Slashdot Log In
TSA Changes Screening Based on Blog Suggestion
Posted by
Soulskill
on Fri Feb 08, 2008 05:19 AM
from the hey-they-actually-listened dept.
from the hey-they-actually-listened dept.
hhavensteincw writes "Less than a week after it launched a new blog aimed at gathering suggestions from air travelers to improve airport security processes, the Transportation Security Administration changed a practice where some screeners were requiring passengers to remove all electronics, including Blackberries, iPods, and cords from carry-on luggage. Seems the TSA didn't know this was going on, and after the question was raised on its blog, it clamped down on the practice. The TSA also provided a detailed description of their reasoning behind the liquids policy. We discussed the opening of the blog last week."
Related Stories
[+]
TSA Opens Blog — You Can Finally Complain 370 comments
I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "The TSA has opened their own blog. According to Ars Technica, it's beginning to attract complaints from people who are sick of removing their shoes and having to forfeit their drinks. 'The blog's first post has 131 comments so far, almost all of which fall into one of two categories: TSA employees who got the internal memo about the blog launch and dropped by to post positive things, and citizens who are really mad about the liquids screening policy.'"
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Didn't know? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Didn't know? (Score:5, Insightful)
If this is the level of coordination to protect U.S. citizens from being blown up, then I think that there's a big problem with this agency.
Imagine it. They found out about this from a blog. They don't appear to do regular reviews of field offices (else they'd have known about this practice). What else is slipping through the net? Terrorists?
What a monumental and sterling example of bureaucratic incompetence.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Didn't know? (Score:4, Informative)
I flew quite a bit back then, and on one trip went through security at at least three airports. Each of them had different "shoe rules", and at one I was pulled aside for additional screening because I did not remove my shoes. I argued with the supervisor, but of course nothing came of it. Two weeks later I flew again and actually had the TSA printout with me when I went through the same airport. Did not matter. Argued again with the supervisor.
So I emailed the TSA about my encounters and they sent me back a generic email saying that each airport had the ability to pretty much do whatever in the world they felt like doing.
Part of the response:
Parent
Re:Didn't know? (Score:5, Informative)
Just remember: head office didn't know that they considered these things to be dangerous. Let's say, for a second, that the devices were a danger. Why would only a few local offices checking them and not everyone?
Make you feel any safer, knowing that they are too disorganized to communicate concerns about what they felt were risks?
Parent
Re:Didn't know? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Prediction (Score:5, Insightful)
What is this strange substance? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What is this strange substance? (Score:5, Funny)
They read Slashdot?
Parent
Re:What is this strange substance? (Score:4, Funny)
Which is why they think that only a terrorist would carry them in his luggage.
Parent
RTFS (Score:5, Insightful)
No policies were changed as a result of blog comments.
What *did* happen was that a few bloggers indicated that TSA employees were searching bags in a manner that is prohibited by the TSA's own rules.
Given just how much organizations like the TSA love rules and procedures, the fact that they clamped down isn't a surprise at all. Although it's a big step for the TSA to actually be accountable to its own rules, we still have a long way to come.
If I walk into Safeway/Kroger/Food Lion, and tell the manager that one of their cashiers is stealing money out of the register, there's no doubt that he'll respond immediately. If I walk in and tell the manager that his store is dirty, and that prices are too high, I doubt I'll receive any sympathy.
What about the rest of the world? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What about the rest of the world? (Score:5, Informative)
No it didn't. Except for the laptop, which you had to take out of its bag and put into the xray tunnel in a separate tray for years now I never had to take out any electronics out of my bag, or coat (iPod, 2 cell phones, power adapter, cables, whathaveyou...). I also never had to take off my shoes or other such shit.
This involved a minimum of 80 inter-European flight segments in the last couple of years, involving the airports of Düsseldorf, Prague, Zurich, Amsterdam and Vienna. All pretty sophisticated, modern airports.
I can imagine though that different rules are applied on flights from Europe to the US.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
CDG is a huge airport [look at it on GE] - in various stages of upgrades, etc.
Your mileage definitely varies depending on your sector of the airport, with D probably being the worst, and the one you came through.
The other areas are surprisingly intuiative.
In regards to shoes and belts: you can opt to leave your belt on, but more often than not, the clasp sets off the detectors.
Shoes are a mixed policy depending on the type of shoe. If it's got a heel, normally yo
Bullshit answer from TSA (Score:5, Informative)
See: http://roguesci.org/chemlab/energetics/acetone_peroxide.html [roguesci.org]
Take two bottles onto the plane? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except the argument went something along the lines of:
Q: Why can't we take more than 100ml of liquid on board?
A: Because its possible you might mix up a binary liquid explosive on the plane!
Q: So why can't several people work together and each bring 100ml of binary explosive makin's?
