TSA Says Screening Drinks Purchased Inside Airport Terminal Is Nothing New

First time accepted submitter lcam writes in with a story about a video that has started a new round of condemnation against the TSA over the testing of drinks. "The video, posted on YouTube on Monday and featured on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams Tuesday night, has already garnered almost 125,000 hits and nearly 900 comments from angry travelers. It shows two TSA officers swabbing bottles of water, a carton of coconut water and a cup of coffee, among other liquids. 'Now remember that this is inside the terminal, well beyond the security check and purchased inside the terminal ... just people waiting to get on the plane,' YouTube user danno02 says in the video's description. 'My wife and son came back from a coffee shop just around the corner, then we were approached. I asked them what they were doing. One of the TSA ladies said that they were checking for explosive chemicals (as we are drinking them).' The TSA insisted Tuesday that its policy of checking liquids beyond the security gate has been in place for five years now. TSA agents will randomly patrol the gates using a test strip and dropper containing a non-toxic solution, it said."

Comments

non-toxic?

[hawguy]

Is the strip and solution really non-toxic? Will TSA provide independent test lab results to prove it? (unlike the poorly tested backscatter x-ray machines)?

If they have a reliable test to determine if a liquid is hazardous or not, then how about letting me bring liquids through the checkpoints?

TSA security theater story of the day:

On a recent flight from IAD, just before the flight started boarding, the gate agent announced "Please have your ID available for inspection, TSA will be conduction random ID checks and baggage searches upon boarding". And sure enough, as we boarded, there was a TSA guy with his magic flashlight, randomly checking ID's for validity, and farther into the jetway was a pair of TSA agents randomly searching luggage.

What's the point of a random check if it's announced when passengers can choose not to participate? If I were a bad guy with a fake ID or something bad in my luggage, I'd go home and try again a different day with a different fake ID.

Re:non-toxic?

[FictionPimp]

I was recently at a convention. A lot of the vendors gave out these bouncy balls full of some strange liquid and glitter. I threw them in my backpack and forgot about them. I was able to pass though security with 11 of them in my bag. Yes, 11 baseball sized balls of liquid.

Random swabbing

[girlintraining]

The real reason for this is to make you, the idiot public, feel safe by having some random person in a uniform approach you and proceed to do something vaguely scientific-looking while assuring you that you're very safe here. See, you're safe because we're doing this thing of dubious value, but we're dressed in uniforms that command authority.

If you want to see this first hand, dress up in a suit, wear an official-looking nametag (it needs to have a BIG official-looking gold seal on it) covered in laminate, and then walk around a commercial building telling people what to do. Tell them men's room is closed and everyone has to use the women's (or vice versa). Stand in front of an elevator and tell people it's out of order (even as people exit from right behind you). Now, take it to Troll Level 99 by getting a couple of your friends involved in it: Come up with something completely outrageous (claim you're an USDA food inspector and need to look at anyone carrying a sandwich while in front of a cafe), and make sure your friends agree to do whatever you're doing. Then demand the same of other random people. Take a bite out of their sandwich and then tell them it's "acceptable" and let them go. You can have one of your friends object, at which point you eat the entire sandwich and treaten to write them a citation for interfering in official inspector business.

You'd be surprised just how far you can take it. I mean, you can basically rob someone of everything they own, and as long as other people are complicit to allow it, they'll just fold in like a deck of cards. No. I really mean it. But don't do it since it's unethical. But they do, they really do. :(

Re:Random swabbing

[cpu6502]

>>>If you want to see this first hand, dress up in a suit, wear an official-looking nametag (it needs to have a BIG official-looking gold seal on it) covered in laminate

I saw this on a plane recently. As I was getting off I put on my workbadge, since I knew I was going directly to my job. When I said "excuse me" people looked at my badge and said, "Oh certainly sir" or "yes sir" and let me get past them in the aisle. My seat was close to the rear, but by using this technique I ended-up as one of the first persons off the plane.

That wasn't part of my original plan, but just happened to work out.

Can we sue the TSA

[chrismcb]

Can we sue the TSA for putting us in harms way? I am sick and tired of them making me stand in line, next to a barrel full of suspected explosives.

So behind the Times America

[ufpdom]

I travel back and forth from Japan pretty regularly. They have a special machine that they take the drink pop it in a holder and within seconds throws the green light or the 'Abunai' Red alert signal. Its been there for years. Kinda cool that I can buy my tea from outside the security zone and bring it right now.
Swabbing? LOL..