TSA Saw My Junk, Missed Razor Blades, Says Adam Savage

An anonymous reader writes "The TSA isn't the most respected of governmental agencies right now, but at least it comes by the poor reputation honestly. The lack of standards, inconsistent application of searches and policies, and occasional rude agent all combine to make flying an unpleasant experience. It's often derided as 'security theater,' which describes the experience of Mythbuster Adam Savage before a recent flight. Savage was put through the full-body scanner, and while he joked that it made his penis feel small, no one seemed to notice the items he was carrying on his person. The video tells the rest of the story."

Comments

TSA Security Theater

[illumastorm]

Next, on TSA Security Theater we have the story of the man who manages to bring 12 inch razor blades through security checks. Coming up... Savage Blades.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Dayze!Confused]

I flew on an international flight and transfered in LA to go to PDX. When I got home, I opened up my carry on bag and found a box cutter sitting in the front pouch. So much for security.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Do to the Holiday Rush the TSA will require that passengers grope each other.

That would be "Due to", not "Do to".

I apologize for the previous AC, who is an idiot. I do, however, think that random groping, assisted by the TSA, can only lead to harmony, and so, I commend the TSA for this, and say: Grope away!

Re:TSA Security Theater

[MightyMartian]

Wait until next year, when they'll have security circle jerks and security girl on girl action...

Y'know, to keep us safe.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Lucky75]

Yep, same happened to me. I had my leatherman in my backpack by accident. It's the one with several different long, sharp knives.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[SatanicPuppy]

I did that too. It was a shitty plastic one, and I'd long since forgotten about it. Zipped right through though.

I only look like a terrorist in England though (I look pretty irish), so I very seldom get stopped for anything.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[mabhatter654]

They need to remake Lost for the after 9/11 airport security.

This is where the flight is properly screened and there is nothing vaguely "dangerous". In this version everybody dies in the first week, no boxcutters, knifes, or manuals, no Boy Scouts allowed on the flight to save them!!!

Re:TSA Security Theater

[LynnwoodRooster]

Even better, I just got back from Shanghai. I got bumped to business class from Tokyo to PDX, and dinner was sirloin steak. Complete with steak knife with a 5" serrated blade, a 9" total length metal butter knife, and a full-size metal dinner fork. Just given to me for sitting in the front section.

.
Who needs to smuggle on your own knife; buy a first class or business class ticket and get a nice, sharp, big knife given to you!

Re:TSA Security Theater

[flyingkillerrobots]

El-Al (Israel) gives knives to everyone, not just first class. They've been making fun of the other airlines about it for years. If everybody has knives, then a terrorist with a knife is no more dangerous than he'd be on the ground, assuming the knife cannot be used to somehow quickly down the plane.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[MoonBuggy]

You don't even need to be up at the front - as I've said many times, until they stop allowing glass on planes (and even the lowly economy customers are trusted with that) I won't believe for a second that they're particularly concerned about blades.

Not that I'm saying they should be concerned about blades; the threat from terrorism of any kind (in the US, at least) is minimal, and any hijacker nowadays would be taken out by 150 pissed off passengers before they could get anywhere near commandeering the aircraft anyway.

What I object to is the classic security theatre, pretending there's a threat and then pretending to fix it. At least if they were honest and actually did prevent any possible attack vector, it would be so onerous that it might finally provoke some kind of sizeable backlash against the whole pointless process.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

I flew on an international flight and transfered in LA to go to PDX. When I got home, I opened up my carry on bag and found a box cutter sitting in the front pouch. So much for security.

Pretty much the same story, except passing through ATL and Reagan Intl.

However, I'd left a loaded .380 auto and two full clips in mine. No, it wasn't one of my clips that was found on that one flight that's hit the news.

.

Yeah, I feel safer with the groping. /s

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we should give each passenger a handgun and 12 rounds of ammunition.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[InlawBiker]

You don't really need a weapon at all. Just turn on any electrical device that gives off an RF signal while the plane ascends. Then watch that fucker go up in a firey fireball of death!

Re:TSA Security Theater

[pete6677]

TSA is only concerned with the latest threat of the day, which still happens to be liquids. They'll find a water bottle right away, only to ignore the hunting knife right next to it.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[mellon]

On Lost, they got most of the stuff they used for survival out of the checked luggage.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[mellon]

This assumes that the cabin crew counts the knives when collecting the refuse. Otherwise, the terrorist can just palm it and wait for everyone else to be disarmed.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[JWSmythe]

    Well, not really. They were already dead, they just didn't realize it. Anything could have been there. They could have found a VW Bus with a funky logo on the front, that starts up, has gas, and is drivable after sitting for decades, and it would have been perfectly acceptable.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[quenda]

That's nothing. They let me take a glass bottle of duty-free whisky onto the plane. One swing and that jagged glass is a lot scarier than your silly box-cutter or leatherman.

I asked one of the goons about this seeming paradox, and she said "If I had my way, you wouldn't be able to take that either.". I was tempted to ask her about all the terrorist glassing attacks, but I kinda wanted to get on the flight.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they give you a knife: they're just not going to give you any ammunition for it.

They'd never give you a loaded knife. That would be needlessly dangerous.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[kd5zex]

What airline are you flying? I don't think I have ever seen proper dinnerware on the lesser side of the curtain.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Ksevio]

There's also the scary guys with machine guns to worry about for terrorists. That's a bit off putting for a guy with a little steak knife.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[ScentCone]

The TSA confiscates knives and guns from passengers at airport security screenings every day.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[TheJediGeek]

Your ideas intrigue me and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Sosetta]

"...it would be so onerous that it might finally provoke some kind of sizeable backlash against the whole pointless process."

Which is exactly what the virtual strip search is doing now.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Who needs to smuggle on your own knife; buy a first class or business class ticket and get a nice, sharp, big knife given to you!

That airline steak was probably the most dangerous item on the plane. The last time I had steak on a plane, I though t it had a higher density that depleted Uranium. Great for anti-tank munition. Whack someone on the head with that, and they would have gone to meet his or her maker.

a 9" total length metal butter knife,

Brilliant! So, you hold up the butter knife to the Land of Lakes chick on the butter package, and scream, "Nobody moves! Or the Native American gets it!"

"Um, does anyone know how to do that trick, where the chick looks like she is dropping her tits out?"

Re:TSA Security Theater

[PolygamousRanchKid]

a 9" total length metal butter knife, and a full-size metal dinner fork.

Oh, I missed that one: Now I know what that Yoda fellow meant, when he said, "Use the fork, Luke, use the fork!"

"Hey! Youse listn' to me?"

God, I sometimes miss South Philly.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[quacking duck]

Never mind the juice glasses, think about the bottles of wine and liqueur from duty free stores (within the secure zone), and the shards of sharp glass they can make.

Why aren't they banned? Apparently people's rights are fair game, but the economic well being of those duty free stores must be protected.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[camperdave]

ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Whenever I see your sig I want to change it to:
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented using a web camera.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[bhcompy]

Did the same, but the TSA dude found it and threw it away

Re:TSA Security Theater

[ThunderBird89]

Actually, Adam's friends tested this: the signals, especially the 900MHz band, did interfere with unshielded electronics, but modern planes are mostly shielded. Thus, this limitation is being lifted in Europe.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[niftydude]

Not just duty free - but the economic well being of all airport stores.
I once had a pair of tweezers confiscated from me for a domestic flight.
Passed through security, walked into the airport newsagency, and was able to buy a new pair within 5 minutes.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up. Why is this funny? With most commercial aviation going to software based control and fly by wire, this is an actual threat. With a few lithium ion batteries and a small make shift EMP you could knock planes out of the sky before people even knew what happened. This is one of many attack vectors that our current security scheme doesn't even attempt to prevent.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[mysidia]

Never mind the juice glasses, think about the bottles of wine and liqueur from duty free stores (within the secure zone), and the shards of sharp glass they can make.

Someone can get bottles of wine containing flammable Alcohol into the secure zone. Do they run every drop of fluid through a spectrometer?

How can it possibly be known that an insider working with bad guys hasn't secretly replaced the Wine in one of the bottles with a liquid explosive material?

Re:TSA Security Theater

[wilkinc]

The last time I had steak on a plane

I think you mean 'motherfuckin' steaks on a motherfuckin' plane'

Re:TSA Security Theater

[AGMW]

Of course Israel had quite a lot of trouble back in the days when hijacking meant "fly this plane to Beirut!" where ransom demands were made and their response was to publicly claim that all Israeli people were considered "troops" in such situations and at the earliest opportunity the Israeli special forces would storm the plane. This happened once or twice and the hijackers realised they would never succeed. I'm sure some Israeli people were harmed in those stormed planes but the number saved subsequently made it "worth it" for the society, if not the individuals.

The same is true for current kidnappings and piracy (Somali pirates, etc). If the World could decide that paying off such people was now illegal and special forces would be deployed in all instances there would be some casualties but ultimately it would stop them doing it!
I would also suggest helping the poor nations could also assist in making piracy a less attractive career prospect.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[AGMW]

Not just duty free - but the economic well being of all airport stores. I once had a pair of tweezers confiscated from me for a domestic flight. Passed through security, walked into the airport newsagency, and was able to buy a new pair within 5 minutes.

A mate was flying back (to the UK) from Ireland (the Republic of) and had to buy those stupid plastic bags to put toiletries in. 1 euro for two. He said he only needed one, but the 'guard' insisted he had to buy two! The guy in front said he only needed one of the two he'd just bought and my mate could have the other one, but the guard said NO! He had to buy his own bags!

Re:TSA Security Theater

[mcvos]

That's nothing. They let me take a glass bottle of duty-free whisky onto the plane. One swing and that jagged glass is a lot scarier than your silly box-cutter or leatherman.

I asked one of the goons about this seeming paradox, and she said "If I had my way, you wouldn't be able to take that either.". I was tempted to ask her about all the terrorist glassing attacks, but I kinda wanted to get on the flight.

Of course you have to be able to take bottles of alcohol on the plane. People make a lot of money selling those!

I'm not just joking either. I'm convinced that security takes a backseat to profit. Harsh, inconvenient, invasive, even ineffective security is perfectly acceptable, as long as it doesn't cut into the profits of commercial interests.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Vectormatic]

i have an interesting story on those water bottles, back in 2007 i went to India, flying from Schiphol (Amsterdam airport, the netherlands). On the first flight i was not allowed any liquids over a certain capacity, the whole "liquid bomb" spiel. On my flight back, after passing through all security checks, it occured to me i still had a 1 litre bottle of water in my backpack. To make sure i asked the (dutch, was flying with KLM) stewardess about it, as i expected not to be allowed to take it with me, and that those indian security guys must have made a mistake.

As it turns out, while it is not allowed to blow up a plane flying from amsterdam to new dehli with your fancy liquid bomb, they have no problem what so ever with you smuggling the same liquid explosive device on board the same aircraft (with presumably the same sort of people on board) traveling in the opposite direction

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

They can make fun of other airlines cos they are a pissant airline with about 12 flights (yes 12 whole flights) a day. They have a non-scalable approach.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[mcvos]

An armed guard on the plane is probably a lot more effective than all the invasive security procedures. Won't help against explosives of course, so add sniffer dogs at the airport. That's all the security you'll need.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[mcvos]

Sometimes I think they don't allow you to take your own drink with you just to force you to buy more expensive drinks at the airport.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[nospam007]

My drinks are in the little bottles in the ziplock, I rarely wash my hair on planes.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[nospam007]

The scanner only detects (sharp) edges.
Adam had his blades in a round container, you can put anything in round non-metallic containers and the scanner won't see it.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[The Bender]

Funny. I count 88 ElAl flights today either arriving at or departing from Ben Gurion Airport. http://www.iaa.gov.il/Rashat/en-US/Airports/BenGurion/InformationforTravelers/OnlineFlights.htm

Re:TSA Security Theater

[DrXym]

An easy improvised weapon for defenders on a plane would be the seat belt. Most are easy to detach and have a nice heavy piece of metal on the end to swing around.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[teh kurisu]

As long as you don't swing too hard. You wouldn't look very threatening holding a cork.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[DrBoumBoum]

And a bazooka for good measure.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, that's another myth. The planes aren't terribly RF sensitive and certainly won't crash from a couple of instruments glitching during takeoff. The main reason they ask you to turn off radios is cellphone cells don't like fast traveling nodes.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[TheTurtlesMoves]

That;s not true. The scanners pick up the difference in composition. Metal and ceramic is very different from cotton (cloth) and your flesh. X-rays back scatter quite differently from these different materials, and hence show up in the scanner. Same principal applies to mm wave scanners.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[GameboyRMH]

Well that's no problem, everyone knows terrorists only fly economy class, duh...

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Dunbal]

An armed guard on the plane is probably a lot more effective than all the invasive security procedures.

      Not to mention a locked cockpit door that no one can get through - at least in the couple hours it might take to land somewhere.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Dunbal]

This is where you say "I need to speak to your supervisor".

Re:TSA Security Theater

[GameboyRMH]

And yet nobody is killed! How interesting!

Seriously though, I would support giving every adult on a plane a box cutter as a security measure when boarding the aircraft. They don't even need to hand them back in, there can be a bin for you to drop them in as you leave the aircraft, but if you don't, so what? If anyone tries hijacking an aircraft, or blowing one up in an action that requires more than a second of suspicious activity, they'll look like a casualty of an anime action scene in under 3 seconds.

Aircraft terrorism: solved.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[tehcyder]

I only look like a terrorist in England though (I look pretty irish)

Er, that war's over bar a few nutters. Nobody in England now thinks Irish=Terrorist.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[tehcyder]

This is where you say "I need to speak to your supervisor".

And that is when you end up being questioned for a couple of hours so that you miss your plane, if you're not careful.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Thinboy00]

This assumes that the cabin crew counts the knives when collecting the refuse. Otherwise, the terrorist can just palm it and wait for everyone else to be disarmed.

Simple, don't collect the knives until the plane is on the ground!

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Abe Skray]

I'm convinced that security takes a backseat to profit. Harsh, inconvenient, invasive, even ineffective security is perfectly acceptable, as long as it doesn't cut into the profits of commercial interests.

I agree! Profit at the expense of security is one thing, but how about profit in the guise of security? That seems to be the only reasonable explanation for the TSA's adoption of full body scanners. Do they make flying safer? No. Do they make it easier for TSA "officers" to do their jobs? Hell no. So who is benefiting from them? Full body scanner vendors and Michael Chertoff, that's who.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[thoromyr]

It was before the current security craze (so long ago that when you went to pick someone up you could actually meet them at the gate), but I went through airport security wearing a long leather coat and tripped the metal detector. They were nice about it, ran the coat through the carry on/x-ray and had me walk through it again. I tripped it a few more times as each time I would remember another metal article to remove. They ended up using a wand on me and I was cleared to go.

When I left with the person I was picking up I happened to put my hand in the coat pocket and nearly froze. Stuffed in the pocket was one of my pistols -- not a real firearm, but a metal barrel and working metal action replica. I can't believe the metal barrel, trigger assembly, hammer, etc. wouldn't have showed on the x-ray and not *looked* like a working firearm -- they must not have been looking. Why bother putting the coat through if they weren't even going to look?

Security at airports has always been piss poor and the current theatre hasn't improved it one bit.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[TheCRAIGGERS]

An armed guard on the plane is probably a lot more effective than all the invasive security procedures. Won't help against explosives of course, so add sniffer dogs at the airport. That's all the security you'll need.

And what happens the first time one of these mandatory guards turns out to be a terrorist? Not only that, but this guy would be an obvious first target for anybody wanting to take over a plane. Also, dogs can't sniff out everything.

Something in that reminds me of the "nobody needs guns, just let the police handle it" argument.

Sorry, just playing devils advocate today, I guess.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[bluefoxlucid]

A wine bottle is a bludgeon weapon and airline seats are too tight for Aikido so I guess you get to lose your arm when a Penjak Silat guru decides to tear it off.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[1_brown_mouse]

thats_the_joke.jpg

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Dorkmaster Flek]

Seriously. People seem to forget that the 9/11 hijackers used bloody razors to hijack the planes. The only reason that worked is because people had become so ingrained with the idea of "Just let them take the plane and do what they want. They'll just fly it somewhere, and then we'll all go home, at worst." They never thought that they would actually be trying to crash the planes. The idea of a suicide pilot just didn't occur to them. The passengers could have easily overpowered them without getting seriously injured. Once the people on the fourth flight knew what was going on, that's exactly what happened. Granted, by that point, it had the effect of causing the plane to crash because the pilots were incapacitated, but if they had risen up as soon as they tried to take control, it never would have gotten to that point. Now that this has happened once, I guarantee you it will never, ever happen again. The second somebody tries to hijack a plane with a gorram razor, they'll be torn to shreds.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[dave420]

That's not going to stop someone blowing the plane up with secreted explosives. And every incident of air-rage where someone had to be sedated is now going to end up with a frenzied knife attack.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[dave420]

The electronics are rather well shielded even on relatively-old aircraft. You'd probably make the on-board entertainment shit the bed, though. "Fucking Jim Belushi AGAIN!!! ALLAHU ACKBAR!"

Re:TSA Security Theater

[KnownIssues]

Come on. Everyone knows terrorists don't fly business class! They are a poor, raggedy peoples who can barely afford economy plane fare.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[KnownIssues]

The difference is, Israel is interested in preventing actual terrorism.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Golddess]

And how, exactly, are the terrorists going to sneak a machine gun onto the plane?

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

You apparently didn't see the final episode, did you? The island was real, and they were alive while on it. The alternate (future) universe was also (more) real, but they were dead while in it.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Dunbal]

And that is when you end up being questioned for a couple of hours

      They are not the police or customs, and they have no right to "hold you for questioning". If they unlawfully detain you, without arresting you, without charging you, and cause you to miss your flight, then they owe you a plane ticket. Refusing to buy a ziploc bag is not a crime.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[BigSes]

This happens much more often then you would think. My personal example is going to the US from Grantley Adams International (BGI) in Barbados: 2 bottles of hot sauce, 20oz bottled water (already opened), carried right on board the same (large US carrier) flight home. Bottle of water IN MY HAND. No questions asked, not stopped in any way.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[budgenator]

How about:
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is immoral because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallatious argument.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[IndustrialComplex]

You think those dogs will be trained to sniff explosives? That's a laugh. Sniffing for explosives is hard, and as demonstrated by the lack of planes exploding, rare.

The dogs will be trained to sniff for Marijuana.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[CheerfulMacFanboy]

That's nothing. They let me take a glass bottle of duty-free whisky onto the plane. One swing and that jagged glass is a lot scarier than your silly box-cutter or leatherman.

I asked one of the goons about this seeming paradox, and she said "If I had my way, you wouldn't be able to take that either.". I was tempted to ask her about all the terrorist glassing attacks, but I kinda wanted to get on the flight.

Terrorists? I guess the "goon" was more worried about air rage by drunk passengers. Which is a bigger problem than terrorism.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[farble1670]

pit 1-3 terrorist with steak and butter knives against 30 angry passengers. i know where i'll put my bet. the terrorist might be able to would 1 passenger, and the 29 others would tear them apart.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Uzuri]

They're making you give up your Boy Scouts now?

Wow. Glad I just drive everywhere.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[JWSmythe]

    That isn't the way I understood it. Everyone on the flight were already dead. That's why they were on the plane (or the idea of the plane).

    The fact that the island was unreachable from land, there was no communication, was because it simply didn't exist in the "real" world, as we understand it. The flight was symbolic, like Charon's ferry crossing the River Styx. It could easily be understood that the island was their purgatory, where the souls had an opportunity to be cleansed before passing on.

    In the last episode, their parallel existences merged, once they had settled their unfinished business, and they moved on into the light. The "plane" was shown crashed on the beach, with no indication that anyone had ever been there. So the symbolic ferry landed, and the spirits finished their existence before moving on.

    Any irregularities throughout the show can be easily explained as subconscious decisions by those occupying that purgatory. Impossible things became perfectly practical (like the Dharma food airdrops, smoke monsters, impossible explosions, and even the island moving) since they were all imaginary. Conflicts of the subconscious fought each other (like 40+ people in the same dream, and they are all trying to control it) until they all built the place to "move on" (the church in Los Angeles).

    Or not. It was a crappy ending, to a show that lived years past the original story line, and the writers had to create something new and interesting, and then were told "ok, now wrap it up." I believe it was Jon Stewart on The Daily Show who gave a parity of the writers reaction. It went something like "ABC has announced that Lost was continuing for three more seasons. The writers response was "Oh fuck."" :)

Re:TSA Security Theater

[DavidTC]

What I've suggested they do it make the arms, or some other part, of the seats detachable.

Aka, give everyone a ten pound club. See how well someone with a boxcutter does against that.

And the nice thing is it works to take people down, but you can't hold it to their throat. Well, you can, but it's no more useful than your hands. It only works to hurt people, not hold them hostage. It's not even particularly good at killing people, just hurting them.

'In the event of an water landing, your seat can be used a flotation device. In the event of a hijacking, your armrest can be used as a baseball bat.'

Re:TSA Security Theater

[DavidTC]

The same is true for current kidnappings and piracy (Somali pirates, etc). If the World could decide that paying off such people was now illegal and special forces would be deployed in all instances there would be some casualties but ultimately it would stop them doing it!

I've actually seriously suggested this for all hostage situations.

Someone took hostages? Give them exactly five minutes to release everyone. That's it. Five minutes. You are not negotiating. If they release them, they will arrested. If they do not release them, they will be killed, regardless of what hostages they have. (Killed in self-defense, that is. I'm not suggesting any extra-legal solutions here, just that they will be stormed with guns blazing.)

Then do it. Sure, do it with caution and try to save everyone you can, but if someone is holding a gun to someone's head, shoot them anyway. If they're using human shields, shoot through them.

Do it again.

Do it again.

...and around that point the people who would be planning to take hostages suddenly decide, um, maybe that's not a useful plan.

And almost NO ONE WILL EVER TAKE A HOSTAGE AGAIN. A few people will forget, or panic, and take a hostage, and you remind them a) you're not going to give them anything or let them leave, and b) they have exactly five minutes to stop that....they've seen the news and know what happens at the five minute mark.

If we assume that one out of five hostage situations go bad anyway, statistically, you came out ahead after the first fifteen situations didn't happen, or were resolved when the hostage taker, when given the five minute warning, gave up.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[GameboyRMH]

Huh not a bad idea. Maybe make it telescoping to give the wielder some more leverage.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[bigngamer92]

I was about to call this the "Free Market Solution" but really its just applying the common sense of the second amendment to solve a seemingly unrelated problem.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[DavidTC]

My first thought was actually handing out retractable batons that did that, but I realized that's cost weight and you'd have to get them back, neither of which is a good idea.

I suspect there's somewhere on a seat that already has a pole with a weight at the end, so doesn't need to telescope, and needs very little modification to be detachable.

When I said armrest, I was thinking of the ones on a flight I was on that were two pads, a front one and a back one. If the front one could be slide forward and come off, and a hypothetical pole that attached it to the back pad came with it, you would have almost a cricket bat. A round end, and a paddle on the other. Hit someone with the edge of that and they're in serous trouble.

While longer is better somewhat, at some point it becomes counterproductive. I wouldn't want to have an actual baseball bat, for example, that would often be too long to swing.

Re:TSA Security Theater

[Anonymous Coward]

You're a nutter. Lost began its run in 2004, set in 2004.

Anthropomorphalicism

[cosm]

and while he joked that it made his penis feel small

But how did it make him feel? Stop anthropomorphizing penises, they hate it when you do that!

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[Anthony]

Modded off-topic? Bizarre. Grammar jokes are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[omnibit]

You missed the joke. It's from today's dog v cats

http://slashdot.org/story/10/11/23/144228/Oxford-Scientists-Say-Dogs-Are-Smarter-Than-Cats

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[fishexe]

Modded off-topic? Bizarre. Grammar jokes are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

No, posters that think they're being clever while confusing grammar with semantics are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[BadAnalogyGuy]

No I aren't!

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[martin-boundary]

Stop anthropomorphizing penises, they hate it when you do that!

Stop generalizing! I once saw a porn movie with a talking penis in it, he didn't seem angry at all, rather happy most of the time actually...

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Anonymous Cowards are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[baxnick]

Nah, pedantry is the heart and soul of Slashdot.

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple. All-Purpose. Protest. Stick Out Your Tongue

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[Arthur Grumbine]

Nah, pedantry is the heart and soul of Slashdot.

