Laser Scanner May Allow Passengers To Take Bottled Drinks On Planes Again

cylonlover writes "Besides having to remove our shoes, the volume limitations regarding liquids and gels in carry-on baggage has become a major hassle in the world of post 9-11 airport security. Hopefully, however, we may soon be able to once again bring our big bottles of water and tubes of toothpaste aboard airliners in our overnight bags. Britain's Cobalt Light Systems has developed a scanner called the INSIGHT100, that uses laser light to assess the liquid contents of containers, even if those containers are opaque."

Comments

Unsafe Bottles

[Anonymous Coward]

Shouldn't we all be really terrified of the massive pile of super dangerous drinks bottles we have to pass on the way through security?

Re:Unsafe Bottles

[Wilf_Brim]

This has been pointed out before, and I'm glad you are bringing it up. If these are being taken away because they are presumed explosive and/or hazardous chemicals, shouldn't they be treated as such? At the very least they should be handled as hazardous liquids (like solvents, acids, and the like). Of course, the problem there is that which class of hazardous liquids due you treat them as. Volitile organics (like gasoline, acetone, etc)? Maybe strong acids? Or strong bases? This is, of course, the meat of the matter. In the United States we do not have security. We have security theater. The bottles they are taking away are only props, not the real thing, so they no more have to handle the "explosives" confiscated as you have to handle the fake bomb you made for your high school play as a real IED.

Here's another solution

[Maury Markowitz]

How about we just let people take liquids on planes again? You know, without the stupid scanner?

BTW, it clearly doesn't work on toothpaste or any other metal container.

Re:Here's another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

Because nobody siphons off any taxpayer money that way?

Re:Here's another solution

[devent]

Actually, that would be nice. Of course if the anesthetics would be side-effect free. Kind like the cruisers from The Fifth Element. You checkin, go to sleep, wake up at your destination. A 24 hour flight would be just a nice dream for you.

Re:Here's another solution

[Dan667]

what if a terrorist blows up the huge line where people wait to be groped by the tsa?

Re:Here's another solution

[Anrego]

Then the politician expresses his sadness over the incident and announces (probably to much applause) plans to make airport security even tighter.

But if they stopped the TSA groping and this happened.. they'd be calling for the head of the guy who made that decision!

We are talking politics here, not logic.

Re:Here's another solution

[Dcnjoe60]

what if a terrorist blows up the huge line where people wait to be groped by the tsa?

Then they install another TSA checkpoint outside the airport to protect the one inside.

Re:Here's another solution

[interkin3tic]

Con Air was actually not a documentary, so please don't cite it as evidence of anything. Were TSA to really beef up security to the levels of chaining you in your seat and patrolling the aisles with shotguns, passengers would actually NOT riot and take over the plane. There are obviously other huge problems with that, but Con-Air is not a case study any more than the movie "Terminator" should convince you to destroy your computer.

Re:Here's another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

what if a terrorist blows up the huge line where people wait to be groped by the tsa?

Then they install another TSA checkpoint outside the airport to protect the one inside.

Yeah. Like one outside your house. With document checks and "off with the shoes" and "Are you going to the airport? Oh, going to work? Don't worry, this will only take two or three hours."

"We don't want to hold you up, sir. So just let us install surveillance equipment throughout your house so we can make sure you aren't making explosives or taking them out of your house. Then the daily searches will only take half an hour. Oh, and if you don't mind, please keep an extra bottle of lube around just in case we run out. Cavity searches without it can be a real pain in the ass..."

Okay, so maybe not. If I were a violent radical who wished to use terror, I certainly wouldn't go for planes or airports anyway. Too much security. I would go for Trains, bridges, tunnels, shopping malls, bus stations, schools, large office buildings, etc, etc, etc. The truth is that there is no way to stop a lone attacker dedicated to exchanging his or her life for that of their target. If we want to live in a free society, we need to accept that freedom isn't safe.

That's not to say that we shouldn't have security at critical infrastructure points, but going through these dramatic gyrations are mostly a waste of time -- except for those who are making a mint, of course.

Re:Here's another solution

[Ron Bennett]

Airline security is *not* about protecting the passengers (though that's a nice extra benefit), but rather protecting strategic structures and the power-elite that reside in them from hijacked aircraft.

In the distant future, airline security for passengers will likely be relaxed when technological methods are widely deployed to remotely limit where aircraft can fly / ability to take over control.

As of now, there's no cost effective way to protect structures / people on the ground from aircraft attacks other than prevention; stopping a hijacking before it occurs.

