[HN Gopher] Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
___________________________________________________________________
Heathrow scraps liquid container limit
Author : robotsliketea
Score : 611 points
Date : 2026-01-23 19:38 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.bbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.bbc.com)
| jbellis wrote:
| Not because of a sudden outbreak of sanity, but because they have
| CT scanners now.
| andai wrote:
| Yeah, I flew thru Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands a few
| years ago, and I couldn't believe they let me through with
| water.
|
| The security used something I would describe as out of an Iron
| Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view of my
| backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering midair,
| but I was still impressed. But the fact they let me keep the
| water was even more amazing, hahah.)
| cyral wrote:
| I've seen this too in the US, the newer machines let them
| spin the scan around in 3D space and must make it much easier
| to tell if something needs inspection or not
| CitrusFruits wrote:
| Yeah these are pretty common in the US, but they're just
| not ubiquitous. Many airports will still have a CT machine
| next to the old one and it just depends on what line you
| get out in.
| throwup238 wrote:
| _> The security used something I would describe as out of an
| Iron Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view
| of my backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering
| midair, but I was still impressed._
|
| I just flew with two laptops in my backpack which I didn't
| have to take out for the first time (haven't flown in a
| while), with a custom PCB with a couple of vivaldi antennas
| sandwiched in between the laptops.
|
| It was a real trip watching them view the three PCBs as a
| single stack, then automatically separate them out, and
| rotate them individually in 3D. The scanner threw some kind
| of warning and the operator asked me what the custom PCB was,
| so I had to explain to them it was a ground penetrating radar
| (that didn't go over well; I had to check the bag)
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| You can do realtime 3D flythroughs on CT scans with open
| source viewers. If you've ever had one, get your DICOM data
| set and enjoy living in the future.
| eternauta3k wrote:
| Can you recommend one? I've tried Aeskulap and Amide and I
| found it hard to get the 3D views to work.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Inveselius works well. The UI lacks some polish but the
| rendering beats what most physicians have access to.
| bulbar wrote:
| Tel Aviv has allowing this for quite some time (10 years?). I
| guess they update their security devices as soon as new
| technology becomes available.
|
| They don't advertise it, I found out by accident, trying to
| empty my water bottle by drinking when a security person told
| me to just put it together with the rest of my stuff. I had
| no idea that was a thing and was pretty confused.
| summarity wrote:
| They're multi wavelength CT. Basically whenever you see a 4:3
| box with a "smiths" logo over the belt it's going to be a
| pretty painless process (take nothing out except analog film)
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I would say just as if not more important are probably some
| advanced nitrates detector.
| darth_avocado wrote:
| 3-1-1 is rarely enforced. I always got confused why the 100ml
| limit existed, since I could just take multiple bottles of
| 100ml of whatever I wanted and it was okay. Then I realized
| that technically I only could take 3 bottles but I've been
| getting away with more for decades.
| terribleperson wrote:
| It's not 3 bottles, it's 3.4 oz or 100 ml.
| bsimpson wrote:
| isn't it whatever fits in a quart-sized ziploc? i presume
| that's where the other poster estimated "only 3 bottles."
| terribleperson wrote:
| 3-1-1 is an awful mnemonic, but it's basically: 3.4 oz
| containers in 1 1-quart ziplock bag.
| jonlucc wrote:
| I guess the comms people got their hands on it before
| they deployed the original mnemonic: 3.4-1-1
| vasco wrote:
| Then you hide them somewhere inside and go back out and in
| again
| altern8 wrote:
| OR, you just have one or more accomplices ;-)
| wodenokoto wrote:
| It's as many bottles sized 100ml or less that you can fit in
| a 1 liter bag.
| bawolff wrote:
| Yeah, but arent you allowed to exit and re-enter security as
| many times as you like as long as you have a valid ticket?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| They'd probably find it suspicious
| dataflow wrote:
| > Not because of a sudden outbreak of sanity, but because they
| have CT scanners now.
|
| What's is the evidence for believing so strongly that airports
| all over the world have been prohibiting large amounts of
| liquids due to widespread insanity?
| outside1234 wrote:
| FINALLY
|
| (PS. Still not going to fly there)
| stanislavb wrote:
| Good. This should happen on all airports now. Otherwise it's
| useless. You won't be flying from Heathrow to Heathrow.
| noncoml wrote:
| You know they don't take your liquids at the destination
| airport, right?
| al_borland wrote:
| People generally have a return flight.
| United857 wrote:
| It's slowly happening at least in Europe:
| https://www.skycop.com/news/passenger-rights/airports-liquid...
| chillacy wrote:
| Hmm, I once transited in Heathrow in a return flight from
| europe to the US and had to go through Heathrow security for
| whatever reason, where they subjected me to liquids rules way
| stricter than either my source or destination did.
|
| E.g. 1 day use contact lenses and prescription creams all
| having to fit in a tiny plastic bag. So I'm happy for this
| change.
| alexfoo wrote:
| > Hmm, I once transited in Heathrow in a return flight from
| europe to the US and had to go through Heathrow security for
| whatever reason,
|
| The US mandates that you have to go through TSA approved
| security before getting on a flight to the US.
|
| Either the security at your European airport wasn't good
| enough, or the transit at Heathrow allowed you to access to
| things that invalidated the previous security screening and
| so it had to be done again.
|
| The bonus is that if you get to go through US Immigration at
| the departure airport then you can often land at domestic
| terminals in the US and the arrivals experience is far less
| tortuous. I flew to the US with a transit in Ireland a few
| times and it was so much nicer using the dead time before the
| Ireland -> US flight to clear immigration rather than
| spending anything from 15 minutes to 4 hours in a queue at
| the arrival airport in the US (all depending on which other
| flights arrived just before yours).
| ekianjo wrote:
| The security theater needs to go on. In the meantime batteries
| represent a much bigger risk with potential in flight fires but I
| guess nobody cares enough to do anything about it.
| dexwiz wrote:
| If batteries were standardized and replaceable I bet they would
| force you to not bring your own, and only ones purchasable
| passed the gate could be used. Maybe that a silver lining to
| the repairability issues.
| harry8 wrote:
| On Scoot (Budget Singapore Air) they let you bring your
| external phone batteries on the plane but do NOT let you use
| them. You have to rent one of theirs.
|
| Skyphone installation by the airlines led to "flight mode"
| because the horror of not paying is far more important than
| safety.
|
| All of this fake, useless theatre undermines real security
| and makes us less safe while picking our pockets.
|
| Fluids to bring down a plane? FFS every human is equipped
| with a bladder. Why was this charlatanism ever tolerated at
| all?
| chihuahua wrote:
| The intention/purpose of the limit on fluids was to prevent
| people from assembling liquid explosives inside the plane.
| The contents of your bladder would not help with that.
| ekianjo wrote:
| if you are really serious about this, you can hide a
| pocket a fluid inside your body, and nobody would know...
| harry8 wrote:
| So if you drink some of the fluid in front of the goon
| instead of being instructed to pour the water out, that
| would show it's not explosive and everything is fine?
| Test for is this fluid water isn't complex chemistry
| right? So we're good to go, yeah? No.
|
| It's an attack that never happened and wouldn't. It's
| nuts.
|
| They should have banned underwear because the underwear
| bomber /did/ happen. But sure, that's awkward and would
| impact revenue, (I don't wanna go nude so I won't fly
| unless I have to), so the ridiculousness of doing so
| triumphed where it did not with water and shoes.
|
| Lock on the cockpit door was worthwhile (unless the
| threat is a psychotic German copilot, worked bad then).
| Also the successful terrorist strategy had expired
| useless even before the end of its first use on 9/11 as
| passengers found out, realised new rules: fight back now,
| hard.
|
| Bastards at Heathrow stole a sealed jar of Fortnum &
| Mason jam from me. For security! Because onion jam could
| blow up a plane. FFS. But sure, you could buy the same
| stuff once through security and take it on the plane at
| inflated prices. Where there was a financial incentive to
| do so and a secial interest to lobby for it, the idiocy
| stopped. In 5 meters.
|
| The purpose of these moronic rules was /not/ what you
| think it was. It was just a sequence of moronic
| compromises around dumb ideas influenced by special
| interest. You can't respect it and respect your own
| intelligence. Security is actually important, do better.
| jen20 wrote:
| > Skyphone installation by the airlines led to "flight
| mode" because the horror of not paying is far more
| important than safety.
|
| By the time "airplane mode" became common on mobile phones,
| the phones installed in airplane seats were already
| decommissioned in most cases.
| harry8 wrote:
| The authorities can't admit they lied. Admit there was
| never any evidence that phones could interfere with
| anything on a plane other than the well being those
| around you. They can't admit they banned mobile phone
| usage but not skyphones because of special interest
| pressure.
|
| They can't do this because it would destroy their
| credibility with the ignorant as much as it has with the
| informed, that would get a critical mass. So yeah we have
| "flight mode" and every single flight someone breaks it.
| It isn't remotely enforceable so it is just as well that
| connecting to cellular is harmless. (Planes also have
| expensive wifi instead of expensive skyphones now, so the
| financial incentive remains.)
|
| Airplane mode was a figleaf to counter "your phone must
| be switched off" which was the old-school airplane mode
| enforcement.
|
| Undermining security for little bits of money for special
| interest. The naked corruption of purpose could make you
| angry if you let it.
| arccy wrote:
| south Korean airlines are banning battery use in flight now
| https://www.timeout.com/asia/news/psa-major-south-korean-air...
|
| other asian carriers will say they can't be in overhead
| compartments
| kijin wrote:
| South Korean here, it's all over the news but it sounds
| rather pointless. Faulty batteries can catch fire even when
| not in use. And the airlines still allow each passenger to
| carry up to 5 power banks, 100Wh each. That's enough power to
| blow up any aircraft.
| kbutler wrote:
| When gate-checking carryon bags, staff told passengers to take
| batteries out of the carryons.
|
| It seems like something that is high risk during flight
| shouldn't be left to passenger compliance with spoken
| instructions.
| galuggus wrote:
| Recently flew through china where they asked 3 times if if i
| had a portable charger and made everyone sign declarations to
| that effect.
| ekianjo wrote:
| Declarations are meaningless. This will not prevent fires ot
| occur.
| rudhdb773b wrote:
| Are battery fires on planes a common problem? I haven't
| heard of many, at least with any significant consequences.
|
| And what would you suggest be done to reduce the risk?
| Asking passengers to travel without phones or laptops isn't
| realistic.
| galuggus wrote:
| there was a viral video of one recently. i think thats
| what sparked the measures. the declaration is probably so
| if they find one in your luggage they can ban you from
| flying
| ekianjo wrote:
| > common problem
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/suzannerowankelleher/2025/08
| /26...
|
| It's statistics at the end of the day. If you have 300
| people carrying several batteries in the body of the
| airplane, and any of them has enough energy to cause an
| immediate fire, you are playing with odds.
|
| > What we should do
|
| Completely banning portable batteries (chargers) would be
| a start. You cut the risk by a lot already because they
| are rampant.
| jonah wrote:
| We flew a couple legs on Virgin Atlantic yesterday. The info
| session before takeoff made several mentions of batteries -
| unplug devices when not on use / not in your seat, if your
| battery gets hot, don't leave your seat/notify a flight
| attendant immediately. (I think they have containers to try to
| contain lithium fires onboard FWIW.)
| bob1029 wrote:
| Batteries are such an incredible oversight if we are trying to
| control for kinetic energy.
|
| 100 watts for an hour ~= 36000 watts for ten seconds. Every
| fully charged laptop roughly has enough energy to bring an
| automobile up to highway speed (once). How many of these
| laptops exist on a typical flight?
| nlawalker wrote:
| Let me get this straight. If the article is correct, the new
| capabilities are related to better detection of large liquid
| containers, not determination of whether or not the liquid is
| dangerous.
|
| So - you couldn't take large amounts of liquids previously
| because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be
| weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum
| total, or in containers that are too large) they'd throw it out
| and send you on your way.
|
| But now that they have the ability to detect larger containers,
| they... do what? Declare that it's safe and send you on your way
| with it still in your possession?
| jmward01 wrote:
| I believe the article mentioned density as well. I suspect that
| is extremely key in determining what it is, or at least
| determining if it is something really odd that should get
| additional screening.
| mjevans wrote:
| So they'll still make me toss out my dang sunscreen.
| greazy wrote:
| No, they'd make you take it out if the scanner / person is
| unable to classify the object.
| dkersten wrote:
| Dublin has been relaxing their restrictions for a while now,
| and when I travelled two weeks ago, had also completely dropped
| the rules. You no longer need to remove liquids or electronics
| from bags, and the liquids per bottle limits are much higher
| (don't remember exactly, maybe 2 litres) with no restriction on
| total number of bottles.
|
| I watched a YouTube video about it a few months back and
| apparently the new devices, at least those used in Dublin, are
| much more accurate in detecting the difference between
| materials that previously looked similar to the machines, they
| can also rotate the images in 3d to get a look from different
| angles. Both of these make it easier to tell whether a
| substance is dangerous, apparently.
| jillesvangurp wrote:
| Berlin had a mix of modern scanners and old scanners last
| time I flew. I had one flight where they were using the
| modern scanners. And then a few weeks later I used a
| different security gate and I still had to remove everything
| from the bag. If you fly from there, the security at the far
| end of the terminal has the new machines and is usually also
| the fastest because people generally use the first security
| gate they see. Good tip if you are in a hurry. The last few
| times I was through in a few minutes.
|
| At some airports, you can now check your own bag using a
| machine that weighs it and prints a sticker. Then you drop it
| on a belt yourself and you walk through security scanners;
| all without having to talk to anyone. And finally you board
| using your phone. Lots of automated checks. I've boarded a
| few times now without anyone bothering to look at an id now.
| It seems that with self check in the id check at the gate
| disappeared. And inside the Schengen zone, nobody checks ids
| at security either.
| secondcoming wrote:
| Edinburgh dropped all liquids and electronics ceremony for a
| few months now. It's great. I have found that adds of your
| bag being put aside for further insepction seems to have
| increased though.
| necovek wrote:
| It's not just large amounts of liquids: it was my understanding
| that this is both a restriction on large amounts of liquid, but
| particularly on large containers needed for an explosive of
| sufficient destructive power.
|
| You could always easily work around the liquid amount
| restriction (multiple containers over multiple people), but if
| you still need a large container, it becomes harder.
|
| I don't know if this is true or if a resealable plastic bag
| also works, for instance (that would be funny, wouldn't it?).
| ascorbic wrote:
| This might make sense if there weren't shops selling large
| bottles right after security. Ones full of highly flammable
| liquids, even.
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| Like what? Alcohol isn't flammable unless it's over 63%,
| and you aren't allowed to bring duty free alcohol on the
| plane.
| decimalenough wrote:
| Duty-free purchases are _all_ hand carried into the
| aircraft, and "tamper-proof" bags are nothing of the
| sort.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Tamper evident, a very different thing.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Alcohol is flammable around 40%. French cooks aren't
| using overproof brandy to do flambe.
|
| Gunpowder doused in alcohol is, very famously for people
| interested in the history of rum, flammable if the
| alcohol is around 57.1% or higher, but straight
| alcohol/water without gunpowder is flammable at a lower
| strength than that.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Or if you couldnt simply take a large empty bottle through.
|
| Howver if you rely on 10 people to take 100ml each that's a
| far larger conspiracy and far less likely than one person
| taking 1l through.
| necovek wrote:
| I am not sure any of it makes real sense, it's just a
| variation of the "why" I picked up somewhere (that it's
| both).
|
| But yes, that's easily worked around in the manner people
| brought up already (I did think of duty free bottles, but
| not camera cases, that is a good one).
| FatalLogic wrote:
| >particularly on large containers
|
| It's common for people to carry large metal equipment cases
| (for cameras, etc.) onboard
| dexwiz wrote:
| Have you never been screened where they swab your items and
| stick it in a machine? That is to detect explosives. They can
| use the first machine to target people for follow up screening.
| nlawalker wrote:
| I have, but what's relevant is that I'm always commanded to
| dump out any liquids in containers bigger than the 3.4 oz
| limit before going through security unless they're like a
| prescription medication. What I'm unclear on why that's
| changed if the improvement that's been made is in detection
| of liquids in packed bags.
| gambiting wrote:
| So far, this machine has been used to reliably, 10/10 times,
| reject and discard my nivea deodorant.
| bulbar wrote:
| When you don't know much about a topic, probability is higher
| that your are missing some piece than some entity doing things
| that make no sense.
|
| I know it's easy to get the impression that's not the case. But
| when your stop making fun of / belittle such events / persons /
| decision and be curious instead you start to realize that more
| often than not you are just missing a piece of information.
|
| The truth oftentimes is just not interesting enough and not
| clickbait worthy.
| nlawalker wrote:
| You're right. I am genuinely curious though, so I shouldn't
| have been so snarky about it. I'll try again:
|
| I've always been under the impression that large containers
| of liquids were forbidden because they were potentially
| dangerous. If that hasn't changed, and if the new technology
| is only about being able to better detect the presence of
| liquids in packed luggage, why have the limits on container
| size changed?
|
| EDIT: So I see that the article says that it's about being
| able to keep the liquids in your bag when going through
| security. But I thought liquids in large containers were
| forbidden from going through security entirely unless you had
| some kind of medical justification for them?
| summarity wrote:
| Not just the presence but the material itself:
| https://www.smithsdetection.com/products/sdx-10060-xdi/
|
| It's X-ray diffraction
| lambdaone wrote:
| It can detect not only large containers of liquids, but (up to
| a point) what liquid is in them.
| lobochrome wrote:
| This rule wasn't enforced anyway...
|
| I travel a lot - and never take out any liquids. Have nail
| clippers and scissors in my carry-on.
|
| Once I even had an opinel pocket knife in my laptop bag for a
| couple of months.
|
| Travelled through Tokyo, Taipei, SFO, DEN, PHX, LAX, BOS, JFK,
| FRA, AMS, MUC, LHR - nobody noticed.
|
| I seriously had forgotten it was there, so I don't do that now,
| but still...
|
| Also, no large water bottles or similar. Unless on domestic
| flights in Japan, where this is totally fine.
|
| IDK - security theater. But if it helps.
| djtango wrote:
| I lost a nice swiss army knife in Singapore because I was
| carry-on only and forgot I keep one in my toiletries bag. Was
| really upset because it was a Christmas gift from my parents.
| Annoying they don't let you collect it on the way back, I
| totally get it but would have paid a fine to get it back
| FabHK wrote:
| They detected one of the very small Victorinox pocket knifes
| in my hand luggage at HKG airport and kept it; but I was
| given the option of picking it up at the carrier's airport
| office upon return.
| al_borland wrote:
| It would be nice if there was an option to box it up and mail
| it back home or to a friend/family member for a fee. While a
| lot of people have throw away knives and wouldn't care, many
| also have knives that are either expensive or have a lot of
| meaning.
|
| Maybe they would encourage more people to risk it and hope
| they don't get caught, but a vast majority of these people
| aren't criminals. When I was a kid I would always take a
| Swiss Army knife with me on vacation. That was my favorite
| thing to back, and I could look like a hero when an
| opportunity came up where it was useful. No longer.
| jen20 wrote:
| You can still do that if you check a bag instead of
| carrying it on, of course.
| al_borland wrote:
| That is a significant amount of hassle over something so
| small.
| jen20 wrote:
| It's really not too bad - not having to fight for
| overhead space and thus being able to board last makes it
| worthwhile even if you don't have items prohibited in
| carry-on bags.
| al_borland wrote:
| I just bring a small backpack that fits under the seat,
| so no worries about overhead space. Also, no baggage
| claim, lost luggage, or navigating ground transportation
| and city streets with cumbersome bags.
|
| Most of the time I will not pack liquids, and buy them
| locally, so I can avoid that TSA bother as well.
| exidy wrote:
| Changi does actually have self-service kiosks and postboxes
| in the transit areas for just this very purpose.
| djtango wrote:
| Had no idea - thanks for sharing! Shame that wasn't
| offered to me as an option at security!
| exidy wrote:
| You should have backed up and posted it to yourself or a
| friend. Being the best airport in the world, there are self-
| service kiosks (Speedpost@Changi) in the transit areas of
| Terminals 1, 2 and 3, and in the public area of T4 (as the
| only terminal with centralised security).
| vachina wrote:
| Enforcement is very inconsistent that's for sure. The system is
| as secure as the least secure airport.
| jmward01 wrote:
| Famously Steve Jobs had a story about shaving time off of boot-up
| and equating it to saving lives on the concept of people sitting
| their waiting for the computer to boot up just lost that much of
| their lives. [1] I actually do believe there is value in thinking
| this way and it is one of my biggest arguments against TSA.
| Everything has a cost, including 'security' and 'safety'. If you
| look at the very real human toll, and economic toll, that airport
| security has caused any potential gain is out the window in just
| one day of costs from screening, and that doesn't even get into
| the privacy destruction this has caused. I think I would get way
| to angry to comment on that in an intelligent way.
|
| But that is just one argument. My real anger at airport screening
| is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this
| level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost,
| but I can't go to my doctor and for a few pennies (sorry, those
| don't exist now, how about for a few nickles?) get a body scan
| that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc etc etc. We
| could actually save lives if we put effort into this technology
| for people instead of for a sense of security. But we probably
| won't. Because fear gets money but solving real problems that
| actually impact people doesn't.
|
| [1] https://danemcfarlane.com/how-steve-jobs-turned-boot-time-
| in...
| danpalmer wrote:
| > My real anger is that we have found it possible to fund and
| implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human
| and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and ... get a
| body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc
|
| Airport screening of _people_ doesn 't yield those results.
| It's able to notice a big inorganic mass, or a chunk of metal,
| but it wouldn't spot a tumour, it gives nowhere near the level
| of detail that an MRI or CAT scan will give. The airport
| scanners are also much cheaper, coming in at ~250k USD rather
| than ~2m USD.
|
| Even the xray machines used for bags, while expensive and
| capable, are designed to differentiate metals, liquids, and
| organics, not organics from other organics.
|
| Both airport security and healthcare funding have their issues,
| but I don't think this is one of them.
| etchalon wrote:
| I think the point is we can afford massive machines for the
| TSA that are essentially paid for by the Federal Budget, and
| used by millions each day for free, but we can't do the same
| for MRI machines.
| danpalmer wrote:
| Lots of stuff is funded by the US federal budget instead of
| MRI machines.
|
| My point is that there's not actually any useful connection
| between the TSA scanners and medical scanners, it's
| comparing apples to oranges. By all means be angry about
| the lack of healthcare in the US, by all means blame other
| spending, but singling out the TSA is arbitrary.
| amarant wrote:
| Most of the other spending serves a useful purpose. TSA
| doesn't. Though they seem relatively benign next to the
| Gesta..I mean ICE
| danpalmer wrote:
| As I said, it's fine if you want a political opinion on
| government spending priorities, but that's not what
| jmward01 appeared to be suggesting.
| amarant wrote:
| I think it was, his phrasing was just somewhat ambiguous
| dullcrisp wrote:
| I think an MRI probably takes longer than the TSA scan so
| walk-through MRIs wouldn't be practical.
| saintfire wrote:
| There are an order of magnitude less MRI scans daily than
| US flight passengers, however, at 1/30th the frequency.
|
| Granted, I imagine an MRI scan still takes longer than 30
| airport scans.
|
| Interestingly the price of the body scanners and a
| typical MRI are in the same ballpark, from my experience
| and what I could glean online.
| dullcrisp wrote:
| I'm sure we do have a lot more MRI machines than airport
| scanners, right?
| bleepblap wrote:
| Nobody or no item is getting an MRI at an airport. It's
| pretty common for people to conflate that with X-rays but
| MRIs work on a fundamentally different process and
| exclusively (outside of physics 101) requires liquid
| helium-cooled superconducting magnets to get anything
| useful.
| legitronics wrote:
| Not free. If you look at an itemized statement for air
| travel you'll see that you're paying the TSA for this
| treatment directly.
|
| Not really relevant, just makes the whole thing worse imho.
| There are new carryon bag scanners which are basically CT
| scans I think. Again not really relevant just makes it all
| worse. We could afford better medical care but we spending
| it on security theater and power tripping.
| bleepblap wrote:
| Not that your thrust is incorrect, but a CT machine (used
| here at airports) and MRI machines are completely different
| beasts in not just cost but also complexity.
| chickensong wrote:
| I think the OP was lamenting the overall effort and resources
| that could have been applied to something more effective at
| helping people, such as improving the medical industry, not
| suggesting that airport screening equipment could be used for
| medical purposes.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| > My real anger at airport screening is that we have found it
| possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at
| massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my
| doctor and for a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how
| about for a few nickles?) get a body scan that does all the 3d
| segmentation, recognition, etc etc etc. We could actually save
| lives
|
| This always strikes me as a weird thing tech people believe
| about medicine. Full body scans just aren't medically useful
| for otherwise healthy people. You'll inevitably see something
| and it's almost certainly going to be benign but might send you
| down the path of a lot of expensive and dangerous treatments or
| exploratory procedures. This is why there's always so much
| debate about prostrate exam and breast exam age
| recommendations. There's a tipping point where the risk of
| iatrogenesis outward the risk of disease.
| sothatsit wrote:
| People should be able to do full 3d scans of their bodies,
| and then doctors should be able to tell them what they should
| ignore. If they spot something abnormal they could suggest
| coming back 6 months or a year later to check if it has
| changed, just like mole scans. The problems that you suggest
| only come from people overreacting to test results. We can do
| better.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| You can now in the US it's just expensive, and of little
| medical value:
| sothatsit wrote:
| Yep, it is working as intended then. My point was more
| that "preventative MRIs cause more problems than they
| solve" is an annoying statement because it does not have
| to be true if you get good medical advice. But saying
| "preventative MRIs are not worth the cost" is quite
| reasonable.
| cyberax wrote:
| BS. Full body scans are amazing, and should be added to the
| normal health screening along with blood tests.
|
| Doctors need to get out of the headspace where an MRI is
| something reserved only to confirm the terminal cancer
| diagnosis.
|
| Pretty much all the supposed issues are solved by taking the
| second scan a couple months in the future.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I could dump loads of academic research on you about this
| topic, but it seems like you're unwilling to engage.
| cyberax wrote:
| I read most of the research on this topic. And it's all
| basically "overdiagnosing".
|
| We had the same story about prostate cancer screening:
| "overdiagnosing", "people die with prostate cancer but
| not of prostate cancer", blah blah blah. It turned out
| that simply adjusting the aggressiveness of follow-up was
| enough to make prostate cancer result in significantly
| fewer deaths.
|
| From my point of view: MRI is the ONLY tool that can
| catch things like pancreatic cancer before it's lethal.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| Sure but you have to scale that prostate intervention
| change across literally everything in every kind of
| internal medicine. There's just no way to justify the
| cost of doing this regularly for most people.
| cyberax wrote:
| Just imagine the same argument, but for bloodwork. You're
| literally saying: "We didn't have to deal with these
| pesky MRIs before, so go away".
|
| We will need some additional radiologist training, and
| the primary care doctors will need to learn when to
| escalate and/or require followup scans. But that's really
| about it.
|
| MRIs are _cheap_ these days. The true cost of a scan is
| around $1000, including the radiologist's reading. They
| don't have to be reserved as a tool of the last resort.
| ch4s3 wrote:
| I can make the same argument. Functional "medicine"
| quacks order loads of unnecessary blood tests with no
| diagnostic power to sell you supplements. I actually know
| someone who was was injured by one of those "supplements"
| after such a blood test.
|
| No I'm saying for most people there's more noise than
| signal and iatrogenesis is real. Pretending it's not is
| foolish.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how about for a
| few nickles?)
|
| Wait what?