You're way off, buddy. Contrarian comments and self-referential satire are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[azalin]

Snakes On A Plane!

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[Anonymous Coward]

No, posters that think they're being clever while confusing grammar with semantics are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

How does that affect GP's post?

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[tehcyder]

Modded off-topic? Bizarre. Grammar jokes are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

No, posters that think they're being clever while confusing grammar with semantics are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

If you mess up grammar, meaning becomes confused.

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[greyline]

I think you mean genitalizing.

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[fishexe]

Modded off-topic? Bizarre. Grammar jokes are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

No, posters that think they're being clever while confusing grammar with semantics are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

If you mess up grammar, meaning becomes confused.

Sure, but OP didn't mess up grammar. He anthropomorphized his penis. His grammar was perfectly fine.

Re:Anthropomorphalicism

[Anonymous Coward]

Modded off-topic? Bizarre. Grammar jokes are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

No, posters that think they're being clever while confusing grammar with semantics are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

No, posters that affect a stance of ignorance with regards to internet humor are the heart and soul of Slashdot. That would be me.

The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[KublaiKhan]

The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since the '01 hijackings is the increased vigilance and response of the flying public.

The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.

Go back to pre-'01 screening procedures, and empower passengers with good-samaritan style legislation that exempts persons from prosecution for acts they genuinely believe to be in prevention of a terrorist incident.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since the '01 hijackings is the increased vigilance and response of the flying public.

The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.

You there, stop making sense. TSA policy isn't governed by common sense. TSA policy is governed by rules, and if you don't like the rules, you're free not to fly. Take it directly from the bastard who designed it. (No, not Chertoff. He's just in it for a quick buck.) I mean the other bastard, the one who said...

"I tell you, freedom and human rights in America are doomed. The US Government will lead the American people - and the West in general - into an unbearable hell and a choking life." - The TSA Security Policy Architect, as interviewed on CNN in November 2001.

He's not giving interviews on CNN anymore, just little photos and audio tapes. Here's a snippet from his 2010 interview.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[damburger]

Oh, they are far from useless.

They make an unreasonable request, you comply without thinking. They bark orders at you, you avoid eye contact and meekly take it. They are training you.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[maxume]

The upgraded cockpit doors have also probably had some deterrent effect (it's now a whole lot harder to make the plane do something the pilots don't agree with, so less interesting to try).

And you better write your law really carefully (even without a law, people that feel strongly that something needs to be done can simply take responsibility for their actions).

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Black Parrot]

The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.

I've been thinking about that for years, but never said anything because I didn't want to give anyone any ideas.

Go back to pre-'01 screening procedures, and empower passengers with good-samaritan style legislation that exempts persons from prosecution for acts they genuinely believe to be in prevention of a terrorist incident.

Post-911, an attempting hijacker wouldn't live a minute if the rest of us were carrying pointy things.

Might not anyway, unless the TSA starts confiscating pencils and umbrellas. Almost anything will serve as a weapon in a pinch.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[jcr]

The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since the '01 hijackings is the increased vigilance and response of the flying public.

Exactly. The perps have given up on attempting to hijack aircraft, the last two attacks (shoe bomber and underpants bomber) only tried to destroy the plane. The cockpit doors have been reinforced.

I'm convinced that the whole purpose of the TSA is one big Milgram experiment to find out just how far we can be pushed before we resist. I'm rather disappointed that it got this far.

-jcr

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[h4rr4r]

Your bare hands and the those of your fellow travelers will be fine weapons in such a situation. Not much the TSA will be able to do about that.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[KublaiKhan]

<p>I've been thinking about that for years, but never said anything because I didn't want to give anyone any ideas.</p>
</quote>

I've been -saying- that for years and it still hasn't happened. I figured that if I saw the possibility within five minutes of seeing the line, anyone else would be able to see it without too much trouble. I've been suspecting that either the so-called 'threat' is far, far overblown or these terrorists are complete and total idiots.

Another of the obvious plots: shoot up (or toss bombs, or suicide-bomb, or carbomb, or...well, you get the point) a Black Friday opening line or three on the east coast at a big box store.

Suddenly, everyone stays home rather than shopping; the economy is ruined for at least the last quarter. Much easier than trying to hijack a plane.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Kazymyr]

Mod parent up.

Very true. The lines at the entrance to security checkpoints must be a terrorist's dream. A suicide bomber could rake up hundreds of casualties there.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[WinstonWolfIT]

"Well he looked like a terrorist to me..."

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[MoonBuggy]

And yet they haven't done so, which is further evidence that either the pool of competent potential terrorists is vanishingly small or the intelligence agencies are doing their jobs well and preventing plots from getting off the ground (so to speak). In either case, it would appear that the TSA are unnecessary.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[OrangeTide]

straitjackets for all passengers.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Atriqus]

Another of the obvious plots: shoot up (or toss bombs, or suicide-bomb, or carbomb, or...well, you get the point) a Black Friday opening line or three on the east coast at a big box store.

That's not effective terrorism. No one will know if it was a terrorist attack or someone just wanted to thin the line to get to the linens department before the good stuff was picked over.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Al Dimond]

I have a feeling bombing a store on Black Friday wouldn't stop people from shopping. At the Wal-Mart in suburban New York where the doors were literally "busted" and people trampled to death (this was Black Friday 2008 IIRC) the shoppers just kept shopping. The police tried to clear the store for an investigation and were unable to do it. Not one of humanity's brighter moments.

Point being, if one of those crowds was bombed it probably wouldn't even stop people from shopping at that store. Enterprising family members of the dead would be out in the parking lot auctioning off their newly-unneeded vehicles. Black Friday is a scourge more evil, and more powerful, than terrorism.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

THEY are also training the TSA workers to accept their role. --Tsiangkun
secret word captcha "CROTCH", how appropriate.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Khyber]

Unlawful arrest and detainment without warrant.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

... empower passengers with good-samaritan style legislation that exempts persons from prosecution for acts they genuinely believe to be in prevention of a terrorist incident.

Right, because that doesn't seem abusable at all. You'd see a nationwide killing spree of bearded folks, I tell you.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[PitaBred]

The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.

I've been thinking about that for years, but never said anything because I didn't want to give anyone any ideas.

You think you're that much smarter than someone who is intentionally thinking about how to cause mass destruction?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[tempest69]

I wish you weren't right.
But were just being conditioned to behave and accept that the government is in control. Somehow the government gets some undeserved awe. I remember having it, where the government and the laws were something greater, and noble.
Now I see it as a home owners association that has gotten too large and is full of itself. This is a problem, it is putting people through screening that is unnecessary and ineffectual. The right to balk at being screened has been removed. While I understand the rational, I find it to be reprehensible. We are not subjects, we are citizens, and we need to act accordingly. That our liberties are more important than the convenience of the government.

We are trained to behave as if the law is something crafted by masters of philosophy and reason. That the enforcers are going to be in the right and behave with proper restraint. uncorrupted by their authority. That the jurors will weigh that the defendant broke both the letter of law, and will ensure that the the law itself is appropriate. This is clearly not the case, laws are often made for the personal gain of those with access to power. Police misconduct videos are released at a rate that is truly alarming, a couple police ruining the name of the bunch is still the cry I see over and over. However the number of times this has been caught on video leads me to believe that this is something that is seriously undermining their credibility. After cases like Genarlow Wilson, it appears that the jury has been trained to disregard their primary purpose- determining if the defendant committed a crime that warrants the punishment being let out.

I'm getting tired of all the training, it needs to stop

Storm

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

or the intelligence agencies are doing their jobs well and preventing plots from getting off the ground (so to speak).

Or maybe they just like y = 0. Racist.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[ifiwereasculptor]

straitjackets for all passengers.

No, you have to think like the TSA: mandatory amputations!

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[ifiwereasculptor]

...empower passengers with good-samaritan style legislation that exempts persons from prosecution for acts they genuinely believe to be in prevention of a terrorist incident.

I think you misspelt "let's start shooting bearded men".

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[farnsworth]

<quote> <p>I've been thinking about that for years, but never said anything because I didn't want to give anyone any ideas.</p> </quote> I've been -saying- that for years and it still hasn't happened. I figured that if I saw the possibility within five minutes of seeing the line, anyone else would be able to see it without too much trouble. I've been suspecting that either the so-called 'threat' is far, far overblown or these terrorists are complete and total idiots.

Isn't this what happened at LAX in 2003 or so? It certainly happens in other places around the world. I was at a baseball game in NYC shortly after 9/11 with a friend who has spent time in Isreal, and the lines and crowds outside the security checkpoints at the stadium made him visibly upset.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

He's not giving interviews on CNN anymore, just little photos and audio tapes. Here's a snippet from his 2010 interview.

Funny how you mention this. You know who else has been releasing just little photos and audio tapes the past 10 years? Must I even mention his name? It wouldn't be a certain bin Laden, would it?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[interkin3tic]

You're saying they won't be able to straightjacket you because of that? They'd say it's not arrest or detainment: you're free to not fly if you object that strongly to a straightjacket, if you're flying you agree to it.

Despite being idiotic, that justification flies with enough people. Same thing with corporations. We'd start throwing molotovs if the president announced privacy was a thing of the past and that their location would be tracked electronically. Facebook does it and people think -I'm- crazy for caring.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Pseudonym Authority]

Ah, haha! We've long since past the point of caring about rights in our pursuit to secure our freedoms.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[element-o.p.]

Do you seriously believe that laws regarding unlawful arrest and detainment without a warrant will slow them down one bit when the 4th Amendment hasn't?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[MaskedSlacker]

You may not be aware of this because you haven't left your mother's basement in forty years, but terrorists do have access to these newfangled video cameras, and they are quite fond of taping themselves making various absurd statements and taking credit for mass murder and posting the videos online.

Hell, they were doing it back before YouTube made it cool by mailing the damn videos to news organizations.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since the '01 hijackings is the increased vigilance and response of the flying public.

The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.

Contrary to what they say, protecting civilian lives is not the goal of all these airport security measures. If that were the case, shopping malls would be a prime target.

I think what scares government is that the planes themselves can be used as weapons. One of those 911 planes headed to the pentagon. *That's* the sort of shit they're trying to protect against.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlawful arrest and detainment without warrant.

They're already doing an unlawful search -- what's stopping them from doing more constitutional violation?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[internewt]

And a side business can be run selling rings, bracelets, and watches! The operation funds itself, perfect policy for politicians who want to be seen doing something.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Daniel_Staal]

I try to give examples of things that are more likely than being in a terrorist attack. (The 'security' doesn't tend to change these materially...) Things like being hit by lightning. Twice. Or suffocating in your bedding while you sleep. Or if you want good luck: You'll likely win the lottery a couple of times before you are in a terrorist attack.

There's almost no threat, realistically. Worry about crossing the road. That's more likely to kill you.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[MightyMartian]

I agree that 9-11-style attempts (or even the more mundane "take me to Cuba" attempts from days gone by) would probably see a hijacker crushed to mush before they had much of a chance to do anything. However, using luggage and cargo in the cargo holds is still vulnerable (as the latest attempt out of Yemen demonstrated). Mind you, all the penis imaging machines in the world wouldn't stop that sort of an attack. What stops that sort of attack, as the Israelis know from long experience (and a rather extraordinary record) is intelligence work and smart people who know how to recognize suspicious packages and activities. That saved that cargo plane coming out of Yemen, good old fashioned detective and intelligence work, not some espresso-overdosed guy demanding to see your dink on an X-ray, with the threat that he'll have to feel it if you don't go along with the policy.

It's long been pointed out that low-wage security workers is not going to cut the onions, but there seems to be this belief that if we can image penises and breasts, we will all end being so much safer. I listened to an expert on Israeli counter-terrorism who suggests the TSA is wasting incredible amounts of time and money on a technological solution to what is fundamentally a psychological problem.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[mr_bubb]

Or, most likely, they haven't bombed the lines because it wouldn't be a big television event. They want to make a big statement, and killing and maiming 40 people at Newark International, with no video except after-the-fact, isn't very telegenic.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[RightwingNutjob]

The fact is that it's very easy to cause lots and lots of trouble and hurt/kill a lot of people with relatively little sophistication or effort. I'd go into details of some observations I make as a private citizen living and going about my business in a nameless American city, but I really *don't* want to give anyone ideas (or get a visit from men in dark glasses). This leads me to the following contradictions:

Given how easy it is to cause trouble, the biggest thing that saves lives is that most people from the part of the world under discussion who adhere to the religious interpretation of interest are too stupid to learn to fly airplanes. However, the few who aren't too stupid can cause an awful mess, as evidenced by 9/11.

Until we get better at figuring out who those people are in a way that doesn't erode our liberties more than getting body scanned, everyone's gotta be under threat of being searched, though I will emphatically agree that we can probably safely skip the 80-year-old grandmothers with nail clippers.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[fishexe]

The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since the '01 hijackings is the increased vigilance and response of the flying public.

False. The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since 9-11-2001 has been catching plotters before they even get to the airport. The increased vigilance and response of the flying public has not stopped any attacks in the US. If you're thinking of the underwear bomber, his attack was already foiled by his own equipment failing by the time the flying public had a chance to do anything.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[SatanicPuppy]

Well, it's not like they've tried strapping explosives to themselves and walking into a big crowd of people, so he doesn't want to give them that idea.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Ron Bennett]

The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.

Security lines at airports are ripe targets, but bombing one doesn't make for much terror.

On a related note, a person, even fully packed with explosives would likely, at most, kill a few dozen people in a security area. In contrast, a far less powerful bomb in an aircraft could easily kill hundreds, or even upwards of thousands; passengers on board plus those on the ground.

Bottom line is aircraft are a far more worthwhile target than the security line. About the only place where attacking the security line itself would instill much terror are at public schools.

Ron

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[mabhatter654]

Just like the Nazis. first they were only sending political criminals, then capitalists, and when the guards were well trained (and up to their eyeballs in murder too) they rounded up the women and children like cattle. It may be Godwins law, but here we stand at the ENTIRE POINT of the matter, scanning all the way to our skin and STILL claiming it's not enough security.

Knowing ALL THAT the bozos in Congress allowed the TSA to be created anyway. Ironically Rush was complaining about the "new" extreme procedures... of course there was no problem when "Democrats" were being hassled. It's hilarious that the right-wingers are all over this like it has anything to do with Obama. They cheered while Cheney/Bush created a whole new Cabinet level position, accountable to essentially nobody with access to the NSA, CIA, and FBI and no strings attached. This is funny that it turns around now.. after all they have to look busy or Obama will scale them back.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[wierd_w]

Personally, I feel that this illusionment comes from the indoctrinated sense that being illegal == immoral. That it is NEVER justified to break the law. EG, that it is ALWAYS wrong to steal, or that it is ALWAYS wrong to refuse to 'help' a police officer with an investigation, etc. It is implied that by being so disobedient to the civil infrastructure, that you are an evil anarchist bent on destroying life as we know it, and that you are therefor "evil".

In reality, there ARE times when theft is the correct and appropriate action, or when refusing to assist police is the correct and proper thing to do. [due to risk of enacting Godwin's Law, I will avoid mentioning certain historical events, despite their obvious applicability.]

The reality of the situation is that the civil infrastructure is only useful and good up until a critical threshold, and after that it becomes officious and destructive to the quality of life of the civilians it is supposed to be servicing. Examples are things like the difference between a home owner's association, and a simple lawncare ordinance. The former is officious, the latter is to maintain property values of your neighbors.

Others would be things like enforcing sobriety while operating dangerous equipment (Including vehicles), VS enforcing "The war on drugs(tm)".

The subtle lie that the government\civil infrastructure is ALWAYS good is what allows the civil infrastructure to cross that critical threshold. It is motived to do so, because it is run by humans, and humans LIKE to enforce their wills upon others. (AKA, being addicted to/attracted to power and authority.)

This is further fascilitated by innate human laziness, and innate human weaknesses. Modern life would be impossible/highly impractical if there were no specialists; Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers, Politicians, Automotive mechanics, IT professionals, etc. This is imply because there are fundemental limits to what individual humans are capable of accomplishing themselves. The civil infrastructure provides the basic framework upon which specialists can employ their trades, and by which their customers can make reliable use of their services. In this respect, the social infrastructure of government is indeed absolutely vital to modern human existence, and pretty much everyone except sociopaths accepts this innately at some level. Part of the problem is that "Little people" have been so far abstracted from governance due to the increasing complexities of modern existence, that they realistically cannot engage in politics rationally, because that is becoming/has become a specialist discipline. As such, they are pressured naturally, more and more, to simply trust these specialists, since the natural demans of life make it more and more difficult to effectively engage in it. I strongly suspect that this is at least partially at fault for persons continually voting for an abstracted "Party line", VS actually researching issues, and engaging in government as intended.

Likewise, the specialists (Politicians) have their own agendas, and become more and more abstracted/estranged from other demographics in society, and so the government becomes wierder and wierder, and more and more authoritarian; As the ordinary citizen understands the minutae of modern government less and less, they become less and less willing to capitulate, requiring ever escallating levels of control to ensure the reliable function of government.

I personally consider this to be the euphamistically titled "Big Government" that Libertarians rail against. The government becomes bigger and bigger, as it takes on more and more responsibilities, as the average citizen delegates more and more duties to government, because they themselves become more and more specialized.

Without reducing the complexity of the social infrastructure, the requirements on specialist knowledge, or increasing the free time of the average citizen in some fundemental way so that they can cope with dealing with government appropriately, there is really

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[syousef]

I've been suspecting that either the so-called 'threat' is far, far overblown or these terrorists are complete and total idiots.

This isn't an either or proposition. Both are true.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Darinbob]

I've often found that rules can turn off common sense. Once you've got a set of rules in place then you've got a flow chart of what to do and don't have to think; if you do think you get cognitive dissonance if the rules are a little bit wrong, so you train yourself not to think...

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Martin Blank]

It was 2002. In that case, a lone gunman tried to shoot up the El Al ticket line, killing two and wounding four more, but was himself shot dead by El Al security.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Arancaytar]

empower passengers with good-samaritan style legislation that exempts persons from prosecution for acts they genuinely believe to be in prevention of a terrorist incident

"That man looked brown^H^H^H^H^H armed! And he's got Arab writing on his shirt!"

Brilliant idea.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh no, you see, the crowd killing each other is okay -- just like it's okay that the TSA's ridiculous, unnecessary measures cause more people to drive and therefore more traffic fatalities. Traffic fatalities are fine. It's only once someone outside of the group kills people in the group that it matters, at which point we panic. That's why we're perfect targets for terrorists, and why someone bombing Black Friday would cause all sorts of stupid reactions.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[exomondo]

Post-911, an attempting hijacker wouldn't live a minute if the rest of us were carrying pointy things.

Might not anyway, unless the TSA starts confiscating pencils and umbrellas. Almost anything will serve as a weapon in a pinch.

At least ex-guantanamo employees can get a job with the TSA pulling fingernails from the travelling public.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[fishingmachine]

maybe we should allow tsa agents to be racists. couldnt in all honesty be any worse than the system theyre using now.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[jabberw0k]

Security lines at airports are ripe targets, but bombing one doesn't make for much terror.

Would you stand in a security line, after that happened?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Kral_Blbec]

Ummm, right wingers aren't any more over it than left, and I have never heard any "right-winger" claim that it was obama's fault. In fact, beck has even gone out of his way to expressly state that he doesn't blame obama for it.
The idea behind a TSA isn't bad, its the execution and the continiously expanding sphere of influence that is.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I think lots of folks are missing the point...

The TSA is not there to make people safe when flying. It's there to make people *feel* safe when flying. It doesn't sound like much of a distinction, but it's all the difference. There is a small element of deterrence involved, but for the most part, it's about the illusion of safety. That's really all we have. We have speed limits on the highway for similar reasons. Sure, if we wanted to make flying completely safe we could. The cost would go up dramatically. Wait times would decrease because most people wouldn't be able to afford $1000 fares across the country so the airports would be less busy. It's security theatre, certainly, but what's the alternative?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[MichaelSmith]

Yeah I saw this working in Malaysia once. The first team inspected carry on luggage. They checked out a bag of toys we had for my son because it was full of little bits of metal. The second (larger) team stood in the gate lounge watching all the passengers. No big deal for the majority who were dealing with their kids or catching up on work. But very hard for anybody with nothing to do except follow a script and hope the Guys with the Eyes hadn't caught on.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[obarthelemy]

I'd be a bit more specific than "they genuinely believe to be in prevention of a terrorist incident", because that opens the door to any cowboy going jack bauer for no reason at all... except they really really believed they had a good reason (that guy was eating sheeps' eyeballs ! he must be one of *them* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jingo_(novel) ))

Actually, i'm fairly sure no new laws are required, especially to promote vigilantism.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Kral_Blbec]

That sounds very logical, and well stated, but the over all gist of it is unfortunately incorrect. Your entire basis is on the claim that the common man is too stupid to understand the complexities of modern society and politics. The truth is rather than they have been told that there is no need to learn it, although they could if they tried. They have also been purposefully lied to and abused by the political leaders so that rather than the average citizen delegating more duty to the government, the government simply assumes control.
I don't believe that society is such much more complex than in the past that peoples brain's are exploding. I still have faith in the potential of the average person to learn a vast amount more than they currently do. Its just a matter of them actively choosing not to and being told that they don't need to. Sports, movies, fashion etc all take up too much of their time that could and should be spent in more constructive pursuits.
Pork barrels and earmarks also aren't the result of amateur politicians messing around with something they don't understand. They are the result of professional politicians knowing that they can get away with it because people have become accustomed to it.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Nefarious Wheel]

I suspect that Al-Queda sends an idiot through the airlines once in a while to get caught, just to keep the TSA's attention focused there. Personally I'd be looking at vulnerable civil infrastructure by now, totally ignoring risks to flight - they're covered. That's not going to happen again, they've used that one up.

But while we're looking at the airports, how safe is our water supply? How disruptive would destroying the civil sewerage system be? Infecting a single beef feedlot? I think it's time to wake up and think about other ways the bastards could get at us.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[countertrolling]

I'm rather disappointed that it got this far.

People are more upset that Bristol got this far.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[JohnBailey]

No need to risk being Godwined.

Look up the Milgram experiment. People will do a hell of a lot more than they usually would that is distasteful to them if an authority figure tells them to. You want to see scary.. look in the mirror.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Grapplebeam]

That's ridiculous. I enjoy making eye contact.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[gman003]

Almost anything will serve as a weapon in a pinch.

Including, of course, nothing. It's not terribly difficult to kill someone with your bare hands - some muscular strength is needed to do so quickly, but a few months of training in any real martial art will be enough. With proper training and a bit of luck, an unarmed person can even defeat an armed soldier - there's a whole series of techniques in Krav Maga for disarming someone of various weapons.

And, naturally, the TSA will soon only allow wheelchair-bound passengers aboard. At least until someone develops telekinesis.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[TheLink]

Don't they have that "second team" stuff in the US too? I find it hard to believe that they don't.

The groping and other stuff is mainly to "shake things up a bit" - so you don't need dangerous scans, just scans which increase the risk of getting caught doing something illegal (smuggling drugs, weapons etc).

As for Malaysia's security, Anson Wong managed to illegally get 90+ snakes on a plane (yes you read that right, snakes on a plane), he only got caught in transit for the second flight when his bag burst on the conveyor belt.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The TSA is just plain stupid. One time, we were already on the plane and then someone found out that the plane had not been checked after coming in from outside the US before they let us on the plane. Had to get off again and be searched individually plus check all the hand baggage. I was sure they were going to find my > 100ml container of cleaning agent for my glasses (although it was already half empty). They actually checked through all of the pockets in my backpack, except for the one on the front that contained the cleaner ...

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[thoughtfulbloke]

Well, Terrorists tried attacking Glasgow Airport, but it didn't end well for them.
Meet John Smeaton

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, and PBS

When the scanners end up in courts, and your called to jury duty what are you going to do?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[dontuhatepants]

He's not giving interviews on CNN anymore, just little photos and audio tapes. Here's a snippet from his 2010 interview.

much like osama bin laden.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[The Master Control P]

I've read that they're all basically obsessed with one-upping 9/11 in terms of media glitz, which prevents them from trying anything they might actually succeed at.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[kevinNCSU]

Worse yet, did you know there's a cabinet level position accountable to essentially NOBODY with access to the ARMY, AIR FORCE, NAVY, MARINES and COAST GUARD?!?!?! Fucking Bush, right?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[fafaforza]

And given that rules are pretty much modeled after what terrorists already tried, they can simply alter their attempts slightly, or come up with some other clever trick, and all the billions that we're spending on the TSA will be completely wasted. So we're completely unprotected, and all the embarrassing stuff people have to go through is for naught.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[j-beda]

If video is all that is holding "them" back, I am sure someone could figure out how to record the event. A couple of folk a good distance back with some telephoto lenses shouldn't be hard to do. Upload it to youtube or send it to a few news stations and there you have it.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[sjames]

The terrorists will be mobbed and trampled.

