisk-downs. What's next, squat and cough?
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If it makes you feel better, you can keep playing this game. Or, alternatively, you could just man-up and accept that there will be some risks if you don't live in a shell and let yourself be terrorized.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
The terrorists really did win...
The official announcement is still light on details, but the ban will apply to both carry-on and checked luggage and will affect "domestic and international flights in-bound to the United States." Apparently ink and toner will still be allowed on flights out-bound from the United States.
The distinction between domestic flights and out-bound international flights makes no sense to me. If someone can target a domestic flight by assembling the toner-bomb in the US, why couldn't the same person target an international flight out-bound from the US?
Furthermore, is there any evidence that a toner cartridge and printer were selected for any particular reason? Is there any reason toner cartridges make for a particularly attractive bomb container? If not, this seems worse than useless, since an attacker would simply select a different container while the screeners are busy looking for toner cartridges.
The terrorists keep winning. I'm pretty sure we've done just about all we can do to protect ourselves without severely impeding our basic rights. Locking the cockpit with a bullet-resistant door and only allowing passengers to the gate (after screening) ensures we'll never have a 9/11-type attack again. Everything else is just really making flying annoying and more and more cost/time prohibitive. Basically, they keep winning despite not killing anyone.
I'm far more concerned about TSA's new pat-down procedure than I am about not being allowed to bring toner with me on a plane. Not that the ink/toner cartridge ban makes much sense, but how often do you bring printer supplies with you on a plane?
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
How about, gee, I dunno, profiling passengers? You know, be politically incorrect and actually practice forensic science for a change, and stop harassing and inconveniencing the rest of us?
This would work up until the point terrorists realize they should recruit suicide bombers who don't fit the profile of a terrorist. Actually, indications are that they've already started to do so.
Of course, the TSA can make airplanes more secure by simply expanding the profile to all humans in general. Then you'll have absolute security - sure it's useless, but it'll be secure.
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As someone who has worked in the world's busiest airport during the world's busiest travel times over the past 5 years, every time I see the TSA ban stuff like this or add a new level of security it just makes me shake my head. You know the old saying about locking the barn door after the horse escapes? That doesn't fully capture it. This is more like locking the barn door after the horse escapes through the giant fucking hole in the middle of the barn wall. It does nothing to help what already happened and isn't going to solve the original problem at all.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Let's just cut to the chase and ban people from airplanes. Every single terrorist plot involving hijacking or detonating an explosive aboard an airplane involved at least one person. By completely banning people from flights, it will make air travel completely safe. This has the added benefit of allowing the TSA enough time to give everyone a full-cavity search since they no longer have to worry about being able to depart on time. After all, you never know where those terrorists might hide their explosives. Of course to do all of this in a timely manner, we'll need to double the number of TSA security personnel, but it's probably worth the extra hundred dollars just to know that the flight you can't take is completely safe from terrorists. Can't put a price on piece of mind after all.
The whole system is complete bullshit. You want to know why we haven't had any successful terrorist attacks on planes since 9/11? It hasn't been because of these systems it is because people feel threatened and are willing to do whatever it takes to prevent a terrorist or hijacker from carrying out their plots. Before 9/11 you complied with the hijacker, wound up in Cuba and so long as you didn't piss off the hijacker or were really unlucky you made it off alive. Today, people think that they will either go down with the plane exploding or have the plane run into a building.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
What I don't understand about the screaming to ban deadly packages flying by air mail is that for literally 100 YEARS letter bombs have been on the scene. I myself was in Washington DC in about 1975 when a letter bomb posted by the IRA was delivered to the British Embassy. It blew the hand off a secretary who opened it up. Yes, there was an investigation, the police were called, the IRA condemned etc. etc. but nobody suggested banning packages in the mail or removing the rights of anyone who went into a post office. Heck, these devices from Yemen didn't even explode and we're falling apart with fear!
What the hell is going on? Why has the US become a nation of panty-wetting idiots?
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
how they did it. I work with diesel fuel systems. If I need to send a failed fuel pump back to the factory in Germany, it has to go by boat. The tiny amount of fuel still left in the pump after it is cleaned will get detected, and I will get a friendly visit from law enforcement if I try to send it by plane.
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Yes, it is, and frankly, young Middle Eastern men have damned good reason to be nervous at a security checkpoint.
Because people are fundamentally unforgivable cowards, and much worse, so goddamned gullible that they actually believe the government can keep them safe in the absolute or near-absolute sense of the word. We in the West all talk the Big Talk about how liberty is worth the risks (and indeed, even at this time of year in many places recount how hundreds of thousands of soldiers went off to fight a couple of world wars to stop totalitarian regimes from making us all Very Safe), but no one really means it.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
out of the millions of objects and packages people make and use, printer cartidges are the only ones of the right shape and size to hold explosives.