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)
| nilamo wrote:
| From your link:
|
| > In late 2025, the Mint halted the production of pennies for
| circulation, largely due to cost.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Ah damn, that was buried. They ought to change the rest to
| past tense then.
| umanwizard wrote:
| Well, they still exist and you can still pay for things
| with them (though a lot of businesses won't give you them
| in change, and just round up to the nearest $0.05).
|
| I guess it'll be a few years before they're out of
| circulation entirely.
| gnulinux wrote:
| They're still legal tender, you can pay things with them.
| They just stopped producing new ones. It's supposedly
| permanent, but they can continue producing it any time in
| the future if they really wanted to.
| komali2 wrote:
| I almost exclusively take trains now because the experience of
| flying is one of repeated dehumanization, especially in the
| USA.
|
| First, if getting dropped off in a car (most American airports
| this is your only option), you must suffer being screamed at by
| traffic cops while trying to navigate a perpetually under
| construction dropoff area. You get one (1) peck on the cheek
| from mum before some uniformed individual waddles over to yell
| at you some more.
|
| Then you must wait in line at a check in counter behind fifty
| families with 4 large luggage items each, despite the fact that
| you only have a backpack. Why? Because when you tried to do
| online check-in and boarding pass, the site broke / said no,
| and the self-service check-in kiosk at the airport still isn't
| switched on despite being installed a decade ago.
|
| At the check-in counter, a person who knows less than you about
| the country you're traveling to will inform you as a matter of
| fact that you can't get ok the flight until you buy a return
| ticket, since that's what their binder says and they don't
| understand your visa. You must wait for a supervisor to come
| and verify that your visa is actually valid.
|
| Before security, you're offered the rich person line if you
| have the money to pay for it. Literally advertised as a "white
| glove experience." If not well, into security with the rest of
| the cattle.
|
| At security, you get to be screamed at by TSA for not knowing
| the exact procedures of this airport you've never been to. Why
| must they have to tell Passenger, who is one person they see
| ten thousand times a day, over and over again that you have to
| push your box onto the automated belt yourself, rather than let
| it be pushed on as a train with the other boxes. Passenger must
| be stupid. Surely it's not because of poor signage that
| Passenger doesn't know what to do. And by the way, take off
| your shoes and let us look at your genitals. Oh, you don't want
| us to look at your genitals? Well then we'll have to just grope
| every inch of your body, and nut check you for making us do our
| job in a slightly more annoying way. Just in case you're
| terrorist scum, we'll check if you have bomb making residue on
| your skin, while someone else opens your luggage and digs
| around in it so everyone else in like can see what your
| underwear looks like. At TSA we offer full service sexualized
| humiliation, guaranteed!
|
| The dehumanization never ends. Once on the flight you are
| packed in like cattle, so tight you're rubbing shoulders with
| the person on your right and left, while your knees dig into
| the back of the person in front of you. You're served a tray of
| slop that you have to pay for now. Security took your water
| bottle, but when you ask for water on the flight, it's given to
| you in a tiny plastic cup, that's free if you're lucky. Now sit
| there quietly while we try to sell credit cards to this
| captured audience.
|
| Finally you land and it's time to get off the plane! Oh
| actually no, the curtain is closed in your face. Silly peasant,
| you must watch the first class passengers leisurely pack their
| things and stroll off the plane. Only until the last one is off
| may the dirty peasants pass the fabric barrier.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| https://youtube.com/shorts/bpS6e3PGwiY?si=T2OB4dxtqztHtHLs
| Spooky23 wrote:
| There's alot to imaging. When my wife was battling cancer she
| was getting alot of MRIs and was in a trial for computerized
| radiology. We got to talk to the radiologist, who showed us the
| difference between what he found vs the machine. The machine
| spotted some stuff that he didn't, but wasn't as good at
| classification.
|
| You also need context to appropriately interpret what you see.
| politelemon wrote:
| Only in the Apple reality distortion field would I see the
| hubris of boot times being equated to saving lives. I see value
| in saving time, but without the celebrity worship, it's nowhere
| near the same in terms of importance, application, or utility.
| Besides, the same time saving desire has been a driving force
| in software by nameless developers since the beginning of
| software. Attempting to frame and attribute the concept to a
| single individual is dismissive and disrespectful to the work
| of others.
| jonah wrote:
| We transited through LHR yesterday. Still had to go through
| security - not sure why since we stayed on the air side.
|
| Anyway, signage required us to empty our refillable water
| bottles. Odd. Thankfully we eventually found a refill station.
|
| The scanners flagged a still sealed can of ginger ale left over
| from our incoming flight. It was "fine" but she still swabbed it.
| Shrug.
| stephen_g wrote:
| Pretty common to have to re-clear security at large airports if
| you've come from another country, I've had to do it every time
| when transiting through Dubai for instance.
| stevage wrote:
| It's super frustrating losing the contents of your water bottle
| and then having nowhere at all that you can refill it.
| jacobp100 wrote:
| I think all UK airports have easy to find water bottle refill
| stations
| qweiopqweiop wrote:
| The ones at LHR suck though. Often broken/next to no water
| pressure. Easier to just ask a coffee shop.
| al_borland wrote:
| If you come in from a country that doesn't fall under the TSA,
| you have to clear TSA before getting on a flight that does.
|
| The worst I had was in India, flying to the US. Not only was
| there the normal airport security (despite having come in on a
| connecting flight from within India), but when I got to the
| gate (with only minutes to spare), there was a whole TSA check
| at the gate itself. Bags x-rayed (again), metal detectors
| (again), guy with a wand (again), the whole deal. Just getting
| to the gate, I had to show my papers to at least 6 people;
| every time I turned down a new hallway. That was my far my
| worst airport experience.
| jakub_g wrote:
| Flying with connections mostly within Schengen, or EU<>US via
| CDG, I never had to clear security again at layover, but I
| recently learnt this is rather an exception, and apparently
| it's a very common thing in most airports to have to clear
| security again.
|
| LHR is actually notorious for this; you don't have to clear
| security again at LHR only when the connection is domestic.
|
| In many other airports it's the same when e.g. you switch a
| terminal. Best to check for a particular airport what are the
| rules before booking.
| dataflow wrote:
| > TSA needs consistency in alarm resolution, secondary screening
| rates, and officer workflows--otherwise "keep liquids packed"
| becomes a promise that varies by airport, terminal, and even time
| of day.
|
| ...what? These already vary in the same airport literally by
| adjacent lanes...
| 3eb7988a1663 wrote:
| I don't even know what I need to show at at the start of the
| line. My ID? My boarding pass? Both?
| Fervicus wrote:
| How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over
| security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?
| chihuahua wrote:
| No successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western
| countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe
| we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for
| that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after
| 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.
| none2585 wrote:
| This is an asinine take - it literally has nothing to do with
| the theater we deal with at the airports in America
| abenga wrote:
| What's the actual reason then?
| no_wizard wrote:
| Better cooperation between intelligence and law
| enforcement agencies
| SCdF wrote:
| Locking the door of the cockpit, actual on the ground
| policing in terms of monitoring terror cells.
| lesuorac wrote:
| There's 200 other people on the flight that think this
| plane is going to crash instead of thinking this plane is
| going to land safely and a ransom is going to occur.
|
| Prior to 9/11 hijackings were rare but still occurred
| with everybody living [1]. There is a notable truncation
| in the list after 9/11 of incidents per decade (across
| the world; so nothing special about TSA).
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings
| #19...
| bradleybuda wrote:
| Last I checked, in the US there has not been a single
| instance of the TSA detecting and preventing a terror attack
| in its 25 year history.
|
| And presumably they wouldn't be shy about telling us if they
| had.
| HaZeust wrote:
| I mean, they do find a ton of guns and ammunition. I
| wouldn't be so sure.
| bawolff wrote:
| I assume they have some deterent value.
|
| You can tell because some of the failed bombings (like the
| shoe bomber) failed because their plans were stupid to get
| around security, and if security wasn't there they would
| probably have used a normal bomb and succeeded
| victorbjorklund wrote:
| I have no idea if it has worked or not but you got to count
| deterrence too. If you have a lock and alarm in your house
| it might deter someone from even trying to break in. Of
| course you could never know if the deterrence worked (only
| attempts would be noticeable)
| palata wrote:
| I don't think that the question is really "removing all
| checks". It's rather "are all those expensive machines
| necessary?".
| hosteur wrote:
| I have a rock that keeps tigers away. For 30 years I have not
| encountered any tigers. That's a pretty good record.
| bruce511 wrote:
| To answer the parent question, no not even close.
|
| TSA direct costs, passenger time wasted, flights missed,
| items confiscated.
|
| All so no bombs on planes. But somehow also no bombs at
| sports events or music concerts, or on trains or subways,
| or courthouses or....
|
| So the TSA is either stunningly successful or a complete
| waste. I'd argue a complete waste, but hey, everyone in a
| TSA uniform drawing a paycheck us entitled to a different
| opinion.
| closewith wrote:
| > But somehow also no bombs at sports events or music
| concerts, or on trains or subways, or courthouses or....
|
| Boston marathon? The Madrid train bombings? 7/7? Ariana
| Grande?
|
| Airport security has been stunningly successful.
| Fervicus wrote:
| But we don't have intense security checks at concerts,
| trains, or at marathon events as a result, do we?
| lagniappe wrote:
| I don't know where you live, but where I live, we do.
| Fervicus wrote:
| I've traveled all over Europe and North America and have
| taken a lot of trains. Not once did I have to remove my
| shoe, scan my baggage, or had any kind of liquid
| restrictions.
| lagniappe wrote:
| You're very fortunate, you'll have to teach us your ways
| some day
| matwood wrote:
| Concerts and things like sporting events in the US
| typically require any bags to be clear and only be of a
| certain size. They may also be checked. No outside
| liquids are typically allowed (mainly to avoid alcohol).
| Usually people are at least wanded to prevent weapons,
| but sometimes metal detectors are setup.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| i've been to a bunch of concerts here in the netherlands
| and they do the most basic checks.
|
| last time, they checked my wife's purse without a torch
| (so she could've hidden anything inside) and didn't check
| anything on me so i got in with two 1g edibles.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| I think marijuana is legal in the Netherlands
| vidarh wrote:
| There are even restaurants in London you can't get to
| without going through a scanner. E.g. half the
| restaurants at The Shard.
|
| But to give an idea of how idiotic it is: Those are on
| the 32nd and 33rd floor. Next door is the Shangri La
| hotel of The Shard, where you can walk straight in and
| take the lift to the 31st (no scanners), and change to a
| lift for the 52nd floor (no scanners).
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Wouldn't a terrorist want to bomb a building on the
| ground floor, anyway, so that all of it would fall down?
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Having a lot of experience with trains too, I can confirm
| this.
|
| In Europe the major exceptions are Eurostar (Channel
| Tunnel) and the Spanish high-speed network, where the
| major stations are like airports, with airport-style
| security, airport-style departure lounges, and waiting.
| As I understand it, the extra security is at least partly
| an outcome of the Madrid terrorist bombings of 2004.
| Terribly self-defeating.
|
| In France by contrast you can still arrive 2 minutes
| before the TGV departs.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| This proves that intense security checks prevent bombs.
| reeredfdfdf wrote:
| It's just not bombs that are a danger. You really don't
| want anyone to set the airplane on fire either, or start
| shooting people or holes into the fuselage.
|
| AFAIK America has had plenty of shootings, and probably
| arson attacks too over that time period.
| bawolff wrote:
| Other then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Northern_A
| irlines_Flight... how often has anyone ever set fire to a
| plane (not counting bombs that caused fires). Is there
| even a single other example.
|
| I agree on guns, but you can probably deal with that with
| much lower intensity security.
| reeredfdfdf wrote:
| A year ago Air Busan Flight 391 burned completely after a
| single passenger power bank caught fire on the overhead
| compartment, and crew couldn't extinguish it. If that had
| happened on a plane that was in middle of an ocean for
| example, it would have been almost certainly a total loss
| with everyone dead, or at least ditching into the sea.
|
| You're right that fortunately there aren't many cases of
| people causing fires inside airliners on purpose. But
| that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. When a single power
| bank can cause catastrophic results like this, I'm glad
| there's at least some monitoring of what people carry
| into the airplane in their bags.
| bruce511 wrote:
| You claim comfort from monitoring, and yet the easiest
| source of fire on a plane is z lithium battery. Which are
| expressly allowed.
|
| In other words the TSA specifically does not seek yo
| prevent fires. The reason we don't have people setting
| fires on planes is because people don't want to do that.
| And if they did the TSA would be specifically useless in
| preventing it.
| Havoc wrote:
| You should market the rock with a track record like that
| prmoustache wrote:
| I thonk it has more to do with process and pilot crew closing
| their door.
| bawolff wrote:
| Bombings are pretty rare. The last succesful plane bombing of
| a plane departing from the united states that killed people
| was in 1962.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Ok so cockpit door was locked and thus nobody can hijack
| plane.
|
| Of course even that has killed people.
| reisse wrote:
| This is somewhat false? There were four other bombings, two
| in western countries (specifically EU->US flights). None of
| these two were successful in terms of "the plane was downed",
| but bombs were carried on a plane and exploded, and security
| didn't stop that.
|
| 22 December 2001, American Airlines Flight 63 7 May 2002,
| China Northern Flight 6136 25 December 2009, Northwest
| Airlines Flight 253 2 February 2016, Daallo Airlines Flight
| 159
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| The main benefit from post 9/11 security is locks on the
| cockpit doors. And no longer telling passengers to do
| whatever a hijacker says.
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| No hijacked planes, no terror attacks?
| none2585 wrote:
| There's also been none since I washed my hair this morning -
| certainly must be related!!
| sealeck wrote:
| Clever
| vjvjvjvjghv wrote:
| Not really....
| runarberg wrote:
| I don't think that is true at all. There have been numerous
| hijacked planes since 9/11 including two in the USA just this
| decade.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings
|
| Plane hijacking has been on its way out anyway after the
| turmoil of the 1970s. And that has probably more to do with
| a) the relative political stability of the post cold war
| period, and b) a general sense that airplane hijacking isn't
| actually that likely to advance your political goals. If you
| read the list above, you see people hijacking planes all
| kinds of dumb methods, hardly any of them involves carrying
| an actual bomb onto the plane.
| mcmoor wrote:
| There has been way less terrorism in general too. I'm
| always curious whether the war on terrorism is that
| effective, or there's major socioeconomic factor that
| matters most (or there's just less lead in the air).
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| It's not "less terrorism".
|
| Back in the day you needed to get onto TV and into
| newspaper headlines to get any attentions besides your
| neighbours. Today you can do that with a Facebook page
| and send your ideas worldwide.
|
| And that works the back way too: instead of the news of
| bombing in some remote country you can't even find on the
| map you can get a funny cat videos to fill in.
| runarberg wrote:
| In the 1970s everyone and their grandma was a member of
| some left wing revolutionary group, and half of them were
| working on some terrorist plot, bombing an embassy here,
| taking hostages there, hijacking an airplane, etc. etc.
| And in the 1980s every right wing reactionary had joined
| a right wing counter-revolutionary group, and 99% of them
| were plotting terrorist attacks (most of them targeting
| minorities). </exaggeration>
|
| Today the cops are doing the job of the right wing
| counter-revolutionary groups, and relatively rarely do we
| get the right wing counter revolutionary terror attacks
| (but we definitely still do; just not as much). Meanwhile
| the left has pretty much abandoned terrorism as a viable
| tactic. It is mostly employed as part of an anti-colonial
| struggle of an oppressed minority sometimes under literal
| occupation of their colonizer's military. But alas we
| only have a fraction of colonies today relative to the
| 1970s and the 1980s.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Minneapolis had a whole string of them just this month
| bawolff wrote:
| > a) the relative political stability of the post cold war
| period
|
| Most plane hijackings/bombings were middle east related
| (e.g. linked to one of Palestinian liberation, al-qaeda, or
| isis)
|
| Not sure i'd call that a stable region of the world,
| especially now. Perhaps though the people involved just
| realized it was an ineffective strategy.
| runarberg wrote:
| I made sure to say relative political stability.
|
| I don't like it (in fact I hate it), but capitalism won
| the cold war. And communist revolutionaries went dormant
| as a result. The cold war brought a different kind of
| stability, particularly to Europe, and the end of it
| created a massive turmoil (mainly along nationalistic
| lines rather then political ideological ones).
|
| In hindsight perhaps I should have been more specific and
| said "relative political stability _along ideological
| lines_."
| jen20 wrote:
| Of the two in the US this decade, one did not have a
| cockpit door as the plane was too small, and the other was
| by an off-duty pilot sitting in the cockpit...
| runarberg wrote:
| Yes, if you read the list prior to 9/11 majority of all
| plane hijackings were equally dumb. And hardly any
| involved bringing an actual bomb on board (usually lying
| about having one was enough).
| Stevvo wrote:
| Depends who the 'we' is. It worked out great for the airports;
| increased drink sales means increased rent for airport shops.
| mlrtime wrote:
| How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over SREs
| at <tech company>? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?
|
| - Half kidding but this is what a lot of CEOs/CTOs think, SRE
| is one of the least invested skills because it is so difficult
| to prove that they are worthwhile. Similarly they are invested
| into AFTER a major incident.
| escapecharacter wrote:
| no
| wrs wrote:
| Don't forget to account for the risk we added by creating
| places where hundreds of people line up _outside_ the security
| check. [0]
|
| [0] https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2016/05/out-of-line-
| how... -- "The study also identified an easy way to make people
| a less attractive target -- improve ticketing and security
| operations so that crowds of people aren't waiting in line."
| roamingryan wrote:
| I have never understood how this was effective against a
| determined adversary. An arbitrary limit like 100ml is pointless
| when there is no limit to the number of times you can pass
| through the checkpoint.
| atmosx wrote:
| Oh. So it was a security measure? I honestly thought it was a
| way to force you to spend money on things on the airport or
| abroad. Like shampoo, water, etc.
| superfrank wrote:
| It was a reaction to a foiled terrorist attack in the UK
| where terrorists planned to blow up planes using liquid
| explosives disguised as bottles of soda.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_pl.
| ..
| chihuahua wrote:
| It's also hilarious that the limit is the very metric 100ml,
| and not some even number of freedom units like 3 or 4 fluid
| ounces, like Jesus, George Washington, and bald eagles would
| have wanted.
| bleepblap wrote:
| TSA (at ohare) has a repeating thing that says 100ml or 3.2oz
| over the loudspeaker (never mind they are different amounts)
| throwaway150 wrote:
| UK uses the metric system. Why would anyone expect UK to
| follow the imperial system in $CURRENT_YEAR?
| chihuahua wrote:
| I was referring to the fact that the TSA, the American
| government agency, also uses 100ml
| alexfoo wrote:
| The UK uses an odd mixture of both depending on context.
|
| The use of "100ml" in airports is because using "3.519 fl
| oz" would be confusing to far more people. Even within the
| UK we use metric for small liquid measures like this
| (smaller liquid measures end up being weird stuff like
| "teaspoons" or "tablespoons").
|
| And this isn't just because the UK uses a different fluid
| ounce to the US (100ml is 3.519 UK fluid ounces and 3.3814
| US fluid ounces).
|
| Anyone under the age of about 60 in the UK would had metric
| measurements taught to them at school as it became a
| mandatory to teach it in 1974. Many schools would have been
| teaching it already, and probably lots since the currency
| changed in 1971
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_Day).
|
| The youth of today (as seen through the lens of my kids)
| are very metric, often defaulting to distances in meters
| and kilometers. Miles only seem to be used idiomatically,
| e.g. "he lives a few miles away".
|
| I'm completely happy to switch between all of them not just
| because of my UK education covered them all, but I've lived
| for more than a year in the US, the UK and some European
| countries.
|
| There are still plenty of examples of mixed measurement
| systems in the UK though.
|
| Canned/bottled drinks are marked in ml, but a lot of that
| is due to the proximity to the EU and the previous ties to
| it. Open drinks are often sold in imperial measures (pints,
| etc) although spirits moved from fractions of a gill
| (imperial) to metric (25ml for a single, or 50ml for a
| double) in the mid 80s.
|
| Of course the UK and US pints are different sizes (568ml
| and 473.176ml). Not just because the fluid ounces are
| different sizes as noted above, but also because the UK has
| 20 fluid ounces in a pint and the US 16 (of its) fluid
| ounces in a US pint.
|
| For driving distances and speeds are based on miles, but
| for pedestrian distances you'll see a mixture of
| miles/yards or km/meters. Restricted heights (e.g. low
| bridges) or widths are covered in both feet/inches and
| meters given the number of European freight drivers on the
| roads here.
|
| Occasionally you'll see some nonsense where a sign has
| displays both, and where the actual distance to something
| might be shown as "400 yards" it had almost certainly been
| rounded up/down to that whole number to make it simpler on
| the sign, but when it is converted to meters the converted
| value is used, so you see odd things like:
|
| " Whatever it is 400 yards 365 meters "
|
| (The UK traditionally used "metre" but that usage is quite
| rare now and we've mostly moved over to using "meter" like
| the US does.)
|
| I'm surprised that the UK and US don't have different
| length miles (the US did have a different length "foot" but
| the "Survey foot" was discontinued in 2023).
| tialaramex wrote:
| Shots aren't necessarily 25ml, prior to metrication the
| legal situation had been that in England a shot was a
| sixth of a gill, in Scotland either a fifth or quarter
| depending on the establishment. The metric "Weights and
| Measures" legislation said each such licensed premises in
| the UK gets to pick, either 25ml (most common in England)
| or 35ml and they shall post a notice explaining to the
| public which volume they've chosen.
|
| The differences in signage are because the UK's Road
| Traffic laws specify miles and yards still, whereas most
| other legislation specifies metric units, including for
| the waterways. So a sign legally required for an 18th
| century canal might say "100m" meaning metres, while an
| equally modern, legally required sign for a road built
| this century says "10m" meaning miles. This is
| embarrassing, but there's a strong feeling that somehow
| archaic unit systems are an important part of our
| heritage, and at least it's not as bad as when we propose
| getting rid of statues that celebrate slavers...
| superfrank wrote:
| I'm sure that going through security 5 times for the same
| flight is bound to trigger some extra screening and even if it
| doesn't, each time you cross through increases the likelihood
| of getting caught by the normal process.
|
| Don't get me wrong, I'm sure a large part of it is just
| security theatre, but part of it is also just to be enough of a
| deterrent that a would-be terrorist chooses a different target.
| pastel8739 wrote:
| How about an undetermined adversary? Security is all about
| raising the cost of an attack, not about preventing one
| altogether
| throwaway150 wrote:
| > An arbitrary limit like 100ml is pointless
|
| Do you know that the 100 ml liquids gets scanned in the
| Heathrow airport? Many times they used to do a secondary scan
| too after the primary scan. I recall this very well because
| many times I was made to wait longer after my carry on arrived
| because they wanted to put the liquids through a secondary
| scan.
| empressplay wrote:
| In many countries (Canada included) if you pass through
| security into the international terminal, you have to 're-enter
| the country' back through customs and immigration if you don't
| get on your flight.
| deaux wrote:
| > For airport operations teams, the real benefit isn't just
| traveler satisfaction. It's throughput stability:
|
| > - fewer stoppages caused by liquids mistakes
|
| > - fewer tray-handling steps per passenger
|
| > - less variability at peak banks (which is where hubs like LHR
| get punished)
|
| Didn't know ChatGPT has started to call itself "John Cushma".
| chrisfosterelli wrote:
| I noticed my eyes started automatically skimming right after
| that paragraph. It's funny my brain has learned to calibrate
| its reading effort in response to how much perceived effort
| went into writing it.
| csomar wrote:
| I always thought the rule was about damage (liquid spilling onto
| your bag and other passengers' bags) rather than safety? That's
| based on how the rule was shaped: 100ml containers with no limits
| as long as in a sealed plastic bag.
|
| I wonder if they'll walk this back? If you put a 2L water bottle
| in the overhead compartment and hit enough turbulence, it could
| open and drench the entire compartment and other people's
| luggage.
| rudhdb773b wrote:
| You're already allowed to refill large water bottles from a
| water fountain after passing through security, so the situation
| you described is already allowed to happen.
