TSA Bans Common Phase Of Matter from Airplanes - news at 11

[frobzwiththingz]

Yep, our security wonderboys have decided that nobody can take any matter in liquid form onto a plane any more. That leaves Solids and Gases still standing. Any bets on when they outlaw those too? What about Plasma? Can i take some of that with me?

Comments

[lyonesse.livejournal.com]

i thought gasses were already banned?

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

no, just some specific examples, like "no butane canisters", etc.
(oddly, many of them are really banning the liquid phase, i.e compressed butane and propane). I've seen kids with helium balloons on board.

[sol3.livejournal.com]

What are they going to do about the roughly 70% (give or take) liquid i've got going on in my body? Between spinal fluid, cranial fluid, blood, etc.... : )

ugly bags of mostly water

[dietrich.livejournal.com]

You so beat me to it.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

This will be exciting the first time someone with a baby and a supply of expressed breast milk is told it is not permitted on the plane. Screaming, extremely hungry infants on airplanes are such a joy for all concerned.

And then, for even more excitement and possibly extra bonus lawsuits, there are all the people with essential medication in liquid form. "I'm so very sorry, Ma'am, you may not take your insulin on the airplane."

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

You can bring breast milk, but they will make you taste it, is what they seem to be saying.

[ceo]

There are exceptions for breastmilk, formula and medications, I'm told.

[gosling.livejournal.com]

That's noble of them.

Do they intend to have people taste their injectable and topical medicines too?

[gosling.livejournal.com]

Then again I tend to assume that the primary motivator for most bureaucrats tends to be trying to avoid lawsuits (at least when I am in a rather cynical, cranky mood, which I certainly am at the moment.)

[dilletante.livejournal.com]

i would dare you to bring a plasma onboard, but knowing you, you might do it.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

Give me two empty cans of soda from the drink service, a set of the earphones they hand out for movies, the blunt knife from the dinner they served, a couple of plastic coffee cups, a couple of soda straws, some tape, and a cup of water, and i'll *generate* the plasma for you while you read your favorite novel.

[deguspice.livejournal.com]

Can you demonstrate this at the next Craft Nite?

I think I remember you diagramming one of these devices, but I've never seen it in operation.

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

If he does, I definitely want to be there. :)

[koshmom.livejournal.com]

You are allowed to take enough of your medicine that you need for the actual flight. So if midflight you have to take meds, you will have them.

I'd be surprised if they don't relax these requirements a bit after a week or so. Like enable you to bring water aboard, if the water bottle was bought at the airport and was sealed with some sort of shrinkwrap before they sold it to you.

But then, if the explosive substance is one where you add water and it goes boom, they might not want that. Airplanes/jets can make you awful dehydrated..

[spinrabbit.livejournal.com]

Aaaaaaaaangh! Rrrgh! Our transatlantic flight will be so bloody pleasant without water bottles.

And of course this doesn't actually accomplish much besides tremendously inconveniencing everyone, since there's no easy way to tell whether the liquid in the prescription bottle is actually the medication.

If the explosive substance they're worried about is something where you add water and it goes boom, then they might as well cancel all >2hour flights right now.

[donnad.livejournal.com]

Just heard on the radio that they are confiscating gel deodorant and toothpaste as well. And talking about a ban on all carry-on baggage.

[drwex]

I understand that it looks stupid, but I don't see any alternative. Let's assume that what they're saying is correct:

- you've arrested a group of individuals who are known to have the wherewithal to bring a liquid explosive aboard a plane and successfully detonate it in-flight.

- you know that these people planned to disguise the liquid as a common allowed liquid, perhaps a soft drink or sports drink (gods, the colors).

You don't know which liquid. You don't know that you've arrested all the people who are involved in this plan. Let's say you arrested three teams but you damned well remember there were four teams on 9/11. You also don't have the technology in place to detect this form of deception. You believe that if another group exists then they'll likely attempt to carry out their plan before they, too, are detected and captured.

What would YOU do?

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

What would YOU do?

First thing i would do, (if i really believed this to be an actual threat, rather than a report that will be later shown to be in the same class as the *last* three "terror cell" plots that turned out to be complete overreaction) would be to move the machines that scan all of the checked-in bags for explosives such that they would be used to scan *all* baggage, including the checked in stuff. TSA *claims* that all checked in baggage goes through such a scan. If so, there's no reason why they can't do it for the checked-in stuff as well. (indeed, some airports i've been through *do* do this)

That's a start.

