> Transportation Security Administration screeners allowed banned weapons and mock explosives through airport security checkpoints 95 percent of the time, according to the agency's own undercover testing.
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/06/us-airport-scree...
edit: I was a bit harsh, I don't have any real issue with the people doing it an it's probably untrue that most would be unemployed. What I really meant was that I find it strange that social programs are often questioned, but spending hundreds of billions on something not really necessary and creating jobs for it isn't.
This.
A simple look at the profiles of known attackers would reveal it's completely futile to screen literal 0-risk travelers.
Getting people to fear and believe that "everyone could be a menace" is a slippery slope and a slap at the core of our legal system (innocent until proven otherwise).
The liquid bomb threat really is the thing that conspiracy theorists would love: it's a totally made up possible threat by the Big State that hasn't been seen in the wild and is used to justify inconveniencing millions of people for no good reason. And yet it's just not talked about.
The fact that this works with so many people makes me warier of them than anyone it purports to protect me against. I don't feel safe being harassed by scowling officials in faux-important uniform.
In my neck of the woods, I have to take out basically everything from my carry-on. Laptop, camera, lenses, you name it, they want it out. Phone, keys, ditto. They usually ask for the belt to come out, too, and sometimes even the shoes. And this is even for internal flights.
LAX, by contrast, aside a circus number with some dogs sniffing people, was AOK. Everything stayed in the bag, the line moved constantly.
San Salvador (SAL/MSLP) was probably the most obnoxious, with a double security configuration for US-bound flights. Basically had to pass through security in Lima, then again at SAL, and due to the config, it meant you couldn't get food in the main SAL terminal and wait at your gate - you had to eat it before entering the "US Zone" and then hope you weren't thirsty again. Also, everything electronic out of the bag, dump fluids, etc.
Heathrow wasn't great. Long lines for security. Also, they had some buggy facial recognition system that couldn't match me (at the gate) to a photo taken a few hours earlier in the security line. And the gate agent was completely clueless about what to do next. They eventually let me board anyways. Not sure what they were trying to accomplish - I had already passed through security, the final face check was at the gate during boarding.
Reykjavik was fine, no different than a US hub. Same for Rome and Lima.
Inverness and Edinburgh had typical checks, but the airports are so small and uncrowded that it's pretty stress-free. The only "problem" I've had a both is the ticket agents tend to show up moments before boarding begins (first flight of day), which gets my anxiety up some - I like to be at the gate relaxing well in advance.
I've watched them dynamically adjust the levels of required "unpacking all your shit" based on how long the lines are getting.
My worst experience was in UK, multiple times, at Manchester airport. So much drama there.
Various airports have different rules.
Dubai was quite lax, you don’t have to take anything out of bags. Maybe they have the new scanners already.
Singapore was more strict, and they do the security check just before the gate which I hated because things like soft drinks etc purchased in duty free had to be consumed before going through (but again, no problem with baby liquids).
I've never known another airport to have this security setup, and as a massive transit hub, I really can't make sense of why they chose to put it at that point - but then again, what of airport security actually makes sense when subjected to reasonable logic?
I don't think we should be equating TSA with DEA and ATF. The latter two are practically military divisions operating domestically, the wars on drugs are unwinnable nebulous things by design to maintain these standing armies ripe for domestic abuse. TSA however does seem to be a security theater jobs program...
War on drugs is just a shitty political campaign slogan everyone fell for. It's a fantastic one from the perspective of the politician, because they'd never be held accountable for 'losing' it during their tenure.
Apparently “spreadable” is one of the criteria. I’d argue anything is spreadable if you try hard enough.
That's exactly what I said.
For all the fuss about whether oat milk should be called milk, there are people of room temperature IQ level intelligence that get confused by peanut butter.
I suspect they just fancied a nice lunch.
Meanwhile I’ve flown a few times with a forgotten pocket knife in my carry on and more than 100mL of water. Nobody died and the plane landed safely at destination.
Although it looks quite similar to plastic explosives the security team had not once a problem with it.
I think it is great that British airports are relaxing their rules, but until that applies to the whole world, I will still arrive 2-3 hours before departure, knowing how unpredictable the situation at some airport security checkpoint can be.
It is almost as if the whole point is to discourage us to fly. It is great if you live in a country with access to high speed trains. Surely beats walking around in your socks or people with no empathy going through your luggage.
Many people are scared of flying and only do so, because they know it's the safest form to travel. If that would change, many people would refrain from flying.
I've had my swiss knife taken off of me when going through security check for the London - Paris Eurostar.
Very annoying, still not sure why it's forbidden.
After experiencing how easy it can be, traveling from the US feels like a special hell with the multi-stage papers checks and endless lines and shoeless security dances.
Would reccommend to anyone who moves servers around frequently.
We're talking about the worst joke of an airport in the world, after all.
The building of it and the budget overrun was a disaster, and demonstrated the worst of infrastructure building in this country, but will happily die on the hill that the result is good, actually. (If we want to get into contenders for "worst in the world", my opening bid is ATL.)
This logic kind of falls apart when you think about it for a minute and:
1. Most airports have water fountains
2. Food and snacks are allowed through security. If it's all a conspiracy to make a few $$$, why aren't snacks banned under similar pretences
3. Many airports are now scrapping the rules with new machines
4. It would imply some sort of agreement between the stores and the security operations at thousands of airport worldwide - all individual agreements or a mass agreement, quite the scheme!
And this isn’t a Brexit thing.
