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Scary Toothbrush Prompts Shutdown of World's Busiest Airport
McGruber writes "The big buzz for travelers today is the story of how a scary toothbrush prompted the closure of Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport: 'Airport officials told Channel 2 Action News that an electric toothbrush began vibrating inside a bag checked onto an AirTran flight, causing workers to alert airport officials to the strange noise.' The terminal and the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA) subway were both temporary closed 'out of an abundance of caution.' ATL has been the world's busiest airport by passenger traffic since 1998, and by number of landings and take-offs since 2005."
It's nice to see that we haven't let the terrorists win... oh wait.
Nine times out of ten it's an electric razor. But every once in a while it's a dildo. Of course, it's company policy never to imply ownership in the event of a dildo. We have to use the indefinite article, "a dildo", never "your dildo."
"His name was James Damore."
had it not been for the brave efforts of the TSA, someone could have taken this toothbrush and flown it into a building.
The only way to keep airports safe for americans now is to require them to remove their shoes, belts, AND teeth before screening.
Good people go to bed earlier.
of the tards, by the tards, for the tards...
My wife was flying for work back in 2004-2005 time period and her electric toothbrush turned on inside her bag. Nobody freaked out, but one of her coworkers made some stupid "Haha is that your vibrator" comment.
Shutting down the whole thing probably cost them at least a million dollars. This is what the terrorists winning looks like.
(with apologies to Fight Club)
Billions of dollars to shutdown airports for no reason. They were thrown off the tracks by Amtrak Chief of Police for trying to encroach on American's 4th amendment rights outside of their "jurisdiction". http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/06/opinion/don-phillips-tsa-vipr-teams/
I wrote to my representatives about how I feel about the TSA. You can too: https://secure.downsizedc.org/etp/tsa/
It was vibrating inside the bag, of course they called it a "toothbrush", I mean, what else could it be ... hehehe
Apparently, it could have been a bomb. It said on the box that it was good for banging.
...it was an electric ear cleaner
http://michaelsmith.id.au
This is what happens when we let fear reign supreme. All common sense goes out the window.
Seriously, logic and common sense seem to go out of the window whenever air travel is involved. The conversation should have gone something like this:
Security Officer: Err, what's that buzzing noise
Passenger: Whoops, looks like my toothbrush turned on, I'll just turn it off
Note the distinct lack of mass panic and knee-jerk reactions.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Please add a TSA section so that I can ignore it.
Excuse me Madam, but I believe your carry on luggage is calling you.
...for the hundreds of thousands of dollars it must cost to close the world's busiest airport? Is anyone held responsible? Who eats the losses? Do the good citizens of Atlanta? Or is the cost passed on to the airlines, which in turn pass them on to their customers?
Maybe this is why my $600 flight overseas this spring comes with $800 in taxes and fees...because of electric toothbrushes.
We never imply ownership of a toothbrush...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Posting AC as I actually work for an airline at ATL. Worked there for the past 6 years, and maybe 3-4 times I've discovered a vibrating object in a bag. The first time a supervisor took the bag to another, private room and opened it up. The second time, it was obviously an electric razor and I was able to actually turn it off from outside the bag by pressing the button. The most recent time, I was in a bin loading the plane, it was rainy and was a quick turn, so did nothing. The passenger can always put more batteries in when they get there. In any case, at no time have I ever seen parts of the airport closed down for something like this, and vibrating bags are almost never reported anyway, because everyone knows its not going to be a bomb, and you know the person that has to open the bag and checks sure as hell doesnt want to open up a bag and find a vibrator.
All airports should be declared "No electric toothbrush or dildo zones"!!
My karma is bad. Don't get too close!!!
Buzzzzz
We have devolved into a Country of lunatics who cannot do any kind of cost benefits analysis. It is just plain sad to see the Country go from a leader of the free world to a bunch of cowards willing to give up their freedoms for an illusion of security.