Re:Here's another solution

[Anonymous Coward]

You still think planes can be hijacked? When was the last time that actually happened? 9/11 caused two major changes that improved security, 1) reinforced cockpit doors, 2) awareness of passengers to a possible use of airplanes as a weapon scenario. That's all you need to prevent a 9/11 style event. Hijackers can no longer get into the cockpit to take control. If they try, the other passengers on the plane won't let them. If they did get into the cockpit, many of the pilots are armed. The commotion caused by an attempt to take over the plane would give enough time for the military to be notified to shoot the plane down. Hijackings were only a problem before because the passengers and crew complied with the hijacker on the idea that it would increase their safety. However, if the hijacker intends on crashing the plane, complying no longer increases personal safety. I.E, just the fact that 9/11 occurred has made air travel safer. The only way it could happen again is if the terrorists are the pilots at the beginning of the flight, or if they can remotely gain control of the plane from the passenger cabin. The TSA is powerless to prevent such a thing. These kinds of plots need to be stopped before they get to the airport. You don't need a weapon at all if you have remote control of the plane, or if you are actually the pilot. Hijacking a plane used to be easy, like robbing a convenience store. Now it is much more difficult, with a successful hijacking being about as difficult as robbing a casino vault.

Laser Scanner

[Anonymous Coward]

>Laser Scanner May Allow Passengers To Take Bottled Drinks On Planes Again

Presumably it was the laser scanner that prevented this in the first place, right?

Can the scanner find my dignity?

[SniperJoe]

Can they develop a laser scanner to find my dignity again? While I hail these suggested improvements, the fact remains that these piecemeal changes are a smokescreen to the larger issue of the legality and effectiveness of our current airport security scheme.

Re:Can the scanner find my dignity?

[Joce640k]

Hey, did you know people can hide stuff up their asses?

No, really, people do it every day to get drugs through customs or to get stuff like cellphones into prisons. If people can get cellphone chargers up there* a couple of pounds of C4 would be no problem.

[*] Which apparently they do ... %img_src%=goatse.cx

more waste

[Taibhsear]

Oh great, more crap the airports have to buy, which increases ticket prices, for zero increased safety. Super.

criminals dont play by the rules.....

[Anonymous Coward]

If "they" want to blow up a plane they will find a way to do it. The focus should be on "why" they want to blow up the plane. Maybe we should stop pissing off people by trying to take over their countries?

What liquid agent is a terrorist going to use to blow up a plane? Napalm? Or just set the plane on fire?

Nice idea, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

reportedly has a false alarm rate of less than 0.5 percent

According to Wiki, 46,514,154 passed through JFK International in 2010. Let's say they're very cautious about the false alarm rate and that it's actually 0.25%: that's still well over 100,000 false alarms per year. From one big airport.

What do they do then? Call in the bomb squad a couple of hundred times a day or let the passenger on the plane minus their alleged bottle of explosives?

It might be a good idea as an initial screen where any positives get passed to a more rigorous second layer of screening but this can take time, and bearing in mind it takes about 5 seconds to scan an item with this machine and that people can have three or four things to scan that could make an extra 30 seconds of time to screen each passenger bearing in mind time to get the items in and out of the machine. That might not sound like much but it'll just increase backups even further.

Besides, I take it "false alarm" means false positive. What about the rate of false negatives? Is it high enough to make it pointless?

Re:Good and yet...

[wvmarle]

There are exceptions for families with small children. They may bring milk and other drinks for the child (and yes that's of course a major security leak but who cares, it's theater anyway and the show must go on). Exact quantities I don't know but something like "a reasonable quantity for the trip".

Theater at its finest....

[jythie]

So... we have a fake problem based off what was essentially a hoax, but now the public and TSA are so heavily invested in the myth that when everyone realizes how stupid the policy is, rather then just saying 'ok, start carying liquids', they have to go with some expensive face-saving device so they can maintain the facade that this whole policy was worthless in the first place.

You know.. I really should have just tried to sell them dowsing rods instead... they are already being sold as bomb detectors... I am sure I could repurpose a couple sticks for detecting combinations of liquids that when mixed will blow up planes. I wonder if I can set them up so they poke the user in the eye in order to indicate a positive.....

Re:Not practical

[RazzleFrog]

Well if it means I can carry on a bottle of wine I bought instead of praying it doesn't explode on all my clothes then I might be ok with that.

Re:Do away with scanning altogether

[agentgonzo]

I notice not many people here are saying we should do away with intrusive pat-downs and feel ups altogether. At least here in the US, we used to have something called the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable search & seizure.

They security officers do not have the right to search you. If you make the metal detector beep, they still do not have the right to search you. They do, however, have the right to not admit you to the rest of the airport or onto the plane unless you assuage their fears by allowing a pad-down search. If you really take objection to the security at the airports, get in a car, train or ferry. Air travel is by no means the only way to get there.