| jen20 wrote:
| What exactly was stoppnig you buying a 2L bottle of vodka in a
| glass bottle a duty free after security and having this happen?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this.
|
| The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are
| extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids.
| Average people have never heard of them because they aren't in
| popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use,
| solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily
| accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me.
|
| These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but
| that isn't going to be happening to liquids in your bag. This
| reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect
| explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of
| explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives
| notoriously popular with terror organizations can't be detected.
| Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.
|
| It would be great if governments were more explicit about
| precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.
| wbl wrote:
| Won't asking people to take a swig solve a bunch of those
| issues?
| jrockway wrote:
| People travel with liquids they don't intend to eat. Shampoo
| and all that.
|
| There is also nothing that precludes explosives from being
| non-toxic. Presumably your demise is near if you are carrying
| explosives through security. What do you care about heavy
| metal poisoning at that point?
| chipsrafferty wrote:
| But also you can fill up a water bottle after security.
| Wouldn't it be fairly easy to make a pen or similar
| innocuous item out of sodium, and drop it in a bottle of
| water to make an explosion?
|
| My point is that security can never be strict enough to
| catch someone who's truly motivated and funded, without
| making it impossible to admit people at a reasonable pace,
| and the current rules don't really help with that except
| for cutting down on the riff raff terrorists. But maybe
| those are more common than a trained professional with high
| tech weapons, I don't know.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| FWIW, sodium in water is such a pathetic explosion that
| it would mostly be an embarrassment for the would-be
| bomber. It wouldn't do any meaningful damage.
|
| An explosion with real gravitas is far more difficult to
| execute than people imagine. (see also: people that think
| ANFO is a viable explosive) This goes a long way in
| explaining why truly destructive bombings are rare.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Airliners are also pretty robust against damage. Although
| they are not designed to resist explosions, everything is
| redundant.
|
| This robustness is why fighters in WW2 used cannons for
| guns. Poking a hole in the side won't do anything.
| Zak wrote:
| The USA mostly used .50 caliber machine guns, usually
| with a mix of ammunition including incendiary bullets so
| that a hole in a fuel tank meant a large fire. Fighters
| from the other major combatants usually had 20mm
| autocannons in addition to smaller machine guns.
| WalterBright wrote:
| Allied fighters were also equipped with self-sealing fuel
| tanks, so a hit doesn't automatically mean it burns. I
| don't have any stats on it, but they wouldn't have added
| the self-sealing if it didn't improve the survivability.
|
| The sensitive part for a P-51 was the cooling system. Any
| hit on that, and you're done.
|
| B-17s famously endured a lot of battle damage. The usual
| vector of attack on them was head on, and they aimed for
| the cockpit. (Attacks on fighters usually aimed for the
| cockpit, too.)
|
| I know that tracers were used in WW1 to set observation
| balloons (filled with hydrogen) afire. Tracers in WW2
| were used so the gunner could direct his aim. I haven't
| read that they were intended for the fuel tanks, but that
| could be true.
|
| 109's would frequently sneak up from the rear, and if the
| tail gunner was not paying attention, it was an easy
| kill. My dad (B17 navigator) said the tail gunners, once
| they spotted a 109, would fire a few rounds of tracers
| long before the 109 was in range - just to let the pilot
| know they were awake and aware. It usually meant the 109
| would veer off.
| Zak wrote:
| Incendiary ammunition is distinct from tracer, though
| some projectiles have both functions, and tracers have a
| chance of causing a fire. Incendiary projectiles usually
| ignite or explode after impact.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incendiary_ammunition
| Zak wrote:
| ANFO is certainly a viable explosive for a truck bomb,
| e.g. Oklahoma City.
| closewith wrote:
| > My point is that security can never be strict enough to
| catch someone who's truly motivated and funded, without
| making it impossible to admit people at a reasonable
| pace, and the current rules don't really help with that
| except for cutting down on the riff raff terrorists.
|
| This is the classic HN developer arrogance and
| oversimplification, but let's accept this as true for
| argument's sake. It turns out that "riff raff terrorists"
| are the only ones we needed to stop as there's been no
| successful bombings of Western airlines in 25 years, and
| there have been foiled attempts.
|
| The existence of master locksmiths (and door breaching
| charges) doesn't mean you shouldn't lock your door at
| night.
| WalterBright wrote:
| And nobody's going to fall for that "open the cockpit
| door or I kill the flight attendant" again.
| troupo wrote:
| > The existence of master locksmiths (and door breaching
| charges) doesn't mean you shouldn't lock your door at
| night.
|
| The TSA checkpoints are the equivalent of moving all your
| belongings onto the lawn, and then locking the door.
|
| Why bother with the plane when now you have potentialy a
| magnitude more people in the queue to TSA?
| sgjohnson wrote:
| > and there have been foiled attempts.
|
| have there?
| amiga386 wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Failed_airliner_bo
| mbi... ->
|
| 2001: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Fli
| ght_63_(2...
|
| 2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_ai
| rcraft_pl...
|
| ... which is what we're discussing here: https://en.wikip
| edia.org/wiki/Security_repercussions_due_to_...
|
| 2009: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines_Fl
| ight_253
|
| 2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_transatlantic_ai
| rcraft_bo...
|
| 2016:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daallo_Airlines_Flight_159
|
| 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Australian_aerop
| lane_bomb...
| sgjohnson wrote:
| Literally none of these were foiled by the security
| circus we all have to go through.
|
| If anything, they are evidence that serious attempts are
| foiled by intelligence services long before the
| perpetrators get anywhere near an airport, and the others
| were just incompetent idiots.
| amiga386 wrote:
| Nonetheless, I hope you recognise that incompetent idiots
| beget more incompetent idiots, if they think they'll get
| away with it. You don't _want_ e.g. a spate of bank
| robberies, by idiots who 've heard that rubbing lemon
| juice on your face makes you invisible to cameras. It
| doesn't matter that they'll get obviously get caught, the
| problem is a spate of idiots _attempting_ bank robberies
| (because they 're filled with confidence they'll succeed)
| could easily get people killed.
|
| I don't like security theatre either, and clearly the
| whole thing is a job creation program and an excuse for
| vendors to sell flashy scanner devices. But you need
| _visible deterrents_ , even if most people know they're
| theatre.
|
| They also act as _reassurance_ for idiots who wouldn 't
| fly otherwise. Idiots' money spends just as well as
| clever people's money, and there's a lot more idiots out
| there than clever people.
|
| Because we live in a society with a free press, we have
| the chattering classes asking "what can we do about this
| threat?", and government is expected to respond. People
| don't like to hear from the politician "you're idiots, we
| don't need that, you are no less safe if we do nothing",
| they like to hear "we're doing XYZ to address this
| threat, how clever and wonderful you all are, dear
| citizens, for recognising it. Your safety is my top
| priority", then we get the
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| This was done! It created terrible publicity incidents like
| the TSA forcing women to drink their own breast milk to prove
| it was safe. And not all liquids subject to this are things a
| person should swig even if they aren't explosives. The
| extremely negative PR rightly stopped this practice.
| bdavbdav wrote:
| Is that practice not really common? I've seen that done as
| a matter of course on lots of international airports with
| baby food / liquid and no one seems to get too fussed about
| it.
| JellyPlan wrote:
| I wonder if the improvements can detect trigger mechanisms
| better rather than testing the liquid itself.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Sophisticated detonators are very small. The size is well
| below anything you'd be able to notice on an x-ray. Trying to
| detect detonators is an exercise in futility. Fortunately, a
| detonator by itself can't do any damage.
| scq wrote:
| From my understanding, the new CT machines are able to
| characterise material composition using dual-energy X-ray, and
| this is how they were able to relax the rules.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| I am not up-to-date on the bleeding edge but that explanation
| doesn't seem correct? The use of x-rays in analytical
| chemistry is for elemental analysis, not molecular analysis.
| (There are uses for x-rays in crystallography that but that
| is unrelated to this application.)
|
| At an elemental level, the materials of a suitcase are more
| or less identical to an explosive. You won't easily be able
| to tell them apart with an x-ray. This is analogous to why
| x-ray assays of mining ores can't tell you what the mineral
| is, only the elements that are in the minerals.
|
| FWIW, I once went through an airport in my travels that took
| an infrared spectra of everyone's water! They never said
| that, I recognized the equipment. I forget where, I was just
| impressed that the process was scientifically rigorous. That
| would immediately identify anything weird that was passed off
| as water.
| wyldfire wrote:
| Here's an article that talks about Dual-energy CT [1]. And
| another one talking about material discrimination using
| DECT [2].
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_imaging_(radiogr
| aphy)
|
| [2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2719491/
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Neither of those articles seem to support the idea that
| you can do molecular analysis with x-rays. They are all
| about elemental analysis, which is not useful for the
| purpose of detecting explosives.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Not sure if they use dual-energy x-ray as in [0], but you
| don't need to if you take x-ray shot from different
| angles. Modern 3D reconstruction algorithms you can
| detect shape and volume of an object and estimate the
| material density through its absorption rate. A 100ml
| liquid explosive in a container will be distinguishable
| from water (or pepsi) by material density, which can be
| estimate from volume and absorption rate.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-energy_X-
| ray_absorptiomet...
| codethief wrote:
| See also beepblap's comments further below where they
| elaborate on this a bit (it's not just simple dual-energy
| xray apparently).
| don_esteban wrote:
| Hm, isn't it enough to just detect water and flag
| everything else as suspicious?
|
| If your liquid is 80%+ water (that covers all juices and
| soft drinks), it is not going to be an explosive, too
| much thermal ballast.
| palata wrote:
| > FWIW, I once went through an airport in my travels that
| took an infrared spectra of everyone's water! They never
| said that, I recognized the equipment. I forget where, I
| was just impressed that the process was scientifically
| rigorous. That would immediately identify anything weird
| that was passed off as water.
|
| Something like 10 years ago, I had my water checked in a
| specialised "bottle of water checker" equipment in Japan. I
| had to put my bottle there, it took a second and that was
| it. I have been wondering why this isn't more common ever
| since :-).
|
| No idea if it was an "infrared spectra machine" of course.
| regularfry wrote:
| Cynically, it's so they can sell you another bottle on
| the secure side. If they spend money to give themselves a
| working mechanism to distinguish water from not-water,
| they lose the ability to create retail demand.
| palata wrote:
| I understand the idea, but it's not completely true: I
| empty my bottle before the security check, and fill it
| after in a fountain.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| There's still no evidence that peroxide-based explosives
| are stable enough to be practical. And nobody every
| explained why the few liquid ones are so dangerous, but the
| solid ones get a pass when they are more stable.
|
| It's a good thing that airport brought some machinery to
| apply the rule in a sane way. But it's still an insane
| rule, and if it wasn't the US insisting on it, the entire
| world would just laugh it off.
| dbbk wrote:
| Yes. The first step was upgrading to the new machines, now
| the size limits can be relaxed.
| SanjayMehta wrote:
| Security theatre.
|
| And speaking of theatre in the air, most Indian airlines will
| make an announcement of turbulence just before food service
| starts.
|
| This is to make the sheep - strike that - passengers go back to
| their seats and sit down.
| contingencies wrote:
| Ahh, the naivety of the scientific mind! The security theater
| is intended to prevent government beaurocrats' mates from
| having to get real jobs and keep them happily sponging off
| public money. Also, set themselves up for post-career high paid
| gigs with those same private sector beneficiaries, so they
| can't be done for corruption during their career. Yes, really.
| Ask an AI about mid to late career public sector transitions to
| private sector and cross-examine 100 top examples across
| markets perceived as 'low corruption index'.
| boomskats wrote:
| You mean Tony didn't really make PS20m in his first year out
| of office from just giving speeches? I mean, that's what his
| tax return says?
|
| You, sir, are a _conspiracy theorist_. Don't let that
| rotating door catch you on the way back in.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program
| for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater.
|
| TSA Chief Out After Agents Fail 95 Percent of Airport Breach
| Tests
|
| "In one case, an alarm sounded, but even during a pat-down, the
| screening officer failed to detect a fake plastic explosive
| taped to an undercover agent's back. In all, so-called "Red
| Teams" of Homeland Security agents posing as passengers were
| able get weapons past TSA agents in 67 out of 70 tests -- a 95
| percent failure rate, according to agency officials."
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-...
| unclad5968 wrote:
| > In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for
| the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater.
|
| This matches my experience. I recently flew out of a small
| airport that flies 2 fairchild metro 23 turboprop planes up
| to 9 passengers. There were four TSA agents to check the 5 of
| us that were flying.
| bruce511 wrote:
| You gotta love the TSA. They serve no real purpose, but its
| a monster too big to kill, staffed by people who
| desperately cling to the notion they're doing something
| important.
|
| They don't stop hijackings (locking the cockpit door does
| that), they don't stop bombings (there are much better
| targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber),
| they don't stop weapons (lots of airports outside the US
| have simple metal detectors for that.)
|
| They do however cost the govt a lot of money, keep a lot of
| expensive-machine-makers, and in business, improve shampoo
| sales at destinations, waste a lot of passenger time and so
| on.
|
| So... what's not to love?
| closewith wrote:
| > they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets
| for that, which don't involve killing the bomber),
|
| I think you should read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ti
| meline_of_airliner_bombing_a...
|
| The only reason you believe aircraft bombings aren't
| being stopped is because you live in a world where
| rigourous security has stopped all aircraft bombings.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| There's a pretty strong trend in that timeline of two
| types of "bombings":
|
| (1) Bombings in which the bomb is supplied by someone who
| isn't flying on the plane;
|
| (2) Failed hijackings in which there was no intent to
| bomb the plane, but a bomb accidentally went off.
| lblissett wrote:
| also, people always immediately think of terrorism, but
| TIL that life insurance policies are responsible for way
| more plane bombings than I thought
| reeredfdfdf wrote:
| Yeah. The "security theater" absolutely does play its
| part in stopping attacks. Without it, airplanes would be
| an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass
| murder in. They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb,
| anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight
| could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades
| many airliners have crashed because out of control fire
| in the cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be
| easy for any random person to cause such fire.
| sethammons wrote:
| Did you drop a sarcasm tag? Anyone can make a fire on a
| plane as they allow lighters on a plane, and batteries,
| and any number of flammable objects. None of that is
| facing any scrutiny nor stopping crazy people from being
| crazy.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| I've heard that cell phones often catch fire on planes,
| and the crews know how to deal with that. I guess they
| have to because the odds of one going up are pretty good
| across so many flights.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| It's easier to deal if it's in carry on bag. This is why
| batteries are forbidden in checked luggage. Once it all
| burns the airplane has got to land asap and it's an
| emergency.
|
| My checked luggage did not pass xray multiple times
| because they detected powerbanks. I had to come back and
| take it out. However it also did pass xray a couple times
| with powerbanks so it's not a reliable system.
| edm0nd wrote:
| Alternatively, I checked 3-4 20k mAh powerbanks in my
| luggage on my flight to Utah and it never got flagged or
| detected.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| like yes I pointed out it doesn't always work. sometimes
| I don't even know if anybody is watching the screen
| NamTaf wrote:
| Ironically, both India and China forbid lighters on
| planes. Famously you see a collection of them around the
| bins just outside the airport as all the smokers leave
| them for others.
| xp84 wrote:
| "Take a lighter, leave a lighter" - Guess you can just
| pick up one on your way back out when you return home!
| closewith wrote:
| Flammable liquid and all high temperature lighters are
| forbidden, as are Li-ion batteries over 100kWh.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| You can buy up to 5L up to 70% alcohol after security,
| no? Sounds pretty flammable
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Can get that up to 99% with the right salts and some
| vigorous shaking.
| mjmas wrote:
| s/100kWh/100Wh/
|
| But you can still have multiple batteries (I think up to
| 10 or so) as long as each individual one is less than
| 100Wh.
| reeredfdfdf wrote:
| Yes it's possible to make a fire on a plane, but it would
| be even easier to cause a big fire if there was zero
| monitoring of bags. As flawed as airport security is, it
| should generally catch things like somebody trying to get
| a carry-on bag full of gasoline or extremely large
| lithium-ion batteries on board.
|
| I take security that catches 50 or even 20% of threats
| any day over 0 security.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| > Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target
| for any nutjob to commit mass murder in.
|
| They still are, but I'm not comfortable spelling out
| details. The 95% TSA failure rate should lead you to this
| conclusion naturally.
|
| > They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything
| that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be
| potentially catastrophic.
|
| People have plenty of such things with them as it
| currently stands. Plenty more can be trivially brought on
| board in a checked bag or even pocket. But again I'm not
| going to spell it out.
|
| > I really don't want it to be easy for any random person
| to cause such fire.
|
| Well that's unfortunate because it already is. I think
| the primary things protecting passengers are the cost of
| entry (the true nutjobs don't tend to be doing so well
| financially) and the passengers themselves. Regarding the
| latter, the shoe bomber was subdued by his fellow
| passengers.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| Most would-be attackers are not suicidal, I suppose. You
| would have to be in order to start a fire on a plane that
| you are on.
| closewith wrote:
| > Most would-be attackers are not suicidal
|
| That's definitely not an assumption in the threat model.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| I could have said that better. I meant to say, the fact
| that you have to be suicidal to do the attack definitely
| reduces the pool of attackers.
| account42 wrote:
| Most airplane attackers are, or at least since airplanes
| no longer take off with checked luggage from someone who
| hasn't boarded.
|
| Non-suicidal hijackings have pretty much been eliminated
| by cockpit doors as well as 911 changing people's
| reactions.
| lbreakjai wrote:
| Once you pass security, you can buy as many very
| flammable bottles of alcohol as you'd like
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything
| that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be
| potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many
| airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the
| cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be easy for
| any random person to cause such fire.
|
| It is that easy for a random person to cause such a fire.
|
| It's probably not that difficult to figure out how to
| overcharge lithium ion batteries so that they're prone to
| catching fire or exploding when connected to a resistor
| that will overheat them.
|
| Wireless relays are commodity items you can order online
| from hundreds of vendors.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| Trains are a much easier target in most countries.
| Generally only the high-speed / cross border ones have
| any security at all. Until maybe 10 years ago you didn't
| even really need a ticket to get access to one (now
| ticket barriers are common).
| ssl-3 wrote:
| The grunts working for TSA on the floor at airports
| aren't desperately clinging for the notion that they're
| doing something important, or working towards some lofty,
| noble, and/or altruistic goal.
|
| It's just a job.
|
| They're principally motivated to do this job by the
| promise of a steady paycheck and decent benefits -- the
| same motivation that most other people with steady
| paychecks and decent benefits also have.
| dataengineer56 wrote:
| In my experience many of them do feel like they're doing
| something important, and some seem principally motivated
| to do the job by the promise of being able to bully
| travellers.
| mlrtime wrote:
| >do feel like they're doing something important
|
| First I agree TSA is mostly theater... however if you HAD
| to have it, you want the people to work like this. I
| might be old-school but I think everyone should have
| pride and responsibility in their work. Even if from the
| outside it is meaningless.
|
| 100% no reason to be a bully, that is not
| pride/responsibility. Every job has ass assholes.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > Every job has ass assholes.
|
| Yeah, but jobs that are police-adjacent have them at a
| very high rate. Almost like they select for it or
| something...
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| >Yeah, but jobs that are police-adjacent have them at a
| very high rate. Almost like they select for it or
| something...
|
| Proximity to violence is probably the measuring stick
| you're looking for.
|
| Police spend the bulk of their day credibly threatening
| violence. Just about every word that comes out of their
| mouth, pen or keyboard while they're at work is
| implicitly back by an "or else". Everyone who isn't an
| asshole is gonna wash out of that job, start doing
| something behind a desk, start a PI firm, etc. etc. So
| you're left with rookie and assholes and the occasional
| exception.
|
| The TSA, all your non-police state and municipal
| enforcement agencies, etc, etc, are gonna serve to
| concentrate "asshole lites" people because anybody who
| isn't will have issues spending their day dispensing what
| are basically "do as I say, or pay what I say, or else
| the police will do violence on you" threats on behalf of
| the state and so they'll jump ship as they become jaded
| same as cops do, but the pressures are less because
| they're not as proximate to the violence.
|
| You can take this a third step out. There are all sorts
| of industries, jobs, etc, etc. that exist soley to keep
| the above two groups off your back. Nobody wants to hire
| these people, but are basically forced to under 3rd hand
| thread of violence. Same effect, but still watered down.
|
| Even more removed are jobs where some fraction of the
| business is driven to you under similar circumstances.
| For example, ask any mechanic. People forced to be there
| by a state inspection program are consistently the worst
| customers. And there's the same wash out effect. People
| get tired of arguing about tread depth or whatever and
| they go turn wrenches on forklifts or whatever.
| ryandrake wrote:
| Proximity to petty power might be a better measuring
| stick. The same sorts of people gravitate to those jobs
| as the people who sit at the DMV window and tell you you
| need to get back in line, wait another two hours, and go
| to a different DMV window with the correct form.
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| Probably the reverse: obnoxious people who seek badge-
| given authority but fail police entry exams (e.g. the
| psych part), carry on to other forms of employment that
| offer badges and uniforms, but have lax standards.
| pc86 wrote:
| You never saw that Reddit thread where the guy who barely
| got his GED insisted he was a "federal officer," did you?
| ssl-3 wrote:
| I don't pay attention to the stuff that breeds on Reddit.
| So, no; I never saw that, and I don't care to.
|
| But I am pretty sure that punching down on people with
| GEDs is rather disingenuously classist, and that's no way
| behave. You can do better than that.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| > they don't stop weapons (lots of airports outside the
| US have simple metal detectors for that.)
|
| There are 3D printed guns.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Those tend to have extremely limited usefulness. Good
| enough to assassinate a single person at point blank
| range before they catastrophically fail but (unless
| something has changed) not much else. Plastic just isn't
| cut out for the job.
| koshergweilo wrote:
| Don't you still need metal bullets for the 3d printed
| gun?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Those don't generally have any ferrous components.
| edm0nd wrote:
| yes but the spring in the magazine does.
|
| also the rails on the lower, the barrel, etc.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Not in the context of someone smuggling a weapon through
| a security checkpoint. At least not unless they're
| certain that it's small enough not to trigger the
| detector.
|
| That said I will note that it is generally illegal to
| possess such nonferrous weapons regardless of
| circumstance.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| And it is, again, completely irrelevant.
|
| How does a plastic pistol open the cockpit door? It is
| proof to small calibers. You might shoot someone in the
| plane and then you will be subdued and ghaddafied with a
| SkyMall magazine. Not the most effective form of
| terrorism.
|
| Countries that didn't create the TSA _also_ had a
| reduction in terrorism.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I agree. Such a pistol won't even get you many shots
| before catastrophically failing.
|
| But upthread it was suggested that metal detectors are
| sufficient to stop weapons and a discussion of 3D printed
| guns followed. Nonmetallic weapons (and other tools) of
| all sorts are possible, 3D printed or otherwise.
| bluGill wrote:
| If you want a gun you can use more than a couple times
| need metals. However if the goal is one shot plastic is
| good enough. Even plastic bullets will work - not well,
| but one well placed/timed shot is all we are talking
| about.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| No idea. I only replied to the guy saying that "metal
| detectors stop weapons". Which is false.
|
| The evidence is in US law. Because they would be
| undetectable, 3d printed guns are required to have some
| metal inserted into it to be legal (https://en.wikipedia.
| org/wiki/3D-printed_firearm#United_Stat...). I think a
| guy who can 3d print a gun and wants to bring it onto a
| plane could probably skip that step;)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| "I only replied to the guy saying that "metal detectors
| stop weapons". Which is false."
|
| Taken in a strict boolean sense, yes, but real-world
| policy is rarely boolean, and mostly about tradeoffs and
| how many nines of reliability you want to spend on.
|
| Metal detectors will catch the vast, vast majority of
| guns ever produced, which is their whole point of
| existence.
| drob518 wrote:
| You still need metal parts, notably a gun barrel capable
| of holding extreme pressures until the bullet gets up to
| speed. That isn't plastic. The grip and frame might be
| plastic, but not the barrel.
| somat wrote:
| the handle on roll type luggage. not the actual handle
| but that is where you would hide a long piece of thick
| wall tube. not that a long piece of would be nessacery. a
| short one would do, the point being the metal detectors
| do not stop you from bringing metal into the airport.
| drob518 wrote:
| Of course. Lots of metal goes through the detectors. The
| point is that the detectors "see" it and that's then your
| chance to catch it. Whether you actually do or not is
| another question. But 3d printing a gun doesn't give you
| a "plastic gun." Btw, this is the same reason why the
| "Glocks are plastic guns that go through metal detectors
| unseen" stuff in the 1980s was always a myth. Glocks have
| a polymer frame but they always have a metal barrel.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| This is either incorrect or only technically correct. In
| the context of smuggling a weapon through a metal
| detector at a checkpoint there are nonferrous and even
| entirely plastic variants. Possessing them is generally
| illegal because essentially the only purpose is for
| assassinations.
| drob518 wrote:
| Those are exotic parts that would have to be manufactured
| specially. You don't buy them off the shelf. They are
| costly to procure and difficult to work with. One doesn't
| just load up the 3d printer and push Go. To be clear, I'm
| sure a homemade gun can be passed through a metal
| detector checkpoint, but that requires some real thought
| and skill. More than likely, the real weak link at the
| checkpoint is not the detector "seeing" the gun but the
| half-asleep agent missing it, given the red-teaming
| results which show even very traditional firearms have a
| good chance of slipping through.
| eru wrote:
| You are better off using a lathe to make a gun.
| matwood wrote:
| > They don't stop hijackings (locking the cockpit door
| does that)
|
| 9/11 also stopped all future hijackings. Up to that point
| passengers were trained that if they stayed calm they
| would likely survive. Now? Short of the hijackers getting
| guns on the plane, passengers will absolutely fight back.
|
| > they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets
| for that, which don't involve killing the bomber)
|
| Suicide bombers are probably the main vector that TSA
| helps avoid even if they miss some items sometimes.