There have been more deaths in the last decade from drownings and household fires each than from terrorists. Many more people a year take their own life than died in 9/11. Nearly 15 times as many people die PER year in car accidents than died in 9/11. Approximately 3 times as many 15-34 year olds are murdered EACH year than died in 9/11.
the toothbrush in question was found in checked luggage. The story didn't say if it was a security person who found the bag, or if it was a baggage handler or some other person who doesn't have the right to inspect the bag. It wasn't a matter of going through the security checkpoint where the passenger is sitting in front of the bag and could get the toothbrush out and explain what it is. Now whether sounds require closing down the airport, that seems like a bit of overreaction.
Bombs neither tick nor vibrate anymore (that's if they ever did)...
Was it a semi-automatic toothbrush?
Furthermore, identifying and responding to these anomalies is exactly what we should be doing. With current security, all we are doing is preventing copycat terrorism. Talkin off shoes to respond to shoe bombers, naked scanner to respond to underwear bombers, no water to respond to, whatever it is responding to.
It has been repeatedly said that a group of well trained observers identifying suspicious behavior and anomalous baggage would make much better security than the current situation which is simply a jobs program created by conservatives to artificially reduce the unemployment rate.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
What sort of idiot bombmaker would make a bomb that vibrated, ticked or had a big freaking waste of money LED showing a countdown? It's right up there with literally having a red wire and a blue wire. The extension of this, then, is what sort of idiot "airport official" closes an airport because he saw something vibrate?
Good thing it wasn't a Mooninite toothbrush with blinking LEDs flipping them off. Then they would have had to nuke it from orbit just to be sure. Because, you know, protect teh children.
So, are we secure enough yet?
Screening by airline personnel was the standard prior to 9/11. It wasn't clearly better.
Talk about exaggerating the truth, jeez.
Zero terrorist plots foiled.
Terror spread by terrorists invades US airports. Terrorists officially won. GG.
Could this not in of itself be used as a possible terrorist attack vector.
Load a vibrating toothbrush (or dildo), with a timer switch, into the checked in luggage of at airports across the US. While the devices themselves are perfectly harmless, you could effectively shut down the entire US air transportation network for hours, and cause massive secondary economic damage (due to missed flights and delayed schedules).
You don't even need to buy plane tickets, just sneak a time delayed dildo into unsuspecting passenger luggage, or even just a series of airmail packages sent across the nation. The attack could be repeated almost indefinitely, at random intervals, and would be difficult to detect via the TSA X-Ray scanners.
This would not even be technically illegal (the plane, the airport and the passengers where never in any real danger)... though the killjoy TSA may eventually respond by explicitly adding dildos (and toothbrushes) to the no-fly list of forbidden objects
A euphemism for panic. These people are cowards.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Did you see the size of that dildo It was so big it fucked the whole airport.
I can not cast stones at these people as I recently arrived home from a trip to find that there was a horrible buzzing noise in my house. I could hear the noise from the front door and thought it might be the furnace; no joy. Maybe the fridge, nyet. Oh no my computer, nope. But no matter where I went it was of roughly even volume. Then as I took off my backpack I realized it was my electric toothbrush buzzing in the backpack. So my little lesson is that you hear the sound you are expecting. In a airport the paranoid are expecting bombs and so they hear bombs.
The dumb phrase 'out of an abundance of caution.' is bureaucratspeek for I CANT FIND MY ASS
MFG, omb
Funnily enough I taught myself lock picking with the sole intent of breaking into my manager's car on the day of a business trip and adding a stainless steel revenge dildo to his luggage. Never did get a chance to do that. I'm pretty sure 4 D cells would keep it vibrating for hours, plenty long enough for him to get into airport security...
Yeah... I'm a bad person.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I want to have a bright red LED countdown, strapped to some modeling clay, and leave in in a closet at home, continually going 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 5...
Anyone breaking into my house might need to steal a new pair of pants.