Israel also had locked cockpit doors back in the 1980s and armed members of law enforcement and/or the military on every flight. Amazingly enough they have managed to secure their airlines without banning bottled water and groping genitalia....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
...are you really happy with the way that President Obama is handling this issue? His Administration hasn't done jack-shit to halt the growth of the security theater industry.
As a leftie, I have to say that I am dismayed at the rapid disintegration of our individual liberties and freedoms since President Obama came to office, and at the utter lack of discipline of the rest of the party, causing the recent realignment of the House.
The checks seem to keep getting written to the TSA and the companies that supply them with their toys (Smiths, etc.) and there is no end in sight. The Democrats have not made any positive moves in this regard, and seem to rank individual liberties (such as being able to carry my fucking Starbucks through security) below pandering to the fear filled right and left. It all sucks.
The reality, as it has already been stated above, is that passengers now know that their own security is in their hands, and given the proclivity of the average American to "throw down" for very little reason, I feel pretty damn safe on an aircraft, and not an iota of that feeling comes from the TSA.
Ocean is land, covered with water.
Oh good! I was wondering when the season premier for Homeland Security Theater was going to be broadcast. This is yet!
In this episode, the knee-jerk reaction is to ban toner and ink cartridges, because like bottled water and cola, some Macgyver type will be able to whip together a fusion bomb in those few hours of flying, without anyone noticing!
Yet another ban for show rather than actual security. How about, gee, I dunno, profiling passengers? You know, be politically incorrect and actually practice forensic science for a change, and stop harassing and inconveniencing the rest of us?
Israel security is serious security, and not theatre, because it concentrates on the passenger, and not their belongings. When a simple pen can be wielded as a weapon in the right hands (or part of a set of eyeglasses, for that matter, or a screwdriver, or a knife from first class sharpened with a completely inconspicuous sharpening stone) it becomes clear that the belongings carried with a person do not matter nearly as much as the person and their intent. Reading intent can be done. The Israelis do it very, very well. Exceedingly well, actually, as anyone who has flown out of Tel Aviv can relate, especially if they were paying attention.
I am a scientist, one of the very few professions accorded a kind of informal diplomatic special status (when two states are leaning toward establishing diplomatic ties, they typically start with artistic and scientific exchanges). I was given what felt like the third degree when leaving Tel Aviv:
"Why were you in Israel?" ... just a mintute ... here it is."
"I am a scientist, and I was invited to give a lecture."
(looking me up and down:) "You were invited to give a lecture?"
"Yes."
(icy tone) "Why would they invite *you*?"
"Because there was an international seminar in my field, and I do good work."
(continued icily) "Oh, really. Do you have a letter of invitation?"
"Yes, here it is."
"Do you have the program from the seminar?"
"Yes, here."
(getting accusitive) "Why can't I find your name?"
"Um, it's
"What was the topic of your lecture?"
"Computational Neuroscience."
(pointedly) "Please give us the lecture."
"I'm sorry, what?"
(same inflection) "Please give us the lecture."
"OK... " (I start the lecture and am allowed to get quite a few sentences in to it before I'm stopped; they were in fact paying attention to what I was saying, although not distinctly interested in the content.)
"Where did you pack your bags?"
and so on for ten minutes. They wanted to know where I stayed, how I knew about that particular hotel, where I went during my free time, etc. When speaking with other travellers, I've since learned that's pretty standard. Did you notice above when I wrote about paying attention? There were two interrogators performing the interview for each passenger. One doing the talking, and one observing. The one talking said that she was a trainee, and that's why there were two. I've since learned that's standard operating procedure: it works to make the interviewee think of the interviewer in sympathetic light. Damned skilled.
That, my friends, is security. Banning containers of liquid or gel larger than 125 mL isn't. Hiding one's thoughts from skilled interrogation is much, much harder to do than hiding physical contraband.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
Why has the US become a nation of panty-wetting idiots?
Yes. It's a consequence of the way we've been brought up, protected from everything bad and even bad thoughts, so once something does actually enter our consciousness it consumes everything. Like someone who's lived in a bubble away from all germs all of a sudden meeting the common cold.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Is it wrong that part of me is hoping some would-be terrorist puts a bomb inside a screaming baby?
http://www.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/17/concern.pdf
I am not going to go through one of those machines.
VERY scary stuff here.....
Ian Ameline
...when was the last time you heard about a successfully thwarted attempt? You offer lack of evidence to the contrary as proof, which is utterly absurd.
While I agree with your points I think the real issue here is the definition of "effective". In this context it does not simply mean stopping terrorist acts it means stopping them with minimal impact to air travel. After all you could stop all terrorist attacks on planes by banning all commercial air travel - but this is hardly an effective solution. The reason that TSA are ineffective is that they cause a massive inconvenience for travellers and, of all the terrorist plots caught, none (to my knowledge) have been caught by their security measures and all have been caught by better intelligence. This is clear evidence that intelligence is the most effective way to solve the problem since it has close to zero impact on the traveller and has been shown to work.