"HE'S got a BOMB!!!"

OMG!!! Can I get it giftwrapped?

I NEED three. Does it come in blue?

I was here first, go find your own bombs!!!

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[smpoole7]

"suspect that Al-Queda sends an idiot through the airlines once in a while to get caught, just to keep the TSA's attention focused there."

I hereby nominate you to be the new head of Homeland Security. (You'd never be approved, because you have a brain, but hey, I can hope.)

I've suspected the same thing for while now -- that either al-Quaida sends the occasional stooge onto an airplane just to keep the waters stirred, or they are incalculably stupid. (Or both.)

Forget the water supplies. As I ride around Alabama, I look at all the power lines and think how easy it would be to put the better half of a state (if not an entire region) in the dark.

Our "infrastructure," to re-use that overused term, is incredibly vulnerable. Cheap power distribution and cheap communications are only available because we can run wires through the countryside and hang satellites in orbit with very little in the way of real (read: expensive) security. All they'd have to do is figure some way to smuggle a couple of dozen guys across the border and they could do it with low tech tools available at any hardware store.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[sjames]

I think it's a strong indicator that there just aren't that many terrorists and they're really not all that interested in blowing up Americans.

Or perhaps they're worried they might distract the government from destroying the country.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[MichaelSmith]

I haven't been to the US for 13 years so I wouldn't know. It did occur to me that this may have been a US originated flight, which was why it got special attention. Snakes in checked luggage are a totally different issue of course.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hilarious that the right-wingers are all over this like it has anything to do with Obama

With ya all the way up until this.

So, you're saying Obama didn't appoint the junk grabber tzar?
And didn't recently say the new groping measures were necessary?
And didn't vote for FISA2008?

NSA, CIA, and FBI [...] Obama will scale them back.

Why? Obama loves his new spy toys (see FISA hint above).

Take off the party-line blinders, neither side cares about the plebs any more.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[nine932038]

I'm already resisting. I will absolutely not fly through the USA anymore, and neither will anyone else I know. We're all disgusted by the TSA scanners and the laborious extra 'security' and the marshals walking around with shotguns.

In fact, I refuse to even visit the US until some form of sanity comes back to the government.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[bm_luethke]

I would suspect that it is both - if it is a very small group of rather incompetents then the intelligence agencies generally do not have a hard time finding them. Lets face it, for the most part if you are competent you are in a country that harbors you and you are sending incompetent minions out to martyr themselves (and, mostly by definition, they are incompetent). It took several tries before they got 9/11 and the large successful ones in other countries (even ones that have little to no intelligence agencies) are mostly duds - smart people rarely martyr themselves (and make no mistake - shooting into a crowd nowadays would most likely end that way) and when they do they do it in a big way.

Our intelligence agencies, while certainly not perfect and have room for improvement, are fairly competent, TSA isn't. Intelligence agencies live and die by what they stop (generally in secret), TSA lives and dies by its reputation and they fell to hard to the "sheople want us to look like we are doing something, their afraid and will take anything we do" meme. That's only true up to a point - people, as a whole, aren't that stupid no matter how much it makes some groups feel good tot think it. If you base your policies on it then this is what happens. The end of the Bush era was about when it started to slide and Obama seems to have thought it was all a great idea so extend more than Bush thought to do in his wildest dreams (which, sadly, seems to be the case in many areas plus adding that level of incompetence in so many others that made it through Bush).

Indeed, intelligence agencies know how to do an effective checkpoint - look to the Israelis to see how. It's not hard to do either and it is MUCH cheaper than this crap. Lots of theories as to why we do not do that and you can insert your own (this makes people money, they are training us, much of the profiling required for it is politically unpopular with certain classes, etc). I suspect that more than one is at cause too - for myself it would be a combination of knowing how much profiling gets bad press and how much money this gets flowing around to political donors. But that's me - you can fairly easily persuade me that others are reasonable too. Heck I'll even buy sheer incompetence and nothing more - having been research staff at a DoE lab I certainly know the good science produced by them is done *despite* the system (and the system produces a great deal of really bad science).

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[index0]

One word, "Rapiscan". Actually it is a composition of two words. I will let you guess which words they are.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[maxume]

There is no 'the' sewer system or water supply, there are thousands of separate municipal systems. So doing damage to the systems for one big city would probably be workable, but doing significant damage to lots of such systems would be quite a bit of work (especially considering that you are (IMO) underestimating the amount of security around such sites; things like just having the workers know what normal is contributes a fair amount of security).

I think it's time to not worry too terribly much more about what Al Qaeda has planned, current efforts seem to be sufficient in keeping them well below the level of 'small annoyance'. Perhaps intelligence and investigation efforts could be increased, but even that needs to be done with some attention to whether it is money well spent.

It is probably possible to infect a beef lot, but I'm not sure that it would do much other than ruin a few tons of beef.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[index0]

Why can't it be the case that the terrorist master minds are sitting back watching USA dig deeper and deeper

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Archangel Michael]

We are trained to behave as if the law is something crafted by masters of philosophy and reason.

If Nancy Pillosi or Mitch McConnell are anything, they aren't either of what you're saying. If only we had legislators that were.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Get over yourself. You haven't thought of anything that others haven't thought of before. Your theoretical plans are not brilliant. Anywhere there are lots of people and little security is ripe for terrorist action--this is not a hard concept to grasp. Jihadist pilots are the least of your worries, and the fact that you're so focused on them shows how unoriginal your ideas are.

Everybody must be under threat of being searched only if you fear the amazingly unlikely event that you will be attacked. Terrorists create terror through a few high-profile actions. If you submit to ridiculous violations of privacy for no good Goddamned reason, then the terrorists have already won.

Also, your writing is needlessly obtuse.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

What we need is a pre-screening line where you get screened before going to get screened for your flight -- that way you don't need to worry about the screening line being a tempting bottleneck as everyone there has already been screened.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Archangel Michael]

Bush Bots are equal to Obama Zombies. Neither side is innocent, both excuse the excesses of "their side".

However, these measures ARE being done on Obama's watch, by HIS administration in full measure and support. Rush is right here, don't knock it just because Rush is right.

We have to get past the whole left vs right, (R) vs (D), mentality and start making the strange bedfellows we need to make. This is why I hate American Politics, because reason doesn't rule, only the party does.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think there is anything funny about what Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Back, Bill O'Reilly and so on put on the air in the U.S. I'm from Germany myself, and I can't really imagine how any of them could get on the air here for any prolonged period of time, and am scared of what would happen if they could. I am somewhat glad "amerikanische Verhältnisse" (roughly, the state of things in the United States of America) is pretty much a curse word here, pretty much regardless of the subject matter.

(Captcha is "scares")

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[titanium93]

The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since the '01 hijackings is the increased vigilance and response of the flying public.

Actually, putting a lock on the door to the flight deck has. All other measures are meaningless/un-necessary to prevent a 9-11 style hijacking.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[wierd_w]

Well, I didn't state that this was deffinately so, only that it appeared that way to me. I do agree that there is a whole buch of "Don't want to learn" at play here, however, there are lots of psychologists that are concerned with the "information overload" of the current society.

(see for instance, the Wikipedia page on the subject, and it's cited sources.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_overload

As for the latter, you misinterpreted what I meant. (Or, I could just be bad at saying what I mean... Entirely possible.)

What I meant, is that the lobbyists and the like are like plumbers, doing brain surgery (Buying government), and that the porkbarrel politics that they ram through are evidence of such butchery of proper government process. The government specialists (Congress critters) are complicit in this, since they are becoming ever more detached from the societal impacts of their decisions because of their innate abstraction as specialists. (The relationship is fully reciprocal.) They continue to operate unchecked, because the average citizen does not/cannot interact with the government in an efficient manner, due to their own lack of knowledge of even HOW to do so. Further, the human hubris and power hunger innate to current humans exacerbates the problem.

As the Wikipedia article points out, the government is well aware of the information overload problem; It would not surprise me one bit to hear that the current batch of maverick specialists we have in government offices are actively engineering this crisis, but being such specialists, do not fully comprehend what the full ramifications of their actions will be, because they too are human, and can no longer understand the whole system.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Alternately, think of ways not to piss off half the world and thus not have them want to do unpleasant things to you.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Jason Levine]

Exactly. The rules right now are get a naked photo... I mean, backscatter image taken of you. If you refuse this, you get a pat-down. Only the pat-downs have turned into gropings. The TSA has even admitted that this is mainly to discourage people from refusing the backscatter imaging.

So you fly, refuse the backscatter and get groped. The next time, you get a bit more reluctant but refuse again and get a second groping. When you fly a third time, you start getting relucant to be groped again. Eventually, you either 1) get desensitized to the gropings or 2) give up and give in to backscatter imaging. Either way, the TSA wins.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[fnj]

Oh, do you really think they haven't? Think the economic disasters of the bad lettuce, the bad peanuts, all the other recent disasters, were just unusual accidents?

Infecting a single beef feedlot?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The announcement overhead when flying today that if you even joked about the security you could be arrested.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[PetWolverine]

Another good comparison: Schneier calculated, conservatively, in his recent summary of the situation, that the scanners are probably safe enough to only cause deadly cancer in 16 out of every billion passengers. An acceptable risk, perhaps--but *still* greater than the chances of being killed by a terrorist.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Nos.]

Post-911, an attempting hijacker wouldn't live a minute if the rest of us were carrying pointy things.

Might not anyway, unless the TSA starts confiscating pencils and umbrellas. Almost anything will serve as a weapon in a pinch.

Regardless of what they confiscate, this is now the case. I believe this is what happened on Flight 93 on 9/11. Imagine you're on a plane in this day and age and a terrorist group takes (or attempts to take) control of the aircraft. I bet over 50% of passengers on that flight will fight back with hardly a second thought.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

...so you train yourself not to think... - welcome to Religion 101, take a seat, this is gunna take a while....

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Pranadevil2k]

The reason the idea of a water supply attack is so scary is precisely because there are so many disparate municipals systems. Terrorism is only a physical threat to a small percentage of the population, but it's a massive mind game for everyone that isn't. Imagine what would happen if a terrorist plot to poison a city water supply (to some, say 100,000 people) were discovered and foiled. The news media would have reports from the potential victims saying they had no idea it could happen here, and the security just wasn't in place, etc etc, and the government would act rashly and without thinking, creating some ungodly structure to protect every water supply... The terrorists won the mind game, and that's just for getting caught.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

"The right to balk at being screened has been removed. While I understand the rational"

The rational does not make sense. It only costs some future $11,000 to test the security. If I'm a terrorist, what the hell does a future monetary fine mean to me? They can collect it after I'm dead.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Pranadevil2k]

if 9/11 taught us anything it should be that occasionally terrorists are good at coordinating large plots. One store bombing in one city might not be that big a deal, but what about multiple store bombings across several states? We're talking about people who aren't afraid to kill themselves if it means blowing up 12 people on a bus - what about a few hundred people packed into the line in front of a walmart (or a few hundred thousand, in front of a few hundred walmarts)?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[twidarkling]

I really doubt anyone's missing the point, since the term "security theatre" is right there in the tags. At least speed limits actually serve real purposes, since at faster speeds you can't react in time to many conditions outside your control, and fuel efficiency decreases as you go faster. As far as I can tell, the TSA is only about the theatre.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[twidarkling]

Woosh.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[ThunderBird89]

A Milgram-experiment. I wish this were true. It would actually make sense when nothing else they do does...
Really, I'm thinking of buying a few bricks of modelling clay, an Arduino and some more components, and putting them in my backpack with the Arduino blinking an LED, then explain them at the checkpoint that I just killed all the people in the line. I'd like to see how they'd react to that, especially since I'm committing no crime at all in doing that.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Merls the Sneaky]

The only Authority figures I recognise are my wife and my own reflection. Anyone else want authority over me better be prepared to do what my wife does or they can fuck right off.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The best part is there's a simple way to get around the new screenings, and smugglers of drugs and diamonds have been doing it for years: stick it in a condom and swallow, then follow with Exlax, or stick it up the bum. Not pleasant, but it can get a couple ounces of whatever you need onto a plane. If you have a couple people on the same plane even better.

Regardless, nothing the TSA is doing is a substitute for a cavity search. And cavity searches, at least in the US, are considered unreasonable in almost every case except criminal detention. Not even the TSA could pull off something as invasive as a cavity search for standard security purposes. So in the end, no matter what the TSA can reasonably do, there will be a way for someone to get something on to a plane they shouldn't have.

Now all we need is some dupe to sneak cocaine onto a plane in his ass, have it be mistaken for an explosive, and the TSA will be able to stick their fingers up everyone's ass. Remind me to apply for a position with the government that gives me a diplomatic passport.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[RightwingNutjob]

Perhaps not, and that's a mystery I'm willing to live with. Also, your literal-mindedness is irritatingly obtuse.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Al-Dimond -- why, that's the kinda name a turr-rist would have! Someone scan that guy's fambly jewels, he's probably hiding something! For the love of God, keep him away from your SUVs and Wal-Marts!

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[1u3hr]

The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.

There are many, many "riper" crowds of people in any city, wiht virtually no security, if that's all you want. Any bus, suburban train, school hall, church, hospital ER, etc, etc. They want to take a plane down, ideally by crashing it into something strategic on the ground. Killing the passengers is just gravy.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Merls the Sneaky]

I'm sure someone with a phone camera will be filming at just the right time. Even if they aren't filming at the point of the attack there will be plenty of cameras running in short order after. Then people will submit the film to a major media outlet for their fifteen minutes of fame.

The media outlets will play them over and over ad - bloody - nauseum. Plenty of media coverage there, they just want it to be bigger. Either that or there is a vanishing small pool of competent terrorist.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[llamapater]

nononononono tsa is contained to the airport for now do you really want them everywhere else

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[protektor]

They are already doing unlawful arrests and detainment of American citizens. It's called the Patriot Act, and yes they have disappeared/arrested a number of American citizens over the years since.

http://www.politechbot.com/p-04221.html
http://www.rense.com/general61/feds.htm
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5049867/

The one I can't find now that was pretty well known, was the programmer who worked for...I think Oracle, and the FBI came in one day and arrested him and then no one knew where he was, and they wouldn't even say why he was arrested or anything. No lawyer, no phone call, no nothing, just poof and he was gone. Finally his senator or congressmen had to get involved.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Askmum]

and empower passengers with good-samaritan style legislation that exempts persons from prosecution for acts they genuinely believe to be in prevention of a terrorist incident.

Now that is a good idea. "I genuinely believe he is a terrorist!" Bang!

I'm sure you've seen Southpark episode "Volcano". Now sleep tight in your new world order. Suddenly full body scans by the TSA don't seem so annoying anymore...

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[yuhong]

Yea, the flaws of top-down command and control. Happens in the corporate world too. What do you think the word "corporate zombie" come from?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[houghi]

The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since the '01 hijackings is the increased vigilance and response of the flying public.

How many hijacks have been prevented by the public since '01?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[quadrox]

This is repeated over an over, but I still believe that when it comes to a real situation, most people will just sit quietly and hope it goes away.

I certainly wouldn't want to be the first person to start resisting. If there's enough others I would do my part, but I wouldn't want to risk being the only one - that would mean certain death.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[the_womble]

Yes, he probably is smarter than them. Most terrorists are pretty stupid: my favourite examples are the ones who tried to make bombs in Britain by filling cars with gas cylinders (what do Americans call cylinders of pressurised gaseous stuff?), soaking the cars in petrol (gas to Americans) and setting a timer to ignite the petrol.

The did try to drive one car into an airport building and it got stuck in the door because it was wider than the door.

OK, you cannot get a good bomb by exploding gas cylinders, because they fail by opening at one end and whizzing off. It takes minimal research to find that out, failure to do it is stupid. As for not realising that the doors were too narrow, how did they not realise that: "hey guys, a door meant for people is sure to be wide enough to drive through!".

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[dbIII]

I suspect that Al-Queda sends an idiot through the airlines once in a while to get caught, just to keep the TSA's attention focused there

They don't need to. The TSA is part of the terror they wanted to create.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Lazy Jones]

The only measure which has successfully prevented a terrorist attack since the '01 hijackings is the increased vigilance and response of the flying public.

Arguably, this is also due to the security theater provided by the TSA: it makes people feel at risk.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Bull. Learn history plz.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Aceticon]

On the upside killing enough people in one of those lines would probably push the average human IQ up for at least a tenth of a point.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

In Israel there are such long lines practically in all entrances to public places, e.g. malls and central bus stations.

I tried to explain that in Israeli forums several times, and always get one of two replies. The first is I should stop saying that, because one shouldn't give terrorist the idea of hitting those "long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons". The second is that, as terrorists haven't hit one of those lines yet, than security measures are excellent, proof being that terrorists have never hit one of those lines.

So I try to plan ahead going through as few of those lines as possible, though sometimes those lines are just unavoidable.

BTW U.S. checks are better than Israeli checks. I boarded an EL-AL flight with live amo in my pockets, it was quickly found on the way to board the flight inside the U.S.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[mcvos]

The most informative article on the uselessness and stupidity of the TSA was linked to from TFA. Very informative read, written by someone who really knows what she's talking about.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[L4t3r4lu5]

"Where to elect there is but one,
'Tis Hobson's choice—take that, or none."

"England's Reformation" (Thomas Ward, 1688)

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Tom]

You assume maximum death count is the terrorists goal.

I don't think it is. Maximum terror and discomfort is. And on that count, the TSA is on the terrorists side. If I were a terrorist, I'd make damn sure nobody even thinks about bombing the waiting lines, or doing anything else that could result in a re-thinking of the procedure. On the contrary, I would spend all my time coming up with other crazy shit to try (and fail, doesn't matter) so it gets added to the list of stuff you can't do or bring anymore.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[ktappe]

Ummm, right wingers aren't any more over it than left, and I have never heard any "right-winger" claim that it was obama's fault. In fact, beck has even gone out of his way to expressly state that he doesn't blame obama for it.

I've seen a dozen (not an exaggeration) claims that it's "that liberal Obama's fault". Admittedly I've been reading a lot about the new "irradiate or grope" choice passengers are being forced to make, but I really have seen a lot of "blame Obama" posts on CNN and other sites that allow feedback from the public.

The idea behind a TSA isn't bad, its the execution and the continiously expanding sphere of influence that is.

The problem with your statement is the assumption that the execution could ever have been good. Seriously. If you think the TSA could ever have functioned efficiently and logically, you're in La La Land. And because it really never could have, the idea behind the TSA can also be faulted for lacking pragmatism.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Alarash]

I travel to Israel for business on a regular basis. They don't joke around with security in this country as you can imagine. There are between 3 and 5 security checkpoints in between the entrance of the airport and the plane. Yet it doesn't take longer than the one security check we have in Western countries. They don't use scanners, they simply ask random questions. Apparently, using this method is very effective to detect people who are up to something. Of course the luggages still go through X-Ray, and you have to go through metal detectors. But they don't ask you to remove your shoes, belt and watches. I guess my point is their security seems to be more about efficiency and actual effectiveness than just playing around with high tech toys that are there just to make the public feel safer.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[L4t3r4lu5]

Why strap them to themselves? They can quite easily take a trolley full of suitcases packed with the crap. Add in some bolts, broken glass, ball bearings, anything you can think of, pack it with some clothing so it isn't too heavy and doesn't rattle when you move, and you've got 5 or 6 mobile Claymores.

I'm much more wary of the people around me at the check-in line than I am air-side.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[srussia]

On the upside killing enough people in one of those lines would probably push the average human IQ up for at least a tenth of a point.

Not really, it would still be 100, by definition.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[kyz]

The TSA's measures are worse than useless: they actually create a hazard, with long, slow-moving, densely-packed lines full of by-definition unscreened persons--lines that are about the ripest target for a bomb that you can find.

I've been thinking about that for years, but never said anything because I didn't want to give anyone any ideas.

People already have the idea and are making drama out of it. In Iain Banks' Transition, a Christian terrorist blows up a packed security line at the airport while guards up ahead are trying to take some nail clippers off a granny.

But while it's undefended right now, and you're at risk from it, it's not a threat the US needs to guard against, because no Islamists have tried it yet.

You can commit any act of terrorism in the US you like, it won't matter unless you're an Islamist, which is to say you have a beard and a funny hat. You can shoot up your local mall or campus, and that'll just be "a tragedy" and it will be forgotten by the next day, nobody will do anything about it. But if the TV reports a Mooslim even thought about blowing something up, the nation collectively loses its shit, so Something Gets Done, right there and then, no matter how hilariously improbable.

So, why don't Mooslims attack the US? Because most of them aren't terrorists, and the handful that are are either satisfied with what they've wrought so far (remember that Osama achieved his main goal of getting the US military out of Saudi Arabia, he only has one goal left - getting the US money out of Israel), or they're still scratching their heads as to how up the ante after 9/11. Tough job, and it will have to involve getting on a plane with a bomb, because that's what the US public are focused on and fear most.

Terrorists don't score points just on how many people they kill - they could just do a coordinated rampage in some shopping malls to top the 9/11 hiscore - but they score points on how spectacular and audacious their successful plots are. We're still fixated on exploding or hijacked transit, so that's what they have to aim for.

In Israel, however, the terrorists have lower standards. They'd get nationwide media coverage for killing any Israelis at all, so the murderous bastards are everywhere. Left the back door open? BOOM! Didn't eat your greens? BOOM! Terrorist hiding under the broccoli.

When you have a real threat, from groups who will accept any amount of death as a success, not just Bond movie plots, then you need to be far more focused. The US doesn't have a real threat, so it can keep deluding itself with security theater.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Infecting a single beef feedlot?

I think you will find the the US food industry is quite capable of doing that all on its own.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Haeleth]

I gather the next thing is that if you travel by air, they're going to billet troops in your home while you're away. It'll save billions on military housing, and it could save lives too if the troops find your secret terrorist lab!

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Dan Dankleton]

I'm not particularly brave, but I would resist.

Seriously, I would assume that any hijacker nowadays would be going to kill all the passengers anyway, and I'd far rather die having forced the plane down into a field than having let the plane crash into a building. Of course, I'd far rather NOT die, and I believe that resisting would be the only way to avoid certain death.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Haeleth]

the last two attacks (shoe bomber and underpants bomber) only tried to destroy the plane.

And both failed.

People who for some reason support the TSA often trot out the line "which would you prefer, being seen naked or having a bomb on the plane with you?"

Well, there have been bombs on, oh, four or five aircraft recently, none of which has done any damage -- while there have been several non-bomb-related plane crashes that have killed a lot of people.

If I was an insurance company, I would be offering lower travel insurance premiums to people with bombs on their planes!

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[yariv]

Such attacks happened in Israel, I specifically remember this one. It is, however, significantly less effective then taking down a plane. Also, you can still find large crowds outside checkpoints in Israel (not in the airport, but in Tel Aviv's central bus station, for example).

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[mcvos]

It's not like it's being forced on you. You can always choose not to fly.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

of course not. I'd demand that people be screened before they are allowed to queue a security line.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[mcvos]

Or perhaps they're worried they might distract the government from destroying the country.

Exactly. I think the terrorists have already won. The US (and most of Europe too) has been working pretty hard to undermine the rights and freedom of their people. How can terrorists possibly top that? They can just focus on stuff closer to home, and occasionally say or do something vaguely threatening, and we'll send ourselves down the abyss.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[DrBoumBoum]

What I don't understand with all that BS is that basically once the cockpit door is locked and the pilots has the instructions of not yelding and opening the door even in case of someone threatening the crew or passengers, then the only option to bring down the plane is using explosives.

Now I thought that any explosives could be easily detected by sniffing dogs. Also there are technologies that are able to detect in real time trace amount of any molecule on clothes. Definitley the dopey, scruffy shoe or pant bombers would have been immediately spotted by a sniffing dog, so why not just have one or two dogs in every airport?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Inda]

I was taught how to kill a man at the age of 11. Judo is a fantastic sport.

At the same time, someone also choked me and it only took a few seconds before I felt dizzy enough to tap-out. They were 11 too.

An item of clothing, a shirt collar, is more than enough.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[maxume]

If the attack is foiled, the people stating that there was no security in place should be labeled morons.