I am much to lazy to ever actually build such a device, but it's amusing to think of scenarios. Maybe ThinkGeek can market them; next to the annoying beeping device (that would make a good combo deal actually...)
arent allowed in aircraft baggage for obvious reasons.
... and it's owner where shoot 38 times. Each.
Only way to be sure.
Orly way to be sure.
Use a submachine gun!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orly_Airport#Incidents.2C_accidents_and_attacks
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
I'm reminded of a Fight Club scene "Of course it's company policy never to, imply ownership in the event of a dildo... always use the indefinite article a dildo, never your dildo. "
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
.. and now we have scary toothbrushes. What happens when vacuum cleaners begin to oppose our freedom?
I expect an increase in lack of oral hygiene as people stop brushing their teeth because they're afraid of having Anthrax on it or something. Happy Halloween 2013, everyone if I don't see you in the chair.
please, mods in this thread, learn how to use your points.
Aren't batteries banned from checked in luggage? Or is that only for international flights?
I have had to remove batteries from checked in suitcases before, that was before 911. Also, I was not allowed to pack a spare notebook battery in checked baggage.
This was not in the US.
It's proof that the security circus cannot possibly protect us against exploding what-is-it-this-weeks.
Think about it. The Israelis have bomb-proofed checking lines so a bomb in one line doesn't hurt others. The USoA and everywhere where they listened to the USoA they have a large room full of people milling around before the spendy scanners that just asks for a chunky salsa making attack. If the Israelis think your luggage is suspect, they drop it in a bomb-proofed cart and wheel it down to an even more bomb-proofed bunker. It can do whatever it likes there. I expect they did the same with luggage handling. Everywhere else, they try and evacuate large amounts of people for just one suspect package, which in all likelihood is something innocuous. This takes ages and is itself risky.
Would I have terrorist motives, I'd know who to attack, and how: I'd supply a steady stream of fake packages to protected points until people get so sick of it they start to sing along with the alarm bells. Then I'd deliver some payload or other to do a lot of damage. Unless I had a government at my disposal, of course. Then I'd have not one, but at least two TSAs compete for the ability to deliver the most harassment such that it doesn't quite result in lawsuits. Free market, see?
At any rate, the Israelis have this right: You don't evacuate thousands, tens of thousands of people for but a suspect package. You take the package out of the crowd. Much easier, safer, faster, cheaper.
The fact that supposedly the most advanced security agency (cough) of the most advanced nation (cough) on earth, after some ten years of daily practice, and budget enough to hire every major expert in the field if they'd not squander it on expensive pork-barrel kit to fill warehouses, has yet to discover the obvious with both ready access to working, practical examples of how to do it and why the alternative is sheer folly, only makes more painfully obvious what is already well-known:
The TSA is not there for anyone's safety. It's a pork barrel type club providing job security for the most thuggish of rent-a-cops, and suppliers of useless security kit. It's great if you're part of the security-industrial complex (the civilian arm of that other complex), not so much if you're anyone else.
The only fix is to do away with it wholesale, and blackball everyone who's ever been employed by them or has supplied security kit to them, and any and all backing politicians. They're not fit to work for our public dollars or be our representatives. Yes, this is going to hurt. It is meant to.
People, none of this has anything to do with terrorism, it is the US culture of making a lawsuit for billions out of EVERYTHING. It creates an atmosphere were procedures are made for everything and as long as you follow them to the letter YOU as an individual and hopefully the company are safe from the most frivilous lawsuits.
Take for instance the opening of a package. Who here is going to volunteer to be on constant call to open EVERY suspicious package, with NO gear? Just be on standby in your jeans and a t-shirt to open any and all packages that trigger an alarm. Thought so. Oh, you might think 99.99999999% are safe but I didn't put a limit on the number of times you have to be on call.