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| > Suicide bombers are probably the main vector that TSA
| helps avoid even if they miss some items sometimes.
|
| Not really, but this is because there are pretty much no
| suicide bombers anywhere in airports. They are incredibly
| rare.
|
| But if you're a suicide bomber, by the time you get to
| the TSA checkpoint you can do a ton of damage inside a
| terminal during a holiday season when all airports are
| packed. Until then no one is stopping you.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| That's what happened in Brussels.
|
| I was hoping these events could be used to impose
| fines/jailtime for airlines/airports/security that have
| queues longer than 5 people, but you know, counter-
| terrorism can't mean making life better for the public.
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| > I was hoping these events could be used to impose
| fines/jailtime for airlines/airports/security that have
| queues longer than 5 people, but you know, counter-
| terrorism can't mean making life better for the public.
|
| Not even at private airports or business terminal can you
| can manage not having a queue smaller than 5 people. So
| this is a really no-go from many points of view.
|
| BRU did something incredibly retarded after the incident:
| moved the queue outside. I mean yes, in open air a bomb
| is less lethal than in an enclosed space, but will still
| kill people.
|
| And like others said, we developed capabilities to track
| hostiles before they can actually blow up a bunch of
| people. That's why you don't see FRA or MUC or CDG or LHR
| being blown up daily.
| jfengel wrote:
| Why are they rare?
|
| There used to be suicide bombings in the news all the
| time. Hijackings were the reason they instituted the
| metal detectors at airports.
|
| Improved security seems unlikely as a reason, given how
| many tests they fail. Was it just a fad? Did they decide
| it wasn't getting them what they wanted at a high
| personal cost? Did they find something more effective?
| k_kelly wrote:
| There's lots of suicide attacks in poorer African
| countries.
|
| But the west by and large won the war on terror, it broke
| up all the state sponsored terrorist camps, and built a
| vast surveillance network capable of spotting people
| trying to build these devices. Israel was the flashpoint
| and they built walls and put cameras and AI everywhere
| and just flat out ignore human rights. It's just really
| hard to radicalise someone to that extent and not have
| them show up. Isis was also behind a lot of the attacks
| and they don't exist anymore. Afghanistan and Pakistan
| also don't shelter terrorists anymore because they might
| have kicked the US out but they don't want them back
| again.
|
| Most of this is terrible from a civil liberties / human
| rights / sovereignty point of view, but if you wanted to
| stop suicide bombings it worked.
| bluGill wrote:
| Common things don't get into the news. How many people
| died in car related accidents in your country yesterday -
| it almost never even makes the morning news in your
| country, much less international news.
| account42 wrote:
| As far as the terror in terrorism goes, blowing up a
| plane or hijacking it and flying it into a building is a
| much bigger impact than blowing up a queue of people. It
| doesn't need to be rational.
| bruce511 wrote:
| I grew up in a time and place when terror bombings were
| "commonplace". And while actual bombs were rarish, bomb
| alerts were not.
|
| The impact of a bomb at a post office or shopping mall or
| commuter train was _way_ more impactful than planes. Only
| a small number of people flew, and that was easily
| avoided if you cared. It 's a lot harder to process when
| a place you go regularly explodes.
|
| Flying into buildings is not gonna happen again. That
| tactic didn't survive even a few hours as UA 93
| demonstrated. Passengers won't allow it, and these days
| the cockpit door are locked.
| vablings wrote:
| There are many events where you can go that is full of
| crowded people.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing
| eru wrote:
| > Now? Short of the hijackers getting guns on the plane,
| passengers will absolutely fight back.
|
| I'm not even sure guns would hold some wannabe heroes
| back.
| bruce511 wrote:
| Guns on planes aren't terribly effective. Firstly cause
| puncturing the hull will end badly.
|
| But also because there's a lot of people in a very
| confined space. A shooter has no space to maneuver and
| threats on all sides.
|
| It's not even heros-required. Most passengers know the
| math. Hijacking means certain death anyway, so you may as
| well roll the dice.
| burner420042 wrote:
| When flying international in to the US, we literally all
| stand in long lines watching the TSA agents. TSA serves
| as the introduction to America... I can't think of
| another country where the personnel aren't groomed and
| 'height / weight proportionate'.
| burner420042 wrote:
| None the less, this is still effectively an entrance
| checkpoint to a 'secure area' aka the large airport you're
| flying to, as you've now already gone through security.
| aiisjustanif wrote:
| While still theatre to a degree, that was 11 years ago.
| kyralis wrote:
| Do you have evidence that anything has changed?
| angry_octet wrote:
| In Europe you pay to go to the theatre. In the US you pay
| not to go to the theatre, they call it TSA PreCheck(r).
| JasonADrury wrote:
| I routinely conceal large bottles of liquids on my person
| while going through airport security. I've probably gone
| through airport security in various places with a 1.5L bottle
| of water more than a hundred times now. Haven't been caught
| once, although of course the US-style scanners could
| presumably defeat this.
|
| Same with hot sauces, perfume and the occasional bottles of
| wine. I really don't like to travel with a checked-in
| luggage, so this is a frequent problem.
|
| Luckily I own lots of Rick Owens clothes with large hidden
| pockets.
| grepfru_it wrote:
| A plastic water bottle isn't triggering a tsa pre check
| metal detector. I'm totally doing this next trip
| kleiba wrote:
| I've never done that yet I've never had any trouble
| finding water past security or even on a plane?!
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| When people say "water" here I have to assume they mean
| "vodka". Otherwise you can just bring an empty bottle and
| fill it on the other side. It's the toiletries that pose
| a problem.
| JasonADrury wrote:
| Disappointingly, in my case it's usually just water. I'm
| walking towards security with my bottle, I can either
| slip it in my pocket or put it in a bin. Not throwing it
| away saves a bit of time and quickly becomes the default
| choice.
| angry_octet wrote:
| I've been in many airports where there is no water on the
| other side of the X-ray. At KLIA and DPS they have none
| to buy even, and then you have to fight for it on the
| plane. At CDG you have to buy it, no water fountain. It's
| extremely aggravating.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I've definitely found free water fountains at CDG.
|
| Now, one of the Bucharest airports literally does not
| have potable tap water. Their well, being under an
| airport and all, is contaminated. By email, they did
| inform me that the water is microbiologically fine.
| Unsure of their pipe to the municipal system was been
| built out.
| benjiro wrote:
| Probably a issue with PFAS contamination. Stuff was used
| in firefighting water, and has contaminated just about
| every airport and the surrounding area's groundwater, all
| over the world. So while microbiologically safe, it has
| PFAS issues.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Either that or hydrocarbons from leaks over several
| decades or deicing fluid easily infiltrating their wells,
| or all!
|
| Or they don't test it and therefore can't certify it but
| I did take a swig and immediately spat it out.
| angry_octet wrote:
| Well none at the AA gates, just had to buy it at Relay at
| usurious prices.
| account42 wrote:
| Depending on the airport and terminal (e.g. shitholes
| like Frankfurt, especially terminal 2), filling it on the
| other side might mean a washbasin in a stinky toilet
| because they'd rather you buy overpriced bottled water.
| And many airports that do have at least water fountains
| only have some that seem deliberately designed to prevent
| you from using them to fill any reasonably sized bottle.
|
| Also, don't count on security not throwing away your
| empty water bottle anyway just because they can.
| xp84 wrote:
| Wow, it's refreshing to read that we maybe we don't have
| it the worst in the US, right here amongst everyone's
| beefs with TSA. Every airport domestically I've ever
| flown to has not just water fountains, but the convenient
| bottle-fillers (usually connected to the normal
| fountains). I always just bring an empty plain disposable
| plastic bottle, for its light weight, and security never
| bats an eye at it.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Some airports charge money for water after security.
|
| Others disallow even empty bottles at security screening
| fnord123 wrote:
| > Others disallow even empty bottles at security
| screening
|
| I haven't encountered this. Could you name some?
| astura wrote:
| Nobody disallows empty bottles through security, that's a
| lie.
| account42 wrote:
| I have had an empty water bottle thrown away once so it's
| not a lie even if it might not be universal.
| pc86 wrote:
| "Someone threw this away once" is not the same as "banned
| at security."
| michaelt wrote:
| Airport prices in the UK for recreational travel work
| like so:
|
| Flight from London to Barcelona: PS16
|
| Bottle of water past security: PS5
|
| Train to airport: PS26
|
| Taxi enters drop-off area for 30 seconds: PS7
|
| A person who wants to get the advertised flight at the
| advertised price has to be very careful.
| gizajob wrote:
| Yeah it's got out and out criminal at this point. Not
| sure why we should accept a PS6.40 charge to drop someone
| or collect someone from an airport when that's the actual
| function and necessity of using an airport. I got charged
| PS100 at COUNCIL OWNED Manchester airport for picking up
| a friend who accidentally had put themselves in the drop
| off zone rather than the collect zone. Just completely
| vile and disgusting corporatism at every single level.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Are you saying they fined you for picking someone up in
| the drop off area? If so that's pretty wild. It's all
| just traffic at the end of the day.
| gizajob wrote:
| Yes. They have paid sneaks standing around and the second
| you do something like that they radio to the people who
| control the barriers so you can't get out without paying
| it. Just completely f*cked state of affairs.
|
| https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/terms-and-
| conditions/dro...
|
| " 1.3 Breach of these terms and conditions may result in
| Parking Charges up to PS100. An additional fee of up to
| PS70 may be applied for the costs of debt recovery.
|
| 9.1 Drop-off only: The Drop Off Zone may only be used to
| drop-off passengers and not for pick-up. There are
| separate designated areas for the pick-up of passengers.
| Use of the Drop Off Zone for any other purpose will
| result in the issuance of a Parking Charge.
| mlrtime wrote:
| I do that all the time in certain airports when the drop
| off is essentially empty with 0 line but pickup is a half
| mile row of cars.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Shhhhh
| account42 wrote:
| Kinda antisocial. If everyone acted like you the drop off
| would be clogged as well and some people would miss their
| flights.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| The drop off is frequently clogged anyway so you have to
| plan for that. Where I'm at the airport will advise the
| use of the opposite one if things back up. Early in the
| morning the departures sign will suggest using arrivals
| if you see traffic backing up and vice versa in the
| evening.
| kakacik wrote:
| Price of water from water fountain (to be found on
| basically any western airport and most non-western I've
| ever been to) - 0.
|
| I get your approach, but say where we live (Switzerland)
| if you have something not tightly around your body like a
| fleece jacket, you have to take it off and put it through
| scanner, this is default. Sometimes they still ask me to
| go down to t-shirt even if its obvious I don't have
| anything in pockets.
|
| Not worth the hassle for something that is mostly free
| and probably healthier compared to plastic bottles stored
| god knows where and how long. I'd imagine if they catch
| you, you are going for more detailed inspection since its
| obvious you didn't forget 1kg bottle in clothing you wear
| by accident.
| jeffwass wrote:
| Even in your own car dropping off your friends or family
| at a UK airport (at least the London ones) requires
| paying a PS6 fee now. Just to get to the dropoff area,
| even for 30 seconds as you say.
|
| But hey, at least the luggage carts are free...
| gampleman wrote:
| In Edinburgh the (small, we often need 2) luggage carts
| are now PS2.
| 0x3f wrote:
| Right, but what do you think the alternative is? There is
| limited space close to the entrance of the terminal, it
| has to be rationed somehow. Also what happens in practice
| is people take advantage. A trust-based 30s wouldn't
| work. Even with the current fees you can hang around
| Heathrow drop off and see the police having to move
| people along, check unatended cars, etc.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| There's limited space everywhere. It is rationed by
| people not wanting to be there. There's limited space at
| the baggage claim but nobody is charging you to be at the
| baggage claim.
| 0x3f wrote:
| You think people don't want to drop off at the airport?
| There's literally a multi storey full of short term
| parking at every Heathrow terminal. They wouldn't fit in
| the drop off area at all.
|
| You are charged to be at the baggage claim. The airline
| pays it on your behalf, from your fare.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| you are not charged to be at the baggage claim
| 0x3f wrote:
| Baggage claim being run by a charity, obviously.
| pc86 wrote:
| If you can find a way to utilize the baggage claim
| services without paying someone at some point I'd love to
| hear it.
|
| Just because you're not handing someone your card as you
| walk up to it doesn't mean you're not paying for it.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| nevertheless you are not charged to be at the baggage
| claim. You can stand there as long as you want to, and
| your bank balance doesn't decrease.
| BigTTYGothGF wrote:
| > nobody is charging you to be at the baggage claim
|
| Not yet.
| simmonmt wrote:
| The alternative is not charging. JFK somehow manages. Yes
| there's traffic, but it keeps slowly moving.
| 0x3f wrote:
| JFK is pure hell compared to Heathrow, never mind to an
| actually well-run airport. I'll stick to paying for my
| externalities.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I have three major airports in reasonable driving
| distance. None of them charge money to pick up or drop
| off at the terminal. It works fine.
| 0x3f wrote:
| And what's your experience of other world airports? Have
| you been to Heathrow? What about somewhere like Changi?
| It's not just the dropoff that sucks at JFK.
|
| Public realm is almost universally terrible in America
| because Americans rarely leave and don't experience
| anything better. It's bad, actually, to wait in traffic
| for a large portion of your life.
|
| See also: the revolt over NYC congestion pricing. The
| congestion fee in Manhattan should be $50 or more.
| wat10000 wrote:
| I've only transited through Heathrow, I haven't tried the
| driving experience there. I have tried it in various
| other airports in Europe and China. None of them charged
| money to drive up to the terminal either and they were
| all fine too.
|
| Sometimes the American experience isn't different from
| the rest of the world and it's _your_ experience that 's
| unusual, you know.
| 0x3f wrote:
| You understand that e.g. in Chinese cities they restrict
| car ownership and you have to enter a lottery/bidding
| system to get valid plates. Cars are a luxury. European
| cities have their own restrictions and discouragements.
| Rationing happens in many ways.
|
| I have still never experienced an airport with pick-
| up/drop-off traffic as bad as JFK, and I've travelled to
| almost every country in Europe, plenty of countries in
| Asia, and Canada. Maybe South America can beat it though,
| TBD.
| wat10000 wrote:
| That's probably a "JFK is unusually bad" thing, not an
| "everything is terrible in America and those idiot
| Americans don't know any better because they never
| travel" thing. I haven't been driven to JFK since 2001
| and I don't remember what it was like then, but driving
| anywhere around NYC requires great patience.
| 0x3f wrote:
| London is worse _overall_ for traffic than NYC, so I
| don't think it's that. I like America and Americans, but
| it's a fact that they don't travel much. JFK is not just
| bad for drop-off, it's chaos and run-down in general.
| wat10000 wrote:
| Many of us travel internationally quite a bit. And again,
| this thing you think is uniquely American very much is
| not.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| At Edinburgh airport, you can park at the Park and Ride
| nearby but it costs a tenner to get from there to the
| airport - a distance you could walk in about 20 minutes.
| flakeoil wrote:
| On the other hand, one can also question if the PS16 cost
| for the flight makes any sense. A more correct price
| would be PS500. It's about time that the airlines pay the
| same taxes for fuel as everyone else.
| yread wrote:
| I agree. A mandated minimal price per km.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| What is the correct cost for a flight leaving in 3 hours
| with an empty seat? What is the correct cost for a
| scheduled flight leaving in 2 months with no seats sold
| yet?
|
| Tickets aren't the same price for everyone, and planes
| fill to variable levels. Plus there are addons like
| luggage fees and beverages that have a huge markup. What
| is the best way to solve for that?
|
| Besides, it averages something like 53L of fuel/passenger
| to make that trip. Hardly necessitating PS500.
| phgn wrote:
| Take an empty, open water bottle through security and
| then fill it up at the free water fountains!
| angry_octet wrote:
| There is often no free water.
| smugma wrote:
| Which airports?
| weberer wrote:
| I've been all over the USA, continental Europe, and
| Japan, and there have always been water fountains.
| Granted, I've never been to one of the "don't drink the
| tap water" countries.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Correct, I pay for it for you, every April 15th.
| bluebarbet wrote:
| Tangential, but given the myriad externalities of air
| transport, such low fares for flying are deeply unethical
| and a perverse incentive that we are going to need to
| address one day.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > Taxi enters drop-off area for 30 seconds: PS7
|
| To be fair, I entirely understand the absolute necessity
| for this.
|
| The reason for its introduction is before hand the PHVs
| (Uber etc.) of this world would, instead of using the car
| parks, go up to the drop-off area and wait there.
|
| Because there was no charge and no penalty, what they
| would do is drop off a passenger and then sit there
| waiting for their next job to ping on their screen.
|
| This became a particular problem at Heathrow T5 where the
| drop off area is relatively tiny.
|
| The result would be that at busy hours, private
| individuals attempting to drop off their friends and
| family would be unable to find space and end-up double-
| parking and causing safety hazards.
|
| For a while they tried to use airport Police to enforce
| it, but the volume of PHVs was just far too great. Hence
| the cameras, charges and penalties were introduced.
|
| It should also be noted that at Heathrow, if you do not
| want to pay the PS7, you can instead drop people off for
| free at the Long Term Car park and they can get the
| shuttle bus back to the terminal.
| pc86 wrote:
| Rather than charge everyone PS7 or more for a drop off,
| wouldn't it make more sense to charge the people abusing
| it an absurd amount? I'd much rather see a PS25 fee after
| 90 seconds and an additional PS125 fee after 5 minutes
| than PS7 for 30 seconds.
|
| It seems less about making things more efficient and more
| about just squeezing a little bit out of money out of
| everyone.
| cess11 wrote:
| That'd be a lot of surveillance and bookkeeping.
| xp84 wrote:
| In San Francisco we have toll tags called FasTrak. You
| can pay for parking at the airport with it. Of course,
| there, it's just the normal, pretty high airport parking
| rates, but there's no reason you couldn't use such a tag
| for enforcing quick free drop offs and pickups with
| exactly that much precision. Enter the drop/pickup area
| with your toll tag, if you're out in 3 minutes, no
| charge. 5 minutes, $4, and if longer than that, $20/hour
| or whatever. It's not like computers mind doing that
| math.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Recently parked in a Spanish airport carpark that worked
| similar to this.
|
| First few minutes free, lower tariffs for 5-10 mins (or
| maybe fixed charge at those limits?), then like 1 euro
| per minute after that.
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| They could theoretically revoke precheck for doing this,
| but my guess is they won't because it is a believable
| accident (just like people leave them in their bag all
| the time) and given that the sign warning about firearms
| mentions that even that is just a five year suspension,
| not permanent, my guess is they wouldn't even bother for
| an harmless item.
| graemep wrote:
| its very much about looks. Uk airports (used to?) seize
| aftershave in bottles that are the shape of grenades. Its
| very obvious what they are (made of glass, branded, spray
| out aftershave) but they are banned nonetheless.
| mcny wrote:
| I've flown with someone who simply said she has
| prescription medication with her.
|
| I mean it was the truth. It was legitimately prescription
| medication. In this case. But I can imagine someone could
| lie.
| pc86 wrote:
| I can't speak to UK airports but TSA policy is that any
| medication needs to be in the original container,
| including prescription medication. So if you have any
| unmarked pills they'll toss them if they find them, same
| with multiple different pills in a prescription pill
| bottle or similar.
| red_admiral wrote:
| The real question here is whether you can buy the exact
| same bottle again in the duty-free after security.
| bjackman wrote:
| Yeah I also regularly bring a razorblade (for my old
| fashioned safety razor). I have got caught once but it's
| worth the risk of wasting a few minutes.
|
| If this was really about security, it would be set up so
| that just deliberately breaking the rules for the sake of
| minor convenience actually had some consequences.
|
| If I wanted to blow up a plane with liquid explosives I
| would just... Try a few times. If you get caught, throw the
| bottle away, get on the plane, and try again next week.
| jasonephraim wrote:
| As for me, my our bags have been taken off the line to be
| inspected the last 3 times someone in my family forgot
| large toothpaste tubes in their carry on.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Where do you put the water bottle?
| eigencoder wrote:
| Nice! I always bring razor blades (they're hard to buy on-
| location) and I've never had them taken.
| lostlogin wrote:
| > the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the
| lowly skilled or unskilled.
|
| I thought that was the US military?
| askl wrote:
| I thought that was the US police force?
| thinkingtoilet wrote:
| I don't necessarily agree with the OP, but a lot of TSA is
| ex-military.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I find it interesting to contrast this with my experience
| flying out of China. I was taken to a private room and shown
| the digital colored X-ray of my bag on which a box had been
| drawn around an empty lighter, I was asked to remove it
| myself and hand it over, and I went on my way. All in under 5
| minutes, no pat down, no fuss, and no one physically rifled
| through my belongings. (Granted I was a tourist so that might
| well not be typical.)
|
| I'm not sure what their success rate is when tested by
| professionals but the experience definitely left me wondering
| WTF the deal with the TSA is.
| wakawaka28 wrote:
| A lighter is very different from a weapon. I'm sure they
| can see everything they need to see with X-rays. Do you
| think they find a white guy flying out of China to be a
| likely terrorist? (I'm assuming you are white or asian.)
|
| I've never had a bad experience with TSA but I hate taking
| off my shoes and all. I really question the value of those
| security measures.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I haven't had any particularly bad experiences with the
| TSA either but I have been physically searched a few
| times. The entire process is definitely slower and more
| involved. The contrast of that coupled with the published
| failure statistics just leaves me wondering. I'd rather
| we got rid of them but if we must keep them I think we
| could do at least a bit better.
| brewdad wrote:
| Almost every time I've had a secondary search I've
| thought "Yeah, I can see how that looks suspicious on
| x-ray". A large block of cheese as one example.
|
| My two favorite pull-asides were for a three inch toy
| cannon my son brought back from a civil war site and my
| 18 inch plastic roller I carried to the Boston Marathon.
| I was allowed to proceed with both but the roller
| required a supervisor's approval and the cannon actually
| had to go up two levels.
| teiferer wrote:
| > Do you think they find a white guy flying out of China
| to be a likely terrorist?
|
| What does skin color have to do with this? And yes,
| oppressed groups in China, like the Uyghurs, have support
| in the west. Among white people.
|
| Maybe the winning strategy is comprehensive mass
| surveillance which flags you in a database long before
| even showing up at the airport and then the security
| theater just provides a suitable pretense for an arrest.
| 0x3f wrote:
| > What does skin color have to do with this?
|
| It affects their perception of how risky you are,
| obviously. Accurate or not.
|
| In fact, security tech in China will openly classify you
| by race/ethnicity.
| sho_hn wrote:
| Of course according to the US government terrorists are
| now white US citizens, so you could say they have become
| more open-minded.
| 0x3f wrote:
| Yes, although the US is genuinely one of the least racist
| places in the world, that's more about how bad the rest
| of the world is.
|
| In China the CCTV view just tags you up as
| Han/Uyghur/African/whatever. Nobody would even think
| twice about it.
|
| There's not even a forum to discuss it, not because it
| upsets people to be confronted, it's just so casual and
| matter-of-fact it'd be strange to even talk about. Like
| of _course_ the Uyghurs are the dangerous ones.
| croes wrote:
| The same Uyghurs in the US would be judged by theie
| religion und be tracked down by ICE
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| There are countries that for whatever reason do not allow
| lighters on airplanes.
|
| One time my bag was searched furiously because they saw a
| lighter on the machine, but had trouble locating it. Took
| two people about 15 minutes. Finally found it. It was
| very tiny.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Can depend on the lighter. A $1 plain lighter is fine in
| some countries while a $3 pressurized "jet" lighter is
| often prohibited.
| zwily wrote:
| You don't have to take your shoes off anymore!