It's like the underwear bomber. Sure, he got on a plane with something that he wanted to explode, but in the end, he wasn't able to make it explode, and that's because the security that was in place made him use a finicky bomb.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we need to create a "Rushwin's law," which is the same as Godwin's law, but with Hitler replaced by a reference to Rush.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[God Of Atheism]

I think this already happened a few years ago http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/italy/1385585/Cyanide-plot-to-poison-Rome-water.html

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[trickyb]

Post-911, an attempting hijacker wouldn't live a minute if the rest of us were carrying pointy things.

Might not anyway, unless the TSA starts confiscating pencils and umbrellas. Almost anything will serve as a weapon in a pinch.

I've heard rumors that highly-effective weapons are sold openly within the airport. Googly Gee? Duty Free? Something like that, anyway.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's time to wake up and think about other ways the bastards could get at us.

Yeah, you Americans aren't quite scared enough yet. Better start worrying more! How about a Water Supply Safety Administration?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Pharmboy]

And given that rules are pretty much modeled after what terrorists already tried, they can simply alter their attempts slightly, or come up with some other clever trick, and all the billions that we're spending on the TSA will be completely wasted.

Exactly. The TSA is to flying what antivirus software is to computing. Yes, you need some checks and luggage scanning, but any system you put into place can only check for known threats and are never very effective for preventing new vectors of "infection".

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

As Archie Bunker put it in the '70s: give all passengers guns before loading the plane, then, take 'em up again as the get off. You'll put a stop to all this non-sense....

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the forecoming Bomberman script... Nintendo terrorism ftw \o/

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, huh. And isn't it hilarious how all the liberals are saying that it's a good idea. That it's for the people's safety. Or could it be that since Obama is president, best to support him? Funny, how liberals, once in power, start taking more control of our lives and say it's for our own good.
However, I do want to congrat the ACLU. Liberal as they may be (judging by the fights they do pick), they're also opposed to this.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[squizzar]

I thought part of the problem was the TSA doing stuff that normally only your wife would do?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

"then capitalists"....

You do know that the National Socialist Party had nothing really in common with Socialists and worked hand in had with these *capitalist* that they rounded up to build a war machine? They even created laws that prohibited their labourers from quitting without the consent of the rounded up capitalists?

It is Slashdot so someone was bound to call you out on your little slip of rhetoric laced history.... right?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[moonbender]

Just like the Nazis. first they were only sending political criminals, then capitalists, and when the guards were well trained (and up to their eyeballs in murder too) they rounded up the women and children like cattle.

They put socialists and social democrats into concentration camps, although referring to those people as criminals (at least without quotes) seems bizarre. They didn't persecute capitalists at all, not sure what gave you that idea.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Dunbal]

I think it's time to wake up and think about other ways the bastards could get at us.

      I think it was Winston Churchill who said "the bomber will always get through". The bad guys always have the initiative. You can bankrupt your country trying to "prevent" all sorts of attack vectors, and they will always use the one you never saw coming.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The reinforced cockpit doors helped too. If a terrorist got a weapon on board, he still couldn't hijack the plane because he couldn't get into the cockpit. But that and the willingness to fight is all the improvement we've seen.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like it's being forced on you. You can always choose not to fly.

How about this instead: we remove all the security theater and if you still don't feel safe flying, you choose not to.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[tehcyder]

On slashdot, the accepted argument is that "Nazi" is the shortened German form of "National Socialists" and therefore all socialists are Nazis.

What's scary here is not that people talk bollocks, but that they seem to genuinely believe it.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the entire belgian food industry got shut down a few years ago for weeks by one person putting a few litres of "transformer oil" (filled with dioxins etc.) into the "food oil" recycling bin somewhere where it spread out to various farms.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps he should get some therapy then. If he was visibly upset, he really needs to get some anti-anxiety medication at least.

Terrorist events are rare. He was in more danger of being hurt travelling to and from the baseball game than standing in a line once he was there.

So - anti-anxiety medication, and possibly get him a course on statistics.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Security lines at airports are ripe targets, but bombing one doesn't make for much terror.

You are absolutely 100% off-base with that remark. If one were to, say, detonate a backpack/suitcase filled with explosives in the security queue at SFO, the death toll would easily be in the thousands and the ensuing chaos would shut down the entire airport. Most of the western seaboard would be affected. Disruption is as powerful -- if not more so -- than a body-count.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Rob the Bold]

Infecting a single beef feedlot? I think it's time to wake up and think about other ways the bastards could get at us.

Except then it's hard to tell if it's laissez-faire capitalism or terrorism. Or how about billions of poisoned eggs? Or maybe we shouldn't attribute to malice what can be explained by unchecked profit motive?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Fnord666]

a couple police ruining the name of the bunch is still the cry I see over and over.

Just another cause of a few bad apples ruining it for the remaining 1%.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I've often found that rules can turn off common sense. Once you've got a set of rules in place then you've got a flow chart of what to do and don't have to think; if you do think you get cognitive dissonance if the rules are a little bit wrong, so you train yourself not to think...

Bu this is America! We love not having to think. You betcha! That's why people can make a career out of duckspeaking over-simplified talking points on radio and TV and buy big fancy mansions. They quack. We quack back. It's simple!

Thinking is un-American. All it does is stir up trouble. REAL Americans only cause trouble when someone gets their order wrong at McDs or cuts off their parking space next to the mall door. Or tries to take their guns. Or raises taxes of people whose income levels they'll never achieve. Or whatever they're told to get bent about. Quack! Quack! Quack!

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Psmylie]

Of course there are "right wingers" calling it the left's fault, just like there are "left wingers" calling it the right's fault. Whenever anything happens that gets people upset, a bunch of loonies crawl out of the woodwork to point fingers at each other, neatly ignoring the fact that it is everyone's responsibility that things like this are happening. Right AND left, and everyone in between. That's what democracy means. We're ALL holding the bag for what happens with our country.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Phoenix666]

Another of the obvious plots: shoot up (or toss bombs, or suicide-bomb, or carbomb, or...well, you get the point) a Black Friday opening line or three on the east coast at a big box store.

I vote for a Black Friday opening line or three in the MIDWEST at a big box store. Here on the east coast we've already taken our lumps. And you know what? It wasn't the end of the world. Were we pissed off? You bet. Did we want to hunt bin Laden down and put his head on a pike? You bet your ass. But it was the sheltered people in the Midwest who were crying to daddy in DC to take away all our freedoms in order to make them, who were safe the entire time, feel "safer." Maybe a little adversity for the sheltered would make them remember their mettle, which they once had.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[thoromyr]

agreed, and the thesis attempts to explain as if this were a modern phenomena when in fact it is not. Authoritarian governments are as old as "civilized" history -- that is to say as old as any governmental institution. Given that authoritarian governments are not new or modern or in fact predicated on specialization there is no need to even pursue that. There are other much more generalized explanations that work quite well. Like government being tied to power, so it is created, used, manipulated by those with power (refer to weak kings who were dominated by powerful nobles); further it attracts those who are attracted by power (okay, a truism, but the point is that those who desire to possess and wield power are those who pursue it); power is well established to corrupt; and, finally, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions." Conspiracy theories are well and good (and there are real conspiracies from time to time), but humans often do what they believe is the right thing to do when they are, in fact, wrong. It can be not seeing the forest for the trees, or vice versa. It can be a lack of judgement due to personal turmoil. Regardless, to err is human and governments are created and administered by humans.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I think it's time to stop spending trillions trying to find and stop "other ways the bastards could get at us". It's ALL security theater. Deal with things as they come up, not spend far more money than the country can afford on imaginary threats which might not even exist. If anything, it emphasizes the places that AREN'T protected.

If a terrorist wanted to cause terror, they would. All the security in place, and any security put in place short of becoming a new North Korea, locked inside your own country with a nobody-in-nobody-out mentality, will not stop a terrorist from looking for the weak point (and there will always be one) and abusing it. Hell, even if you lock yourselves down like North Korea, that STILL wouldn't do anything. You'd just get people on the 'inside' doing the attacks to rebel against the situation.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[bjk002]

I would argue that neither yourself, nor the GP quite hit the proverbial nail on the head, though each is squarely swinging the hammer in the proper direction, with the proper velocity.

I think if you were to accept the notion that we as a species are limited in our ability to comprehend complex subject matter, and adjoin that with the truism that we are becoming increasingly specialized along with increasingly busy, we can arrive at a more perfect truth.

People are not necessarily, in your words, "actively choosing not to". Nor are they in the GP's words "Cave men beating on a nuclear reactor with rocks to find out what it is.".

Rather I think that while the capacity to understand exists, the lifestyle most often employed today offers little opportunity to digest the volume of information sufficiently to make informed choices, while simultaneously caring for oneself and one's family/friends.

To generalize, the western civilizations are largely too busy to keep up with all the needs Maslow has defined. Self-actualization is taking a back seat to the lower order needs. This is understandable to a degree, but no less troublesome.

Society is going to have to evolve in such a way so as to allow the individual(s) to provide for all lower order needs and ALSO attain self-actualization for there to be any real solution to the problem we all see as at the root of our current troubles.

Do I have a practical answer? No, not really. But I would offer that less work time, more incentive to continuous learning, and ensuring that the work level contributed, and subsequent compensation for, is adequately addressing the low order needs for the individual(s) is where the solution for this deficit is going to need to spring from.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[orlanz]

Forget the long lines and other more viable targets. How many people choose to drive now, rather than fly? I will take a 7 hour drive over a 1 hr flight, just cause of security. Before I would do up to a 3hr drive, due to cost. How many times more dangerious (1000+) is driving than flying on commercial airlines? The drive to the airport is many times more dangerious than the international flight out and back.

The TSA failed its mission upon inception. The general US public is most certainly less safe now directly due to the TSA policies than before.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of a point early on in Half Life 2. Guard knocks over a soda can and makes you pick it up and throw it away. As you walk off, you hear him on his radio - "I'm made him pick it up"

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[DrgnDancer]

I see a serious problem here, and it has to do with people being assholes. Also people being racists. Also people being unduly frightened of things that might happen on airplanes.

"Well your honor, he was an Arab and his pants looked like they folded a little funny around the crotch, so when he pulled out that cell phone I just knew we was gonna blow us all up. That's when I cold cocked him and took the dangerous device away."

You laugh, perhaps, but it will happen. Something like 40% of Americans are completely OK with racially profiling Arabs as an anti-terrorism measure. Never mind that statistically more terrorists are not Arabs than are, never mind that prior to 9/11 the most significant act of terrorism on US soil was committed by a white bread kid from Kansas. None of that matters. My wife was in line at Costco in Boston. An Indian couple walked by talking in what she assumes was Hindi. After they past the guy in front of her commented to his wife that someone from Homeland Security ought to be interested in that, and seemed rather disgusted that they wouldn't be. At first she actually though the guy was joking, but it became quickly clear that he really thought being brown skinned and speaking a foreign language at Costco should be grounds for DHS interest.

Now most people aren't blatant racists (I hope), but enough of them are a little extra nervous around Arabs, a little extra nervous around planes, and little extra nervous around crowds, that giving them blanket "Good Samaritan" immunity from prosecution is probably not a great idea.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

sorry, but just by mentioning Goodwin's Law you have invoked it.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[KnownIssues]

I actually listened to a woman-on-the-street interviewee on the radio last night say, when asked about the invasion to privacy that the scanners are, that anything was worth the extra security. She would be willing to give up any and every right to be assured that she was safe. She didn't question that she was actually more secure, she just accepted that she was because she was told that she was. I can just see the argument, "well if a few Jews [insert foreigners of your choice here] have to be killed to ensure my safety, then that's what it takes."

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

The nazi's were capitalist, at the very least they hated the communism.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[element-o.p.]

Good point. I wasn't aware it had gone that far, though. Sigh...welcome to the U.S.S.A.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[BobMcD]

Oh, do you really think they haven't? Think the economic disasters of the bad lettuce, the bad peanuts, all the other recent disasters, were just unusual accidents?

Infecting a single beef feedlot?

Well, we have only a handful of possibilities:

A) The food-borne illness incidents prior to 2001 and afterwards were accidents.

B) The food-borne illness incidents prior to 2001 and afterwards were terrorist attacks.

C) A mix of A and B, in whatever proportion.

Any of these options are possible, but to B and C are going to require some evidence to overcome the simplicity of A.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[BobMcD]

Despite being idiotic, that justification flies with enough people. Same thing with corporations. We'd start throwing molotovs if the president announced privacy was a thing of the past and that their location would be tracked electronically. Facebook does it and people think -I'm- crazy for caring.

The gap in your logic is exactly WHY this flies while flying. There exists a Constitution that governs the behavior of every portion of our government, including the TSA. That is the standard they are to be held against.

Facebook isn't the government.

But somehow, somewhere along the way, we've decided that the TSA isn't the government either. And that's just bizarre.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[BobMcD]

It's not like it's being forced on you. You can always choose not to fly.

Sure can! We have a lot of choices, actually. We could choose to:

A) Move to Zimbabwe. Not a lot of airports there...

B) Commit suicide. No need to fly once dead...

C) Protest this unjust and idiotic behavior of our government, attempting to return it to the semblance of an honorable institution that it was designed to be.

Lots of choices, some better than others.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[BobMcD]

This. Or imagine a coordinated bombing of every single Wal-Mart in a single city. Repeat it in different cities, different stores or perhaps even venues, for three days in a row. The effect would be chilling to the point of devastating.

Easy to do, but hasn't yet happened.

I'm fairly confident that terrorists, like tooth faeries, simply do not exist. They're mythical constructions designed to get us to act in a certain way and nothing more.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Johnny5000]

Oh, do you really think they haven't? Think the economic disasters of the bad lettuce, the bad peanuts, all the other recent disasters, were just unusual accidents?

I think those just go down to good old fashioned American corner-cutting for the sake of profit.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[interkin3tic]

I'm aware that facebook isn't the government. What I'm saying is that I find it odd that people are so much more vigilant about the government encroaching on their rights, but not private businesses. It seems to me that today, corporations like facebook are destroying privacy much more than the government hopes too. To only be concerned with the government seems outdated.

We haven't decided TSA isn't the government either. The reason they get away with it is, as I said, because you technically have a choice, they're not forcing you to submit to the scan or gate rape, you could stay at home. That and we forgot that those who would give up their liberties for a little security deserve and will get neither.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Whooosh?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[BobMcD]

Staying home is a false choice, and everyone knows it. Flying and rape are not necessarily related.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[DanTheStone]

"When" isn't really accurate. Wikipedia says "currently in use in the US at airports, four court houses, and two correctional facilities"
I'd link but I'm using Chrome and I don't want to hand-type the URL.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Philomage]

In fact, beck has even gone out of his way to expressly state that he doesn't blame obama for it.

"I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him." I think you miss the degree of Beck's rhetoric.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

You left out backscatter X-rays. They're are more likely to kill me too.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Devoidoid]

And the money Chertoff's making selling the scanners.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Devoidoid]

He's not giving interviews on CNN anymore, just little photos and audio tapes. Here's a snippet from his 2010 interview.

much like osama bin laden.

There oughta be a a mod -1 , Whoosh.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[nicolette sue]

It has always bothered me that they doggedly confiscate nail clippers and tweezers but they let ball-point pens walk on the plane in droves. I understand that it makes it look like something is being done, but it's annoying.

A person with enough determination will always find a way. This is something that many of us willing to think about the situation for 30 seconds have always known, but the backscatter machines and enhanced pat downs are finally getting to some of the sheep, it seems. It is my vain hope that the backlash to these policies will allow us to return to pre-9/11 security measures, which I believe are more than adequate for the actual threat that we face on a daily basis.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

You forgot reinforced cockpit doors.

Start making planes where the pilots have their own door and hijacking is impossible.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I fly after 9/11 why wouldn't I stand in a line after a line bombing.

Constantly reacting to the last thing that happened means you never get to move forward.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, it's neither that they're too stupid NOR that they've been "told" that they don't need to learn... they simply aren't interested. For most people, the idea of reading a book other than a NY Times bestseller or Oprah Book Club selection gives them the cold sweats. You cannot educate people who are genuinely averse to learning.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought part of the problem was the TSA doing stuff that normally only your wife would do?

Maybe I can get them to give my wife lessons.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[damburger]

You can just leg it past him though and get away. Sadly, though, that doesn't work well with airport security.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

Kinda like religious dogma?

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

when you take into account the mass-extinctions of the past, you are more likely to die as a result of a meteor strike than you are to die in any plane crash.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[FoolishOwl]

But that's just it. The story is that the 9/11 terrorists commandeered the plane with smuggled box cutters. Adam Savage had a couple of razor blades in his pocket while going through an embarrassing and inconvenient screening that supposedly checks for just that sort of item, but it wasn't detected. The rules do not serve the purpose they claim to serve. The question is what, if any, purpose they do serve.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[cffrost]

In reality, there ARE times when theft is the correct and appropriate action, or when refusing to assist police is the correct and proper thing to do. [due to risk of enacting Godwin's Law, I will avoid mentioning certain historical events, despite their obvious applicability.]

There are times when it may be appropriate to invoke Godwin's Law.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[Anonymous Coward]

And it's not like billeting troops in your house would be forced on you either. You could always choose to be homeless.

Re:The "enhanced" procedures are useless

[protektor]

The two big cases that I couldn't find but finally did find were, and yes they were both citizens:

Mike Hawash- He was disappeared for a few weeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Hawash

José Padilla- He was disappeared for 3.5 years
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Padilla_(prisoner)

Interesting that they were both arrested for being a terrorist originally then the government couldn't prove that so they got conspiracy which is a way easier case to make. You could trip over yourself and be a complete moron lawyer and still make a conspiracy case because the requirements of proof are so low.

Oh no, razor blades

[Anonymous Coward]

Imagine the harm that might be caused!!

Re:Oh no, razor blades

[cosm]

You must be emo.

Re:Oh no, razor blades

[countSudoku()]

It's called sarcasm. Check it out!

Re:Oh no, razor blades

[cosm]

It's called dry (probably whoosh) meme humor.

Re:Oh no, razor blades

[Anonymous Coward]

Assertion failed on post #34325982, line 0
attempted to dereference non-existing humor

cry_emo_tears() has been called
Would you like to... (A)bort, (R)etry, or (I)gnore

Still getting over penis-shock.

[girlintraining]

Okay, first -- I'd like to roast the TSA in every way possible for this joke security scheme. That said, the problem is that you just turned a bunch of people loose looking at naked bodies full time when until now they've had very little exposure. It takes awhile to desensitize yourself to the constant nudity and and have it stop distracting you.

Ask any bouncer at a strip club: The first few weeks they couldn't stop looking, but after awhile, a naked woman can walk right past them and it barely registers because it's not new anymore. Happens all the time. And they are focused on the job now.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[mirix]

I'd like to think that the women in a strip club are slightly more distracting than the average flying American.

Hell, I'd be trying to look away from the scanners, not stare at them.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[couchslug]

After a day looking at average travellers, the TSA folks probably have PTSD.

Thanks to the Internet I know there are people who want to see Jabba the Hutt naked, but I doubt they are very common.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[0100010001010011]

What about the biker that was asked to get redressed so that he could be patted down.

“But that wasn’t enough for the TSA supervisor who was called to the scene and asked me to put my clothes on so I could be properly patted down.”

The statement by the TSA goes to show that it is a complete joke. It's probably the largest single employer of non-HS graduates outside of Walmart. All they know how to do is follow a mental checklist, anything that deviates from that confuses them.

When I flew to India they had just as much (and more) security. The actual threat of a bomb was much greater but they probably had 1/3rd as many workers and numerous faster checkpoints. In America there is 1 'do or die' scanner and then another check for a ticket at the gate.

In India they won't even let you in the building unless your flight leaves within the next 3 hours, don't bother showing up early. Every door is staffed by military. Full gun and uniform, you don't get into the building unless you have a ticket. (Sorry hopeless romantics). Then there is the main body/carry-on scanner. Your carry on gets a tag stamped. You get passed through. But you're still in Purgatory. You have to got through another scanner / ticket check to get out to the gates. Then at the gate they check for the carry-on stamp & ticket. Finally, they won't let you OFF the plane and into the airport unless you have your ticket.

The whole process went so fast, I don't think I waited for more than 3-4 people before I went through. Every single person was military. In shape and carrying a weapon, military.

Compared to O'Hare. Where walking up and down the promenade were a group of 3 TSA "Employees" talking about their boyfriends. Walking 3 wide they had to take up 1/2 the aisle. When we asked a simple question (Can we get food without going through security again) they had no clue. I got better help out of someone that barely spoke English.

TSA is a joke, there are better methods out there implemented by countries where terrorism is a REAL threat (Israel, India, etc).

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[jtownatpunk.net]

As much as you'd like to stop looking, you can't turn away. The horror!

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Anonymous Coward]

Two Hutts, One cup?

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Anonymous Coward]

(Sorry hopeless romantics)
Today's setting is fit for a pre-dystopian sci-fi than a romance.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[girlintraining]

I fail to see how your post addresses any point I made in mine.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[girlintraining]

I'd like to think that the women in a strip club are slightly more distracting than the average flying American.

Average looking strippers make more money than highly attractive ones for one simple reason: The observer is more inclined to believe s/he has a chance.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Dragonslicer]

As much as you'd like to stop looking, you can't turn away. The horror!

See, the terrorists have won.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[RenHoek]

Well I don't know about you but I was in India several years ago when they bombed Jaipur. Even then, returning at Delhi airport to go home, the screeners were shocked I took off my boots and put them on the conveyor belt. Also _everybody_ had a few 1 liter bottles of water. You can't really go long without water in the summer in India. Just to illustrate, at the same time, the USA and Great Britain were confiscating toothpaste and nail clippers.

Also, as an engineer, I can come up with 10 super effective ways to commit terror acts at the airport without even going through the screening process. Because as an engineer it's my job to find solutions to puzzles. And I'm not the smartest cookie in the jar. That means that any person who'd want to do real harm can just as easily come up with the same things I can come up with.

It's 100% theater. And knowing this, still being forced through the procedures just pisses me off as a law abiding citizen.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[c0lo]

looking at naked bodies full time when until now they've had very little exposure. It takes awhile to desensitize yourself to the constant nudity and and have it stop distracting you.

Ask any bouncer at a strip club: The first few weeks they couldn't stop looking, but after awhile, a naked woman can walk right past them and it barely registers because it's not new anymore. Happens all the time. And they are focused on the job now.

The specific difference between a bouncer at a strip-club and the bunch of people which are required to look at all naked bodies: the TSA cannot be picky at the aesthetic aspect of the subjects they need to look at.

Can you exclude, as a possible cause for the oversight, the nausea caused by the view of the(allegedly) Adam's penis sooo small in size? For all we know, it might have been quite traumatic

BTW (and I'm only joking... I really am): would I be TSA and be ridiculed on YouTube, I might be tempted to post on the same space the clip from the scanner, showing Adam's penis (if indeed small... if not, they really have no excuse).

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[khr]

When I flew to India they had just as much (and more) security. The actual threat of a bomb was much greater but they probably had 1/3rd as many workers and numerous faster checkpoints. In America there is 1 'do or die' scanner and then another check for a ticket at the gate.

In India they won't even let you in the building unless your flight leaves within the next 3 hours, don't bother showing up early. Every door is staffed by military. Full gun and uniform, you don't get into the building unless you have a ticket. (Sorry hopeless romantics). Then there is the main body/carry-on scanner. Your carry on gets a tag stamped. You get passed through. But you're still in Purgatory. You have to got through another scanner / ticket check to get out to the gates. Then at the gate they check for the carry-on stamp & ticket.

TSA is a joke, there are better methods out there implemented by countries where terrorism is a REAL threat (Israel, India, etc).

Is this the same India I've been flying in and out of the last few years? Okay, yeah, the military uniforms, sure... But you make it sound like they're totally competent or something.

I've almost always showed up more than three hours early for my flight, just to be prepared for the slow, chaotic crawl through the first security checkpoint after getting out of Immigration, where everyone's going every which way and the soldiers operating it go slow and hardly pay enough attention to passengers to get them through quickly, because they're all too busy chit-chatting with each other.

Then, of course, you get through the security checkpoint and there's construction inside the terminal where workers leave their wire cutters, knives, torches and other tools, many listed on the signs that say they're not allowed by passengers, just lying around while they go for a tea break, no one supervising or anything...