I hate to start sounding like a conspiracy nut, but dammit, the timing of this smells decidedly fishy. Before i assign a truth-value of anything more than .05 to this supposed plot I want to see, at the very least, a list of who was arrested, a description of exactly *which* binary-phase explosive was going to be used, and either the evidence bags containing said explosive components or seized documents containing the details of where said components were going to be procured.

I'm not holding my breath waiting for any of that. It's pretty sad that the above is my reaction to this, but given the last 5 years of total incompetence, and willful mismanagement and blatant manipulation of intelligence data shown by our fearless leaders, combined with their recent crying wolf, that is where i am.

What, exactly, would *you* do, if, by chance, some "terror cell" decides that they are going to blow up some planes somewhere, by using a binary mixture that they will smuggle aboard the plane hidden in butt plugs? Do you think it is reasonable to submit to an anal examination to get on a plane?

Feynman Problem, for those suitably inclined: Given that this post will undoubdtedly be indexed on the Web somewhere, calculate the chances that anal probes will be required for boarding a domestic airline flight in the USA within the next 5 years.

[drwex]

yes, I completely grant that this could indeed be an overblown nothing. But I'm proceeding for the moment on the assumption that it's serious because the consequences of error in one direction are much higher.

And I agree, the timing stinks. I completely believe that the authorities will manipulate event timings. However, I also believe that real terrorists will change their own timings due to events like the war in Lebanon.

I further agree that the actions of the administration in the past five years have been the equivalent of crying wolf for political expediency. If this news had appeared a few days before primary day I'd be much less likely to credit it. I just can't see what political gain comes from this particular timing (as opposed to, say, October).

That said, your solution assumes the use of large, heavy, expensive, and slow machinery that is not universally deployed. I don't think it's a possible solution.

Your argument appears to me to be "this is either a false alarm or vastly overblown so no action is required." If you believe the threat is false then I agree the response is ludicrous. My concern is what one would do if one believed the threat to be credible.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

That said, your solution assumes the use of large, heavy, expensive, and slow machinery that is not universally deployed.

No, it involves the use of large heavy machinery that according to the TSA, *is* universally deployed. TSA was quoted today as saying that all checked baggage goes though an explosive-sniffing scan. Of course, it will be hard to move the machines around. But it would be less hard to move the baggage around. Annoying, certainly. But one heck of a lot less annoying than having your luggage lost, and now having *none* of your personal effects available for who knows how long. Something that will now be happening to several hundred, if not thousands, of folk per day. [needs to look up current lost-baggage stats again]

Still, i would like to know your thoughts on the butt-plug bomb scenario. They *already* make you take your shoes off, so saying that it is too far-fetched a scenario won't hold water.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

some googling and hunting around on the DOT and BTS websites shows that it is on the order of 10,000 lost/mishandled reports per day. US carriers had a 7.73 per thousand passenger rate of mishandled/lost baggage in december of 2005. The number seems to vary by almost 50% on a month-to-month basis. The stats i found werent broken down into lost vs damaged. In any case, there's still going to be a whole heck of a lot of annoyed people.

[drwex]

You mean do I think that's a plausible scenario? Not too plausible, though if you'd asked me some years ago whether people swallowing dozens of balloons full of raw heroin and then vomiting them up once through customs was plausible, I'd've said "hell no."

Or do you mean "is there a situation in which you'd be willing to believe that anally carried materials posed a realistic threat?" Then sure, I'll grant that desperate people will do desperate things. I've read reports of prisoners storing shivs there so yeah I guess it's possible.

Or do you mean "given that you believed it was a credible threat model would you find mass cavity searching to be a reasonable response?" Um, maybe. Very maybe. I'd have to be convinced that external detectors were insufficient first.

I find the analogy with shoes fallacious.

[frobzwiththingz.livejournal.com]

I meant the third option. You believe that it is a credible threat model, either because an investigation has turned up credible plans for such a future action, or because a group of folk are actually caught *trying to do it* at some point in the near future.

What do you find to be fallacious about the shoe example? Both scenarios are of someone attempting to smuggle explosives onto an airliner by hiding them very close to ones person. Because one idiot tried to do this using the ball of their foot as the hiding place, we all now have to take our shoes off before we get on planes. I'm asking if you think it would be reasonable for eveyone to get anally violated in order to get on a plane if some *other* idiot decides to try the Shoe Bomber routine, only they hide the explosive device in their butt. For the purposes of this question, you can assume that external detectors are not technologically feasable at this time.

I'm assuming you've seen this:

[(Anonymous)]

http://cosmicvariance.com/2006/08/12/liquid/

[r-ness.livejournal.com]

Whoops, that was me.