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| Once at a security checkpoint to a museum in Shanghai, they
| saw my water bottle, and then told me to take it out and
| drink from it.
| tasuki wrote:
| That is the way!
| imcritic wrote:
| Was it just you? Or do they apply the same policy for
| every visitor with a bottle of liquid?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Just a guess but at a museum I assume they're looking out
| for vandals. If it's a water bottle the counterpart would
| be something like concentrated sodium hydroxide in which
| case a single sip is sufficient.
|
| Not sure how they would handle dye in a paper coffee cup
| though.
| imcritic wrote:
| I doubt that's against vandals I think it's against
| terrorists with liquid explosives/poison.
| 2muchcoffeeman wrote:
| I saw them do this to a few others in line.
| qingdao99 wrote:
| This is/was fairly common, I've experienced it on the
| Chinese subway a few times and I've seen a few clips of
| it happening online. No idea if it's official policy or
| not, though.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| In the 90's USA was sensible. I was flying with a thermos
| of hot coffee in my carry on. As soon as they took out
| the thermos and felt the heat radiating from the lid the
| agent said, "I don't think they would heat it", smiled
| and passed me thru.
|
| Now when I fly I have to be careful. When they ask
| purpose of visit I say sightseeing. I used to say
| tourist, but with my accent that once caused alarm when
| the agent thought I said terrorist.
| Reefersleep wrote:
| I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for
| saying "I'm here for terrorism"
| rusk wrote:
| Believe it or not it's a question on the pre-clearance
| form for travel to the US: _"are you or have you ever
| been a member of a terrorist organisation"_ - I always
| wondered what the rationale for that was
| wongarsu wrote:
| It's easier to deport people for lying on their
| immigration form than for having been a member of a
| terrorist organization
| kozziollek wrote:
| But to prove lying you would have to prove being a
| terrorist anyway...
| alpinisme wrote:
| No, being a member of a "terrorist organization" and the
| government allows itself latitude in defining that. It's
| much easier to associate someone with an organization
| than to show personal acts of terrorism.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Right but to demonstrate that you lied about X they have
| to demonstrate X. So by the time you're deporting someone
| for the lie you could just as easily have deported them
| for the thing itself.
| pixl97 wrote:
| You're making assumptions the thing they lied about and
| the thing they are being deported for are the same, and
| quite often the thing you're actually being deported for
| is not a reason to deport anyone at all.
|
| You come to the US and make a social media post saying
| Trump is a big fat dummy head.
|
| You get deported for lying about being in a terrorist
| organization.
| pousada wrote:
| Is that actually a realistic example? I'm having trouble
| following what's happening in the US
| pixl97 wrote:
| 100%.
|
| This pattern of government behavior is everywhere. One
| common one is the yellow sheet (form 4473) for buying a
| firearm in the US.
|
| Here is an example of a question
|
| > "Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana
| or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other
| controlled substance?"
|
| No matter the state law, federal law says it's illegal.
|
| So, what happens. At some point you buy a gun in
| Colorado. Then lets say you get on the news and talk
| about legalization, or you talk about anything that
| catches social media popularity and someone in the
| government doesn't approve of. Well, you better not have
| any record of a marijuana purchase anywhere, or pictures
| of you doing it because you've just committed a federal
| crime and the ATF/FBI can kick down your door as they
| please.
| Chris2048 wrote:
| Having _formerly_ been a member of a terrorist group is
| different from currently being in one - it may not be
| illegal, but lying about it is a deportable offence.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| Member of a terrorist organization. Did you protest for
| Palestine action? Then you're a member of a terrorist
| organization, and they don't have to prove you did any
| terrorism or planned any terrorism. It's a form of
| thoughtcrime.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I always wondered what the rationale for that was
|
| One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. An
| easy way to keep communists out of the country.
|
| And we've seen how easy it is to expand that list with
| "antifa" groups just recently, with antifa groups in
| Germany having to deal with their banks closing their
| accounts because the banks were afraid of getting hit
| with retaliation in their US business.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| I liked the "have you been in contact with someone with
| Ebola" questions the kiosk used to ask people entering
| Canada.
|
| I'm like, uhhhh, I dunno, maybe? A little late to inform
| me that I was supposed to be asking/testing everyone.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| If I knew the answer to that was yes I'd already be at
| the hospital ...
| ndriscoll wrote:
| It could probably be part of the premise for a gag in a
| hypothetical _Liar Liar 2_ after Jim Carrey haphazardly
| finds himself mixed up in one 30 minutes earlier in the
| movie, so there 's that.
| NoImmatureAdHom wrote:
| You say "No", then it turns out you're a HAMAS supporter
| --> deported.
| wongarsu wrote:
| On the other hand, if somebody said "I'm here for
| terrorism" and the immigration officer laughed that off,
| imagine the shitstorm if that person turns out to be a
| terrorist.
|
| For the individual employee the cost of wasting someone's
| time by escalating the case and detaining them is zero,
| the potential cost of letting someone slip by is
| realistically tiny but potentially huge
| xeyownt wrote:
| The point is that the situation must be really crazy if
| we reach a point where someone (mostly foreigner) saying
| "tourist" is being confused as to saying "terrorist".
| Airport are full of tourists, and exactly 0 person on the
| planet would reply with "terrorist".
| pixl97 wrote:
| >and exactly 0 person on the planet would reply with
| "terrorist".
|
| Unfortunately you give your fellow humans _way_ too much
| credit.
|
| Much like the people that rob a bank by writing a note
| saying to hand over all the money... on the back of their
| own deposit slip.
| jancsika wrote:
| So when an immigration officer makes an _error_ parsing
| the tourist 's words, you think the security protocol
| ought to be to let the tourist _pass_ through the gate?
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for
| saying "I'm here for terrorism"
|
| Its like those stupid questions on US immigration forms,
| e.g.
|
| _" Do you intend to engage in the United States in
| Espionage ?"_ or _" Did you ever order, incite or
| otherwise participate in the persecution of any person
| ?"_
|
| It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who
| _should_ answer yes will really answer yes ?
|
| Might as well just turn up at the immigration desk, slap
| your wrists down on the counter and invite them to
| handcuff you .... why bother with the form !
| ncallaway wrote:
| > It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who
| should answer yes will really answer yes ?
|
| No, they do not think anyone will check 'Yes' to that
| box.
|
| The purpose of the box is that it's a crime to lie when
| someone checks 'No', and that tends to be an easy charge
| to bring.
|
| So, the purpose of the form is to generate convictions
| for lying on the form.
| traceroute66 wrote:
| > the purpose of the form is to generate convictions for
| lying on the form.
|
| Yeah but if the immigration officer has reason to
| question you about those sections of the form then surely
| they have more than enough evidence of the underlying
| crime anyway ?
| labcomputer wrote:
| No they're playing the long game. It's for if they need
| to deport (and/or jail) you later.
|
| Lying on a customs form is a valid reason to revoke a
| visa, and it's an open and shut case.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Is traveling to the US for the purpose of engaging in
| espionage not also a valid reason to revoke a visa?
| hex4def6 wrote:
| Yes. And murder is illegal. And yet, Al Capone was in
| Alcatraz on tax evasion charges.
| ncallaway wrote:
| It's often an easier case to prove that you lied on the
| form when you said you came to the US with no intent to
| commit espionage than it is to prove that someone
| committed espionage.
|
| It basically unlocks a second set of potential facts that
| they can use to bring a criminal case (or revoke a visa,
| etc).
| HWR_14 wrote:
| Intent to commit espionage is not a crime (but committing
| or attempting to commit it is) Lying on the form is. It
| is probably easier to demonstrate intent to commit
| espionage than to catch them in the act.
| voxic11 wrote:
| Wouldn't it be easier to make those things illegal and
| then prosecute them instead of the lie? For prosecuting a
| lie you need to prove 2 things, the thing lied about and
| the lie itself, so it seems like a more difficult
| prosecution for no reason. Also how does every other
| country in the world manage to not have these questions?
| rayiner wrote:
| That crime alone wouldn't give you a basis for
| denaturalizing and deporting people who commit certain
| kinds of crimes.
| sidewndr46 wrote:
| This is what happens when a legal system and a political
| system is taken over by specialists with little to no
| other skills.
|
| Instead of politics being about setting policy to work
| toward desire outcomes, politics becomes about ensuring
| the viability of future political processes. Instead of
| the legal system being about defining crime, establishing
| punishment and carrying out said punishments it becomes
| about ensnaring others in legal "gotcha" moments like
| lying on a form. Society is not safer because of the
| outlawed nature of lying on a form. Society is not better
| off because someone is convicted of lying on a form. The
| individuals who participate in the prosecution are better
| off because it gives them an opportunity to advance their
| career.
| pixl97 wrote:
| > Also how does every other country in the world manage
| to not have these questions?
|
| You sure about that? Many other countries have what would
| be considered odd questions on their forms.
|
| Also, saying "every other country" is a mighty wide
| brush. There are a whole lot of countries where the rule
| of law doesn't come first and they can simply do what
| they want if they suspect you of anything regardless if
| they have a law or not.
| derektank wrote:
| Making false statements to federal officials is itself a
| crime. The intent of having those sections is to be able
| to have legal recourse against people that lie on them,
| which hopefully deters people that would lie on them from
| attempting to immigrate in the first place.
| jonhohle wrote:
| There were no liquids rules in the 90s.
| SapporoChris wrote:
| Correct, that is why I was able to fly with a thermos of
| coffee. However, they did screen carry on items.
| James_K wrote:
| So if a suicide bomber can drink explosives, they will be
| fine. As long as it's not poisonous within a few hours,
| should be no issue.
| xsmasher wrote:
| As long as they can drink it without making a face.
| redleader55 wrote:
| I am a strong believer in the "low-tech" solutions for
| this kind of thing. I seriously doubt the terrorist
| suicide bomber knows if drinking the explosive is going
| to prevent them from taking the mission to the end (ie.
| they will die in 5 min, in 30 min or in 24h), so they
| will start panicking when asked to drink from the bottle.
| biofox wrote:
| The US embassy in London do this. You can take liquids
| in, as long as you drink from them at security.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I flew into the UK once with a small nerf pistol. Going in,
| no problem. Going out I was asked to remove it, lol.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Heathrow is annoying in that you need to go through
| security every time you change terminal (or enter one for
| the first time when arriving internationally).
|
| Had to go through security 4 times in a day due to a
| colossal fuck up by an airline.
|
| Each time they flagged something different on a different
| person. Still no idea what they were looking for in a
| purse 3 of 4 times.
|
| It's wildly inconsistent and I kinda doubt it's
| intentional fuzzy logic.
| insom wrote:
| The different Heathrow terminals have different security
| requirements. I suspect it's based on countries they fly
| to from each terminal, but it could be age if equipment.
|
| It is frustrating for security to act like you're a total
| idiot for following a process another terminal says is
| fine (like leaving very small electronics like Kindles in
| your bag).
|
| Oh, well.
| red_admiral wrote:
| Indeed. Other airports in Europe even have separate
| terminals or areas for Schengen and non-Schengen
| destinations, with passport control and sometimes
| security scans again between them.
|
| Bonus points to Zurich (Schengen but not EU, just to test
| the edge cases) - I think they have an airside metro
| where each car is segregated for a different security
| category of passenger.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| That was one of my jokes going between terminals (always
| by bus): has this country thought about discovering
| trains?
|
| Once leaving a terminal the staff said we'd take an
| internal bus and I asked if that meant we wouldn't have
| to go through security again, but they just meant the
| same one as the rest.
|
| All of our trips were non-UK-entry but possibly some
| terminals do have heightened security to meet one-stop-
| security requirements. Didn't seem like it but can't be
| sure.
| masfuerte wrote:
| I had exactly the same experience in 2008, the year of the
| Beijing olympics. It seemed futuristic then and I can only
| assume their technology is even better now.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Flying out of HK after visiting SZ, I was quietly and
| quickly surrounded by men with guns after my bag was
| xrayed. I like nice clothes, especially neatly laundered
| and pressed shirts. I had an Altoids tin with a few brass
| collar stays for those shirts. Brass. With a pointy end.
| jandrese wrote:
| When I was kid long before TSA was even a thing my family
| flew up to visit the grandparents. My mom had us pack our
| own bags with some of our favorite toys. My brother
| decided to bring his Megatron, but sadly left it out of
| Robot mode. It was quite a scene at the X-Ray when every
| single agent in the area came running with guns drawn at
| once.
| woolion wrote:
| Flying back from Beijing, I had bought a lot of books. I
| filled my bags with it, so they were very heavy. When the
| agent came to try to check my backpack, he casually grabbed
| it, and fell on the conveyor belt trying to lift it. He
| looked at me with shock. "I'm done", I thought. He opened
| the bag, and saw a box of zongzi the university gave me, on
| top of the books. He instantly became radiant, gave me a
| pat on the back, and just indicated the way.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| If I were him, I'd have let you bribe me with a zongzi.
| Those look delicious!
| marcosdumay wrote:
| I know it's a joke, and they probably get only a tiny
| minority of cases... but the Chinese government makes a
| huge show of executing people that do stuff like this.
| nerdsniper wrote:
| > the Chinese government makes a huge theater of
| execution people that do stuff like this.
|
| This sentence has a critical grammatical error, but I
| can't figure out what it was supposed to say.
| asielen wrote:
| Execution should be executing
|
| Also not sure about the usage of theater there. I'd
| probably swap it out for "show". Never heard theater used
| like that although it is pretty close to a standard
| idiom, "to make a show of something".
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Thanks, changed both.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| This sounds like my experiences in Toronto. It's less
| adversarial than the experiences I've had in the U.S.
|
| My experiences were basically a form of, "Hey we saw
| something that caught our attention and might be an issue.
| Let's work through addressing this."
|
| One case it was a handful of 3.5" galvanized nails.
| "Whoops. Okay, so, this bag used to be my makeshift
| toolbag. My other one ripped and I had to get one last
| minute--" "No problem. Can you remove them? You can either
| surrender them to us or we can get them mailed back to you,
| but I'm guessing it's not worth it..." I was so defensive
| because to me it looked bad but they weren't actually after
| me in the way I thought they'd be.
|
| The second time was that I had an "Arduino Starter Kit"
| full of bundled up wires and random chips and such. Once
| they saw the box they didn't even ask me to un-shrinkwrap
| it, and unlike the nails, didn't re-x-ray the bag.
|
| Both times they rotated their screen and pointed to the box
| framing the item in question on the colourized x-ray.
| alistairSH wrote:
| Meanwhile, the TSA looks at me like I'm, at best an
| annoyance, and at worst a criminal, when I ask them to
| inspect my camera kit manually (film, not digital). And
| that inspection consists of swabbing 35mm film canisters
| - like, the shell of a 35mm roll is going to tell them
| anything useful?!?! It's a complete sham.
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| I guess they're probably operating on the assumption that
| at worst a few short nails stuffed in a small film
| canister are no worse than the metal handle from a
| rolling suitcase.
|
| The swab is for common explosives. The canisters are a
| bit on the small side but I guess could still pose a
| threat if packed with high explosive and a bit of
| shrapnel.
|
| The apparent annoyance (or worse) is the part that gets
| me. The entire process just feels needlessly adversarial.
| At least they didn't insist on patting you down or
| emptying out your bag!
| ares623 wrote:
| I think for film specifically it might be for drugs?
| Seems like a very convenient way to smuggle contraband.
| You can't open it to inspect it, you can't xray it either
| otherwise it will ruin the film.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Worst and most aggressive pat down I have ever
| experienced was in Toronto for no reason that I can think
| of, so I have learned to be stoic about all interactions
| with gate keepers, regardless of country. You never know
| when someone had a bad cup of tea just before the met
| you.
| VBprogrammer wrote:
| New York is the worst security I've ever come through for
| just being needlessly horrible. Like screaming at people
| because they didn't literally put their feet on the
| "footprints" on the floor.
|
| Toronto was fine. Just a slightly incredulous
| conversation about how we could take 3 weeks off to
| travel Canada.
| ultrahax wrote:
| Only time I have ever been shouted at by personnel in an
| airport was at JFK.
| brewdad wrote:
| That's just a New Yorker's way of saying "I love you and
| want you to get home safely".
| xp84 wrote:
| Especially if you've been in New York for a few days,
| being yelled at shouldn't be taken so personally.
| Especially when you consider how many people badly need
| instructions yelled at them because they're so very
| confused, I can see why they do it!
| shigawire wrote:
| Was it US customs or the Canadian TSA equivalent?
|
| US customs were less friendly in my limited experience.
| Waterluvian wrote:
| While there's U.S. Customs agents in Pearson, the
| entirety of security is done by CATSA. I cannot imagine
| U.S. Customs doing any sort of pat down. I'm not sure
| they'd even be allowed to do anything like that in
| Toronto. I think they're pretty much only allowed to
| screen and admit or reject.
| computerfriend wrote:
| They thought I had a gun in Toronto airport and were
| surprisingly calm about it. (I didn't actually have a
| gun.)
| mbrameld wrote:
| That's been exactly my experience recently in the US.
| Most recently it was some Hot Hands hand warmers. They
| just had me go to the end of the line where you get your
| bags ouf of the scanner and the agent brought my bag down
| there on the other side of the rollers. They set it on
| the table in front of me, and there was a monitor above
| the table where they pointed to the hand warmers on the
| screen. They said something along the lines of, "Looks
| like you might have some hand warmers in the main pocket,
| would you mind taking them out?" I pulled them out,
| showed them to them, they thanked me and I put it back in
| the bag and went on my way. This was in Juneau, AK.
| Nihilartikel wrote:
| Interestingly, I had the exact same experience leaving
| Shanghai - I had picked up some nifty lighters at the
| wholesale markets. They took me to the room, had me take
| them out, and I was lucky enough to be able to hand them
| off to a friend who was staying. No fuss, waiting, or
| intimidation. They just took care of my honest mistake.
| subroutine wrote:
| I was flying out of Chicago and I had a big metal bolt that
| was hollowed out to store pills inside. They showed me the
| scanned image, and you could see everything clear as day -
| steel bolt, hollow core, Xanax.
| dboreham wrote:
| TSA is much more skilled than the security people employed by
| the airlines that proceeded them.
| PeterStuer wrote:
| "In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the
| lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater."
|
| Over here, it's G4S pork barrel contracts.
| bartread wrote:
| I don't think it's just the TSA tbh.
|
| A couple of years before the pandemic I managed to make it
| all the way from London Heathrow to Auckland, New Zealand,
| passing through Dubai and Brisbane on the way, with one of
| those USB rechargeable plasma lighters and a Gerber multitool
| in my hand luggage.
|
| Completely unintentional, of course, but due to #reasons I
| had packed in some haste and made the mistake of not
| completely unpacking my day sack, which I also used to carry
| my laptop for work, first.
|
| I stayed in Auckland a couple of days and the items were
| eventually picked up on a scan before my flight to
| Queenstown. The guy was very nice about it: he had to
| confiscate the lighter, but he let me post the Multitool to
| my hotel in Queenstown.
|
| A couple of years ago I did something similar flying out of
| Stansted but, that time, it was picked up at the airport and,
| again, I was able to get the items posted back to my home
| address.
|
| Nowadays I always completely empty all compartments of all
| bags I'm taking before repacking, even when I'm in a hurry.
| ghaff wrote:
| I no longer keep multitools in random bags that I sometimes
| also use for travel. I figure it's just a matter of time
| before I forget it's there when I'm packing in a hurry. (I
| don't travel as much any longer but still.)
| bartread wrote:
| You're very sensible, and that seems like an absolutely
| foolproof way of solving the problem.
|
| I went through a stage where I'd keep the multitool on my
| belt because the carry case comes with a handy belt loop
| but, depending on what you're doing, it can dig in to
| your side/front/back or catch on things, which is
| annoying, and in a lot of contexts it's perhaps just one
| level of dweebiness too far. And, yes, I absolutely am a
| dweeb and have zero shame about it, but there are
| contexts where I need to mask at least to some extent in
| order to be taken seriously/function effectively which
| I've accepted as a "cost of doing business".
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| > Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs
| program for the lowly skilled or unskilled.
|
| This is oft repeated, but as a federal job, the bar is at
| least slightly higher than those typical AlliedUniversal/Andy
| Frain/Etc mall cop guards you see all over the place. I have
| no doubt that many are incompetent, but I think it is a big
| unfair that it gets singled out as a "jobs program" given
| that the bar is on the floor industrywide for security.
|
| An interesting comparison would be FPS, which is the agency
| that does security checks for federal buildings, also under
| DHS same as TSA. They are armed despite many of them having
| an indoor only role (a few do patrol larger campuses
| outdoors). Thus, I suspect the requirements are somewhat
| higher. They are generally more thorough in my experience,
| except for one time where they did not notice one of my shoes
| got stuck and didn't go through the X ray, which is funny
| because they insist on all dress shoes being scanned as they
| have a tiny metal bar inside. The same shoes go through TSA
| just fine.
| BigTTYGothGF wrote:
| > as a federal job
|
| Aren't they all contractors?
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| No, none of them are federal contractors. They are direct
| employees but not sworn law enforcement. You apply on
| USAJobs.gov and go to FLETC for training, although the
| topics are very different than sworn/1811s going there,
| ex no firearms training. Some airports, SFO being the
| only notable one iirc, choose to contract their own
| security as an airport/municipal contract with TSA
| approval, in which case TSA only staffs some
| executive/oversight roles. Occasionally you see staff in
| green DHS uniforms rather than blue TSA ones, such as the
| dog handlers, however I believe they are still under TSA,
| not sure if they are armed though as it is not the
| typical blue TSO/STSO uniform.
|
| I assume the technology part (secure flight) is heavily
| contractor run like most govt/defense technology, one of
| my old coworkers was briefly involved in that. Didn't say
| anything interesting about it beyond that they used one
| way fibers to upload the data into classified systems for
| processing without anything going back to the main
| system. The basic workings of the system are described in
| the SORN/PIA notices though IDK how up to date they keep
| them.
| labcomputer wrote:
| > This is oft repeated, but as a federal job, the bar is at
| least slightly higher than those typical
| AlliedUniversal/Andy Frain/Etc mall cop guards you see all
| over the place.
|
| Cool. So the TSA sucks up all the people slightly
| overqualified to be mall cops, which prevents them from
| outcompeting all the barely qualified people for those
| roles. And thus the barely qualified can have a job as a
| mall cop.
|
| So, sounds exactly like a jobs program.
| pavel_lishin wrote:
| > _They are armed despite many of them having an indoor
| only role_
|
| Are the outdoors more dangerous?
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| By outside I mean some of them actually drive around in
| patrol cars and within their premises would make arrests
| for any trespass or other crimes. The ones I had the
| occasion to interact with were just doing badge/visitor
| approval and baggage screening. A checkpoint officer
| could of course have the occasion to use force, but so
| could TSA and they are unarmed and generally do not use
| force, deferring to local police.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| It is a government agency spun up to use way more bodies
| and funds to do the same thing that was fairly effectively
| being done by private industry, has no penalty for being
| genuinely worse, is not popular, and is repeatedly used to
| funnel cash to connected people, groups and companies.
|
| FDR himself would be embarrassed about this jobs program.
| Digging holes and refilling them would be more productive
| to our country.
|
| >An interesting comparison would be FPS, which is the
| agency that does security checks for federal buildings,
| also under DHS same as TSA
|
| This is _not_ an interesting comparison. DHS didn 't exist
| until recently either, and should be abolished. The private
| security we had before was much cheaper and not less
| effective. TSA would not have prevented 9/11
|
| The point of all of the DHS was to oppress internal dissent
| internally. What do you think was Bush's plans if they
| didn't get served an opportunity to go screw around in the
| middle east? His administration was pushing using Predator
| drones domestically in the mid-2000s.
|
| Read "Big brother" by Corey Doctorow, which laid this all
| out in plain english (to literal children no less) 20 years
| ago. It's free.
| ascagnel_ wrote:
| I'd believe that. I was in a situation where a bag started
| smoking _in the security checkpoint_ (it was a camera battery
| failing), and the TSA agents all abandoned the checkpoint. As
| a result, the FAA issued a full ground stop and had re-screen
| every passenger in the airport.
| ec109685 wrote:
| Any large organization is going to have some terrible
| employees.
| schaefer wrote:
| > It's all security theater.
|
| It's so much worse than that. Because the department of
| homeland security was formed in the panic following 911, many
| of the laws meant to protect our civil liberties (which have
| existed decades/centuries before the DHS was formed) haven't
| been amended to explicitly apply to DHS staff as well.
|
| So what ICE is doing right now could only happen with the
| loopholes that apply only to DHS staff.
|
| So if not for the security theater of the TSA, Stephan Miller
| might not have had a mechanism to get the ball rolling on his
| murder squad that is ICE.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Can you be more specific? I have no idea what you're
| talking about re loopholes, DHS staff exclusions, etc.
| schaefer wrote:
| Sure. I am not a lawyer, but I can give one example to
| the best of my ability.
|
| One Civil liberty I see Ice violating is the Fourth
| Amendment which protects against unreasonable search and
| seizure. But, for Boarder Patrol (under the Department of
| Homeland Security) there is a border search exception to
| the forth amendment. Border patrol can conduct searches
| without a warrant or reasonable suspicion.
|
| You might be on the fence about that. We do have to
| protect our boarders... sure. but the way the law is
| written, this border exception is applicable anywhere 100
| miles from the border.
|
| That area covers 2/3rds of the population of the United
| States. --
|
| So if you are wanting a power grab against your own
| citizens you would definitely try to use that loophole in
| creative ways. And that starts by using DHS staff that
| can claim their actions fall under the border search
| exception.
|
| This write up is a little off the cuff, so the details
| might be loose, but I hope this demonstrates the rough
| outline.
| vablings wrote:
| TSA Is not great, I have been groped by TSA twice, I have
| never been pat down by any European airport staff
| yieldcrv wrote:
| > It would be great if governments were more explicit about
| precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.
|
| Have you considered just going long Palantir?
|
| there's nothing to really understand
| vkou wrote:
| > . This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to
| detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of
| explosive chemistries and everyone knows it.
|
| Meanwhile, you get swabbed, the machine produces a false
| positive, the TSA drone asks you why the machine is showing a
| positive, you have no fucking idea why, and they just keep
| swabbing until they get a green light and everyone moves on
| with life.
| HNisCIS wrote:
| OP is talking about (mostly) TATP here. It's very easy to make,
| harder to detect with traditional methods and potent enough to
| be a problem. It's also hilariously unstable, will absolutely
| kill you before you achieve terrorism, and if you ask people on
| the appropriate chemistry subreddits how to make it you'll be
| ridiculed for days.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Yes, peroxide chemistries famously don't show up on a lot of
| explosive scans. TATP is an example but not the only one and
| far from the best one. They are largely missing from common
| literature because they are too chemically reactive to be
| practical e.g. they will readily chemically interact with
| their environment, including most metal casings you might put
| them in, such that they become non-explosive.
|
| That aside, TATP is a terrible explosive. Weak, unstable, and
| ineffective. The ridicule is well-deserved.
| hackingonempty wrote:
| > The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are
| extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like
| liquids.
|
| The limits were instituted after discovering a plot to smuggle
| acetone and hydrogen peroxide (and ice presumably) on board to
| make acetone peroxide in the lavatory. TATP is not a liquid and
| it is not stable.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_pl...