True, the screeners as you get closer and closer to the airplane seem a bit more competent, but they usually don't check bags, only do the metal detector wand on the passengers and sometimes a manual paw through the bags. They are faster, though, and pay more attention to the passengers.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[penguin_dance]

That's because if it wasn't for the TSA, most of these people would have been asking, "Do you want fries with that?"

Remember when we were told that federalizing airport security would make us safer?

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[whoever57]

There is plenty of security theatre in India also. Stamping the tag on hand-carry bags? SInce the tags are not fixed onto the bags, they can be easily removed, moved to another bag. It seems to serve no purpose whatsoever. They won't let you off the plane without a ticket? That wasn't my experience a few weeks ago.

In the US, the biggest threat is the TSA agents themselves. The screeners are allowed to leave their station, go for lunch and return to their station without being scanned. How difficult is it to get someone through the employee screening for the TSA? They don't have to be a suicide bomber, since the rogue TSA agent could hand a package to the real bomber.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[fishexe]

Ask any bouncer at a strip club: The first few weeks they couldn't stop looking, but after awhile, a naked woman can walk right past them and it barely registers because it's not new anymore. Happens all the time. And they are focused on the job now.

If only TSA screeners displayed as much professionalism as bouncers in strip clubs.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume the TSA is there to prevent terrorists from getting on planes.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Anonymous Coward]

You over rate the stamp your carry on gets. It really means nothing. What do I mean by that?

Well, if you "lose" the carry on stamp, you just go up to a security person and ask for another one without having to have it x-ray screen'd.

So in reality, you can get any bag from anywhere and get it on a plane.

To the untrained, the tag and stamp offer security. To the more alert, it is not.

So that part of their "airport security" is just theater as well.

I suspect that more of India's application of security to airports is theatre as well. The only reason why more people don't call it out as such as there aren't a lot of people like Bruce Schneier that live in India.

Seriously, how does the guy with the machine guy provide more security? What they're hoping for is for someone to react or behave in a nervous fashion. If you can suppress that emotional response when you pass by the armed guards then they may as well be armed with plastic toy guns that shoot out a "pop" flag.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[losttoy]

To be precise, airport security in India is not handled by Indian Military. The organization in-charge for security at airports is CISF or Central Industrial Security Force. They are trained and equipped more like a para-military force and are trusted with guarding civilian commercial installations like airports, civilian nuclear sites, power plants or other government owned critical infrastructure. Local police also have some presence at airports but that is on the periphery like making sure traffic around airports is maintained, taxis queue up properly and any arrests are processed by the police. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Industrial_Security_Force

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Darinbob]

Can't someone start a nudist airline already, so we can do away with this stuff?

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[zippthorne]

Oh, that's so sad. Someone should do something about this tip disparity.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Elyas]

My wife and I didn't understand the tag thing, and had put our DSLR camera bag inside her carry on duffle bag. While in the airport (5 hour delay) we took the camera bag out. The guard checking bags at the gate before we boarded had a panic attack that the bag didn't have a tag. We offered to put it back in the other bag, but instead had to run back to the security check point and rescan it so it could have it's own tag...

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Anonymous Coward]

WTF are you talking about? This has *NOTHING* to do with being naked. This has everything to do with not having right to YOUR OWN BODY! You are either irradiated and your image stored for later reference *OR* physically molested.

When you get an xray from a doctor,

    1. it is for your benefit, AND
    2. it is with your consent

Neither of this currently happens. Irradiating me will NOT help me. On contrary, it can kill me. And it is not with my consent. This is as fucked as it can be and retards think it's ok.

Benjamin Franklin with his "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" or Patrick Henry with his "Give me liberty or give me death" would probably be viewed as terrorist sympathizers and definitely arrested at an airport for refusing to be searched without cause. Today's politicians and people are cowards. Cowards that will give away their rights that people have died for so they can have that nice, warp feeling when then bend over for "random screenings" when they want to exit their house....

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[mirix]

Maybe so, but an "average" stripper and an "average" citizen are two different things.

Although a 7 might get more tips than a 9 - there aren't many twos and threes stripping... and they do fly!

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Merls the Sneaky]

Unless your couple is exhibitionist and likes getting groped in front of strangers by other strangers.

Or maybe this would be a better setting for an X-rated porn that Australia can then confiscate when you go through customs.

Hooray for fascist dictatorships!

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[Anonymous Coward]

There is one single example that proves, beyond ANY shadow of doubt, that the x-ray scans and patdowns are 100% bullshit: The fact that they make the fucking PILOT go through it.

Really? The PILOT? As in, the guy who is going to actually FLY the airplane!!!

It makes me want to vomit, seriously. And I used to wonder why people from other countries talked so much shit about America- I always thought it was a combination of misinformation or jealousy, but apparently it's because we're a pack of fucking idiots.

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[dbIII]

How difficult is it to get someone through the employee screening for the TSA?

A terrorist would have to lie on the questions so it would be impossible for an honest terrorist to get employed by the TSA :)

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[bjk002]

"And I'm not the smartest cookie in the jar"

Just how does one go about measuring the intelligence level of imprisoned baked dough slices?

Re:Still getting over penis-shock.

[xaositects]

boo... just boo

Stop focusing on the negative already!

[Fluffeh]

Here at the TSA, we dislike the way that you are focusing on our mistakes. Yes, we make mistakes, but so does everyone else.

We just happen to be in a position that allows us to have X-Ray vision and check out all the bits that people cover up. I mean seriously, how many times as a kid did you wish to have a pair of X-Ray glasses to check out your neighbor? Well, it's just like that! But we can!

So, please, stop focusing on the bad, just because WE have a toy that you DON'T doesn't mean that you should try to take it away from us!

Now, excuse me, there is a hot chick coming. I need to check her very carefully for explosives and hidden things.

*sips coffee*

Re:Stop focusing on the negative already!

[Anonymous Coward]

Here at the TSA, we dislike the way that you are focusing on our mistakes. Yes, we are mistakes, but so does everyone else.

We just happen to be in a position that allows us to have X-Ray vision and check out all the bits that people cover up. I mean seriously, how many times as a kid did you wish to have a pair of X-Ray glasses to check out your neighbor? Well, it's just like that! But we can!

So, please, stop focusing on the bad, just because WE have a toy that you DON'T doesn't mean that you should try to take it away from us!

Now, excuse me, there is a hot chick coming. I need to check her very carefully for explosives and hidden things.

*sips coffee*

Fixed that for you.

Re:Stop focusing on the negative already!

[cronius]

The last of these two videos (maybe NSFW):

http://engrishfunny.failblog.org/2010/11/17/engrish-funny-nma-news-id-fly-that-airline/

Question

[Anonymous Coward]

I watched this earlier today, I wonder what a razor blade on its thin side look like on x-ray. Do airport x-rays scan from multiple angles?

Anyway, TSA sucks and TSA gropes people.

Captcha: Stupid, how appropriate

Re:Question

[blackraven14250]

I've seen videos of the new scanning procedure where people got scanned, turn 90 degrees, and got scanned again.

Re:Question

[Anonymous Coward]

How about for luggage? (thats what I was thinking about, because I forgot the voyeur/scanners were X-ray too.

Re:Question

[jd]

Metal does... interesting things in the presence of radiation. If you have a spare microwave, put an aluminium pie dish inside. Do NOT use a microwave that is not very expendible. So long as you use low enough power and have some level of absorbtion, the microwave will survive long enough for you to get some GREAT arcs.

Metal in a bag or suitcase would likely show up totally black on an X-Ray. A razorblade, edge-on, would do the same. However, razors aren't cuboids. The edge is very sharp. The effects on what will make it back to the camera aren't obvious, but you should be able to use a ray-tracer to simulate the effect. Regardless, it should be damn obvious.

Re:Question

[DarwinSurvivor]

1) Lower powers on microwaves do not decrease the microwave's power, it simply cycles between on and off (usually over 10-30 seconds), lower power will NOT prevent fires, just allows food to cool *slightly* between barrages.

2) The color (black vs white) of an object (metal / bone) on a x-ray depends on whether it is a pass-through system (film oposite side of material as emiter causing black on white) or a reflective system (film next to emiter catching reflections causing white on black).

Re:Question

[DarwinSurvivor]

Sorry, I had the black on white and white on black backwards. The x-rays cause a blackening of the film. There are still 2 types of x-rays that cause inverted results.

Re:Question

[amRadioHed]

Actually my microwave uses an Inverter(tm) to reduce the strength of the microwaves instead of cycling at low power for more even cooking, or so they claim. The microwave is about 2 years old, I'm not sure how long this has been an option.

Carryon?

[Swarley]

I believe he was suggesting that the items were in his carry on, not his person. Thus the TSA spent so much time looking at his junk they missed the two "daggers" in his carry-on. Or something to that effect.

Re:Carryon?

[VortexCortex]

Yes, it was his Laptop Bag... as in the security theater song and dance: "Take Your Laptops out of your Bags," and all that jazz.

meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst camera shake ever.

Its a known fact, TSA and /or any other check point agency is just there to inconvenience you whilst 'trying' to make you feel safe. I've carried knives, blades etc by mistake or as part of a key chain ensemble without an incident.

A pair of chopsticks could be enough to kill someone anyway... next up - banning of chopsticks

Re:meh

[countSudoku()]

I could kill a human with a sharpened pencil, or a rolled up magazine. Take your pick? Can't we all just take some sedatives and fly without the fucking strip search performed by the stupidest humans alive; the TSA Security Agents of Shit? Thank you.

Re:meh

[jcr]

I could kill a human with a sharpened pencil, or a rolled up magazine.

Do you have a price list posted on your web site?

-jcr

Re:meh

[element-o.p.]

Don't give TSA ideas. Next thing you know, we will be sedated, stripped naked (for real, not just electronically), and then rolled on gurneys into the airplane's cargo hold, where we will sleep soundly until the airplane arrives at its destination, at which time, if we're lucky, TSA will administer an antidote to the sedative and we *might* wake up. If they read the labels right. Maybe.

Re:meh

[AvitarX]

When I can't bring reading materials on the plane I know who to blame.

Re:meh

[mabhatter654]

They had this in The Fifth Element ... the passengers were in the Japanese type sleep tubes. Probably even more comfortable too.

Re:meh

[Anonymous Coward]

It is sad, every time I fly, I worry more about society because of the lack of intelligence displayed by my fellow travelers. If the flying public is this inept, how bad must Greyhound riders be?

TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Oriumpor]

Missed an open bottle of mouthwash, missed my wallet pickset and totally did nothing about the oversized shoe inserts in my shoes... something that looks an awful lot like the device that caused the whole "Take of your shoes please sir" bullshit.

The security policies of the TSA are a bunch of horseshit. I had a pair of nondescript headphones wrapped around a "strange" looking (pico projector) device that wasn't even questioned. (Point of fact I had so much electronic shit in my carryon I was already down the hall of the terminal out of view of the screener as he was still looking at my shit.

Oh right, and the scanners themselves weren't isolated from the general public (they were in a raised Kiosk in a 3 point monitor setup, so if you walked up to "ask a question" 2 of the 3 displays were visible at all times. Fuck you TSA.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[geekoid]

So your complaint is there are now too well trained? The can tell the difference between the normal shit you have and a bomb.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Oriumpor]

No, I violated their policy and they did F all about it.

I was supposed to present it in a plastic bag all by itself etc. I didn't. They did nothing. They also hadn't completed screening my carry-on and I was able to go anyways. And the Pickset is definitely on the prohibited list, I completed forgot it was in there but laughed when I saw it the next day.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Imagine if they had searched him. "I got stopped and searched over my shoe inserts. Those fucking morons couldn't tell the difference between a pico projector device and a bomb. Fuck you TSA!"

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Anonymous Coward]

They were probably too busy laughing at your microscopic little needle of a penis to bother with your fucking lock picks. Requiring you to "present it in a plastic bag" is pretty meaningless when they can irradiate your body and see beneath your clothing. They've already gotten what they wanted, control. Over you.

You didn't violate shit, they violated you and you're too fucking stupid to realize it.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[mr100percent]

Waving everything through is as good as no security at all. The recent bombs from Yemen showed that the TSA should be inspecting small electronics and print cartridges and yet they aren't. As the GP said, so much for effective security.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[AlamedaStone]

Imagine if they had searched him. "I got stopped and searched over my shoe inserts. Those fucking morons couldn't tell the difference between a pico projector device and a bomb. Fuck you TSA!"

Not only that, imagine if they had been grizzly bears!

But they weren't. They were thugs creating a hazardous situation (the line) in the name of security rules which they failed to follow. Imagine that.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Anonymous Coward]

[citation needed]

Doesn't DHS do surprise scenarios with real incindiary components, and weapons? I thought that was part of their whole mission. To actively test policy and find vulnerabilities. Or are we just not being told about it since, well, they may still have their head up their ass.

It's also possible that the Airlines are no longer a viable avenue of attack for terrorists, and they are now seeking alternate methods for violence. Nah.... That couldn't be it.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[AvitarX]

Aside from ice picks I don't see why picks would be prohibited.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Reminds me of my travels in the midwest installing weather stations in the 90's. I carried a $10k soil moisture tester carry-on (for obvious reasons) everywhere. It was packaged in a nice small Pelican case. There was a nice smooth faceplate when you opened it up with two plugs, two switches, and an LCD. You hooked it up to the probes, turned it on, and the LCD would count down from 10 while the probes stabilized and then give you a moisture reading. Invariably the security person after the Xray would ask me to open it up and turn it on. No one ever said anything about the flashing LCD counting down from 10. Ever.

Airport security has always been a joke.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Johnny Mnemonic]

Those tests, when performed, regularly fail pretty spectacularly. It doesn't help the argument for TSA effectiveness.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Anonymous Coward]

Stop criticizing, some of us like being able to get away with aerosols, liquids, razors, and gels and fly regularly.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Oriumpor]

They had that long ago. Haven't you ever read the prince? Your "rights" are an illusion the ruling class has instilled in you. They are as fleeting as Jefferson's dream. We never really had freedom, we had a dream of freedom and the same oppression we brought with us.

Never the less, why is it, if I'm pointing out evidence that even on one of the slowest travel days the screeners don't bother to do what they're supposed to you are so ignorant as to assume I am defending them?

I truly believe it's a ridiculous theater where even the actors can't remember their lines, cues, or choreography. Or better yet, it's like a kindergarten play, where the tree just has to stand there and instead they're peeing themselves and dancing all over the stage.

I weep at your ignorance and bigotry, since people making ill-thought out decisions are what got us into this mess. You sir, have become what you hate, congratulations.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[wwfarch]

I have a similar story that's even worse. I traveled once with a camera hooked up to an electrical box and some conduit in my bag. They actually did question it among themselves but let the camera through without verifying what it was. I overheard the following conversation as they scanned my bag.

Agent A: "Hey can you come here?"
Agent B: "Yeah, what's up?"
Agent A: "You know what this is?"
[Agents puzzling over it for a bit]
Agent B: "I have no idea.. send it through"

I really wish this were an exaggeration.

Re:TSA @ LAX Saw my junk

[Anonymous Coward]

On a flight to Denver from Tulsa, I got through the metal detectors, the x-ray machines, AND the wand (this was before the scanner machine, but post 9-11) with a fist full of 22 caliber bullets (enough to make a decent-sized explosive). They were in my jacket from a trip to the range some week or so before; the jacket went through the x-ray machine, and I through the metal detector, which buzzed, and earned me the wand--all the while, my jacket full of bullets sat there waiting for me.

Yeah, I was lucky as hell, but holy shit that's a huge miss.

Least it is not as bad as this

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to Wikipedia, and create an account with an abusive username, such as animal or child abuse.

TSA asked me about the 12 inch thing in my pants

[Anonymous Coward]

And I said "Do you mean my penis?"

Are they dumb or what...

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have thought that Adam and Jamie would have been on a 'dot-not-fly list after all their adventures in blowing stuff up etc

Security Theater, a comedy in 5 acts.

[Jeremy Erwin]

Act 1: TSA agent keeps his old gloves on
Act 2: TSA agent fondles child
Act 3: Child contracts STD from TSA's old gloves
Act 4: Some time later, the child's pediatrician detects this STD.
Act 5: Child Protective Services saves the day!

Re:Security Theater, a comedy in 5 acts.

[larry bagina]

I've got a fever and the only prescription is more government!

Re:Security Theater, a comedy in 5 acts.

[Anonymous Coward]

And they say that perpetual motion machines are impossible.

Re:Security Theater, a comedy in 5 acts.

[mabhatter654]

So your saying any random men should feel up kids... just to get them used to being groped by strangers. .... and they used to have to wait until Junior High school for the locker room....

It's not child molesting... it's a public service!!!

I'm joking, I have a squigly line.

[Anonymous Coward]

Modded off-topic? Bizarre. Grammar jokes are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

I think you misspelled "grammer".

Re:I'm joking, I have a squigly line.

[Anonymous Coward]

Modded off-topic? Bizarre. Grammar jokes are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

I think you misspelled "grammer".

Nope, he got it right. You got it wrong :)

This being modded "informative" instead of "redundant" signals dreaded times.

Re:I'm joking, I have a squigly line.

[mr_bubb]

Either your sense of humor is really sophisticated, or you're asstastically (sp?) stupid.

Re:I'm joking, I have a squigly line.

[NotOverHere]

Modded off-topic? Bizarre. Grammar jokes are the heart and soul of Slashdot.

I think you misspelled "grammer".

Nope, he got it right. You got it wrong :)

I believe that Whoosh jokes are also part of the afore mentioned heart and soul jokes!

Re:I'm joking, I have a squigly line.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe you in turn missed _his_ joke there.

Re:I'm joking, I have a squigly line.

[Anonymous Coward]

Double whoosh!

Actually, it's a triple whoosh, but I won't explain to you; you're the one getting whooshed.

(This is the end of an M. Night Shyamalan movie: the hero had been whooshed the whole time.)

Re:I'm joking, I have a squigly line.

[Requiem18th]

It's just because we lack -1 Woosh

And let's just clarify a few things.

[khasim]

The TSA has not yet caught a single terrorist attempting to get on a plane.

The TSA is NOT the "last line of defense". The last line of defense will be the other passengers on the flight.

If the TSA really thought that your bottle of water was a bomb then why don't they treat you like a person who just attempted to smuggle a bomb onto the plane?

The TSA is useless at their stated mission.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[lightbox32]

If the TSA really thought that your bottle of water is a threat, would they have you chug it into a container not 5 feet from them?

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[shoehornjob]

The TSA is NOT the "last line of defense". The last line of defense will be the other passengers on the flight.

Yeah... I know a few Air Marshals that might disagree with that statement. The training they put these guys through is ridiculous.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[penguin_dance]

Not to mention that the terrorists carrying the bombs came from OTHER COUNTRIES that could care less about screening. That and security totally missed the underwear bomber despite the US being warned by family members that he had become an extremist.

And both were thwarted by the same passengers who are now being subjected to a feel up like they're spending the weekend in county lockup. When the groping becomes uncomfortable enough, they think well all go through the virtual porn machine like good little sheeple.

This isn't about safety. It's about conditioning people for the next step.

Never let a crisis go to waste...

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that the terrorists carrying the bombs came from OTHER COUNTRIES that could care less about screening.

I'm glad they could care less. It's important that screening be high on their priority list!

Just in case your sarcasm detector is broken, that was a sarcastic comment about people who don't use cliche phrases properly.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ex-TSO here. The amount of business and first class seats the Air Marshals take is amazing. If you know any, ask them. They're pretty open about it. If you know any flight attendants, ask them. They'll tell you. It's a boring job, so they claim a good seat.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[orangepeel]

Ridiculous?

Air marshal leaves plane after dropping bullets

Passenger Finds Loaded Ammunition Clip on Southwest Flight

US air marshal leaves gun in airport restroom

Air Marshal Causes International Incident

Air Marshal Accused of Rape at Gunpoint

Marshals Fight Battle in Air and on Ground

From that last article:

"How would you describe the management in the air marshal service?" CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian asked a current air marshal.

"Sexist, racist, homophobic, anti-disabled vet group, grossly incompetent," said the marshal, whose identity was concealed. "That's the general consensus among air marshals."

Nearly two dozen current or former marshals have told CBS News the agency is dominated by an "old boys club" of white, male supervisors -- mainly ex-secret service agents who, they allege, routinely discriminate, intimidate and retaliate against employees who question their actions or authority.

"This behavior has just spread like a cancer and it's out of control," the marshal said.

Well ... it sounds like you called it right: ridiculous.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[Anonymous Coward]

If the TSA really thought your water was a bomb, they wouldn't casually toss them into the bin full of other confiscated bombs, would they?

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't seem to realize why it is a cliche. It is sarcasm, not meant to be understood literally. "I could care less, but it would be difficult." etc.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't seem to realize its only become sarcasm because no one uses the correct saying. Also, most people don't even PUT sarcasm in the cliche. It should be "I couldn't care less."

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[TheLink]

Yeah imagine a dozen people chucking bottles containing explosives into that container, then someone detonates them...

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[Daetrin]

The TSA is NOT the "last line of defense". The last line of defense will be the other passengers on the flight.

Yeah... I know a few Air Marshals that might disagree with that statement. The training they put these guys through is ridiculous.

The Air Marshals are the last line of defense, not the passengers? So in the event of a terrorist attack during a flight you think any Air Marshals on board will just sit back and let the passengers see if they can handle it first before they get involved? Either you have a poor understanding of what "last line of defense" means, or you have a poor opinion of Air Marshals.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ex-TSO here.

Don't know (or care) if disgust with security theater - or just a better offer somewhere else - was your motivation for quitting, but either way: thank you for leaving. You're no longer part of the problem, you're now part of the solution.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[Anonymous Coward]

The TSA is NOT the "last line of defense". The last line of defense will be the other passengers on the flight.

Funny how people try and say that the Constitution needs to be "interpreted" because of modern technology and changes to our society. Yet when it was setup, the authors specifically reserved the Right to keep and bear arms for exactly this reason; the citizens are always the last line of defense. The position about that amendment's purpose being so the citizens can revolt against an unjust government is a pile of crap- it was put there so the citizens could defend the country and themselves in time of need.

The TSA is useless at their stated mission.

I would say they are actually less than useless, they are actually adding to the problem. Not only are they creating crowds and lines outside checkpoints (easy bomb target) they are actively eroding our freedoms and training the next generation to not stand up for their rights or exercise free speech. They are actually helping the terrorists accomplish their goals. And despite what you hear on the news, their goal is not necessarily to kill people, it's to destroy our society. And so far, we've being doing a damn good job FOR them.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[gottabeme]

Chuck? :)

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[jambarama]

If that wasn't enough, they're more likely to be arrested than make an arrest. They're absurdly expensive: we're paying $200M per arrest, about 4 arrests a year, and the arrests are almost exclusively small quantity drug possession charges. Last, on the very small percentage of flights they're actually on, they're not even sitting among the potential threats, they're always cloistered up in first class, which makes them really really easy to spot and really useless in spotting anything suspicious.

Re:And let's just clarify a few things.

[harl]

Too bad the Air Marshal program is useless. The entire air marshal program makes about 4 arrests a year.

More air marshals are arrested than there are arrests made by Air Marshals.

http://duncan.house.gov/2009/06/22062009.shtml

Wasn't too recent - May.

[Anonymous Freak]

It was at w00tstock in Seattle. That was in May.

Re:Wasn't too recent - May.

[Anonymous Coward]

The youtube video was also posted in May.

Re:Wasn't too recent - May.

[scumfuker]

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... That's not the point.

Obvious What Happened

[Greyfox]

Distracted by his remarkably tiny penis, they didn't notice the razor blades and other hardware he had on him. The message here is quite obvious, if you want to sneak something onto a plane, just use someone with a freakishly small (or probably freakishly large) penis to do it.

Re:Obvious What Happened

[Arker]

Freakishly large mammaries should work as well or better.

Re:Obvious What Happened

[Locke2005]

I'm thinking freakishly large breasts would be a _lot_ more effective.

Re:Obvious What Happened

[Oriumpor]

The kiosk was manned by a male and female, but that's not necessarily 100% effective since they're not allowed to ask the person's sexual persuasion.

Re:Obvious What Happened

[arth1]

Distracted by his remarkably tiny penis, they didn't notice the razor blades and other hardware he had on him. The message here is quite obvious, if you want to sneak something onto a plane, just use someone with a freakishly small (or probably freakishly large) penis to do it.

Great, so if you ever see Howard Stern and Mandingo board the same plane, run hard.