I’ve avoided transiting through Heathrow because of this silliness. Especially as they won’t let you bring big contact lens in your carryon while US/Canada does. Not cool to have it seized mid-journey despite staying airside.
What they are doing is normal and many airports in asia do exactly that.
Shoes we never had to remove shoes or if we had to it was for a very short period of time.
At least that is what they did at Helsinki-Vantaa airport here in Finland. This is what is being used now https://www.rapiscansystems.com/en/products/920ct
As someone who used to visit the west bank for work I've spent many hours in intimidating interrogation, appropriated laptops, missed flights and most recently 3 days in a horrible prison without access to a shower or fresh clothing, after being denied access to the country for completely nonsense reasons. And the security argument is complete BS most of the time, NGO employees get the same kind of treatment.
The Ben Gurion approach really only works well if the border personnel likes you, A.K.A you're of the right ethnicity, which is not a shining example of how it's done right IMO.
The Israeli's have perfected their airport security over the years and it's a multi layered system of intelligence, profiling, observation via camera's and no doubt lots of high tech. By the time you get to security, they know exactly who they are dealing with. You wouldn't get anywhere near there if that wasn't the case.
And as they've learned the hard way in Israel, security checkpoints can also be active targets. A lot of the gaza and west bank border crossings have been targeted in the past. Basically, any concentration of people is a potential target. So if somebody with a bomb makes it even close to a checkpoint, they've already lost. They need to catch people before that.
The chaotic scenes in European and US airports in the last decades where you regularly have thousands of people piling up in front of security checkpoints, kind of drives home just how low that particular threat actually is. It's a security nightmare. Yet it rarely goes wrong. There was an attack in Brussels airport a few years ago and it was pretty awful but that's one of the few times that actually happened. Otherwise what happens at airports is security theater. It's mostly not actually about security but about plausible deniability when things do go wrong.
How to Design Impenetrable Airport Security by Wendover Productions (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y1kJpHBn50, 14 minutes, well researched)
Doesn't appear to have any downsides, appears to be logical, effective, and necessary. Appeals to emotion not withstanding.
If you have any good faith suggestions for improvement after watching this I'd be all ears.
Thou the new scanners didn't like my 3 stacked card decks or the 2 of 250ml "milkshakes".
Funny that the milkshakes needed to be drug tested while my 500mil smoothie was totally fine.
JFK has one of the new machines, but I haven't seen them use it yet.
When I flew through Beijing and had forgotten a can of beer in my backpack (<3 Julebryg), it was flagged on the X-ray, and when they guy found it, saw "it was just a can of beer", he gave it back to me. I guess that works too.
It was weird. I was the only one in line and they sent me through. You can keep shoes and belts on. Ushered into a telephone booth sized device. It had doors on both sides and puffed me with air. 10 or 20 seconds later the green light came the door opened and I walked out.
(I guess they're called "puffer machines") https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffer_machine
https://www.finavia.fi/en/newsroom/2022/new-technology-makes...
When inspecting my luggage she pulled out every single item from my backpack with a glowing look of satisfaction on her face. She checked every single pouch for God knows what. I have never witnessed anything like it before.
When she got to the liquid bag I politely challenged her on the liquid policy which she could not properly explain in her broken English. She then took things personally and became agitated, verbally aggressive and retorted to phrases like: Is this your first time flying? What is your problem??
Her boss was called and he took 5 minutes of his time to explain things calmly and politely. Apparently gels like vapour rub or hair wax are considered liquids. We joked about butter also being a liquid since it's _spreadable_. All was good and I decided to head back to the front desk to have my luggage checked-in instead (liquids were over the allowance indeed).
But the lady I mentioned was high on her power trip and completely ignored my requests to hand back my ID, credit cards, phone, and backpack which were on a tray in her possession (behind the plexiglass screen). I asked twice and she just smirked and ignored it. Her boss also asked a couple of times until the penny finally dropped.
I've been at this airport many times before and have never experienced anything like this before. It's a horrendous abuse of power and overreach. Security inspection staff should not withhold or deposes people of their legal documents or belongings. It's degrading and abusive.
I stole a glance at the screen when my bag passed through one of these--looked like CT. The user can examine and freely rotate a transparent model of what's in the bag.
I always wondered if you could use different energy X-rays to attempt to analyze what things being examined are made of.
The people also apparently were only convicted of bomb-making and nothing to with airplanes (allegedly being arrested to purchasing an airline ticket made the airline charges not stick).
As well as here's what the register had to say after learning about through the trial how the attack would've worked.
> Could the bombs have done that job, in fact?
> The answer, unusually, is yes. The three convicted bombmakers - unlike other UK-based terrorists seen recently - had everything ready to assemble devices which would have had a good chance of getting through airport security as it then was.
...
> Does the liquids limit prevent this kind of attack?
> No, not really.
> It's fairly easy to get round, in fact; a big team of terrorists with boarding passes for many different flights could bring many small amounts of liquid main-charge through security and combine them afterwards, still needing only one detonator, one firing device and one suicide bomber.
https://www.theregister.com/2008/09/10/liquid_bomb_verdicts/...
It's a peculiar airport in general because it's right in the middle of the old docklands on a bit of reclaimed land and only relatively small jets can land there. Unlike the other London airports which are all miles outside central London and serve all sizes of planes.
Fun fact - it's the only major airport in the world that doesn't have a control tower on site (to save space). It is remote controlled from 80 miles away.