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| This illustrates a point though. TATP you could synthesize on
| a plane is entirely inadequate to bring down a plane. It also
| requires a bit more than acetone and hydrogen peroxide. Pan
| Am 103 required around half a kilo of RDX and TATP is very,
| very far from RDX.
|
| The idea of synthesizing a proper high-explosive in an
| airplane lavatory is generally comical. The chemistry isn't
| too complex but you won't be doing it in an airplane
| lavatory.
| closewith wrote:
| > TATP you could synthesize on a plane is entirely
| inadequate to bring down a plane
|
| Even a small fire can down a plane, especially when distant
| from diversion airports.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| No, you can't bring down a plane with a small fire. If
| that was possible terrorists would use a newspaper and a
| lighter.
| angry_octet wrote:
| A small fire in the right place (like a wiring loom) can
| definitely bring down a plane, but generally attackers
| don't have the specialist knowledge to achieve that, and
| those places are not easily accessible between meal
| services.
| lores wrote:
| They don't block lithium batteries, so...
| piglatinlingo wrote:
| there are other, very similar compounds in the same family
| that are indeed liquid.
| CTDOCodebases wrote:
| The security theatre is there to make people feel safe.
|
| It's about emotion not logic.
| Fervicus wrote:
| And to make some people richer.
| xxs wrote:
| ...or be very anxious and resent air travel. I don't feel any
| safe through body searches, coupled with belt/coat removal,
| not wearing glasses and what not.
|
| Personally, I don't know a single person who feels more
| secure due to the checks.
| kstenerud wrote:
| It's about making people feel safe.
|
| We're not rational beings, so what do you do about an
| irrational fear? You invent a magical thing that protects from
| that irrational fear.
|
| You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road
| accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist
| attacks far more.
|
| You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn
| the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which
| can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and
| practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and
| strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what
| about the extremist who works for the airline?
|
| So you invent some theater to stop people from panicking (a far
| more real danger). And that's a perfectly acceptable solution.
| peyton wrote:
| It's a $12 bn/yr production. I don't think that's perfectly
| acceptable. Let's invest in loudspeakers if all we're doing
| is shouting at people.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road
| accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist
| attacks far more.
|
| This can be traced to people in a car believe they can
| control whether they have an accident or not (and largely
| can). In an airplane, however, you have no control
| whatsoever.
| kleiba wrote:
| _> This can be traced to people in a car believe they can
| control whether they have an accident or not (and largely
| can)._
|
| This is true. In France, about two thirds out of the people
| dying in a car accident are the actual drivers responsible
| for the accident, according to the 2024 Road Safety Report.
| gambiting wrote:
| And if France it's anything like the UK, the absolute
| vast majority of these deaths are people driving drunk at
| night. If you are driving in city traffic at 20mph
| commuting to work your chance of dying is nearly zero -
| there's always a chance someone else might be speeding
| and crash into you, sure, but it's nowhere near the
| general rate of deaths in cars.
|
| As a seque to this - knowing the above, I find it insane
| that various institutions are pushing for more and more
| aggressive driving aids.
| graemep wrote:
| My perception is that drink driving is now pretty rare in
| the UK.
|
| The biggest dangers I see regularly on the road is simple
| aggressive driving. Overtaking too much, tailgating,
| multiple lane changes in one go (on motorways), not
| driving slower in bad conditions.....
| andrepd wrote:
| That not true. Drunk driving is not remotely the biggest
| cause, let alone the "vast majority". Speeding is.
|
| And also: note you're only considering the pov of a
| person inside a car. In the last decade deaths among
| pedestrians and cyclists have _skyrocketed_ , courtesy of
| society willingly accepting that it is normal and
| rational to have 4000kg vehicles with 180bhp being used
| ubiquitously to move 70kg humans to the grocery store.
| Since public infrastructure is _completely_ designed
| around cars, with pedestrians and cyclists pushed to the
| edges or protected from cars by lines of white paint, it
| 's no wonder this is happening.
| gambiting wrote:
| I stand corrected - I looked it up and yeah, you are
| right, drunk driving is only the cause of about ~20% of
| road deaths in the UK.
|
| >>And also: note you're only considering the pov of a
| person inside a car.
|
| Well the person above was talking about how dangerous
| driving is, to which my argument still stands - if you
| are just commuting to work in or near a city, your actual
| risk is incredibly low(as the driver or passanger).
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| "largely" is true, but because planes are more than 3x
| safer people are still being wrong when they fear plane
| travel.
|
| People try to treat "largely" as "fully" and that fails.
| sfn42 wrote:
| It's not about statistics. It's about control and
| knowledge. I know if a car I'm in is driving safely. I
| can ask the driver to calm down or let me off. In a plane
| I have nothing. I'm just sitting in a tin can, no idea
| whether the pilot is flying responsibly or not. No idea
| whether the landing is routine as hell or kinda sketch.
| Even if i could talk to the pilot the only thing we can
| do is land.
|
| And have you thought about airplane landing? It's insane.
| This big clunky metal bird full of literal jet fuel
| coming in at like 400kmh or whatever, bouncing around on
| the tarmac as it's desperately trying to regain control
| and slow down.
|
| Honestly I don't see how a rational person could not be
| stressed out in that situation. Yes we all know it
| usually works out, but we also know if it doesn't work
| out we're very likely going up in a ball of fire. And no
| matter what the stats say it doesn't feel like a safe
| situation. It feels like a near death experience.
| Seriously. Every time I fly I mentally come to terms with
| the fact that I might die. Every time we take off and
| land I'm feeling the bumps and jerks, listening to the
| sounds and wondering whether this is normal.
|
| I fly at least a few times a year, and I don't take any
| drugs for it, but I fucking hate it.
| graemep wrote:
| > I know if a car I'm in is driving safely. I can ask the
| driver to calm down or let me off.
|
| Do you know that all the other cars on the road that
| might hit yours are being driven safely?
|
| How do you feel about busses and trains?
|
| > And have you thought about airplane landing? It's
| insane. This big clunky metal bird full of literal jet
| fuel coming in at like 400kmh or whatever, bouncing
| around on the tarmac as it's desperately trying to regain
| control and slow down.
|
| A car is a metal box full of fuel kept under control by
| four rubber balloons.
|
| At least a plane is heavily monitored for safety, checked
| before every flight, and controlled by highly trained
| professionals.
|
| > Honestly I don't see how a rational person could not be
| stressed out in that situation.
|
| A rational person would not be worried. The fear is very
| much an irrational reaction and a psychological problem
| that a few people have. Most of us will happily go to
| sleep on a long flight and our biggest fear is boredom.
| ghaff wrote:
| A lot of people (here and elsewhere) don't get how many
| people are just terrified of flying. I was on a flight
| many years ago (on admittedly a pretty rough
| transatlantic flight) when the woman next to me was
| basically in tears and grabbing my arm.
|
| Personally, I don't love being bounced around in a plane
| but I'm reasonably confident that wings aren't coming off
| the Boeing jet--whatever the company's other faults.
|
| I'm certainly a lot more nervous driving in a snowstorm
| or on a twisty mountain road.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I was afraid of flying until I worked at Boeing and
| acquired an intimate knowledge about how safe they were.
|
| My lead told me they can fix everything but the nut
| behind the wheel.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If you're in a commercial plane, the driver is acting
| immaculately, with a margin of error so small you'd never
| be able to notice any problems. So you'll never need to
| ask the driver to calm down or let you off.
|
| (But it's worth noting that all the control in the world
| won't keep you safe in a car. You can have/be an
| inhumanly perfect driver and it's still pretty dangerous
| to be on the roads.)
|
| And then every other complaint you list is irrational.
| "how a rational person" avoids being stressed out is by
| knowing it's safe. The bouncing on tarmac is safe. Ball
| of fire is less likely than in a car. Bumping and jerking
| happens in lots of safe situations. The sounds are
| normal.
|
| I'm not saying it's wrong to feel fear, but do not
| pretend the fear is rational.
| sfn42 wrote:
| To add to this, here's a piece of anecdotal evidence.
| I've watched a lot of traffic accident videos in my life,
| and in the vast majority of the videos including two
| vehicles, both drivers are at fault.
|
| They may not be legally at fault, I don't really worry
| too much about that, but by my judgement they could have
| avoided the accident by paying attention or driving
| slower or driving less aggressively etc.
|
| Same goes for pedestrians by the way. The absolute vast
| majority of pedestrians who get hit by cars could have
| avoided it by paying attention and taking some
| responsibility for their own safety.
| empath75 wrote:
| > This is true. In France, about two thirds out of the
| people dying in a car accident are the actual drivers
| responsible for the accident, according to the 2024 Road
| Safety Report. --- This is because a large number of
| accidents don't involve another car.
| andrepd wrote:
| Crucially, deaths among pedestrians and cyclists are
| skyrocketing in the last decade; those people can't really
| "control" whether the 4-ton SUV with a 6' high bumper mows
| them and their kids down.
| WalterBright wrote:
| I've driven around blind corners to discover people
| standing in the middle of the road. I also read in the
| paper about people being run over in crosswalks. I use
| crosswalks, too, and I make sure to look before I step
| into it. When I jog, I look at the driver's eyes to see
| if he sees me (if he doesn't, I step far off the
| roadside). Yes, as a pedestrian you do have a significant
| amount of control.
| closewith wrote:
| > You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to
| learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of
| which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics
| and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked
| and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then,
| what about the extremist who works for the airline?
|
| This is said as an axiom, but we have protected against the
| motivated terrorist, as shown by the safety record.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| Have we protected against the motivated terrorist, or only
| the motivated terrorist on an airplane?
| closewith wrote:
| Is your contention that there haven't been any terrorist
| attacks, therefore airport security isn't effective?
|
| Because over the last 25 years, there have been a _lot_
| of "successful" terrorist attacks in the West, and none
| of them were on planes.
| BrenBarn wrote:
| My point is that if improved airport security just shifts
| terrorist attacks to other places, the overall safety
| benefit is not as great as it may at first seem.
| closewith wrote:
| That's nonsense - if it was true, all anti-terrorism
| measures would be self-defeating, but they're not.
| Decades of aircraft-based terrorist attacks have been
| completely halted by airport security, and there's no
| been no correlated increase in other mass casualty
| events.
| DoughnutHole wrote:
| If those attack vectors are intrinsically less effective
| at causing mass destruction then that's an improvement.
|
| A plane hijacking can evidently cause enormous
| destruction with minimal equipment and personnel. Even
| just a bomb on a plane can easily kill 200-500 people
| depending on the plane's capacity.
|
| Ground-based attacks since 9/11 have been evidently less
| effective because a bunch of guys with guns attacking a
| train station or a rock concert can't do as much damage
| as quickly as a hijacker essentially flying a cruise
| missile into a major office building.
| RA_Fisher wrote:
| Exactly, air security has actually done a really good job
| over the last 25 years. I hope they keep improving it.
| Muromec wrote:
| Mitivated terrorists pivoted to driving cars into crowds
| and shootings.
| walthamstow wrote:
| Don't forget strapping knives to their hands and slashing
| into crowds.
| closewith wrote:
| As horrific as truck attacks, mass shootings, and suicide
| bombings have been, no-one have been on the same order of
| magnitude as airborne terrorism attacks.
|
| The Bataclan, Las Vegas, Nice truck attack - all enormous
| tragedies. But compare to 9/11, Lockerbie, Flight 182,
| etc.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Bataclan = 132 deaths + ??? injuries
|
| Nice Truck = 86 deaths, 458 injured
|
| Lockerbie = 270 deaths (presumably 0 injuries)
|
| Air India = 329 (also presumably no injuries)
| closewith wrote:
| Conveniently leaving out 9/11, was an attack on the scale
| of Bataclan, but due to the nature of air travel, had a
| much higher death toll.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| So like, just one not on the same order of magnitude?
| closewith wrote:
| No, the vast majority of terrorist truck, car, bombing,
| shooting, stabbing attacks have single digit casualties
| due to the security measures in place and the level of
| difficulty (thankfully) in killing large numbers of
| people.
|
| For a given number of people, money, resources, and risk,
| an attack against an airliner will have disproportionate
| casualties and effect. As above, a similar amount of co-
| ordination was required for Bataclan vs 9/11, with an
| order of magnitude fewer casualties.
| Scoundreller wrote:
| Iunno, did the bataclan attackers learn to play the drums
| or guitar?
| BrenBarn wrote:
| I seriously doubt that most people are happy with the
| tradeoffs of safety vs. convenience provided by the TSA. The
| general idea of x-ray, metal detectors, sure, that's all
| good. But the stuff with taking off your shoes, small
| containers of liquid, etc., no. I think if we reverted to a
| simpler system with fewer oddly specific requirements layered
| on top, most people would not feel significantly less safe,
| but would feel less inconvenienced.
| stephen_g wrote:
| The thing about shoes is just dumb anyway - I don't know if
| there was some period of time where it was required
| elsewhere around the world but I never experienced it.
| Literally the only times I've ever had to take off my shoes
| were during the two times I've visited the US (vs. a over a
| dozen trips to European and Asian countries).
|
| Liquid restrictions were also lifted in my country four or
| so years ago for domestic travel, so it's still annoying
| when getting ready for an international trip and I remember
| I still have to do that...
| michh wrote:
| I flew out of the UK twice in relatively short succession
| in ~2018 and the first time was out of London City: did
| not have to take off my shoes. I was pleasantly surprised
| by this and concluded common sense had prevailed and it
| was no longer necessary. The second time was Gatwick, and
| based on my prior experience I did not take off my shoes.
| I got yelled at because "everybody knows you have to take
| off your shoes at the airport!". Then got subjected to an
| extra search of my luggage as punishment. Of course there
| was a razor in my bag of toiletries (one of those Gilette
| cartridge ones with a million blades - not an oldschool
| safety razor) and promptly 'got got' for that as it could
| have potentially injured the person searching my
| belongings. 0/10 would not recommend.
| retired wrote:
| I have to take my sneakers off about three to four times
| a year while traveling around Europe.
| cucumber3732842 wrote:
| It was a reaction to a very specific incident that
| happened just after 9/11 so the policy basically took
| effect at the same time the TSA started existing.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_63
| _(2...
| dingaling wrote:
| > It's about making people feel safe.
|
| I don't think that's a common perception of airport security.
| Few people take reassurance from it, most consider it a
| burden and hindrance that could stop them getting their
| flight if they don't perform the correct steps as instructed.
|
| The lifting of this restriction is an example, the
| overwhelming response is "oh thank goodness, now I don't have
| to pay for overpriced water" and not "is this safe?"
| palata wrote:
| I disagree. It is a burden and hindrance, but I'm pretty
| sure that if you just removed all the checks and let people
| board like in a bus, there would be complaints.
| rdiddly wrote:
| They're not complaining on the bus...
| fshr wrote:
| A bus isn't going to fall out of the air and land in the
| ocean. A bus isn't going to be hijacked and flown into
| the top of a building.
| ghaff wrote:
| And the fact is that there's been some level of security
| since the 1970s or thereabouts after a fair number of
| hijackings. Any serious debate is about restrictions
| around liquids/knives/etc. (Some of which related to
| isolated incidents like the shoe bomber and others of
| which seem like pretty clear overreach--like I can't
| bring a hiking pole in carryon.)
| sneak wrote:
| This is what JSX does and people love it.
| gampleman wrote:
| I thought so too. But having talked to a few people who are
| generally afraid of flying, they absolutely do take re-
| assurance from the security theatre. They are very much not
| interested in having the ease of subverting this security
| explained to them.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Regular passengers tend to be the ones care about the price
| of water in the terminal while rare/first time passengers
| tend to be the ones nervous as hell about everything from
| getting the bags checked in to the engines falling off the
| plane during takeoff/landing.
| y0eswddl wrote:
| People stopped flying after 9/11 and airlines lost money
| until the TSA was created and made people feel safe to fly
| again
| varjag wrote:
| Did that really happen in the United States? Certainly
| not anywhere else.
| aylmao wrote:
| There's room for both. You can have security checkpoints
| where they check your bag for liquids, and you should be
| allowed to fly with them once they confirm its innocuous.
|
| I'm no chemist, but I can't imagine it's hard to test if
| something is an explosive or just body cream. To pack a
| punch, I have to imagine explosives need very specific
| compounds in them.
| wickedsight wrote:
| > It's about making people feel safe.
|
| My guess it's more about being able to say: 'We did
| everything we could.' If someone does end up getting a bomb
| on board. If they didn't do this, everyone would be angry and
| headlines would be asking: 'Why was nothing put in place to
| prevent this?'
| HPsquared wrote:
| See also all the other myriad types of compliance theatre.
| troupo wrote:
| > You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to
| learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of
| which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics
| and practicality
|
| Ah yes, the insidious opponent who learns the inherent
| vulnerability of ... huge crowds gathering before hand
| baggage screenings and TSA patdowns.
|
| And these crowds are only there only due to a permanent
| immovable physical fixture of ... completely artificial
| barriers that fail to prevent anything 90-95% of the time.
| RA_Fisher wrote:
| Very true. The queues need to be improved.
| kakacik wrote:
| I know literally nobody panicking from some idea of terrorist
| attack against airplane, this is not a thing in Europe.
| Neither my old parents, neither any of my colleagues etc. Its
| not 2001 anymore and even back then we were mostly chill.
|
| But I can claim one thing for sure - people hate security
| checks with passion.
| graemep wrote:
| It reminds be of how after a fire at a tube station a lot of
| people decided to commute by motorbike because of fear of
| fire.
| grishka wrote:
| Airport security never makes me feel safe. It makes me feel
| violated and anxious.
|
| I haven't really flown before 9/11, but I have used the
| subway in my city daily both before and after they installed
| metal detectors and started randomly asking people to put
| their bags through a scanner. I'm deeply nostalgic for not
| having to deal with this utter bullshit.
| afh1 wrote:
| The government who wages the wars and brings its terrors home
| invades people's privacy and comfort in the small amount of
| time they have away from the toll they put to pay their
| taxes, and the people are thankful, after all, all of it is
| for their safety.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Yeah as we've seen with MH370, literally nothing stops the
| pilot from committing mass-murder-suicide at any point. We
| just need to trust that they're not feeling particularly
| depressed that day.
| red_admiral wrote:
| While MH370 is still "officially" unsolved, there were
| definitely industry wide updates to processes after the
| Germanwings crash.
| moffkalast wrote:
| Officially yes, unofficially there's really no other
| explanation.
| stephen_g wrote:
| A lot more people I've talked to about it say the theatre
| makes them feel uncomfortable and intimidated rather than
| making them feel safe. Airport security staff being so gruff
| and expecting people to know what to do (which casual
| travellers often don't), then not being able to properly
| explain what to do and shouting at people...
|
| I really don't buy that the illusion of safety is high on
| anyone's priority list, it's more that a bureaucracy will
| grow as much as it can, employing more and more people who
| might not have better prospects, and no politicians want to
| be seen to be "comprimising people's safety" by cutting
| things back. Then "lobbying" from those selling equipment and
| detection machines probably helps everything keep going.
|
| If it was actually cut back to a proper risk-assessed point
| of what's strictly necessary, people going thorugh would
| think "is this safe not having as much security" for about 30
| seconds and then never think of it again.
| benjiro wrote:
| > Airport security staff being so gruff
|
| More of a issue that power goes to their heads.
|
| Do not get me started on airport security staff in the
| Netherlands that cracked some insulting jokes about my
| nationality. I was not amused...
|
| Or the idiotic "remove your shoes" so we can x-ray them...
| What next, go naked? O, that is what those new scanners are
| for that see past your clothing.
|
| If i can avoid flying, i will ... Its not the flying, its
| the security. You feel like being a criminal every time you
| need to pass and they do extra checks. Shoes, bomb test,
| shoes, bomb test ... and you do get targeted.
|
| The amount of times i got "random" checked in China as a
| white guy, really put me off going anymore.
|
| Arriving, 50% chance of a check. Departing, 100% sure i am
| getting 1 check, 50% i am getting two.... Even won the
| lottery with 3 ... (one in entrance in Beijing: "Random"
| bomb check, one for drop-off luggage, and one for security)
| .... So god darn tiring ...
|
| And nothing special about me, not like i am 2m tattoo biker
| or something _lol_. But yea, they see me, and "here we go
| again, sigh"...
| randusername wrote:
| > More of a issue that power goes to their heads.
|
| I'm sure this exists too, but isn't the mundane rationale
| more likely? That gruffness is inevitable because the
| work sucks?
|
| Overworked, understaffed, the days blur together because
| it is boring, mostly sedentary work. They are ground down
| from dealing with the juxtaposition of their role;
| internally TSA are told they are important because their
| vigilance is heroic and prevents catastrophe, yet the
| general public views them with annoyance if not disdain.
| _Everyone_ they interact with is impatient, and at the
| that scale of human interaction nobody is really a person
| anymore, just a complication to throughput.
| NL807 wrote:
| >It's about making people feel safe.
|
| It adds stress. I fondly remember flying in the 80s vs today.
| Travelling back then was more chill.
| ghaff wrote:
| Just a lot more people are flying today. Better information
| flows about flights help to some degree but more planes
| that are more packed are on the other side of the ledger.
| andrepd wrote:
| > You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road
| accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist
| attacks far more.
|
| On the contrary, a competent and responsible government
| should counter the hysteria, not enable it. It should protect
| citizens from car crashes rather than making a 18-lane
| highways through residential areas, and it should implement
| effective measures that reduce effective risk _and_ panic
| regarding airline attacks, instead of pushing the fear even
| further with TSA.
| acdha wrote:
| > It's about making people feel safe.
|
| I think this is true but had to be seen in the bigger
| context: the Bush administration wanted people to feel that
| there were threats which required sacrificing things like
| civil liberties, balanced budgets, or not being at war
| because if you didn't fight them "over there" the nebulous
| "they" come here in a never-ending swarm. Even at the time we
| knew that the threats weren't serious but the people making
| those decisions saw it as part of a larger agenda.
| api wrote:
| I think it's simpler, at least for some politicians.
|
| You have to do something. If any other terror attacks
| happen and you didn't do something, then "why didn't you do
| something?" So you do something.
| ghm2199 wrote:
| One man's fear of safety is another man's job safety.
| k2enemy wrote:
| > It's about making people feel safe.
|
| I think it is the opposite. It is supposed to be a visceral
| reminder that we are not safe, and therefore should assent to
| the erosion of civil liberties and government intrusions into
| our lives in the name of safety.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| > It's about making people feel safe.
|
| It doesn't make me feel safe. It makes me annoyed. Since TSA
| are government agents it also pokes a tyranny button for me.
| I despise TSA with a passion and there is not a damn thing I
| can do about it. They also have the gall to offer a paid
| service to get around the delays they cause with taxpayer
| money. If airport security checkpoints need to be done it
| shouldn't be government doing it.
| CorrectHorseBat wrote:
| So how does that explain I can take 10 100ml bottles and an
| empty 1l bottle through security but not 1 full 1l bottle?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The same reason used for WA emissions inspections (since
| suspended). If your tailpipe emitted 99ppm of pollutants, you
| were good to go. If it emitted 100ppm, you had to get it
| fixed.
|
| Good ole step functions.
| krisoft wrote:
| I don't get your point about the tailpipe emissions. Of
| course there is a hard cutoff. What else could there be? Do
| you want them to gently suggest that you should maybe fix
| your car above 90ppm, and then rudely suggest from 95ppm?
|
| The response they can do is that they either let you use
| the car or not let you use the car. That is binary.
| Technically they cannot even do that. All they can do is
| promise you that if you use your non-compliant car and they
| find it out they will fine you. Laws are after all just
| formalised threats backed by force.
| WalterBright wrote:
| > What else could there be?
|
| Charge a fee based on the number of ppm's your car emits:
| tax * ppm = fee to renew your tags
|
| Even better would be to look at the odometer reading each
| year: tax * ppm * miles driven last
| year = fee to renew your tags
| gizzlon wrote:
| You can't, at least not where I live
| opello wrote:
| You have to be able to fit those 10 100mL bottles into a
| single 1 quart resealable bag. At most you'd probably get
| about 9.46 of those 10 bottles in the bag but in practice
| it's fewer still.
|
| 1 US liquid quart is about 946.353 milliliters.
| gambiting wrote:
| >>1 US liquid quart is about 946.353 milliliters.
|
| Why not just say 1 litre and have the same limit as the
| rest of the world.
| opello wrote:
| The surface level answer is "for Ronald Reagan reasons":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act
| mendelmaleh wrote:
| Because we have quart-sized ziplock bags here, liter bags
| not so much.
| gambiting wrote:
| ...the rule wasn't implemented _because_ you have quart
| sized bags, it 's the other way around. Also it's not
| like 1 litre bags would be difficult to make and procure.
| 4gotunameagain wrote:
| > Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.
|
| Then satisfy our curiosity and provide more details as to which
| are the liquid explosives and which common ones are not
| detected ? ;)
| 7e wrote:
| It's obvious. The harder you make it to down or hijack a plane,
| the fewer downed planes you will see. It didn't have to be
| perfect to prevent and deter. Some security is better than no
| security. If you had no security at all you would see planes go
| down all the time.
|
| And it wouldn't surprise me if some of the detection technology
| were classified.
|
| It would not be "great" if governments were more open about
| their detection capabilities; that would cause more terrorism
| attempts and is one of the stupidest things one could do here.
| troupo wrote:
| > The harder you make it to down or hijack a plane, the fewer
| downed planes you will see.
|
| You know that TSA fails in 90-95% of cases and that crowds
| before it are a much jucier target?
| sejje wrote:
| Have those crowds been targeted?
|
| I see similar crowd densities all over the place. I can
| think of easier targets than the airport.
| troupo wrote:
| Indeed, those crowds haven't been targeted, _and_ TSA
| fails to detect 90-95% of tests to bring anything
| dangerous on board.
|
| So what does that tell you?
| breppp wrote:
| most of airport security rests on the notion of going over a
| series of long tests will elicit unusual (fear, stress)
| responses from malicious actors and these can then be flagged
| for even thorougher checks which will then eventually lead to
| discovery, banning or removal of luggage
|
| so it's not the test accuracy by itself but rather then the
| fact that these tests are happening at all
| wedog6 wrote:
| You have surprising faith that the system is well designed.
|
| Malicious actors don't get as stressed as normal people who
| don't want to miss their flight about the long series of
| obviously pointless tests. Why would they?
|
| And there isn't anyone who surveils the queues and takes the
| worried looking for further checks. This can happen around
| immigration checks. It happens for flights to Israel. But not
| in routine airport security.
| _dark_matter_ wrote:
| Why would they? Because they are about to do the thing they
| planned to do for months or years? Because they may be
| risking their own life? Because they're worried about
| getting caught rather than following through? Because no
| matter how prepared they are they have never done that
| EXACT scenario before at that exact airport with those
| exact people? Because the human mind is a lizard brain even
| with training and preparation?