ANYhow, razor blades are really hard to detect because they are small and flat. When resting against a larger metal object, it's almost impossible to detect them with a detector at any angle. But that doesn't matter much, because they're also not a good tool to kill people with. Sure, they are very sharp, and can cause a lot of bleeding, but without a special holder, it's easier to hurt oneself than others with it.
If I were so inclined, I'd much rather try to kill someone with a pencil.
Or a small bottle of mercury hidden inside a battery.
Or ...

Re:Obvious What Happened

[Locke2005]

I've got news for you... even straight females and gay males stare at freakishly large breasts!

Re:Obvious What Happened

[fishexe]

I've got news for you... even straight females and gay males stare at freakishly large breasts!

...and even straight males and gay females make fun of freakishly small penises...

Re:Obvious What Happened

[Greyfox]

Oh sure, Colbert had some CIA dude on and asked him how he'd go about killing someone sitting across the desk, to which the CIA dude replied (Without hesitation) that he'd jam a pencil through his victim's soft pallet, killing him instantly. You know what the TSA will be confiscating next. You're welcome.

Re:these TSA bashers have sexual hangups

[Anonymous Coward]

Being a prude about your own body isn't a crime, you know.

now he end up on the no fly list or lockup but the

[Anonymous Coward]

now he end up on the no fly list or lockup but after doing some time he can bust some prison myths.

They arent looking for terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

An illegal search is admissible as evidence when a 'private entity' has conducted it.

They are looking for drugs, because a cop can't without probable cause.

This is the same reason they wanted to set up a program to have postal employees peeking in your windows.

The fourth amendment is seen by LEO as a roadblock to 'unlimited' revenue based on property seizure.

Pistole, the other day, in bragging about the effectiveness of the scanners, couldn't help mentioning the drug seizures and heroin needle it had detected.

Cop makes his bust, LEO gets his seized house, car, boat, etc to auction. At the very worst, some minimum wage high school dropout nobody of a TSA agent takes any possible legal heat.

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[shentino]

Postal employees are government agents and therefore subject to 4th amendment restrictions.

They are not "private"

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, this is getting really really old... It is not an illegal search if you submit to it. If you don't submit to it, you don't fly. There is nothing illegal about the TSA tactics. If you really thought there was and you have any amount of balls you'd go and do what was needed to get this theory of yours before a judge. But you know you're making shit up and you know you're wrong.

Now, either man up to the challenge or quit spreading your lies.

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[nanospook]

LEO - Law Enforcement Officer?

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[zippthorne]

TSA is not a private entity. They could've made that argument when there were private security firms, but TSA is a division of Homeland Security, a cabinet-level department in the executive branch of the federal government.

Their evidence is illegally collected, and would be inadmissible as well, if all the judges weren't corrupt.

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't sworn officers, and you won't see a sworn officer in sight.. Unless you complain, and need to be arrested for refusing the search.

The discovery of any baggies of weed is completely incidental to what they're doing, the cop discovers it in plain sight when they're brought in.

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

The fourth amendment is seen by LEO as a roadblock to 'unlimited' revenue based on property seizure.

LEO = Low Earth Orbit?

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny, because I've gotten illegal drugs past the TSA so many times I've lost count.

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[Pandrake]

I think the issue is not that TSA isn't a private entity, it's that the search is mandated as legal so anything found during the search is admissible in court as evidence of contraband (either drugs or weapons, both are proof of illegal activity) whereas an illegal search, such as one without probable cause, is not.

Re:They arent looking for terrorists

[zippthorne]

It really was a different matter when the airlines were paying for the security and making it a condition of sale. As a private entity, they can put almost whatever conditions they want on their contracts as long as their customers agree to those conditions, barring certain rights that cannot be waived.

They have much more freedom in the matter, and frankly, the original security was basically a PR move to put more butts in the seats anyway.

The issue is that nothing in the constitution grants the federal government the authority to conduct these searches, and there are a few spots where that kind of thing is specifically forbidden to the federal government. It is tremendously worrisome the longer these shenanigans are allowed to continue, and worse, to progress.

It seems the government is keen on moving from a "we govern by your consent, as outlined in this contract written 200 years ago that anyone can read" model to a "we're bigger than you, so you do what we say" model, and we (well, travelers in this specific instance, but there are other areas where unauthorized government intrusion continues to fester unopposed as well) seem to be letting them.

winning the war on toursim

[Presto Vivace]

maybe some day we can go back to probably cause.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[harvey the nerd]

"Winning the war of tourism" means keeps most of that valuable foreign exchange at home. No doubt the Feds consider expats to be traitors, even if enviously.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[shoehornjob]

maybe some day we can go back to probable cause

We can never go back because just like (most)everything that's wrong with this country it's not about what's right. It's about what makes profit for the rich.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[antifoidulus]

I can attest to this. I am a grad student in Japan and I get flack from the immigration officers every time I come home. It's a pain in the ass explaining why I am not studying in the US and what I plan to do in my own god damned country.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[Korin43]

We can never go back because just like (most)everything that's wrong with this country it's not about what's right. It's about what makes profit for the rich.

That's what confuses me about this. Why haven't airline lobbyists stopped this yet? Do they not realize that everyone hates flying now?

Re:winning the war on toursim

[Martin Blank]

It's about what doesn't drop blame on the powers that be. "We can't be blamed. We were doing everything that we could to stop this, but now we need to do these other things, too." Being able to divert the blame to scanners that didn't pick up the threat is a variant of that.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, it wouldn't even take federal lobbyist. Each individual airport can opt out of TSA security. There is an airport in Orlando that has done this http://wdbo.com/localnews/2010/11/sanford-airport-to-opt-out-of.html
I would think that the smaller airports would be chomping at the bit to dump the TSA and take business from the larger ones.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[pete6677]

The same reason they haven't stopped extra fees for bag checking and all the other bullshit: they don't care if people like flying or not. They just cut capacity to the point that their planes are always full from the number of people who will fly no matter what. The worst thing the U.S. ever did for air travel was bail out airlines that should have gone bust long ago. We would have much better air service now if the dinosaur companies had been allowed to die.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[IICV]

Maybe we're getting to that point now, but I remember flying out of Seattle circa 2007; I randomly mentioned to someone else who was also going through TSA security that the only reason why we have to take our shoes off is because of some idiot whose plot didn't even work, and wouldn't have worked even if he'd managed to pull it off. The other guy shrugged and said "Well, it makes me feel safer."

So yeah. People hate flying, but they like how safe taking their shoes off makes them feel.

People are pretty stupid.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem there is that the private companies still have to follow all the rules the TSA sets, and presumably don't have to follow federal hiring rules. However, they may also be able to organize into unions, thus giving a unified voice to all the TSA employees who don't want to do these scans, and possibly changing some rules. Time will tell, I suppose.

But yeah, I'd be much more likely to travel via an airport that did not choose to go with the TSA.

(Also, the pedant in me needs to point out that the phrase you're after is "champing at the bit".)

Re:winning the war on toursim

[alnjmshntr]

Well all they can do is lobby against these measures which they do (in UK at least). I guess Americans are scared of being called unpatriotic or something.

UK Should Not 'Kowtow' to the US on Flight Security
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39863854/

Airport Security Checks 'Bizarre, Ineffective': Ryanair CEO
http://www.cnbc.com/id/39950166

Re:winning the war on toursim

[Anonymous Coward]

The other guy shrugged and said "Well, it makes me feel safer." So yeah. People hate flying, but they like how safe taking their shoes off makes them feel

IOW, the security theater is not there to make flying safer. It's there to make passengers feel safe, so they won't abandon flying. Maybe that's why there's no airline lobbying against it.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[Anonymous Coward]

Because people need flying, one way or another. Most people are either too lazy or too busy to drive. Not to mention that you can't drive over the Atlantic.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[Cro Magnon]

Oddly, I still haven't found anyone who felt safer from me taking my shoes off. Generally, it's the opposite as people panic and run.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[men0s]

That's what confuses me about this. Why haven't airline lobbyists stopped this yet? Do they not realize that everyone hates flying now?

People have hated flying for awhile now, at least since 9/11 happened nine years ago, maybe longer. A lot of people may hate flying but they keep doing it because they prefer to get across the country in a quicker manner than by bus, train, or car. This means airlines are still taking in revenue. Once the lobbyists see the airline industry's revenue fall and bus and train revenue gain, then you might see the lobbyists bringing out the hookers and blow for the Congress Critters.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[nicolette sue]

pete6677 is right, but I'd like to add another argument to his:

Airline travel is quickly becoming the only acceptable way to travel long distances, and it many cases it is still cheaper than driving cross-country. Further, consumers aren't very effective at voting with their dollars in the airline industry. They'll choose the cheapest ticket, and then complain about the awful service. Sometimes paying for a little bit more does make a difference.

I've flown nearly every airline in the country, and I've been able to witness the paring down of airline services firsthand over the past 19 years. Today, I only fly Southwest because I appreciate their service, business model, and fares. I just wish more consumers would wake up and realize that the "advertised price" of an airline ticket is just the cost of entry, unless you carefully choose your carrier.

Re:winning the war on toursim

[Anonymous Coward]

As true as it is to say "they" are out to get you, in this country "they" don't all have the same agendas and "they" aren't working together. It may be the airline lobby's interest to reduce this security, but if they believe in it they'll push for more because an airplane going down is a lot worse for travel than nut-grabbing TSA agents. Likewise, most people who fly places are going to fly anyway because they don't have a choice. It takes 3 or 4 days to get across the country by train. When was the last time you tried to drive to China? Things have to get pretty bad before people start telling their bosses "fuck you, I'm not getting on an airplane!"

Occasional?

[sharkey]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Uhhh??? Why is no one noticing

[Anonymous Coward]

Why is no one noticing that this video and a lot of sources being reported in the news are previous events that happened 6+ months ago????

Re:Uhhh??? Why is no one noticing

[wvmarle]

While true that it's old news, it's again a very bad mark for those full-body scanners.

This kind of razor blades would have set of the metal detector that was in common use a decade ago already. Metal buttons on my jeans set it off already! It is rare that I do not have to stand and get checked again with a hand-held metal detector to see where the metal bits are that set off the gate. They're really sensitive.

A 15-second manual sweep afterwards would have detected the exact spot where that metal is. Further inspection would have revealed those blades.

Adam said he went to a full body scanner and they missed that. So those full body scanners make security worse, not better. And that's maybe the scariest part of it.

And why it's coming now? Well maybe because anger is rising over the machines. In the video Adam's audience is laughing it off even!

Re:Uhhh??? Why is no one noticing

[Ksevio]

I did find it odd that it was one or the other - you'd think they'd incorporate a metal detector in while they were doing the other scans.

Re:Uhhh??? Why is no one noticing

[wvmarle]

Probably the argument goes like "this body scanner can see everything, and on x-rays metals stand out anyway, so no need for separate metal detectors".

Adam Savage

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe they just recognized him from the show and figured he wasn't the kind of person to cause trouble or blow things up.
Oh...hmm

Entertainment over truth

[Anonymous Coward]

Savage is number 1 an entertainer. Rule #1 of entertainment: never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

#1 rule of social websites: never let truth get in the way of attracting eyeballs.

I think they were in his laptop case

[maxwells_deamon]

I think the blades were in his laptop case. Yes, he pulled them out of his jacket pocket on stage but the statements he made on stage implied it was in his laptop case. The metal detectors would have found it if it was on his person.

Non-metalic items are probably best hidden under an adult diaper.

Finding things in your carry-on luggage is much harder than finding it on a person. If I were to smuggle a bomb on a plane, I would do it in a carry on item anyway, Much harder to prove it was yours if you got caught.

I did once open my laptop bag after going though security to realize I had left a water bottle in it.

The Myth

[__aaeuwj6541]

Tonight on mythbusters, does the x-ray scanner really detect your brainwaves ?, also, does the TSA really know what it's doing? Later on, test the myth of the DINOSAURS. did the scaly monsters really exist at all ??

Re:The Myth

[Culture20]

Later on, test the myth of the DINOSAURS. did the scaly monsters really exist at all ??

No no, they'll test the myth that they died out via impact. Of course you know their rule: always try to replicate the results of the myth, no matter how much explosives are required.

Re:The Myth

[__aaeuwj6541]

this sounds like a good time for another gratuitus explosion

Re:these TSA bashers have sexual hangups

[Anonymous Coward]

Most normal people would mind security searches.

Yes. Most normal people certainly would. People with no self respect are the ones who do not object.

And your characterization of having such self-respect as "sexual hangups" is one that you made deliberately, with full knowledge of what you were doing. This makes you a liar.

Recent?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you mean "recent" to be 5 months ago, then sure, it was recent. Penn Gillete also recently got hassled, too. Might want to post that.

Security Theater becomes Reality TV

[countertrolling]

This passenger doen't know it, but we secretly switched his bar of soap with a half kilo of C4, disguised as Nepalese Hash... Let's see how many checkpoints he can get through... There's one... He's got 3 minutes before the doors close, Willy Makeit? Betty Wont!

He's lucky

[reboot246]

The TSA thought I was trying to smuggle a bazooka in my pants.

It was really a heat and moisture seeking missile!

TSA - A Good Idea (At First)

[careysub]

Replacing hourly wage untrained rent-a-cops at security checkpoints, with employed professionals with actual management, was a good idea. Before 9/11 airport security was designed to be cheap and not impede the paying passengers. Having training, standards, etc. was a real step up.

Then things began going horribly, horribly wrong.

It is fundamentally impossible to keep every conceivable bomb or potential "weapon" off every plane. There are already gaping security holes (unscreened cargo from abroad, all those goods brought in for sale at the little airport shops, etc., etc.) that are completely unaddressed. Body cavity bombs have already been used and the naked videos and grope sessions won't detect them.

We need someone with some sense running this show. Instead we have Michael Cherthoff.

Did you see this story from the beginning of the year: http://www.infowars.com/chertoff-linked-to-body-scanner-manufacturer/ ? Cherthoff, while serving as a key government official, also runs a private consulting company one of whose clients is - the body scanner manufacturer.

Again we see the government being used as a means to stuff the pockets of well-connected, while your tax sollars are sued to physically abuse you for no benefit.

Re:TSA - A Good Idea (At First)

[fishexe]

We need someone with some sense running this show. Instead we have Michael Cherthoff.

Actually, we have Janet Napolitano. Barack Obama replaced Chertoff with her as soon as he was inaugurated.

Did you see this story from the beginning of the year: http://www.infowars.com/chertoff-linked-to-body-scanner-manufacturer/ ? Cherthoff, while serving as a key government official, also runs a private consulting company one of whose clients is - the body scanner manufacturer.

Yeah, that's pretty shifty. I'm glad the current administration, if equally incompetent, is at least less corrupt. As far as we know, that is....

Re:TSA - A Good Idea (At First)

[Vinegar Joe]

I'm glad the current administration, if equally incompetent, is at least less corrupt.

Grope and Change?

Re:TSA - A Good Idea (At First)

[Stupid McStupidson]

<quote><p>We need someone with some sense running this show. Instead we have Michael Cherthoff.</p></quote>

<p>Actually, we have Janet Napolitano. Barack Obama replaced Chertoff with her as soon as he was inaugurated.</p>

<quote><p>Did you see this story from the beginning of the year: <a href="http://www.infowars.com/chertoff-linked-to-body-scanner-manufacturer/">http://www.infowars.com/chertoff-linked-to-body-scanner-manufacturer/</a> ? Cherthoff, while serving as a key government official, also runs a private consulting company one of whose clients is - the body scanner manufacturer.</p></quote>

<p>Yeah, that's pretty shifty. I'm glad the current administration, if equally incompetent, is at least less corrupt. As far as we know, that is....</p></quote>

  You don't know much about Chicago lawyers, do you?

Re:TSA - A Good Idea (At First)

[Anonymous Coward]

The same goons that stole your luggage and helped smuggle drugs and stolen goods BECAME the "employed professionals" at the TSA. Now instead of making $7.25 an hour to steal from you, they make $12-18 an hour to steal from you and grab and grope your 6 year old son's balls and your wife's tits.

Re:TSA - A Good Idea (At First)

[dbIII]

Personally I think Michael Cherthoff should have been strung up years ago for the blatant abuse of calling a bit of legislation the PATRIOT act and thus doing the bit of nasty political judo where anyone that voted against it would be seen as antipatriotic. It should be no surprise to see someone like that linked to allegations of graft and corruption.

Re:TSA - A Good Idea (At First)

[swillden]

Replacing hourly wage untrained rent-a-cops at security checkpoints, with employed professionals with actual management, was a good idea. Before 9/11 airport security was designed to be cheap and not impede the paying passengers. Having training, standards, etc. was a real step up.

So, you're saying that expensive ineffective security is better than cheap ineffective security?

He was carrying them on his "person"?

[Cloud K]

What, strapped to it?

I guess with all the paranoia about security staff supposedly caring about its size, they must've been afraid to look!

Could it be...

[roc97007]

...that the operators missed the razor blades because they were looking at Adam's junk?

Re:Could it be...

[fishexe]

...that the operators missed the razor blades because they were looking at Adam's junk?

If I were him, I'd take that as a compliment.

because I haven't seen anybody say this yet..

[Anonymous Coward]

TSA: Myth busted!

Re:because I haven't seen anybody say this yet..

[s0litaire]

it's not "Myth Busted" till we have video evidence of Karri walking through the scanner a few times to test a couple of theories... ^_~

Re:because I haven't seen anybody say this yet..

[Drakkenmensch]

She should try walking through security hidden under a bedsheet. It worked on the motion detectors!!!

Re:because I haven't seen anybody say this yet..

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how your comment was marked as "Insightful"! No pun intended.

Let's clarify one more thing

[suomynonAyletamitlU]

If the TSA was keeping us safe, they would have some leniency in their methods.

They (by which I mean the mangers and policy-setters rather than the incompetent, cheap-ass laborers) should not be permitted to use these methods in order to be lazy. If they were serious--if they were even pretending to be serious--there are people they could learn from. "Terrorists" are not a myth, you do not ward them off with superstition and half-assed attempts to look good, which is what security theater is. There are people with experience. There are ways to test the solution. Science can be done upon it. Engineering can be done upon it. It can be made better.

And yet it's clear to me that America does not understand that, nor similar things like public opinion (here or abroad). They are in fact approaching it as though it were superstition--as though these patdowns and screenings were an offering to The God of Public Opinion to say "Look, we're competent! Don't stop flying!" And they're viewing the feedback as though it's Their God Public Opinion saying "that offering isn't good enough"--they're upping the ante, not changing their methods.

And it is "method;" they're trying to prevent something. Their efforts won't work. It won't work in the same way voodoo wasn't medicine and hallucinogens didn't give you contact with gods. It seems like they don't understand that, on a fundamental level, the figurative blood sacrifice that is TSA security isn't going to appease anyone, and people continue to be in danger (however much or little danger actually exists). Or maybe they just don't understand that there are in fact effective methods out there, or maybe they don't care.

And it's that incompetence, whichever form it takes, which is going to kill American citizens some day, when someone actually goes out of their way to prove the complete idiocy by means of a bomb.

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[mabhatter654]

exactly, the recent case of the guy who had to live with peeing in a bag. He tried to request they be careful, or even ASK what they wanted.. until they squeezed his bag of piss all over him. The entire point what that THEY didn't want to be told what to do, THEY didn't want to pay attention, they wanted to prove a point... and they did... he inconvenienced them and they made him miss his flight and embarrassed him in public. The whole thing is a clear example that THEY DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK, they are going to do this ANYWAY especially BECAUSE you don't like it.

If the TSA and FAA was really serious, they would do like the medical centers and consult with Disney and the amusement park industry for how to handle large volumes of people quickly, safely, and respectfully. Getting a few hundred people an hour on a plane should be a piece of cake. Amusement parks put thousands of people per day into tiny carts standing in the hot July Sun, quickly and safely. Why can't multi-Billion dollar airlines? Because they don't have to CARE that's why. There is no excuse for the deplorable mess mass transportation is right now, especially because airports have near complete control of passengers... it's their own petty bureaucracies they can't control.

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

"Terrorists" are not a myth, you do not ward them off with superstition and half-assed attempts to look good,

Actually, those half-assed attempts to look good are either working or terrorists are essentially a myth.
After all, no domestic flight has been hijacked or otherwise attacked since the creation of the TSA.

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[Unkyjar]

Flight hijacking has never been exactly a common occurance on domestic flights.

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[mibe]

No domestic flight has been hijacked or otherwise attacked since the entire country (world?) was alerted to the sheer insanity of religious extremists who will not be taking you on a trip to Cuba or Mexico but will instead use your airplane as a giant suicide bomb. Oh, they also locked the pilots' doors.

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

And no tigers have attacked me since I started wearing my No Tigers Underpants! If you want I can sell you a pair, then you'll be safe too.

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[L4t3r4lu5]

You have to give your fingerprints to go to Disney now. I know this because my brother and his g/f went last year.

Not really relevant, but interesting nonetheless.

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[w_dragon]

Yes but without wiping the screen between people they won't get a great scan. My understanding is that they're doing a quick measurement check only. It's been that way for years.

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[Anonymous Coward]

As somebody who had a temporary ileostomy following surgery, AND a frequent traveler I would sue the pants off the TSA if they squeezed a bag of sh*t all over me.

I find that appauling that these security monkey's have no idea how to deal with ostimate travelers...

Re:Let's clarify one more thing

[FoolishOwl]

And yet it's clear to me that America does not understand that, nor similar things like public opinion (here or abroad). They are in fact approaching it as though it were superstition--as though these patdowns and screenings were an offering to The God of Public Opinion to say "Look, we're competent! Don't stop flying!"

I have to object that I've never heard anyone, with the exception of TSA and DHS spokespersons, describe airport security as anything but an absurdity. Everyone I've ever heard speak on the subject, from whichever political leaning, those spokespersons aside, has pointed out the absurdity.

lead paint

[deuist]

I was thinking of getting some dense metallic paint (lead perhaps) and painting messages on my undershirts so that when I walk through the scanners, TSA agents will see the message under my clothes. Some ideas I've had are "Eyes up here" and "Impressed?"

Re:lead paint

[Nephilium]

I'm tempted to write the Fourth Amendment on my chest the next time I fly.

Re:lead paint

[RajivSLK]

Somebody is way ahead of you on that.. check out flyingpasties.com

what's junk anyway

[Cederic]

As someone that isn't in America, I found the over-exhuberant, unnecessary and pain-inducing whooping on the video was so fucking annoying I stopped watching it.

Was there any actual content or did it just continue in masturbatory appreciation of the cult of celebrity?

Re:what's junk anyway

[Ksevio]

Yes, the entire first half of the video was useless introduction/applause. If you go to about 1:10 you get to hear his short story.

Don't complain

[gmuslera]

If you choose security over freedom this kind of things is the least that could happen,

It's about time

[jslarve]

It's about time that this video (uploaded in May 2010) finally gets it's due.

Watch the video

[w00tsauce]

I know everyone whos thinking oh well it's easy to miss razor blades, thinking they're just little shaving blades, but no, these are actually 10 inch long steel blades.

Things the TSA have don't find:

[gurps_npc]

1. Swiss army knife in carry on.

2. My keys, including a key chain bob that included a 3 inch blade.

------------

Things the TSA make ZERO attempt to find:

1. Poison Gas containers (like Sarin gas used in the 1995 Tokyo Metro terrorist attack - 13 dead)

2. Plutonium powder = dirty bomb.

--------------

Things the TSA take away:

1. Nail clippers (even from US soldiers carrying assault rifles - that the TSA agents were told were unloaded - they did not check)

2. Our dignity

3. Any reasonable definition of the words "reasonable search"

4. Our ability to stand up to government and say THAT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL.

Re:Things the TSA have don't find:

[Oxford_Comma_Lover]

> 1. Swiss army knife in carry on.

I tend to think these shouldn't be a problem. Nobody can take over a plane with a Swiss Army knife, not today. Other passengers wouldn't allow it--and good luck getting into the cockpit.

I walked into a high-profile building in DC with a pocketknife last year, by accident. The guys with the X-ray machine did the old Boy Scout test of not-wider-than-a-man's-palm and gave it back to me, fairly confident I wouldn't go about stabbing Congressmen.

If we had a bit more good sense, we would have more security and fewer annoyances. Security and convenience are typically thought of as diametrically opposed, but it seems there are things we could do that would improve both. One simple example is cockpit doors that need clearance from the ground to open in mid-flight, instead of heightened security scans at checkpoints.

