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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."
What about the explosive diaerara you get from eating the junk they have in the terminal?
Why not use this "technology" to resume allowing people to carry liquids >3oz in carry-ons?
Perhaps limit the number of such bottles to save time but if they can swab drinks bought in the security zone, they can swab our drinks while we wait to be nakey-scanned...
Fuck the TSA
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.
I was an American teenager in the 1970s. Back then, people made fun of the Soviet Union. One of the most popular jokes referred to a Soviet citizen's internal passport, which apparently they were supposed to carry even when going from city to city. And of course there were all the stories about the KGB.
Fast forward to now. The TSA is becoming more and more intrusive into all aspects of our lives. They are even trying to worm their way into searching you on city buses and trains. Also Congress has, on more than one occasion, entertained proposals that would require US citizens to carry what amounts to an internal passport.
Reagan told Mr. Gorbachev to tear down that wall... and we thought we won the Cold War. But I guess Breshnev and company are having the last laugh.
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If you are going to check something at a checkpoint then it makes sense to stochastically sample with secondary checks to test your error rate. Apparently the TSA believe that there is a reason to limit the liquids through airport checkpoints and screen those liquids that they do allow through. Irrespective of if this is itself a rational position, if you believe that it is then it is also rational to check randomly sample liquids after the checkpoint.
If intelligent life is too complex to evolve on its own, who designed God?
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. :(
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How do you know it's a TSA agent dripping a strange liquid into your drink and not a crazy guy dripping a slow acting poison or virus that won't be noticed until hours later after hundreds of people come down with a strange affliction all across the country?
Even if you demand to see ID first (is the TSA agent obligated to show ID upon request?), how many people know what a TSA badge is really supposed to look like?
I've had a sneaking suspicion that the TSA is a stealth jobs program for the otherwise unemployable. It's not so much the intrusive searches and so on as the STUPIDITY of their measures (how are four small bottles of liquid different from one large bottle?). As a game I stand in line at the checkpoints daydreaming about all the ways I could sneak things through—ideas that I won't share because it appears that terrorists are generally, thank goodness, even dumber than the gatekeepers. Many critics have already dissected their policies, e.g., http://www.schneier.com/ It's just too easy.
Terrorism is a very serious problem that can get people killed. So is the TSA.
Actually, I've been wondering if the whole "no drinks through security" rule was made at the request of the airport merchants who charge three dollars for a $0.30 bottle of water....
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
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.
AFAICT the only thing all of these "security measures" do is get people used to the idea that they're subjects, not citizens and that the security forces can do whatever they want whenever they want to anybody they feel like. By the time most people realize we're turning into a police state it will be too late.
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Seriously.
If they are going to spot check the liquids, just do it before I purchase said liquid. That's kind of a nice deal, given it actually has some impact on my safety. Random checks after the purchase has a really shitty end game:
1. Liquid found to be benign: "Sorry for bothering you, and trust us the chemicals used for testing are no big deal." Right. Feeling good about that one. NOT!
2. Liquid found to be dubious: "I'm afraid we need to conficate your coffee miss..." She asks, "Well, what about that guy over there, who got one too?" Yeah, that's ugly. Do they go and get his to put up a brave face, eventually just taking all the coffee? Or is it just a lie, or menacing behavior to get her to just shut down? And if she asks, "But you guys certified them for sale inside the terminal right?" Their reply? LOL!!!
3. Liquid found to be dangerous: See dubious, but for a lawsuit. +1 for pain and suffering on all sides. Might as well just start handing out good drugs to prevent the headaches that are going to happen. Here in Oregon, somebody might just strip over it! State law permits nudity as a legit protest. Hello 10 O'Clock news!
There are times when I seriously wonder whether or not anyone actually thinks about these things on more than a basic level.
Of course, the vendors would throw a fit! They need to make the money, so fuck us, right? Right.
Blogging because I can...
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..
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