|
| Still not a perfect systems, other countries manage this
| part much better (I've heard Israel is especially good at
| it, but I don't have direct evidence).
| KingMob wrote:
| This kind of thinking is as legitimate as believing lie
| detectors work, i.e., not at all.
| grumbelbart2 wrote:
| Israel is using those methods in their airport security,
| quite successfully given their threat level. The problem is
| that it does not scale well and requires very well trained
| and attentive personnel.
| adrian_b wrote:
| I have not been recently to Israel, so I do not know if
| there have been any changes in their system.
|
| However, some time ago, for a few years I had been a
| frequent flyer into Israel.
|
| In my opinion their system of airport security seemed far
| more efficient than what is now typical in Europe and
| immensely better than the circus that seems typical for
| USA.
|
| The disadvantage is as you said, that their system
| requires numerous well trained personnel.
|
| At least at that time, their system had very little
| emphasis on physical searching and luggage scanning, but
| it was based mainly on interviewing the traveler,
| normally by 2 different agents.
|
| During a great number of security checks, my luggage has
| been searched only once, and it was definitely my fault.
| That flight was at the end of an extremely busy day and I
| was very tired, so I just wished for the security check
| to end as quickly as possible, to be able to finally rest
| in the plane. My impatience was transparent, which made
| me suspicious, leading to this singular case of physical
| searching, instead of just psychological assessment.
| tehjoker wrote:
| These guys turn up a number of "false positives" and use
| those backrooms to abuse Palestinian travelers.
| KingMob wrote:
| No. They might believe it works quite well, though, but
| they're seriously mistaken.
|
| My old neuroscience lab was approached 20 years ago by a
| three-letter agency looking to develop a rapid reaction
| time tool to measure the trustworthiness of new people in
| time-critical hostile situations.
|
| Because of that proposal, I reviewed the literature on
| "lie" detector tests and their ilk. The evidence is great
| for them measuring stress, and flimsy for them measuring
| deception. Normal people get nervous when questioned.
| Psychopaths may show less autonomic responses. People can
| train to alter their stress levels. Data interpretation
| varies wildly by operator, as does accuracy. The only
| real value is trying to convince criminals they work, in
| the hopes they make a true mistake or confess.
|
| tl;dr The accuracy is really low, and anyone arguing
| otherwise is trying to fool the criminals, trying to fool
| agencies into buying their equipment, or fooling
| themselves.
| pcl wrote:
| {{citation needed}}
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > going over a series of long tests will elicit unusual
| (fear, stress) responses from malicious actors
|
| Oh, man. Let me tell you what kind of response going over a
| series of long tests by armed authority figures elicits on
| normal good-intended people...
| bawolff wrote:
| I thought the point of replacing all the xray scanners with CT
| scanners was to be able to detect this sort of thing?
| omnicognate wrote:
| > Average people have never heard of them because they aren't
| in popular lore.
|
| Everything I know about liquid explosives I learned from Die
| Hard 3.
| misnome wrote:
| Funnily enough, that's also all the people who made the rules
| in the first place knew
| fooker wrote:
| These liquids show up as slightly different colors in the new
| CT scan machines and this can finally be reliably detected by
| software.
|
| This is also why a bunch of airports no longer ask you to take
| electronics out of your bags.
| kanbara wrote:
| how does it add confusion?
|
| if normal people don't know, criminals/terrorists do, and the
| materials are commonplace but not screened for, then everything
| about the current approach is wrong.
|
| and when has a plane been brought down by the evil explosives
| or stable liquids in recent memory?
|
| so the theatre put in place is just that, huh?
| davedx wrote:
| On one hand, I think it's a valid criticism to say it's
| security theatre, _to a degree_. After 9 /11, _something had to
| be done, fast!_ , and we're still living with the after effects
| of that.
|
| On the other hand: defence in depth. No security screening is
| perfect. Plastic guns can get through metal detectors but we
| still use them. Pat downs at nightclubs won't catch a razor
| blade concealed in someone's bra. We try to catch more common
| dangerous items with the knowledge that there's a long tail of
| things that could get through. There's nothing really new
| there, I don't think?
| croisillon wrote:
| to nitpick, the 100ml rule doesn't come from 9/11 but from
| 2006 attack attempts
| ubermonkey wrote:
| Lots has been written about this.
|
| The post-9/11 freakout is a GREAT example of the syllogism
| "Something must be done! This is something, so we must do
| it!" -- IOW, a train of thought that includes absolutely no
| evaluation of efficacy.
|
| Security expert Bruce Schneier noted, I believe, that the
| only things that came out of the post-9/11 freakout that
| mattered were (a) the reinforced cockpit door and (b)
| ensuring all the checked bags go with an actual passenger.
|
| The ID requirement, for example, was a giveaway to the
| airlines to prevent folks from selling frequent-flier tickets
| (which was absolutely a common thing back then). (And
| wouldn't have mattered on 9/11 anyway, since all the
| hijackers had valid ID.)
| dfxm12 wrote:
| That _something_ could have been lawmakers going on major
| media saying, unequivocally, that flying is safe, warning not
| to give away freedoms lightly and even making a show of
| flying commercial themselves.
|
| That _something_ didn 't have to include trading freedom for
| surveillance/inconvenience/increased exposure to poorly
| trained LEO's.
|
| The world we live has been shaped more and more by the
| funders of certain politicians and major media to make us
| fearful of boogiemen. The payoff is increased surveillance
| and more authoritarian governments.
| ghm2199 wrote:
| One little know crazier example of how things linger around
| for decades is how the H1B program actually allowed for
| renewals of visa stamps within the US.
|
| After 9/11 the only reason people were made to go to another
| country to do it is because the US State department wanted
| people 10 printed and face scanned at places that had the
| equipment to do them: the embassies outside the US.
|
| Now all airlines are basically human cattle-herding boxes at
| 35K feet for the metaphorical H1B cows.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| There were plenty at the time insisting it was not needed,
| that TSA was an overreaction, that it was clearly grift to
| people connected to the Bush Admin, that we don't need to do
| _anything_ even. They all pointed out that DHS was clearly an
| internal anti-dissent force, to be used against american
| citizens for daring to critique a government of grift and
| lies and authoritarianism taking away our rights.
|
| They were all decried as "anti-american" or worse epithets.
|
| They were all correct of course.
|
| They are all being decried again right now.
|
| It was literally called "The Patriot Act" FFS. You really
| think it was about security?
|
| Note that the reason none of the passengers were ever able to
| regain control of the planes was the exact security measure
| that actually protects us now: The cockpit door. It literally
| doesn't matter what happens in the plane cabin, nobody can
| hijack a plane in the current system.
|
| Again, TSA _currently_ cannot catch someone going through
| security with plastic explosives, _in their own self tests_.
| AndrewThrowaway wrote:
| I believe the "theater" is needed precisely for this - to catch
| bad actors. There could just be a long queue with some blind
| dog and scary looking guy at the end. What it still does is
| makes a bad guy sweat, plan against it and etc. You just can't
| have free entrance for all. However you will never prevent
| state actors or similar with any kind of theatre because they
| will always prepare for it.
| altern8 wrote:
| I'm fine with some liquid potentially being explosives, but the
| fact that security just throws them all in the same bin when
| they confiscate them makes me think that not even they believe
| it makes any sense.
|
| Also, why 100ml? Do you need 150ml to make the explosive?
| Couldn't there be 2 terrorists with 100ml + 50ml? All these
| questions, so little answers...
| Krssst wrote:
| Liquids are not explosive, they are assumed to be used to
| make explosives once onboard.
|
| Regarding quantity, hard to find information, I guess they
| don't want to have a terrorist handbook to making explosives
| online, but I would assume that 100ml would mean multiple
| times this amount would not be enough to make an explosive
| large enough bring down an airplane.
|
| In general, considering the overall cost of the measures, I
| would think that there is a valid reason and that "it does
| not make sense at first glance so it's just a security
| theater" does not hold.
| mrWiz wrote:
| > In general, considering the overall cost of the measures,
| I would think that there is a valid reason and that "it
| does not make sense at first glance so it's just a security
| theater" does not hold.
|
| What's your sense of the overall cost of the measures? It's
| not clear to me if you're saying that high or low costs
| help justify them.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy
| but that isn't going to be happening to liquids in your bag_
|
| There are more ways to find them. Look up Z score. TL; DR New
| detectors can discriminate water from explosives. Old ones
| couldn't. None of them are doing IR spectroscopy.
| sschueller wrote:
| Is a open flame enough to ignite those liquids and don't they
| need something to press against to "explode" and not just cause
| a giant flame like gasoline?
| wiredfool wrote:
| In Zurich, you can buy Swiss army knives in the secure zone.
| xxs wrote:
| That's ok - 6cm blades are allowed. You can also carry it in
| a cabin luggage anyways.
|
| realistically any broken glass bottle can be used as a blade.
| adrian_b wrote:
| Whether they are allowed or not, probably depends on the
| place.
|
| In Germany, at Frankfurt, I had to dump in a garbage bin a
| smaller Swiss army knife, to be allowed to pass.
|
| I had it because my high-speed train of Deutsche Bahn had
| arrived more than one hour late, so there was no time to
| check in my luggage.
|
| After losing the knife, I ran through the airport towards
| my gate, but I arrived there a few seconds after the gate
| was closed. Thus I had to spend the night at a hotel and
| fly next day, despite losing my knife in the failed attempt
| to catch the plane. Thanks Deutsche Bahn !
| xxs wrote:
| >Whether they are allowed or not, probably depends on the
| place.
|
| It's a EU thing, even though the Swiss are outside... and
| I was sure it was a directive until:
|
| _The recommendation allows for light knives and scissors
| with blades up to 6 cm (2.4 in) but some countries do not
| accept these either (e.g. nail care items)[citation
| needed]_
|
| I thought it was universal mostly since I had no issues
| at the airports.
|
| Prior to the 6 cm rule, once I had to run to a post
| office at the airport and mail a parcel to myself with
| the pocket knife (which is also a memento)
| sejje wrote:
| Realistically, you could bring a nub of copper or steel or
| antler, and your glass bottle, and knap an excellent knife
| in a few minutes.
| duskdozer wrote:
| Security theater and conditioning people into accepting
| invasions of privacy
| piokoch wrote:
| Well, I watched the video of some former Delta Force officer,
| who said that you can sharpen your credit card to make a deadly
| weapon out of it. Let's ban credit cards in the airplanes.
| xxs wrote:
| Backpack can have metal reinforcements that would make a
| proper weapon too, Same broken glass bottles and what not.
|
| The entire point is futile and pointless.
| teiferer wrote:
| And yet .. nothing ever seems to happen! Even though it's so
| easy.
|
| That means one of at least two things. Either the terrorists
| are stupid and easily impressed by the security theater. Or
| there are just not that many bad ombres out there trying to
| take down airplanes. Or something else I can't think of.
|
| Any thoughts?
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Drones.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like
| liquids.
|
| My understanding is that those are detected by the bag swabs.
|
| I _thought_ that this was to stop people mixing their own
| explosives _on_ the plane? There was a whole court case in the
| UK about how people had smuggled it onboard and then were going
| to make it in the toilet.
|
| They would need and ice bath, which is somewhat impractical.
| wouldbecouldbe wrote:
| Schiphol at Amsterdam had this for a year or so, you could
| bring any type of liquid and leave everything in the bag. But
| they reverted the liquid rule, if I remember correctly, because
| of the confusion it caused.
| tirant wrote:
| This happened due to a change in regulation in Europe.
|
| Some airports, like AMS or MUC, invested on new machines with
| higher detection capabilities, and decided to allow all
| liquids and improve efficiency in boarding. The EU updated
| the rules claiming those new machines were still not
| sufficient and airports should go back to forbidding liquids.
|
| It was a mess. I remember flying from MUC and being allowed
| all liquids and on my return flight, also from EU, when
| trying to fly with a normal water bottle, security people
| looked at me wondering what the f I was doing: "Don't you
| know liquids are not allowed, sir!?"
| retired wrote:
| Schiphol has been very relaxed. I once had a water bottle
| with probably 200ml of water still in it in my bag. I was
| told to not do that again and they gave me the bottle back.
| aa-jv wrote:
| Its not just for explosives, by the way. Its also for solvents
| - for example, mercury, which could be used to weaken the
| airframe very easily.
| jalapenos wrote:
| I assume the logic was:
|
| 1) People demand the government be accountable for their
| failing to protect them
|
| 2) Government responds by increased giving the appearance of
| protecting them, since that creates more lowest-common-
| denominator sense of feeling safe than the government actually
| protecting them does; votes protected
|
| 3) Complaints of "security theatre" don't alter the above -
| they just have to wait until people have forgotten their fear
| while very slowly, bit by bit, without it being noticed, stop
| doing the nonsense
|
| Or put simply: " _terrorists win_ "
| pushedx wrote:
| One theory that I've had for a while with regards to the no
| liquid policy is that it was somehow introduced by the food
| vendors on the other side of security, who want you to buy a
| drink and some food after you pass through.
| maxerickson wrote:
| 2 part liquid explosives featured heavily in Die Hard with a
| Vengeance.
| angry_octet wrote:
| That was just strawberry jam.
| account42 wrote:
| If those explosives are extremely powerful then do the limits
| actually prevent using them to do damage inside an airplane
| though? TSA isn't even effective at preventing you from
| bringing on sharp metal objects as long as they aren't
| particularly knife shaped.
| Ntrails wrote:
| Maybe I'm being naive, but it has always seemed pretty trivial
| to me to use the post-security shops to assemble something that
| will meaningfully damage the aircraft - so the whole thing
| smacked of theatre.
| shevy-java wrote:
| > It would be great if governments were more explicit about
| precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.
|
| That is a good statement. It IS a theater. So, the point for it
| IS the theater. The "evil terrorists" is just the scapegoat
| wrapper, similar to how officials in the EU constantly try to
| extend mass surveillance and claim it is to "protect children".
| __alexs wrote:
| I think the idea is that the new scanners they have are capable
| detecting liquid densities better so that they can actually
| tell the difference now?
| tushar-r wrote:
| >is reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to
| detect explosives.
|
| I've also had this done on my dialysis port at some airports
| here in India :-|
| Xmd5a wrote:
| Israel strips you naked and rubs the swipe between your legs
| thoroughly. Source: friend.
| Zigurd wrote:
| If you have access to nitric acid you don't need any obscure
| lore. 3 ounces of a simple concoction a high school chemistry
| student could make is enough to blow a hole in an airplane. You
| also stand a good chance of blowing yourself up on the way to
| the airport.
| Teever wrote:
| > This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to
| detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of
| explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives
| notoriously popular with terror organizations can't be
| detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.
|
| I used to work at a place that sold a lot of fertilizers. We
| mostly sold stuff like Monoammonium phosphate or potassium
| nitrate.
|
| One time while cleaning out a back storage room I came across
| an open bag of ammonium nitrate. I picked that thing up,
| carried it around, putting it on a cart and wheeling it around
| kicking up a lot of dust, all the kinds of stuff that you'd
| expect while cleaning out a storage room.
|
| A day or so later I got on a plane and they swabbed me and my
| bag before doing so. I was startled when I didn't raise any
| alarms.
|
| I was completely under the misguided impression they something
| like ammonium nitrate would be detected on a person if they had
| handled it within a few days of being tested and that would
| have to explain myself.
| amelius wrote:
| Because the theater raises the threshold.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| If I recall correctly, it was WIDELY reported by sane, savvy
| people that no such liquid agents existed that could be
| combined onboard in this way.
|
| Are there examples you can point to?
| iambateman wrote:
| Not a chemist...but if someone can carry on 3 bottles at 3.4
| ounces each, now they have 10 ounces.
|
| Two people do it and it's 20 ounces. All within the "TSA
| Standard."
|
| This is where the liquid limit never made sense to me...if we
| were serious about keeping these substances off of planes, we
| would limit the total liquid...right? Or require that any
| liquids get checked.
|
| I just don't see how per-bottle liquid limits are anything
| close to deterrent for motivated attackers...but they sure are
| deterrent for me when I forget that I put a hotel water bottle
| in my bag.
| HWR_14 wrote:
| > It would be great if governments were more explicit about
| precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.
|
| The liquids requirement was in response to a famous (at the
| time) plot by people in Britain to smuggle a two part liquid
| explosive onto the plane. So the context was, at the time,
| obvious and needed no explanation.
| largbae wrote:
| It was always theater, Bruce Schneier did a great set of blogs
| and tests back in the 2001+ time showing flaws throughout the
| process. At the same time, he pointed out that humanity had
| already adapted their response to airplane hijackings _that
| day_ (the Pennsylvania flight). An airplane exploding from a
| bomb is definitely scary, but not as scary as airplanes being
| turned into missiles by a few suicidal passengers.
| juliushuijnk wrote:
| They don't believe these liquids are actually dangerous,
| otherwise they wouldn't just throw them in a bin near the
| queue.
| ortusdux wrote:
| Modern airport x-ray machines use two frequencies and then
| estimate the density of objects and liquids. In theory, the can
| tell the difference between water and vodka. I wonder if the
| change reflects trust in this tech?
| lordloki wrote:
| Is the capability of these explosives at a safe level if the
| liquid precursors are less than 3.5 fl ounces? If they are
| still capable of blowing a hole in the fuselage with less than
| 3.5 fl ounces then the limits on fluids are still pointless.
| helterskelter wrote:
| I remember reading something around the time these prohibitions
| against liquids were rolled out that said none of the two-part
| liquid explosives were powerful enough to take down a plane
| unless you were carrying an unusual amount of liquid to be
| traveling with, or storing your liquid in an unusual way. For
| instance, there should be no reason you couldn't carry an
| ordinary sized bottle of shampoo in your luggage. No idea how
| accurate this is, maybe somebody could set this straight?
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| >powerful enough to take down a plane
|
| Is that the criteria used for restrictions? I don't actually
| know. I guess a firearm falls into that category. Does a wine
| corkscrew? A foam toy sword? A small fishhook? All items that
| are prohibited in the cabin
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Explosives that are inert liquid binaries aren't really a
| thing. That is something Hollywood invented out of whole
| cloth. The chemistry of explosives doesn't lend itself to
| such a form.
|
| Chemical weapons often have liquid binary forms though.
| meroes wrote:
| Are these chemicals freezable? Because TSA lets through large
| quantities frozen matter that is liquid at room temp. E.g. you
| can bring through a liter of hot sauce if it's frozen when it
| passes through TSA.
| avisser wrote:
| After 4 years of Russia/Ukraine, does anyone think that a
| terror group would take down an airliner with anything other
| than a drone? Why take any operational risk of actually going
| through security?
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| The fact that nobody has flown a drone with a hand grenade
| gaffa taped to it right into the middle of some politician's
| security cordon says to me that either a) terrorists are not
| smart enough to go for the low-hanging fruit (and the
| Republican terrorism in NI demonstrates this isn't the case),
| b) it's actually a lot harder to do than that, or c) the
| intelligence agencies are really, _really_ good at stopping
| people from doing that, and even better at keeping quiet
| about it.
|
| I'm going with option C.
| tehjoker wrote:
| It's designed to protect consumer confidence so the economy
| hums along. A single plane is a few hundred people, but the
| effects ripple out. This is a big country, you need air travel
| to make it reasonable to connect the coasts, and the more
| people traveling the more cohesive and economically balanced
| the country is. They were fine with letting 1M+ Americans die
| from COVID to protect the economy. That's really all there is
| to it.
| cromka wrote:
| So, security through obscurity mostly as a smoke show for the
| public, not actual terrorist countermeasure. It's like the TSA
| being unable to detect most traditional weapon in carry-ons.
| Business as usual it seems.
| randusername wrote:
| I would not be surprised if this started out totally unrelated
| to explosives. Say that some toddler spilled an entire 3 liters
| of grape soda all over the plane. Or a hypochondriac brought
| cleaning agents aboard and gave everyone a headache.
|
| Mostly sarcasm, but man do I see this pattern a lot. The risk
| mitigation apparatus is called in for something, they see an
| opportunity to overgeneralize and prevent an entire new
| category of potential mishaps, and the everyday folk end up
| really confused trying to reconcile the rules with their
| intent.
|
| Reminds me of the parable about the bench guards. Is there an
| aphorism for this?
| QuantumFunnel wrote:
| TSA has always been security theater
| GorbachevyChase wrote:
| Why do you make a dog hold a treat on his nose?
| danilafe wrote:
| This is funny because just a few months ago, I was forced at
| Heathrow to chug -- not allowed to pour out! -- my entire water
| bottle that I had filled prior to my flight. The security person
| watched me do it and added, "bathroom's over there".
| PcChip wrote:
| How did they force you to do that?
| lmm wrote:
| Anything a border official says is implicitly backed with the
| threat of, at a minimum, detention without trial and without
| basic humane treatment like access to drinking water.
| Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in
| this).
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| > Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in
| this)
|
| Share with us your best source for this.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| I doubt very much immigration told you to drink a water.
| Hell lost of the time you don't even talk to them as
| they're e-gates and it's remote.
|
| Security might have done, this is nothing to do with the
| border farce.
| alibarber wrote:
| It's probably much more boring. The choice was likely
| between leaving the whole water bottle and its contents in
| a bin of forbidden/discarded items, going home and missing
| the flight, or chugging it, or arranging a courier for said
| bottle.
|
| Probably the act of defiance of pouring the contents onto
| the floor where there was no drain was implied to be
| disruptive and would have lead to harsher sanction for no
| reasonable payoff.
| smcl wrote:
| Heathrow is a fucking miserable place with spiteful staff
| and it would not surprise me one bit if someone decided to
| fuck with a traveller this way. I saw a girl running to
| catch a bus to another terminal for a connecting flight,
| and the guy controller her made an enormous stink about her
| "breathing on me". She was polite and apologetic but she
| got pulled aside and made to wait for everyone else to get
| through, got sternly chastised before being allowed to
| continue (whereupon she missed the connecting bus and
| presumably her flight). Same trip I saw them them shouting
| and swearing at disabled travellers who needed wheelchairs.
| Every other member of staff in the airport was stood around
| fucking with their phones and seemed furious whenever they
| had to do their job.
|
| Horrible airport, avoid at all costs.
| Havoc wrote:
| >Heathrow has well publicised cases
|
| People attempting to enter illegally, not for failing to
| down drinks like it's a frat house...
| bowmessage wrote:
| Why did you allow them to humiliate you like this?
| lmm wrote:
| Because flights are expensive enough that for most ordinary
| people missing one would set them back years or decades
| financially?
| yieldcrv wrote:
| too hyperbolic to take seriously
|
| it would be incredibly inconvenient, and maybe missing
| other parts of a full vacation would set them back, but
| thats not the only reason people buy flights
| sealeck wrote:
| If the median UK salary is >PS35,000 I really wonder how
| arrive at the conclusion that missing a flight will set you
| back "years or decades"...
| lmm wrote:
| > If the median UK salary is >PS35,000 I really wonder
| how arrive at the conclusion that missing a flight will
| set you back "years or decades"...
|
| Ok, now take that figure and deduct tax, housing, food,
| utilities and so on - how much do you think is
| disposable/saveable? And then take the typical cost of a
| last-minute replacement flight and compare those two
| numbers.
| bleepblap wrote:
| there is actually a science change that happened, and it's not
| (entirely) just politicians changing their mind.
|
| The big thing going from X-ray (2d) to CT (spin an X-ray machine
| around and take a ton of pictures to recreate a 3d image) did a
| lot to let security people see inside of a bag, but the hitch is
| that if you see a blob of gray is that water, shampoo or
| something else?
|
| The recent advance that is letting this happen is machines who
| will send multiple wavelengths of X-ray through the material:
| since different materials absorb light differently, your machine
| can distinguish between materials, which lets you be more sure
| that that 2litre is (mostly) water, and then they can
| discriminate
| bleepblap wrote:
| There's a whole ton of people taking about MRI -- MRIs are a
| completely universe than CT/X-rays
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| I think if an MRI was ever used for airport security
| screening it would cause more damage and disruption than the
| terrorist bombs it purports to detect.
| bleepblap wrote:
| It wasn't -- was just noting that people keep saying "MRI",
| when there's no 5T fields around most security checkpoints
| lesuorac wrote:
| Isn't the world of MRIs moving towards lower teslas
| instead of higher?
| hansvm wrote:
| It's trying to, but "low" is still 0.5-1.5T.
| azan_ wrote:
| Both. 1.5/3 T is standard, >3 T machines (such as 5 T
| from United Imaging) are becoming more popular (and
| affordable) and at the same time ultra low field ones
| keep improving and now they make some things that were
| impossible before now actually doable such as bed-side
| MRI (not in clinical practice of course, but there was
| nice engineering proof of concept with ultra low field
| MRI machine that could be powered by normal power
| outlet).
| bleepblap wrote:
| I know nothing about the "industry" of MRIs, but from the
| physics side, (everything equal) more Tesla is better -
| at the end of the day, harder magnetic field gets you a
| stronger signal
| mattkrause wrote:
| Research is going up; clinical is going down.
|
| The idea behind the recent boom in low-field stuff is
| that you'd like to have small/cheap machines that can be
| everywhere and produce good-enough images through smarts
| (algorithms, design) rather than brute force.
|
| The attitude on the research side is essentially "por que
| no los dos?" Crank up the field strength AND use better
| algorithms, in the hopes of expanding what you can study.
| HNisCIS wrote:
| Dual energy x ray has been around forever though, like decades.
| bleepblap wrote:
| Certainly, but a) not at the prices people wanted to spend to
| get 25,000 of them b) not at the maintenance cost for 25,000
| of them c) without the software to (by someone's metric)
| discriminate between shampoo and bomb with enough error
| codethief wrote:
| 25,000? Interesting. Is there anywhere I can read up on
| this?