Re:Things the TSA have don't find:

[dbIII]

Actually just about any metal powder would be a problem. In the late 1980s a co-worker had some sub-micron titanium metal powder (sealed in a tin with argon) shipped by air from the USA which was a pretty nasty explosion hazard if the container had been punctured and let the powder oxidise. It was of course against dozens of rules but got shipped anyway on a normal passenger flight.

Re:Things the TSA have don't find:

[gurps_npc]

I agree that a pocket knife would not be a problem Neither would the nail clippers they routinely take away, nor the water - I mean get real, TASTE the liquid. But it is against the rules. I always wondered if I froze my water into a single solid block and carried it in an insulated shopping bag (like they sell at grocery stores) would the TSA confiscate it?) Probably. They only care about the exact wording of the rules when it is in their favor.

Occasional Rude Agent?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

Would someone please tell me which airports only have the occasional rude agent? I really need to fly out of there instead of my normal experience of mostly all rude agents.

Scanner Rads

[Anonymous Coward]

While on the subject, how about the scanners? There is no safe level of radiation exposure and of your a frequent flyer it should be an issue as it would increase your chance of cancer. A certain amount of particles are bouncing around inside you molecules causing chemical changes to your biochemistry. Backscatter radiation is the reason they put a lead apron on your lap in X-ray departments

Re:Scanner Rads

[Anonymous Coward]

By the same reasoning, no airplane is safe. Therefore Airplanes should be illegal.

Resistance Is Happening

[Goboxer]

To every person that says they are so disappointed in how nobody is fighting back against the TSA: Why the fuck do you think there have been so many anti-TSA article on slashdot and in mainstream media? Its almost as if everyone is pissed... Not all resistance has to be an overnight thing.

I'm not surprised they missed the razor blades...

[Rhodri Mawr]

...they are a cutting edge technology after all.

TSA missed my water bottle

[Anonymous Coward]

I was stopped for extra searches while coming through JFK. While listening to TSA guards talk of smoking confiscated Cuban cigars, I was searched by no fewer than 5 guards. All of my possessions were scanned in the X-Ray scanner. My irritation turned to laughter when I found that after all of that, they missed the bottle of water that was in my coat pocket from the previous flight! TSA is inept and they are using intrusive methods to compensate for incompetence...

lol

[Charliemopps]

How to get yourself on a TSA watch list in under a minute and a half.

ID has a Hologram, but my Boarding Pass is Fake

[Anonymous Coward]

A perfect example of the how the security theater does nothing to improve security and is just fake is the boarding pass checker.

They check to make sure my ID has a hologram, but my boarding pass is a printout and can be easily faked. http://www.dubfire.net/boarding_pass/

You could have someone with a "clean record" buy a ticket and then easily alter the boarding pass to show the name of the actual person intending to fly even if they are on the no fly list.

In this case collecting the DOB of all passengers, checking for ID, etc. is all worthless.

pointless

[fishingmachine]

this entire screening process is completely pointless. do they think hijacking planes with water bottles are the only way terrorists know how to kill lots of people? ever heard of sports arenas? subways? public busses? walmarts? schools? even if they become absolutely proficient at stopping each and every terrorist from carrying any illegal items on a plane they will just take their business elsewhere. with a few people it wouldnt be hard to pack an 18 wheeler full of explosives(or find one that already is). i dont personally have a problem with the scanners or patdowns but more specifically the ridiculous list of items you cannot carry while other clearly more dangerous items are permitted. whats the problem with having a trained armed guard at the cockpit again?

Re:pointless

[MadMaverick9]

Well - pretty soon you'll need to get patted down before leaving your house.

The new terrorist

[nanospook]

It seems like the TSA has become the new Terrorist. If you do anything except what you are told, dispute anything, video capture anything, make any noise, try to back out, it doesn't matter, they will charge you and arrest you. The airports have become a police state. All this effort, when it's obvious it's not working and that if "real" terrorist wanted too, they could hit some other target much easier.. This is just a shame..

First Amendment

[jabberw0k]

Congress shall make no law respecting ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble...

This means you are not required to produce government issued photo identification, or submit to any other "test," before being permitted to move about the country. Furthermore, there is no law that says you need identification papers at all to live your life.

Should you happen to have a driver's license, you should show it only to a cop, and only when you are driving a car -- that is all it is good for.

Now, Napolitano says body scans, and Your Papers Please will be required to ride a train, boat, or bus, what's next, walk on the sidewalk? Will we surrender our First Amendment righs completely?

Re:First Amendment

[dkf]

Now, Napolitano says body scans, and Your Papers Please will be required to ride a train, boat, or bus, what's next, walk on the sidewalk?

Your fellow citizens will try to put a stop to walking long before the TSA gets around to it. (Seriously, I've never seen anywhere else as hostile to getting around on foot. I suppose a lot of the problem is due to putting all those damn parking lots in front of everything even vaguely like a public amenity. Walking in the 'burbs is just impractical in the US.)

Re:First Amendment

[nicolette sue]

*sigh* Janet may be from Arizona, but she's not responsible for the "papers please" steaming pile of crap that is S.B. 1070. That was Russell Pearce.

Also, holy tangential argument, Batman. No one was talking about papers, unless you replied to the wrong comment or a comment I can't see. Furthermore, I believe you've interpreted the amendment incorrectly. The amendment was specifically crafted (and has been upheld) to protect the right to petition/protest the government. Cornell has a pretty good overview of the amendment that I suggest you read.

The amendment you should be looking for is the 4th amendment, which governs unreasonable searches and seizures. It's my understanding that there are several cases working their way through the courts that specifically address increased security measures post-9/11 that will likely test the 4th amendment if they make it to the right venue.

Re:TSA asked me about the 12 inch thing in my pant

[Anonymous Coward]

And they said "It's only 1.25 inches. The other thing."

Re:And let's just clarify: screening = deterrence

[elwinc]

The TSA has not yet caught a single terrorist attempting to get on a plane.

Nice straw man. Sure, comments like this pass for "reason" on Rush Limbaugh, but I thought slashdot was slightly higher caliber.

The purpose of screening is deterrence. Let me repeat that: the screening is there to deter, not capture, terrorists. Take for example the famous "underwear bomber" of last Xmas. Even Bruce Schneier, vocal critic of the TSA, admits that airport security helped foil the underwear bomber.

From the link: "In order to get through airport security, Abdulmutallab -- or, more precisely, whoever built the bomb -- had to construct a far less reliable bomb than he would have otherwise; he had to resort to a much more ineffective detonation mechanism. And, as we've learned, detonating PETN is actually very hard."

Admittedly, it's easier to count angels on the head of a pin than deterred terrorists, but the underwear bomber was truly foiled by airport security, and his failure surely adds to the deterrence power of airport security.

Sky Marshals

[Roman Coder]

Just put sky marshals back on domestic flights again, and be done with it. Don't care how much the airlines bitch and moan about the additional costs. Its gotta be more sane to go back to that then all this we're dealing with now.

The Real Junk is John Pistole

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Mr. John Pistole.

May a 50 calliber plug traverese your head at high velocity in the "not to distant future!"

Most fitting ... for such a pervert.

Now I have an even greater fear

[KingSkippus]

I just imagined my home owners association running airport screening, and it sent chills down my spine. You know, maybe the TSA isn't so bad, after all.

Re: Common Sense Security Theater

[MadMaverick9]

FBI - Most Wanted Terrorists
Does any of these pictures look like the child you're referring to? I didn't think so.
If this FBI page shows the people we are looking for, then why are we checking 3-year-old blond girls and 65-year-old gray-haired ladies for hidden bombs?
For crying out loud, have some common sense and investigative skills.

OT: Moderation bits?

[NotQuiteReal]

I'll bet the moderation field is at least 8-bits, so there should be 256 moderation items. Plenty of room for "spelling error", "grammar error", "I see your point but I disagree", "yes", "no", "too drunk to moderate", and many other.

Then all the bitching and moaning about moderation could really get wild - what counts up/down, which are neutral, etc.

Thank me later.

Re:OT: Moderation bits?

[chip_s_ahoy]

Just don't set the evil bit.

Re:OT: Moderation bits?

[bledri]

I'll bet the moderation field is at least 8-bits, so there should be 256 moderation items. Plenty of room for "spelling error", "grammar error", "I see your point but I disagree", "yes", "no", "too drunk to moderate", and many other.

More specific moderations would be useful, but I think that what would really help is if when moderating you had to type in a justification and then if there were any easy way to see the moderations/justifications on any posting.

Re:OT: Moderation bits?

[L4t3r4lu5]

Grand in concept, but I see a flaw: 256 item long combo box.

Re:OT: Moderation bits?

[jimicus]

Actually, it's probably an ENUM. Which would mean it could have 65,535 possible values.

Source:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/enum.html

Re:OT: Moderation bits?

[Jesus_666]

Moderation and point value should be separate. That way I can mod "+1, Troll", "-1, Informative" or "+/- 0, Overrated".

Re:OT: Moderation bits?

[Logic and Reason]

Really, there's no reason moderation should be limited to a set of pre-chosen tags at all. Just let people type an arbitrary tag along with the actual +1/-1 moderation, just like they already do for the stories themselves.

Re:OT: Moderation bits?

[DrgnDancer]

You could even have repetitive fields with the same name but different effects: "Too drunk to moderate (+1)" vs "Too drunk to moderate (-1)".

Re:OT: Moderation bits?

[Quirkz]

What I'd like to see is a "maybe" moderation so when I'm running out of time to use the rest of my mod points I can assign them to something (presumably helping me get more of them sooner) without actually committing to any particular viewpoints or facts.

Those of us who can will avoid the TSA nonsense

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a choice of doing business in the US, or China, or the Middle East. I only have to go through the hassle of flying to the US once to think I don't want to do business there anymore. The TSA is bad and completely ridiculous, but twice I've had an immigration agent ask why he should let me into his country. No problem. I can take my money and the jobs it would create elsewhere.

A$$HOLE

[Anonymous Coward]

when they hear about this, they're going to start questioning me every time i go through the scanner. they're gonna ask me what i have in my pants. i'm gonna have tell them in front of everybody that i have a fake nut. i'm gonna have laugh while i say it. then they are going to take me away for further screening. who cares if someone smuggles razor blades onto the plane? now that we know what that leads to, any passenger with at least one nut is going to over-power them.

What's so different about flying?

[Anonymous Coward]

What wonders me is why flying is such a special case here. If I had to pull some terrorist plot out of my arse I'd say, for instance, get some flammable substance in a couple of carrying cases, get them on a train, and leak and then ignite them shortly before the train enters a long tunnel. Possibly attempt to block some doors. That should give a couple of dozens of passengers a good burning if nothing else, where the pictures might in fact be more terrifying than if you see a small pile of rubble that was once a plane that exploded and then crashed into little pieces. Not to mention that it's not that difficult to rent a truck and drive that into the next café. Is there anything that's emotionally different for people going on trains that makes them feel security measures for plane flight are more important than security measures in other areas? The question does seem silly to me, but talking to friends and relatives, some of them are actually concerned when the government tells once more of the hightened security alerts. Personally I have a very hard time to be intimidated by terrorists, consider for instance that every month more people commit suicide in the USA than have, roughly, been killed by "terrorism" throughout all of history in the U.S.

TSA On A Plane /by Samuel Jackson.

[Anonymous Coward]

I am tired of all these mother-f*ckin' penises on this mother-f*ckin' plane!

This is from MAY, Why is this news?

[Anonymous Coward]

The video was posted in MAY.
Why is this news?

MYTH

[Anonymous Coward]

Myth: TSA is really a government sanctioned organization of voyeurs, and not actually intended to make air travel any safer.
Status: Plausible

Killer at the gate

[byronblue]

The security gate really is useless. If terrorists wanted to do any damage at all they'd simply walk to the security line and detonate their bomb. You could probably kill just as many innocent people on a busy day as bringing down a jet liner. Brute force security will never work. Israel got this right years ago. As an example, (I'm not an American) I travelled to Amsterdam, (Schiphol airport, one of the most secure airports in the world). Even before checking my bag in I was confronted by airport security and asked for my password etc. He never asked to touch my junk, he simply ask me some straightforward questions. Like, why are you here, where are you going etc. Based on my responses he was able to make an intelligent decision that I didn't need further screening (no doubt I had remote eyes on me too). The gist of it is that less intrusive, more elite force security will get you MUCH greater results. TSA != intelligence and intelligence is exactly what we need but we're too damn cheap. Every single country that has dealt with terrorism knows that brute force is exactly how the enemy wants you to waste your resources. Terror has won when we are kept captive by ourselves.

Security Proposition

[mcrbids]

I'm probably going to get modded into oblivion for this, because it sounds "right wing" and that's not a popular opinion. (I'm very much a moderate)

The problem is that we're looking at airline security in much the same way that Windows users look at computer security - rather than make the system robust and able to handle the threats (EG: strongly enforced permissions model), we try to eliminate the threats (EG: antivirus). This results in a system that's fragile, and the harder we try to "secure" it, the more fragile it becomes!

That's just dumb.

Rather than try to eliminate all threats, we should be encouraging people who fly to take measures to defend themselves! Rather than disarm everybody (the overwhelming majority of whom are decent, law-abiding citizens with no desire to hurt anybody) we should be encouraging people to carry small arms! I'd be ok with a few restrictions, such as passing a periodic background check and a firearms safety course - this is, in effect, hardening the system so that in the occasion of a filthy hijacker trying to take over the flight, he/she would be facing a fearful, determined audience of ARMED CITIZENS who wouldn't hesitate to take action to preserve their life and liberty.

No amount of government intrusion can eliminate all threats, but by giving everybody the ability to address problems when they occur, they'll find that the overwhelming majority of decent people will quickly subdue the insane minority!

Strangely, this opinion is often very unpopular, even amongst those who are the harshest critics of the TSA. Yet nobody has offered any idea as to why this wouldn't work - this just gets downmodded without comment. As a matter of fact, there are many examples of countries and societies who find that civilization and an armed population in accordance with the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

Re:Security Proposition

[retchdog]

I don't think the guns and knives would do much, and would possibly lead to some incidents with "normal people" losing it on-flight (too much drink, or undiagnosed mental illness, &c.) It seems plausible that the probability of this is much higher than of terrorism. At the least, it should be taken into account. I am fairly pro-2nd amendment, but on a purely numbers level it just may not make sense to have a lot of guns on a plane (or at a school, &c.).

I agree with your spirit though. I think that the post-9/11 knowledge that hijacking=death is enough. A couple of terrorists armed only with knives would be easily taken down by the bum-rush of citizens armed with grim knowledge.

A terrorist with a decent, functional bomb would not be deterred by armed resistance. Assuming he has a real trigger and isn't trying to ignite his groin or shoes, it would all be over without anyone noticing.

Which leaves the possibility of terrorists with guns. However, I'm pretty sure that we achieve 100% gun control on planes anyway (feel free to present counterexample).

Re:Security Proposition

[linuxrocks123]

If there are many such examples, please give one, because I can't think of a single modern society where a substantial fraction of the civilian population routinely goes around packing heat.

Re:Security Proposition

[Pharmboy]

(I'm very much a moderate)

Everyone says that, usually right before they call everyone else an extremist.

Re:Security Proposition

[Jesus_666]

I see two problems:

Firstly, this would require rather tedious screening of everyone with a firearm in order to make sure they don't carry ammunition capable of puncturing the airplane's hull. Those things are expensive and I don't think the airlines would be happy if people with the capability of making holes in them were allowed onboard. I don't know how popular frangible ammunition is in the States but that's probably what the airlines would insist on, at least after a passenger managed to shoot the cabin wall.

Also, what about international flights? Most countries are much less enthusiastic about guns than the States are and you could end up with weird situations like
- being able to leave the States with a gun but not being able to enter it again,
- being able to leave the Staets with a gun but being unable to enter the destination country,
- evildoers coming from the States outgunning everyone else on international flights by default or
- Americans having to deal with wildly different and incompatible security measures between domestic and international flights.


I'd suggest widespread self-defense training. Armed or not, an airplane is harder to take over when you're surrounded by thirty people trained in various martial arts.

Re:Security Proposition

[harl]

Switzerland.

Re:Security Proposition

[damburger]

High altitude can compromise judgement and cause aggression. The aircrews serving drinks can exacerbate the problem, and air rage is bad enough without a sidearm.

Also, you are only taking into account someone trying to take the plane. What about a plain, old fashioned, bomb in the luggage?

Re:Security Proposition

[linuxrocks123]

Nope: http://isyours.com/e/immigration/relocation/weapons/bearing.html

Strict legislation in Switzerland has made it extremely difficult to obtain a license to bear arms, and the trend is moving towards even stricter laws. For information purposes only, 400 people had a license to bear arms in the canton of Geneva in 1998. Only eight "survivors" still have authorization today. Understandable when you realize how little violent crime there is in Switzerland.

---linuxrocks123

Re:Security Proposition

[Tom]

Which leaves the possibility of terrorists with guns. However, I'm pretty sure that we achieve 100% gun control on planes anyway (feel free to present counterexample).

Guns are missed all the time. On my last holiday to the carribeans, they missed a large knife we used for cutting open coconuts in our carry-on luggage, until the intermediate stop where it was discovered (had to go through security again). The stewardess later told us why they were so upset - they had missed a guy who had brought a loaded gun on board the same morning, and was by accident discovered when he got off the plane in Florida.

There is no such thing as 100% control or 100% security. It just doesn't exist, the system always has holes. You can make them damn small, but as long as people like me whose day jobs involve maybe 2% physical security can come up with three different ideas of how to get a gun past the security theatre while waiting in line, they aren't even very small.

What we have is luck. Terrorism is like the military - shit does happen and stuff does go wrong. Many terrorists plots would not have been prevented if it hadn't been for something going wrong on the terrorists side.

Re:Security Proposition

[retchdog]

OK, but I think the probability of catching a gun is so high that it's simply not worth it for a terrorist to try it. In effect we have nearly-perfect deterrence even though there are rare mistakes. I think, pragmatically speaking, that the gun control is a very good thing for air travel.

I'm less certain about knives or subduing weapons. It's sad but possible that a guy with a machete can keep passengers cowed until impact. On the other hand, medical facilities aren't there on a plane. Maybe passengers should be allowed to have tasers.

Re:Security Proposition

[Tom]

OK, but I think the probability of catching a gun is so high that it's simply not worth it for a terrorist to try it.

Not the simple way, no. You are right that it acts as a deterrence.

The problem with weapons - guns, knives, tasers - is that they aren't as big an equalizer as most people believe. Someone trained in using them and not afraid of doing so is at a big advantage. Three terrorists with tasers could easily keep three times their numbers of regular people with tasers off, especially in a crowded place like a plane.

And you have to deal with false positives. A lot more innocent people than gangsters are shot each year in the US, and I'd even say the number of people accidentally shot is higher than the number of people shot in self-defense.

Re:Security Proposition

[harl]

Per capita they rank third for gun ownership yet they don't have gun violence. Assault rifles are a common sight in public because military service is mandatory and people take the weapons home. Sometimes they shop on the way home.

You're going to semantic that away as not meeting your definition of "packing heat".

Regardless they are heavily armed society with little violence which is the spirit of the point.

Would anyone notice if Alabama lost power?

[Brannon]

A few states losing power for a few days isn't going to terrorize anyone. When NYC had a blackout a few years back it was one big block party.

People aren't that fragile.

Re:Would anyone notice if Alabama lost power?

[Ken D]

Not if you do it in the depths of winter, or even during a heat wave.

Either one just let's Mother Nature have her way with all the tool users with electric tools.

Janet Napolitano's face = erection killer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yuck! That bitch is FUGLY!!!

Re:And let's just clarify: screening = deterrence

[dgatwood]

The purpose of screening is deterrence.

Nice straw man.

Deter: Discourage (someone) from doing something, typically by instilling doubt or fear of the consequences. (Source: Google)

Screening does not instill doubt or fear of the consequences unless there is a realistic chance of getting caught. Therefore, screening that cannot capture terrorists cannot be an effective deterrent, period.

"In order to get through airport security, Abdulmutallab -- or, more precisely, whoever built the bomb -- had to construct a far less reliable bomb than he would have otherwise; he had to resort to a much more ineffective detonation mechanism. And, as we've learned, detonating PETN is actually very hard."

Put another way, this guy was working alone, and thus could not build a very good bomb. What made 9/11 significant was that it involved a number of attackers working together. That same approach would work just as easily today for smuggling explosives onto an aircraft. The only thing that prevented either of the two recent bombing attempts from succeeding is that they were both done by individuals working essentially in isolation with insufficient understanding of the materials involved.

OMG

[sp3d2orbit]

"The TSA is ineffective!"

"The line is now a terrorist target!"

"This is so invasive!"

So what you are you going to do about it? That's right. Nothing except whine on the Internet. And vote for Obama in 2012.

You're all pussies unless you take action.

Re:OMG

[L4t3r4lu5]

I'm taking the only action I can; Not flying to the US for my holiday next year.

Re:OMG

[swillden]

You're all pussies unless you take action.

And for those who don't want to be pussies but don't know what action to take, I'll tell you: Complain to your representatives. Bombard your senators and congressmen with letters and phone calls. Make them calm and well-reasoned, but forceful, and make clear that if you don't see them taking action to roll back the useless security theater, you'll not only be voting for the opposing candidate in the next election, you'll be sending them checks.

Re:OMG

[BobMcD]

So what you are you going to do about it? That's right. Nothing except whine on the Internet.

Try and understand that freely, openly whining about it on the internet is a step above whining only about it to your friends, which itself is once above being silently irritated about it.

We're getting there. Be patient.

At least they taught us how to survive it

[schizz69]

Thank god for the Escape Slide Parachute episode!!!

True story

[Anonymous Coward]

During the summer, my child had an important meeting on the other end of the state, several hours away. We booked him a flight.
My child is high school age, but does not yet have a driver's license. My spouse fretted that my child would be detained by airport screeners.
On the day of the flight, I took my child to the airport. I was dressed in a suit because of commitments later in the day. My child was dressed for leisure. He had a copy of his birth certificate, his social security card, and a number of other non-photo identification to appease my spouse. I stopped at baggage checkin and asked for a pass that would let me see him to the gate.
At the security checkpoint, he whips out his high school student ID, printed on a $69 inkjet printer, not even laminated. No problem. Right through.
I pulled out my official state driver's license with the holographic hoopla and photo. The security guard swipes it under a blue light, examines it for two minutes with a jeweler's glass, etc. and asks me questions about it. The guard didn't seem to buy it.
At the X-RAY machine, I threw my cell phone into my shoe, and put it all in a tray. On the other end, the guard told me this was a no-no. I shouldn't put the phone inside the shoe. Now they would have to send it back through correctly. So they picked up the tray and walked it back and stuck it in again. With the phone still inside the shoe. It comes out again, I pick up the tray, and we move on.
I felt like I was in some tragic comedy. I didn't know if I was more irritated at the ineptitude of the system, or at the fact that my son felt compelled to carry a half-inch-thick folder of travel documents to travel within the same state.
As a youth we learned of the oppressive bad-guy government that made people obtain permission and carry documents just to go to grandma's house. They were very sinister and had thick accents. We knew we were better than them because we believed in the American way.

Now Americans protest with a one-day scanner boycott. How embarrassing. If you want to protest, stop flying. When the airlines start dropping dead, they will start pushing back on the oppression.
People who use American airports remind me a lot of Windows users. No matter how much grief they are subjected to, they still keep forking over hundreds of dollars a pop for the pleasure.

Re:And let's just clarify: screening = deterrence

[twidarkling]

No, no it doesn't. Previous screening would have worked just as well, and someone already noted that the underoo bomber's family had given intelligence that wasn't followed up on. That means that the TSA FAILED. He never should have made it on to that plane without a thorough questioning and search. I have to admit though, yours is the most creative apologist argument for the TSA I've seen.

A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[LostMyBeaver]

Back before the 80's high school chemistry books often contained "fun kitchen chemistry" which would explain how to make explosives from items you could find in a kitchen or bathroom. Take a look sometime at the chemicals that are used to make perfumes and makeup. You'll find that you can make a large amount of low yield explosives quite easily using only what's found in duty free. A 2lb brick of low yield explosives is more than enough to breach the plane. But a detonator is still needed. That's no problem either, stop into the electronics store in duty free. You'll find everything you need right there.

If the security serves ANY purpose, that is to make the people who are likely to actually blow a plane up look nervous about it. The profiling kicks in. Of course, if the TSA is a big laughing joke, it'll be easier for these people to be calm and confident because unlike in the old days, when flight security was a little annoying but nothing really impeding, people didn't nitpick it on a global scale and make a joke of it.