Forcing an ordinary employee to open suspicious packages COULD result in a claim for emotional stress. So policy is to ALWAYS inform the police. If the police just sends an ordinary cop without clearing the area and something DOES happen, they will be sued for billions and so a policy is made to ALWAYS clear the area AND send in the specialists.
BREAK the policy and you are not just not following the rules and disobeying the boss, the insurance companies might well use it as an excuse to cancel a policy. The media might also get on your case for being a cowboy who does whatever. Media only cares about headlines they happily rant on day about out of control bureaucracy and the next about government employees not following the rules. Same as the media want to get though on drink driving then whine about police spot checks for drink driving.
Fire drills are the most common thing ordinary people have to deal with where silly rules have to be followed and when an alarm goes of by accident and EVERYONE knows it is false, you still have to go outside because if you don't the people responsible for the evacuation plan are in trouble and they are in trouble because there have been incidents in which people stayed in a building that was really on fire because someone told them to stay because he/she thought it wasn't important.
You see, those stories you read about a factory owner locking all the doors and dozens of people dying in a fire because they couldn't go out, THAT is the result of people NOT following the silly policy of ALWAYS keeping fire exists clear. Such a nuisance when the fire marshal cites you for having a few boxes learning against the door, what a silly policy.
It would be nice if readers of slashdot who are supposed to be above average intelligence had a little bit more common sense and knowledge about HOW the world operates.
Conditions surrounding a suspicious package, once something has triggered an alarm:
The reason I am kinda upset with all the people who hate procedure is that this is an IT site, are the same people who hate procedure the same people who never make a backup, edit code live on the production machines, don't run test scenarios? Silly procedures are there to catch to make sure that when something odd happens, people know what to do and don't start getting creative. I have spend to much time cleaning up after creative people to think that improvisation is a good thing.
Yes it sucks when the world derails around you and you are once again reminded how easy it is for ONE tiny unthoughtful action to ruin the flow of the u
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It could have been a device that started working because of a leaking battery, said leak corroding something else, creating heat and bam, fire in the cargo hold at 10km up.
Bombs are hardly the biggest danger to airlines, lots of crashes have been caused by cargo causing fires or exploding.
Anyway, if your suitcase causes damage to another suitcase, who has to pay? The airline.
But hey, if you are so smart you can see through baggage to see what the issue is, why don't YOU go work as a baggage handler and safe us all?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
What has this world come to when buzzing objects in people's luggage scares us to the point that entire airports are shutdown?
This only shows that the terrorists have already won. They no longer need to bomb our cities. All they need to do to cause wanton panic and disturb daily life is to put something in someone's bag that vibrates...
And on the Eighth Day, Man created God.
Somehow it seems weird that so many people actually want to go to atlanta ... ...
I guess it's the "hub thingy".... but atlanta, seriously
By the coordinated and strategic placement of electric toothbrushes in a number of key airports around the United States?
(Coming up next on 24.)
was interrupted for more than half an hour Friday morning because of a toothbrush. [...] A portion of the North Terminal baggage claim area was cordoned off while the bag was investigated, officials said. Airport passengers and MARTA passengers were diverted to the Terminal South entrance.
Good job by Atlanta airport for having sensible policies and rerouting traffic in the event of a real threat.
Good job by Atlanta airport for having sensible policies and rerouting traffic in the event of a real threat.
How long have you been employed by TSA?
So did the guy owning the toothbrush pay for the damage and delays he caused?
Out of an abundance of stupidity
Video to prove it.
You can always buy one on the other side of security.....
If you bothered to read the article before posting your rant you would have seen that the airport was not shut down. Here is the relevant part of the article;
A portion of the North Terminal baggage claim area was cordoned off while the bag was investigated, officials said. Airport passengers and MARTA passengers were diverted to the Terminal South entrance.
One baggage handling area is not the whole airport. Flights continued to land and take off.
As for the Amtrak Police chief, it is quite possible that someone might be afraid of losing his cushy job of TSA takes over.