| bleepblap wrote:
| There are a lot of airports in the Us and 2.5 million
| passengers transit them daily.
| 5d41402abc4b wrote:
| Can this X Ray bit flip memory or damage NAND?
| wiredfool wrote:
| It's a specific liquid scanner that's done on bottles that
| have been pulled aside for extra scanning (at least, that's
| what Frankfurt was doing a couple weeks ago)
| vidarh wrote:
| As far as I know, it's not. You're now specifically told to
| _not_ take liquid out of your luggage.
|
| At least that was the situation when I flew out of London
| Gatwick last time - they had people going up and down
| before the scanners admonishing people to leave everything
| in their bags to avoid delay.
| wiredfool wrote:
| We had 4 bags go through, 3 had liquids (2 water bottles
| and one Barenfang) in them. All three were pulled for
| secondary screening, at which point they put the specific
| liquid bottles in a secondary scanner and cleared them.
|
| So, yes, they stay in the bag, but then they're pulled
| out and scanned separately, at least in Frankfurt.
| vidarh wrote:
| They're definitely not at Gatwick, at least not "by
| default".
| setsewerd wrote:
| I've noticed every airport is different, and major
| airports are usually more likely to have the big fancy
| looking scanners that help keep the crowd moving along,
| without taking everything out. Smaller airports seem to
| have less of that tech and are thus often more of a
| hassle.
|
| And yet somehow, airport security staff frequently get
| impatient when people in line ask whether to remove their
| shoes, laptop, etc. As if the travelers are stupid for
| asking.
| vidarh wrote:
| This is a fairly new change - the new scanners are being
| rolled out "everywhere", but not everyone has them again,
| and there were some snafu's last summer that caused them
| all to be decertified within the EU, and at least for a
| while only scanners from one company had been
| recertified.
|
| It'll probably be chaos for the next couple of years
| while this sorts itself out.
| flambeerpeer wrote:
| Super Mario 64 airport security speedrun strat
| fernandotakai wrote:
| for people that don't get the reference
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj8DzA9y8ls
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The bar for damaging memory is way higher than normal X rays.
|
| Flipping bits is more fuzzy. In theory anything can flip bits
| in working memory.
| ErroneousBosh wrote:
| It can erase EPROMs, so don't send your vintage computers
| through an X-ray machine.
| dingdongditchme wrote:
| it has been such a godsend flying out of Frankfurt where they
| have the new scanners and you don't have to empty out your bag
| anymore. So much smoother. Then I fly back and get all annoyed
| at the other airports. I was told Oslo airport is holding out
| until it becomes regulation to use the new scanners. Security-
| Theater is still what it is. It is super weak imho, despite
| never having seriously attempted a heist or trying to get
| contraband on a plane. I miss the good old days where you
| handed your luggage to a guy just before boarding the plane.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Germany has a very sad and weak airport security story. The
| security personal are hired and paid by the state (Land), and
| thus the state plans their capacity and workflow. The airport
| owner (i.e. FRAport) has no say in their internal work
| organization, as it is basically contracted out policework.
| For whatever reason, most german Airports I regularly use,
| use the same machine and broken workflow: There is only a
| limited amount of containers to put your stuff in to go
| through the x-ray, and the machine itself has an integrated
| container-return system using conveyors. As a result, each
| machine has only a single small table with a container
| dispenser to serve passengers. On that tiny table, only 2-3
| people at the same time can get undressed, get water out of
| their handlugagge etc. Waiting passengers behind them are
| blocked.
|
| I contrast that with my experience in Spain: Several meters
| before the machines, there is a large amount of unoccupied,
| huge tables with containers stacked everywhere, so everybody
| can get undressed and pack their stuff into the container
| trays at their pace of choice. Staff assists and tells the
| rules to individuall travellers. Once you are done sorting
| your stuff into the containers, taking off your belt etc -
| only THEN you take the containers towards the x-ray conveyor
| line. So there is hardly any blocking the line. Instead of a
| container-return system, a single human stacks the containers
| past the scan and returns them to the beginning. This is so
| much more effective.
|
| Classic example of government run workflows: No one cares to
| optimize the workflow, and the one who would benefit from a
| speedup (the airport and the airlines) in terms of increased
| sales, have no say in the process.
| mlrtime wrote:
| >so everybody can get undressed
|
| Wait what? What are you removing?
|
| Flying in the US this week I removed nothing but a winter
| coat. Everything went on as normal, nothing out of bags,
| jut coat off.
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| Probably the same thing as you, but lost in translation.
| Removing jackets, maybe shoes, winter coats, hoodies etc.
|
| Not undressed in the "everything but your underwear"
| sense.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Exactly. Plus belts, watches, removing
| phone/wallet/headphones from your pockets etc. And taking
| Laptop OUT of your luggage onto separate trays, your
| liquids into a clear plastic bag, etc. Very often, during
| that process, the staff members recognize people having
| liquid containers with more than 100ml capacity (shampoo,
| hair gel, etc.) and can tell the people that they can't
| take it aboard etc. I happen to fly frequently to what
| are busy tourist destinations, and especially older
| people seem to be completely unaware of any regulations
| what you can and can't carry along - even though those
| regulation have been in place for 20+ years. That is very
| time intensive.
| missingdays wrote:
| I usually have to remove my jacket, and always the belt
| adrian_b wrote:
| The belt must be removed so that the buckle will not
| trigger the metal detector.
|
| Belts with plastic buckles are normally OK without having
| to remove them.
| guitarbill wrote:
| > Germany has a very sad and weak airport security story.
|
| The system you describe is hardly unique to Germany, so
| this just reads like hyperbole or inexperience travelling.
|
| > Classic example of government run workflows
|
| This I can agree with.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| Well I commute between Germany and Spain and I contrasted
| how those countries have very different systems.
| dingdongditchme wrote:
| Interesting. I can only speak for FRAports Terminal A where
| the Lufthansa flights go and they use the new bag scanners
| where I just need to get rid of my coat and belt to be
| scanned by the infamous "Nacktscanner". The first time I
| went through I thought liquids were allowed from all
| airports in the EU until I found out it was bag scanner
| dependent. Smaller airports are usually OK because queues
| are short and then I have the time to walk TSA through each
| individual item personally. FRAport has started adopting
| the "snake-through-duty-free" before the gate (pioneered by
| Stansted as far as I can tell) which is criminal in my
| opinion (it's not as bad as Stansted yet). Commercial
| workflows are thus not always better when the optimize time
| customer has to spend "not buying" overpriced meals and
| consumer garbage.
| scoot wrote:
| > despite never having seriously attempted a heist or trying
| to get contraband on a plane
|
| So you've tried casually? What does a casual heist look like
| exactly?
| NL807 wrote:
| These machines don't really detect what kind of materials stuff
| is composed of, much of that is just a crude classification
| based on density. True identification requires broadband x-rays
| emission with spectral analysis.
| juggle-anyhow wrote:
| Water, not water is all you need.
| Sheeny96 wrote:
| What if I told you, there is an app on the market
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWwCK95X6go
| user3939382 wrote:
| Forgive my zooming out but the overton window on this topic is in
| the wrong place. Airport security is dehumanizing inconvenient
| and unacceptable. I'd only use planes in an emergency. The living
| memory of what air travel is supposed to be is just gone with the
| sands of time. I don't accept the shit economy version starting
| #1 with the cattle screening.
| purpleidea wrote:
| Heathrow is still a bullshit airport:
|
| 1) Bodyscanners: body scanners are a scam 2) They took away my
| 100ml contain that clearly had less than 1 cm of liquid in it
| because it wasn't clearly labelled as "100ml". Any idiot could
| know it was like 10ml full. 3) They used to do actual xray
| basically on people. 4) You have to re-security to transfer on
| connections! You already could have blown up the incoming plane,
| why does this even matter?
|
| I don't go there anymore. Waste of time and all security theatre
| without common sense.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| A trick I use to bypass the liquid restriction is to
| intentionally pack a sacrificial bottle in addition to whatever
| valuable bottle I care about. In most cases when the luggage
| comes for manual inspection they toss the first (sacrificial
| one) they see and leave the actual valuable bottle alone.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| > Heathrow is still a bullshit airport:
|
| Heathrow has the best Guinness+ in the world - those pumps just
| don't stop.
|
| * if you don't like Guinness, DON'T try it if you've already
| had a different beer/ ale (whatever). Try it before anything
| else or it's worse than the very devil spitting on your buds
| (!).
| al_borland wrote:
| On my last trip I bought some different deodorant, because my
| usual brand was .2oz over the limit. Not sure why the brand
| wouldn't just go with the TSA limit to make life easy for
| everyone. The new stuff ended up staining all my shirts. I
| largely blame the TSA for having to buy all new shirts. Next time
| I'm going to less of a stickler for the rules and hope for the
| best, as following the rules yields poor outcomes. Hopefully by
| that time the new rules will filter out to more airports.
| roschdal wrote:
| I am sure Al-Qaeda will be thrilled about this.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| Well you wouldn't want a thirsty terrorist, would you?
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| Presumably, these CT scanners involve fairly energetic photons,
| and if they're above 100 keV, then that's bit-flipping error
| territory.
| wtcactus wrote:
| 25 years to do this.
|
| I had the luck of traveling by plane quite a bit before 2001 and
| I can tell you it was much more pleasurable. Now, the issues now-
| a-days are not only due to the security circus, it's true. But it
| does play a major role.
| wodenokoto wrote:
| My GF is from East Asia and has travelled almost 100 countries,
| anything from rich first world to poor 3rd world countries.
|
| She was absolutely shocked to find that liquid container limits
| were enforced in northern Europe. She would just put her makeup
| bag with cleansers and gels and everything in her carry-on and
| travel the world.
| nottorp wrote:
| Okay but for personal toiletry stuff you need the rule scrapped
| at both ends of your trip.
| dxdm wrote:
| Don't be sad. One step at a time. One more trip-end to connect
| to other trip-ends. Or do you want to wait with roll-out until
| the whole world is ready to do it at the same time? Always look
| on the bright side of life. :)
| nottorp wrote:
| My deodorant isn't available in those small travel containers
| :(
|
| And it's the only thing i really care about, I can do with
| any random toothpaste and shaving foam that i buy on arrival.
|
| But maybe it will happen in my lifetime.
| dxdm wrote:
| Ok, that's a bummer.
|
| Here's a silly idea that is probably not new to you, but
| just in case: have you looked into refillable deodorant
| dispensers?
| nottorp wrote:
| Eh, I use another product that's bearable to me when I go
| on plane trips.
|
| But I want mine!
| dxdm wrote:
| Then my original advice applies. Don't worry, be happy!
| Can't recommend it enough.
| hdgvhicv wrote:
| Flew through Heathrow a few months ago. Signs flashing on the
| screens specifically saying laptops must be removed, security
| guys yelling "don't remove laptops"
| smcl wrote:
| This was my experience too - they're visibly _angry_ at you for
| following the rules
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| Flying through JFK once, security lines had different rules:
| Line one, laptop in, shoes out. Line two, laptop out, shoes
| stayed. Line 3, nothing out. It was hilarious, because TSA
| agents would talk over each other, confusing the hell out of
| everyone.
| hacker_88 wrote:
| Key and peele
| evanjsx wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHfiMoJUDVQ
| alexfoo wrote:
| And don't rely on the destination airport having the same rules
| when you fly back.
|
| This used to get people doing EU -> London flights. The EU rules
| had already been relaxed, but you got bitten by the extra
| restrictions when you went to fly back.
|
| Like most things, flying is a complete shitshow, but do it often
| enough and you get used to it and all of the foibles.
|
| Regularly flying hand luggage only is a grind as you're at the
| mercy of the lowest common denominator in terms of rules on what
| you can carry. When I had to visit a string of customers with one
| or two flights a day I had to submit expense claims with various
| toiletries purchased several times over, it was questioned by the
| finance department and they asked about whether I should check in
| a bag next time, but they stopped pushing when I said that adding
| a checked bag to my tickets would have been about 10 times more
| expensive than just buying things as and when I needed them.
|
| Hugely wasteful but then so is flying, and most of my trips could
| have been replaced with a video call if it wasn't for touchy-
| feely corporate politics.
|
| Water: I use a generic cycling bidon for travel. I empty it
| before security and they're happy with that. Any sane airport
| will have places to refill it for free, if they don't I can just
| buy a bottle of water and refill it. No airport I've traveled
| through has wanted to confiscate an empty cycling bidon and if
| they did it's cheap to replace.
| mogoman wrote:
| It seems that this is only in place at the security entering the
| terminal. I landed in Heathrow a few days ago and had to empty
| out my water bottle (which I got given on the flight to the UK)
| for the transfer security check.
| RamblingCTO wrote:
| Frankfurt has been doing that for ages (2 years now?). They just
| got better scanners. But they don't cover all terminals or
| checkpoints, so you gotta know your way around.
| wiredfool wrote:
| I don't recall it in Frankfurt last summer, but it was
| definitely going earlier this month. Though, they've got a
| weird security setup for some of the gates, so I'm sure it
| varied from gate to gate. Dublin and Edinburgh have had it for
| a while too, Dublin since last summer. Really speeds up
| security.
| roryirvine wrote:
| Yeah, even small airports like Belfast City have had it for
| the past couple of years. Other London area airports (Luton,
| City, and Gatwick - not sure about Stansted) have had it for
| about as long, too.
|
| Heathrow's definitely a straggler - I'm assuming it was a
| more difficult project for them due to their sheer size.
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| Wonder what effect it's gonna have on duty free economy. I'm sure
| selling beverages is the big chunk of airport's revenue.
| MikeNotThePope wrote:
| Doesn't duty free shopping typically happen after one goes
| through security?
| sokoloff wrote:
| If you confiscate my Diet Coke at security, you have created
| demand for Diet Coke on the other side of security.
| piokoch wrote:
| From the beginning it was a scam to force people to buy 10 times
| overpriced water. Kudos to Brits that they do away with this
| absurdity.
| Halan wrote:
| How is this news? A lot of airports in Europe had had this for
| years and even in England there were terminals within the major
| hubs where this was already the norm
| n4r9 wrote:
| Heathrow is by far the largest airport in the UK, with several
| times more flights per day than any other, and flights to a
| broader range of destinations. So it affects a lot more
| prospective fliers. I looked up European airports and found
| some mention that Rome and Milan also have this new equipment,
| but they're both still significantly smaller than Heathrow.
| Halan wrote:
| Gatwick already had it too, at least a part of it.
|
| The fact Heathrow got 30/40% more traffic than other airports
| in the same continent already having it doesn't make the news
| worth all this noise.
| n4r9 wrote:
| Yes but Heathrow has around twice as many departures per
| day (edit after your edit:) than Gatwick.
|
| This is on BBC news. Heathrow is twice as busy as any other
| airport in the UK. It's the easiest major airport to reach
| from London (other than LCY which is not that "major"). I
| literally know people who are leaving from Heathrow this
| week and are affected by this. C'mon, it's newsworthy.
| Halan wrote:
| Yeah and 50% more than Rome, but overall less than all
| airports already doing it in Europe. This news made front
| page out of two things:
|
| 1) English people do not know anything about continental
| Europe
|
| 2) Americans do not know anything about Europe
| n4r9 wrote:
| Oh okay, you're asking why is it on HN front page rather
| than more generally why is it newsworthy. That's a fair
| point. I suppose it's a big feat of logistics and
| engineering to manage a switchover at such a large
| airport with so many terminals
| gpvos wrote:
| Schiphol had this for a while (several years I think, I don't
| fly often), but they reversed it a couple of years ago because
| European regulators didn't agree for some reason, and now
| liquids are forbidden again (discussed elsewhere in thread). So
| this surprises me and is news to me.
| lavezzi wrote:
| Because Heathrow markets itself as a world class airport and
| they have been woefully behind the times with regards to
| updating their security tech
| gadders wrote:
| I remember the days in the 90's when me and my wife could both
| carry back 5l containers of the local red wine in our carry on. I
| hope that comes back...
| dxdm wrote:
| The free wine on the planes has gotten better since then. ;p
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| The comments here insinuating that airplane terrorism is a non-
| issue would make for a good chapter in Carl Sagan's _Demon-
| Haunted World_.
|
| Yes, after 9/11 airports did introduce _' security theater'_
| methods. That is a fair.
|
| No, worrying about airplane terrorism is not pearl-clutching. The
| most likely explanation for its decline is that the changes the
| establishment made were effective.
|
| The establishment successfully dealt with the difficult problem
| of airplane terrorism, thereby leaving the public free to take it
| for granted and complain about the establishment.
| James_K wrote:
| Are we to worry about train terrorism also? Shop terrorism? A
| person might bring a bomb to any crowded space, it simply is
| not practical to check all of them.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| It's difficult to take down a skyscraper with a train.
|
| Yes, _' shop terrorism'_ can be a problem (see: the UK during
| the Troubles).
|
| I do agree with the implication that society must tolerate a
| certain amount of terrorism to avoid turning into a police
| state. That does not mean that airplane terrorism, without
| strict security, is so rare that we can ignore it.
| kebman wrote:
| This is probably a massive downvote waiting to happen, but
| I have more faith in 9/11 being a controlled demo. Not out
| of evil. Just to prevent New York turning into a giant
| domino show.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| My theory is that terrorists hijacked two airliners full
| with jet fuel, and crashed them into each WTC tower,
| causing the structure to weaken from the heat and fail.
| James_K wrote:
| Neither can most planes given the cockpit is sealed and
| locked. I suppose one could strategically try to take it
| down over a populated area, but that doesn't really seem
| reliable. The truth of the matter is that people can
| smuggle bombs onto aeroplanes relatively easily, and you
| don't see many blowing up. And it's not even entirely clear
| that planes can always take out buildings. The twin towers
| only collapsed because of the slow burn of jet fuel heating
| and weakening the structure. The impact alone wouldn't have
| been enough.
| thomassmith65 wrote:
| Cockpits are sealed and locked today because of
| regulations the establishment introduced in the aftermath
| of 9/11.
|
| If airplane hijackings were as easy to pull off today as
| prior to 9/11 then they presumably would occur with a
| similar frequency. I don't think I've read news of a
| recent hijacking in over a decade.
| alansaber wrote:
| Still not allowed to bring in food, but now allowed to bring in
| unlimited soup? Ridiculous
| ExoticPearTree wrote:
| Where were you prohibited from bringing in food?
| retired wrote:
| Don't give RyanAir any ideas please.
| sdpy wrote:
| > Many agriculture products are prohibited entry into the
| United States from certain countries because they may carry
| plant pests and foreign animal diseases.
|
| > Prohibited or restricted items may include meats, fresh
| fruits and vegetables, plants, seeds, soil and products made
| from animal or plant materials.
|
| https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-
| visitors/agricultur...
| United857 wrote:
| Airport departure security (bringing onboard a plane) is
| different than arrival customs (bringing into a country).
| bkmeneguello wrote:
| There is something I never understood: what if multiple people
| carry the limit of "explosive/flammable" liquid allowed and
| combine it inside the plane?
| ec109685 wrote:
| Defense in depth.
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| If you think you had it bad all these years, you should come and
| visit the Falkland Islands. I will be brief, but I will explain
| what going through the Mount Pleasant Airport (MPN) feel like for
| the average visitor.
|
| For added context: Only one flight by a commercial airline a week
| on Saturday, comes in around 1300, departs around 1500. You miss
| it, you wait another week.
|
| - The terminal is extremely small, the plane that comes around
| can probably fit around 180 pax, you could not fit that many
| people on the check-in lounge, which means a lot of times people
| have to queue outside, even in the winter.
|
| - Check in is sluggish, with the Airline representatives in the
| Falklands calling for check in 4 hours in advance when a flight
| is full.
|
| - After getting your ticket, security will check your bags and
| you will be asked to wait an undetermined amount of time, to see
| if a "random" check need to take place, again, the terminal is
| tiny, people often crowds waiting forever for their name the be
| shouted by some security person.
|
| - If you manage to get passed this part, you are still not safe,
| security can still call your name when passing through or after
| immigration. Even if you are already in the wait lounge. Someone
| might still show up and shout your name.
|
| - Immigration will scan your passport and charge you PS40 for
| leaving the country.
|
| - Now you are actually commit to the security checkpoint (these
| are the same guys that scan the bags on check-in). At any given
| time there is at least 10 in a 5m2 area. You are forced to take
| your shoes, no liquids are allowed, no toothpaste, take all
| electronics out of your bag, take jacket off.
|
| - You are randomly tested for drug and explosive traces (GOING
| OFF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS)
|
| - You may be patted
|
| - All your belongings might be checked at this point as well.
|
| All in all, you could be looking at a 2-hour ordeal from start to
| finish.
|
| Do yourself a favor. Go to Maldives instead.
| secondcoming wrote:
| That's crazy.
| NL807 wrote:
| Dudes must be really bored there
| IshKebab wrote:
| Apart from a lack of space a lot of that is very normal, and
| it's hardly surprising things are a bit janky if they only have
| one flight a week.
| sterwill wrote:
| I flew to Belfast in the mid-2000s. I don't remember the
| security screening as being that unusual (for an American), but
| the terminal architecture was interesting.
| gsck wrote:
| Hearing some of these stories of Belfast its hard to believe.
| Flew out of both Belfast International and Belfast City
| airports last year and they are by far the best airports I
| have ever had the luxury of travelling through.
|
| Out of Belfast I flew into both Heathrow and Stanstead both
| are fucking miserable ordeals.
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Mount Pleasant Complex is primarily a military base, not a
| normal civilian airport. That explains almost everything you're
| experiencing. Civilian flights are effectively guests on a
| military base
| pelagicAustral wrote:
| MoD flights are managed by the Military on Monday, Tuesday,
| Thursday and Friday. They use a larger aircraft where check
| in can take 10 minutes in the same process described for the
| Saturday flight. 190 people can easily be processed in about
| 60 minutes with none of the friction that is added by the
| private company managing the security.
| stirlo wrote:
| Tiny airport, on island with tiny population, thats not a major
| tourist destination, thats subject to competing territorial
| claims, that had a major war fought over it in living memory,
| has extra security requirements and a poor terminal...
|
| I'm flabbergasted, this is absolutely shocking and
| outrageous!!!
|
| I would much rather see the penguins in the maldives!!!
| mvijayaadhithya wrote:
| Good
| kebman wrote:
| Going to Edinburgh Airport, I was reminded that the tiny water
| bottle I forgot in my bag could be a bomb. I just went "Oh jeez
| I'm sorry... Here, have some water! You look like you need it!"
| Then I opened the bottle and drank it. He grabbed it out of my
| hands and said it had to go to some lab. So I went "Ok then, the
| chemical compounds in there are ... H2O and perhaps some
| carbon...? Idk. I'm not a chemist, but I'm fairly sure the worst
| thing it'll do is make me burp."
| Wiles_7 wrote:
| Thankfully, Edinburgh airport has relaxed it liquid rules. You
| are now allowed up to 2 litres, across one or more containers
| and they stay in your bag while going through security.
| mgaunard wrote:
| In my experience the real issue with airports is the border
| control, not the security check.
| Pete-Codes wrote:
| Nice to see them catch up with Edinburgh.
| shevy-java wrote:
| That liquid limit never made any real sense to me; it always
| seemed arbitrary.
|
| Now - I don't think I was ever affected by it in any way, shape
| or form, though I also rarely use(d) the plane. But to me it
| seemed more as if it was an attempt to meta-engineer the opinion
| of people, e. g. to make them fearful of danger xyz. When I look
| at the current US administration and how the ICE deathsquads
| operate (two US citizens shot dead already), with that
| administration instantly defending them without even any trial,
| then this also seems more a propaganda operation - that one being
| more reminiscent of the 1930s supposedly, but we had this wave of
| propaganda before (e. g. both Bush presidents; Noriega capture is
| somewhat similar to Maduro, though the latter situation seems
| more as if the other officials in Venezuela purposefully gave him
| up - watch how the sanctions will be removed in a short while).
| mcculley wrote:
| > it seemed more as if it was an attempt to meta-engineer the
| opinion of people, e. g. to make them fearful of danger xyz
|
| > how the ICE deathsquads operate
|
| Hanlon's Razor applies. These are not complicated conspiracies.
| Just myopic humans making bad decisions.
| bell-cot wrote:
| If anyone's looking for a quick "airport security is mostly
| theater" argument, without getting into the weeds of weapon &
| explosive & detection technologies - notice that pagers and
| similar electronics are _not_ on the TSA 's list of forbidden
| items -
|
| https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/...
|
| - despite their famous use as at-scale, remotely controlled
| explosives devices back in 2024 -
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...
| jiffygist wrote:
| Stupid question as I never flied: does the limit include drinking
| water?
| gorfian_robot wrote:
| Los Alamos is developing these cool resonance based detectors
|
| https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-fighting-f...
| t1234s wrote:
| Which companies were the big winners with all the post-9/11
| security theater?
| CGMthrowaway wrote:
| Booz, L3, Rapiscan, Smiths, Leidos, Verint... their logos are
| mostly everywhere at the airport
| lacoolj wrote:
| I have yet to encounter a reason to take more than 3oz of liquid
| with me on a flight somewhere.
|
| Once the restriction was added, it seemed like "oh no how dare
| you" but in reality, I'm never carrying enough toothpaste to make
| this a problem.
|
| Are other people truly struggling with this limitation? Feels
| more like a perceived issue than a practical one.
| teachrdan wrote:
| In the US at least, the limit applies to _containers_ that hold
| more than 3oz. So I 'm prohibited from bringing an 8oz
| toothpaste tube with an ounce or less left in it. This is an
| inconvenience if I want to fly for a multi-day trip without
| checking any baggage.
| fishywang wrote:
| I was flying out of LHR yesterday (Monday). I read the news
| before so asked the agent at security check "I don't need to
| empty my water bottle now right?" and she was like "nah that's
| only for up to 2 litres in a clear/plastic bottle, not a metal
| flask bottle" or something along those lines. I was using a
| Stanley metal water bottle. So I still had to empty my bottle.
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