What the TSA has done to their reputation has made it so that anyone who actually wants to bomb an airplane will simply walk through the scanners, head held high, buy what they need and bomb the plane they're targeting.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[quenda]

You'll find that you can make a large amount of low yield explosives quite easily using only what's found in duty free.

Sorry, I cannot. Where are the oxidising chemicals? I cannot find any hydrogen peroxide there. Something else?

But a detonator is still needed.

That implies you are talking about high explosives, not simple incendiaries. Easy to say, but my duty -free shop does not carry nitric acid.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[LostMyBeaver]

I apologize for overgeneralizing and respect I've been called for it.

I'll address the latter first. In this circumstance, the detonator is the device to detonate the explosives. It would be used to detonate an incendiary based on a remote or a timer. Not specifically in the respect of a high explosive. Simply, a method of causing a spark or flame to ignite the item without being present. Buy a remote control car, a watch, etc... headphone cables would be offer wires if needed.

Second, it is entirely legal and practical to purchase hydrogen peroxide in the pharmacy in the duty free area. If that is a "controlled substance" there are more than enough "first aid" products in the same store to provide a similar effect in lower concentration. As for obtaining oxidizing agents from within the traditional "duty free shop", I admit... I'm challenged to find one, but without digging to deep, I'd imagine that it's possible to find it in makeup removers, some toothpastes (in miniscule quantities), I have even seen personal coal/peroxide water filtering items to get modern day yuppies to be able to clean their bottled water with.

While I have not gone through the effort myself to actually try any of these devices. Nor have I seen the benefit in actually devising any one incendiary device based on the theory. But still, the products ARE there. It's a matter of finding them.

P.S. As for nitric acid... well yeh.. pretty sure you're going to have a hard time finding that. But thanks to the Googles I've done just looking for stuff now, I'm pretty sure I'm on a watch list now hehe.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[paganizer]

a lot of the weirder compounds do require a little bit of help, but I wouldn't qualify them as "High Explosives".
for instance, some of the stuff you can eventually make if you have urine, a car battery, and some simple equipment works a lot better with a electric trigger.

as for Duty Free.... Huh. Compression?

Darn good thing I don't fly.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[LostMyBeaver]

P.P.S. If you really wanted to get nitric acid in, dilute some fertilizer, dip a pair of jeans in it. When they've dried, buy a plaid shirt and a pair of shit kickers. Head to the airport dressed like a farmer. It'll raise a flag, but they won't take your pants for it.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[AGMW]

... It would be used to detonate an incendiary based on a remote or a timer. ...

Presumably so you can get back to your first class cabin when the bomb goes off in coach?

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[ArsenneLupin]

I cannot find any hydrogen peroxide there.

Isn't hydrogen peroxide also used to bleach hair, when you want to color it in a lighter color than your natural color? If so, it's not that out of line that a duty-free shop might carry it.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[TapeCutter]

If your willing to die you don't need to be McGyver to bring down a plane - stick a rag into your bottle of duty free spirits, light it, and throw it at the cockpit door.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[Dunbal]

based on a remote or a timer.

      Only for "normal" people - you know, the ones not prepared to sacrifice their lives. You don't need a timer if you're willing to die.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[AmiMoJo]

There is really no need to use duty free for your bomb making supplies because you can easily bring everything you need through security on your person. The limit on the amount of liquid you can take in hand lugage is high enough to get enough of some liquid explosives through and of course you can always just take a friend or two to double or tripple the limit. You really don't need much, espeicially if you can focus the blast somehow. Apparently toilets can be used for that but you could easily bring your own in the form of a cane or something.

For the detonator you could just convert a PC Card wifi adapter or something. The laptop's battery contains plenty of power and if you get a proper PCB made (£30 for 5 custom made in China) there won't be any tell-tale wires or hand made stuff on the xray. If you need some extra wire you can remove the wifi antenna cables from most laptops quite easily.

Basically if someone is intent on blowing up an airplane and doesn't care if they die trying there isn't really that much you can do about it. They only fail because of their own ineptitude, e.g. the detonator doesn't work or they fail to conceal what they are doing properly.

I accidentally took a craft knife on board once. My bags and person were scanned as usual, I just forgot it was there until I got home and found it in my carry-on luggage. Of course knives are fairly pointless on aircraft these days because the cabin doors are locked so at most you get to murder a few passengers before they overpower you. I did once get asked to remove some shaving foam but once the guy had examined it for a monment he gave it back to me anyway.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need a timer if you're willing to die.

sure you do, if i recall the primary reason the shoe bomber failed is because he was manually trying to light it and the other people noticed his suspicious behavior, had he rigged a reliable method to remotely light his bomb, then he probably would have succeeded.

having a remote detonator has nothing to do with willingness to die, it has everything to do with getting the bomb in the proper place to do the most damage and avoid detection.

after this post i must surely be on a watchlist now...

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[VolciMaster]

And since they've gotten rid of the "puffer" machines, no one would know you're carry chemicals

P.P.S. If you really wanted to get nitric acid in, dilute some fertilizer, dip a pair of jeans in it. When they've dried, buy a plaid shirt and a pair of shit kickers. Head to the airport dressed like a farmer. It'll raise a flag, but they won't take your pants for it.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[VolciMaster]

I did once get asked to remove some shaving foam but once the guy had examined it for a monment he gave it back to me anyway.

he was probably looking for embryos

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[davidwr]

Go first class and ask for a good strong drink. For a lighter use aluminum foil and your camera battery. Just pick a near-empty flight or the passengers next to you will stop you within seconds. "Let's Roll!"

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[mcgrew]

Saltpeter is a great oxidant. I burned holes in a brick trash incinerator with saltpeter and sugar when I was in the 6th grade. Put that mixture inside something solid and you have an explosive.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[harl]

For a lighter why not just use a lighter? They don't set off metal detectors.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[farble1670]

If the security serves ANY purpose, that is to make the people who are likely to actually blow a plane up look nervous about it.

more nervous than thinking about if they succeed? getting captured by TSA would seem like a relief.

ya ya martyr mentality aside, even the most dedicated terrorist fears death on some level. that's hard-wired into all animals.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[farble1670]

1. you don't have a lighter or matches. let's assume you got that aboard anyway.
2. unless you have moonshine-level proof alcohol, it's quite hard to make it ignite. it's not like a bottle of gasoline.
3. alcohol burns cleanly, so the fumes aren't going to be (very) toxic
4. they have fire extinguishers all over the plane.
5. the stewards are trained to handle fires.
6. the interior of planes are furnished with fire-retardant materials
7. the bottle probably wouldn't break against the plastic walls of a plane
8. and so on

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you'd look a bit suspicious trying to buy and carry on 2lbs of perfume (presumably, you'd need a lot more than that since most of perfume is alcohol). Also, even if the materials are technically available to you, what about the actual processing needed to turn it into explosives? I'm sure you'll raise a few eyebrows trying to bring a Bunsen burner and Erlenmeyer flasks into the airplane lavatory.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[Anonymous Coward]

A disposable camera with a flash is a nearly preassembled detonator. All you need to do is swap a scrap of wire(e.g. a paperclip) for the bulb.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[TapeCutter]

1. You are allowed to carry a disposable lighter on board.
2. Use sambuka.
3-8. Spoil sport.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[TapeCutter]

How about a standard disposable lighter, as a smoker I know they allow you to carry one.

Re:A 1960's chemistry book is more dangerous

[RockDoctor]

It'll raise a flag, but they won't take your pants for it.

They wouldn't need to.

If you're implying that you've turned your jeans into gun cotton (nitro-cellulose), then they'd have fallen apart quite early in the process. But before then, the dyes would have bleached out, so you're there in white jeans, which are falling apart. By the minute.

Better to dress as a rather strung-out Tony Manero going home on Sunday morning. But that wouldn't explain the nitrates. Unless you "accidentally" fall into a cess pit of pigshit.

Way to go, inconspicuous!

12" razor blades?

[Anonymous Coward]

Now that makes my beard feel small.

why is everyone still bitching about this?

[xushi]

It's going to happen, they're going to stay, we're going to live with it, no matter what we feel or how intrusive it is.... you really think us bitching about it will change anything?

Eh?!?

[dtmos]

I'm still struggling to figure out what either of you is talking about. Rational what?

Or do you mean rationale?

Re:Eh?!?

[tempest69]

I meant rationale... doh' I trust the spell check to think for me a little too often.

FYI...

[dtmos]

gas cylinders (what do Americans call cylinders of pressurised gaseous stuff?)

Surprisingly enough, "gas cylinders."

Yours in anglophilia,

dtmos

WTF with all those video submissions?

[S3D]

This one is not even tagged as video. A lot of people don't have either patience or bandwidth to watch through all the videos, half of which are not noteworthy. If no one (author including) has bothered to make transcript, is it important enough to be on the front page?

A hole in the plane

[Compaqt]

The thing is, while people have talked about the underwear bomber, shoe bomber, etc., but has anybody established that punching a hole would take down the whole plane?

Didn't Mythbusters "refudiate" the notion that shooting a gun on a plane would crash it?

Or is all this just theater?

Re:A hole in the plane

[peragrin]

there are lots of variables. There was one hawaiian flight that lost a chunk of it's roof but still flew and landed safely.

However it depends on altitude, speed, pilots skill and above all location to the nearest safe landing strip. So no 9 mm or even a shotgun won't bring down a plane on it's own unless you hit the pilot or copilot. then your fscked.

However if you want to blow a plane up for force it to crash all you need to do is to break the windows out in forward of the engines and throw something heavy inside. you know like fire extinguishers, or clothing from bags. The average airliner with two engines can only fly so long on one engine, and with 4 engines can rarely fly with 2 well, take out two on the same side and the pilot will have to correct for yaw as well.

Everything you need to hijack and destroy a plane in flight is provided on the flight. all you need is the will to do so.

Re:A hole in the plane

[Thelasko]

has anybody established that punching a hole would take down the whole plane?

Aloha Airlines Flight 243 suffered explosive decompression on April 28, 1988, but landed safely.

Here is an image of the plane after it landed.

Re:A hole in the plane

[TrisexualPuppy]

Breaking out a tiny window and throwing a bunch of heavy clothes 30 feet crosswind when the plane's doing 500mph? Good luck with that. Even if the plane were stopped and you had PCP strength, you wouldn't be able to find a window to get a good enough shot. And to think that your fellow passengers would let you get away with this?

For reference as to what an airliner looks like, click here.

Re:A hole in the plane

[VolciMaster]

The average airliner with two engines can only fly so long on one engine, and with 4 engines can rarely fly with 2 well, take out two on the same side and the pilot will have to correct for yaw as well.

Modern planes like the 777, and other slightly less modern ones like the 737 and myriad others, are expressly designed to be able to fly "a long ways" on half their power.

Likewise, a 747 can fly a long way on half its power.

Re:A hole in the plane

[godefroi]

Haha, that's rich. Even given a plane without a wall, you wouldn't be able to throw -ANYTHING- far enough to hit an engine, even if the airplane was going 1/4 of it's normal cruising speed. Sorry.

As for flying on two engines, yes, they can. All 3-engine planes (DC-10, 727, Falcon 50) MUST be able to fly on a single engine, and a 747 can quite easily land on two. A light enough 747 can be landed on a single engine. It's been done before in emergency situations.

BA9 lost all four engines, and survived: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Airways_Flight_9

Re:A hole in the plane

[davidwr]

Everything you need to hijack and destroy a plane in flight is provided on the flight. all you need [to destroy the plane] is the will to do so.

Security's job is to identify the people with the will to do so and make sure they are denied the means or opportunity or both.

Re:A hole in the plane

[Anonymous Coward]

be able to fly "a long ways"

What's the plural of "a long ways"? Long wayses?

The wording you were groping for was "a long way". Seriously, North America, what is it with you and grammar? Were you all traumatised at an early age by The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation?

Re:A hole in the plane

[gfreeman]

Ah, so it's the WILL, not what you're actually carrying. So why the physical screening? Theatre, I tell you, pure theatre.

Re:A hole in the plane

[harl]

That's a nice movie plot but is never going to work in real life.

Re:A hole in the plane

[camperdave]

At least one 767 has landed safely with no engines at all.

Re:A hole in the plane

[EdIII]

I never saw that episode, but I would imagine that a puncture in the hull *could* lead to the plane crashing.

The differences in pressure, and airspeed at approx. 500mph can act upon the puncture in the hull and increase its size. There are plenty of instances in which punctures have caused huge rips in the side of planes, seats to be ripped out, etc. To my knowledge, not all of those flights were 100% fatal, but did result in emergency landings in all cases.

We know what hurricane force winds can do around 100-150mph. Winds at 500mph must certainly act with a heck of lot more force. Once the structural integrity and aerodynamic properties of a plane are altered at that speed I don't find it unreasonable to conclude that there could be damage resulting in the loss of the plane.

Re:A hole in the plane

[djdanlib]

Not to distract your thread of thought, but can we please not further the acceptance of that word in quotes? It's really awful.

Re:A hole in the plane

[Compaqt]

Well, I'm a fuddy-duddy too. And I thought "blog" as a shortcut for weblog was ridiculous. I still think "webinar" is nutty. But I fight it less.

Basically I accept that, now, with publishing tools in the hands of the masses instead of copy editors, they're going to come up with their own neologisms.

Re:A hole in the plane

[Anonymous Coward]

repudiate

Re:A hole in the plane

[RockDoctor]

However if you want to blow a plane up for force it to crash all you need to do is to break the windows out in forward of the engines and throw something heavy inside. you know like fire extinguishers,

Could you throw a fire extinguisher through a window, far enough and accurately enough to get it into the inboard engine on the ground? I doubt you'd even make the range on the ground, because you're throwing at "waist height", or from a sitting position.

Then there's the accuracy question.

Then there's the question of just where you're going to practice this against a 100 mile-per-hour side wind.(Most commercial planes stall at around 100 miles-per-hour airspeed)

Way to go, inconspicuous!

or clothing from bags.

It's rare (but not unknown) for a civilian aircraft to suffer an engine failure from bird strike. Those engines are more robust than you seem to think. (Military engines are a slightly different matter in many different ways.)

All my comments about throwing the fire extinguisher apply, more so, to the clothing.

I can just imagine Jamie, Adam and a picked tosser for some football (sensu Americana) team trying this out on their tame Wisconsin airport with their tame 747 to provide the cross-wind.

I'd go for a Myth Busted!

off-topic

[ePINOY]

i'd like to ask about your experience as a grad student in japan, if i may. i'm interested in doing my grad studies in japan as well.

Re:off-topic

[antifoidulus]

Depends on what you want to do. The classes are pretty much a joke, you have to try to do poorly in them(75% of students who even bother to show up to class sleep during the classes). Research at the better universities is probably on par with your above average state school in the US, which is to say good, not necessarily great, but good. However keep in mind that unlike in the states receiving funding is pretty rare. However on the flip side, if you go to a public school yearly tuition is about $6k us, private roughly twice that. You are allowed to work part time which can help if you can find a job teaching English.

Overall, I would suggest sticking to the states unless there is a professor whose research matches your interests so well that you really want to work with him.

Archie Bunker already proposed this

[name_already_taken]

Rather than try to eliminate all threats, we should be encouraging people who fly to take measures to defend themselves! Rather than disarm everybody (the overwhelming majority of whom are decent, law-abiding citizens with no desire to hurt anybody) we should be encouraging people to carry small arms! I'd be ok with a few restrictions, such as passing a periodic background check and a firearms safety course - this is, in effect, hardening the system so that in the occasion of a filthy hijacker trying to take over the flight, he/she would be facing a fearful, determined audience of ARMED CITIZENS who wouldn't hesitate to take action to preserve their life and liberty.

...Yet nobody has offered any idea as to why this wouldn't work - this just gets downmodded without comment. As a matter of fact, there are many examples of countries and societies who find that civilization and an armed population in accordance with the rule of law go hand-in-hand.

You might enjoy this clip from All in the Family ...

Perhaps the writers didn't make Archie as stupid as they thought.

Depends on the plane and the hole

[davidwr]

Two holes through the cockpit that enter the brain, heart, or other knock-you-unconscious-or-kill-you part of the bodies of the pilot and copilot will usually do the trick.

Seriously, with redundancies it would take either 2 holes in just the right places or one good-sized hole in just the right place to knock out both the primary and backup systems of something critical to bring down the plane.

Of course, a very big hole in a wing, tail, or cockpit might do the trick all by itself but you aren't likely to do that from the ground without a good-sized missile.

Laptops are the real dangers

[davidwr]

Laptops and other "large" electronics can hide things from detectors.

Hollow metal objects or other opaque-to-xray items can also do it.

I wonder how security would react if I walked through with what purported to be an all-metal sports trophy and I was wearing a related golf shirt and had a good back-story to make it sound legit but I'd sealed a bomb in the hollow fake trophy and cleaned it up enough so there was no chemical residue.

OK, now that this has made Slashdot all sports trophies that aren't x-ray-able will have to be shipped ground. Sorry about that folks.

Re:Laptops are the real dangers

[AmiMoJo]

Back in the early 90s there was a story on TV about a couple who brought a couple of wood carved statues home with them from Africa. Customs cut them in half with a saw to make sure there were not drugs inside. They got compensation to the value of the items which was only a few pounds.

Which would you rather?

[bjk002]

"It's probably the largest single employer of non-HS graduates outside of Walmart."

Dolling out welfare checks, or putting them to work in the hope that 1:1000000 nabs a terrorist?

Something to think about anyhow...

How to successfully bomb a plane

[davidwr]

Find a cancer patient and get your terrorist-friendly MD to offer him free medical care.

Get the doctor to write a note saying the person is not to be x-rayed due to an already high large lifetime exposure.

Get the same doctor to do surgery and implant an explosive device with a radio-detonator.

Give the patent a cell phone that when texted with a particular text will blow up the patient.

Don't tell the patient anything about this.

The next time the patient flies blow him and the plane up.

If the patient doesn't have plans to fly arrange for him to "go see a specialist" across the country.

Total cost for the terrorist: The price of 6-10 years of medical school plus miscellaneous expenses plus the risk the doctor may grow a conscience before pulling it off. Yeah, it's more expensive than inkjet printers but it can work.

Side-effect benefit to the terrorist: Even doctors and other people who are generally trusted won't be beyond suspicion any more.

who cares about a razor blade?

[farble1670]

the days are gone when air passengers would sit back and be content to let a terrorist hijack them are gone. i think i speak for everyone when i say i'd rather go down swinging than slam into a building at 350mph.

it would be really, very hard to kill someone with a razor blade (unless they are sitting passively). it would be *impossible* to kill 30 angry air passengers with a razor blade. so, to any would-be razor-blade-carrying terrorists i say bring it on. they'll be hard pressed to find any parts of your body over an inch long when we land.

so TSA, forget razor blades. forget finger nail clippers, bottles of water, makeup, and so on. heck, don't even bother with knives unless they are over 6". focus on bombs (that are large enough to do any damage). focus on firearms.

They know my junk details, but missed my bag

[Zadaz]

I've flown five times through the new scanners.

I just realized last night that I had forgotten a large Leatherman tool in my small carryon bag It's full of knives, edges, gouges, etc.

So security got 5 good looks at the wrinkles on my scrotum, but 5 times missed the big metal wad of knives in my small carryon.

Boy, I sure feel safe and not violated. Next time I go through security I'm refusing the scan and wearing a kilt.

not arrest at all

[OrangeTide]

If you don't like it, then don't buy a plane ticket. it's not arrest and detainment if you make it part of contractual agreement.
Board the plane in a straitjacket, or turn around the go back the way you came.

Aircraft are still owned and operated by private companies. Airplane tickets aren't a right or even a service provided by the government, they are a commodity that you purchase from a private entity.

Re:not arrest at all

[Khyber]

"If you don't like it, then don't buy a plane ticket."

You're a moron. Enjoy being raped by the government like the passive ignorant bitch you are.

viable but not desirable

[OrangeTide]

Greyhound bus has great deals on tickets right now.

Planes, Trains, Busses are all viable options for the vast majority of domestic travelers.

Planes are the fastest, most convenient and cheap when you put a price on burning a couple extra days of your PTO on traveling. But the air travel is not a right, it is not mandatory, and it is not your only option for travel within the US.

Re:viable but not desirable

[BobMcD]

All rights are natural rights, given to us at birth. We have every bit as much of a right to use a public service as everyone else who is allowed to use it.

It is not mandatory that I have testicles to be groped in such a search. The government could remove them and I'd survive it. Are you going to specify that I have no right to keep my testicles? It isn't written down anywhere that I have that right, so I must not have it - per your view?

Not quite the way it works. We have every right. Every single one, except those that we voluntarily surrender in order to make this a better society, through the force of law.

The government is barred from conducting unreasonable searches. Period. This is not about the 'right to fly', rather the power of the government to restrict exercising that god-given right.

Re:viable but not desirable

[h4rr4r]

I would like to buy a train ticket to the EU from NY state, which company can meet my needs? I would also accept a bus company if no trains can meet this need.

Re:viable but not desirable

[OrangeTide]

I don't have $400 for a plane ticket, but I have every right as you do to fly on it.

But you do bring up a good point. The fact that a government entity mandates unreasonable searches is illegal.

If the searches were just the policy of individual airlines, then I would defend their right to make it part of the contract to fly (which already includes payment and showing up on time)

Re:viable but not desirable

[OrangeTide]

I used the word "domestic" for a reason.

Also, have you heard of a boat?

You forgot to mention this

[WML MUNSON]

The incident was confirmed by Harbor Police Sergeant Rakos who said Wolanyk was arrested on two misdemeanors, “failing to complete the security process; violation code 7.01 and illegally recording the San Diego Airport Authority (they confiscated his iPhone); violation number 7.14 (a).”

As a PC gamer, I'm very bothered by the fact that these TSA stories instantly remind me of City 17 and the Combine from Half Life 2.

This needs to be stopped before it gets any worse.

Americans, feel the Karma

[Latinhypercube]

Hahahaha, you dipshits deserve what you get. You scared stupid cows. Enjoy watching your wife and kids get strip searched.

Security theagter,razor blades, etc.

[Transaction7]

I know an attorney whose throat was cut, nearly fatally, in a secured courtroom, by a client who had brought it from a high-security jail where body cavity searches etc. that we hopefully don’t have for flyers or visitors to the White House yet are commonly used. We’re kidding ourselves if we think the next big attack will be done just like 9/11 using Arabs or other foreign-looking engineers etc. as suicide hijackers, or that our enemies can’t get through any such mass screening that includes little old ladies and three year old kids but doesn’t do an intelligent, rather than unintelligent wide-loop, job of intelligence gathering and profiling. Back in the days of computer punch cards, our fool CIA put me on a list of suspected Soviet spies, saboteurs, and sympathizers, did it so clumsily that we found out about it right away, never checked the facts, lied to my U. S. Senator and me about this for about forty years that they maintained this list, and eventually admitted the truth and told me that they had told Nelson Rockefeller about this several years before they quit lying to my Senators and me. If they can’t tell the difference between a conservative college student writing a research paper—for which the Department of State etc., with full knowledge, had declassified bales of documents—and a Communist, it’s no wonder they made certain spectacularly fatal errors over the years. Other government agencies and officials, and keepers of medical records, have done equally illegal and utterly stupid things in dealing with me over the years using incomplete and otherwise bad computerized data. Some, including a heart attack I never had, appear to have been clerical errors, but nobody living can correct that one, while others include statements I never made to people I never met, are fake and defamatory, and the makers and keepers of those records know it. There is often no real and practical way to find out what is or has been in your records, kept by government entities, data miners and sellers with contracts with TSA and other federal and state agencies, public and private hospitals and other medical providers, etc., get a copy thereof, get a copy in a format your new doctor can read, or get errors corrected. We discovered that X-ray and other medical and billing records on at least nine people, covering two races, two sexes, over a foot differences in height and ages from about nine to about ninety, some with and some without breaks, bullets, pins, etc., had been combined into mine, only because a radiologist asked about a bullet I could write another book on credit bureau errors. The law on this subject, written by the large campaign contributors, is woefully inadequate and needs to be brought into the current and future real world with more input from people with more computer science expertise than this retired lawyer has.

Look at who is working for the TSA now....

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.eyesalt.net/image/tsa-pedobear

They were checking for his pistol...

[nikkipolya]

I think TSA is more worried about the pistol in your pocket than razors blades or box cutters.