A: Because you need the other people to carry the ice bath, liquid nitrogen, bunsen burner, pipette, magnetic stirrer, thermostatically controlled heater, fume cupboard and all the other lab gear you need to successfully mix up a binary liquid explosive; so making them carry the ingredients in several 100ml bottles is going to be the last straw that makes them abandon their dastardly plan!
Q: But they could all bring on small quantities pre-mixed explosives?
A: No, because liquid explosives are too unstable to carry pre-mixed.
Q: So you're confirming that its nigh-on impossible to blow up a plane with liquid explosive?
A: (mumbles) - we've found several bad 'uns manufacturing TATP.
Q: Correction - you found pieces of several people who attempted to make TATP in the comfort of their own homes - oh, PS, TATP isn't a liquid.
A: Oh look - butterfly!
Parent
Re:Take two bottles onto the plane? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what they are saying is that with top of the line equipment, even their experts had a tough job of it. I'm not sure how this helps their argument at all.
Parent
Problem is with hijacking, not bombing. (Score:5, Insightful)
If hijacking is the real threat, then the cockpit is what needs to be secured. Have it lock automatically prior to boarding, and have it unlock automatically after the plane is emptied. If terrorists can't get to the cockpit, then they cannot take over a craft.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
creating a widespread fear of flying would be something that would benefit a terrorist
Creating a widespread fear of going to the movies, riding on trains/buses, visiting shopping malls, sending your kids to school or going to sporting events would also benefit a terrorist.
Should we break out the gestapo and start making people take off their shoes to do any of the above mentioned activities? Where does it end? I'm more afraid of my own Government at this point then I am of any terrorists. The worse thing a terrorist can do to me is take away my life. My own Government seems to be wor
Dear Customs People Throughout The World... (Score:5, Funny)
These cultists are ardent students of the Book of Genesis in the bible who consider that all evil stems from Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden who were tempted to pluck a fruit from God's tree by the Devil in the form of a serpent.
The emblem of this fruit is carried openly upon the mind control boxes possessed by these cultists, who frequently gather in Starbucks and Internet cafes, openly displaying this emblem in order to attract other cultist colleagues into terrorist quangos to plan their revenge upon the rest of us.
Therefore, please keep an eye open for smartly dressed people carrying little white boxes bearing an apple emblem on them - they are not to be trusted. Remove their boxes from them and stamp on them, find out where they live, break into their houses and smach up their huge designer coffee tables and African dance memorabilia.
They MUST be stopped!
Airline travel made amusing (Score:5, Interesting)
Long story short, I got really fed up with the way they handled my carry on, and insist on going through my personal belongings. I fly out of a local airport, and I KNOW that they know me (they see me once a week) and I know them. One day when I had time to spare, I went to the airport early on, and had sweet revenge. I had a laptop in my carry on... along with 3 rather vigorous vibrators, rigged to turn on at full speed when they opened the bag. Inside the bag I also had a homosexual porno magazine, along with a few tubes of personal lubricant, condoms, and latex gloves. Apparently dildo vibrators do not show up in that exact shape on the X-Ray machine, but the motors, wires and controllers, along with the batteries, sure do.
Security: "Can we open your bag?"
Me: "As if I have an option?"
Security: "Sir, this is security. We must open your bag for security purposes."
Me: "Like I said, I don't have a choice now do I. Just make sure you put it all back in place."
The following expression of the officer, along with his mixed reactions as to what to do next, were pure Kodak moments. I really, really would have paid good money to get a copy of the surveillance camera video!! He first tried to close it and just return it to me, then he realized that he better check it out since he was the one that said it had to be done. I think he took about 0.8 seconds of a "thorough" inspection, then closed the bag. However, that wouldn't turn the dildos off, and they were still buzzing away, quite audibly. I gave him the "turn them off. All of them." look, and he fumbled again attempting to get all 3 turned off. Next Monday I fly out again. I can't wait to see what they'll do this time.
Re:Airline travel made amusing (Score:5, Funny)
Ask you for a date?
Parent
Liquids: BS (Score:4, Informative)
Was this a real threat? Yes, there was a very serious plot to blow up planes using liquid explosives in bombs that would have worked to bring down aircraft.
And this is utter horseshit. If someone walked onto a plane with a water bottle filled with nitroglycerin, it would blow up when they tossed it through the XRay machine. So, they would have to make the explosives on the plane, and one of my best friends is a professional chemist and she said "Bullshit". You'd have to hole yourself up in the bathroom for a very long time with a magnetic stirring plate, a very precise dropper, dry ice, and a number of other bottles cups and things, and then in a very programmatic manner make the stuff, all while heaving and bucking on a jet liner and being exposed to some very nasty orders and chemicals. In short: it won't happen and isn't gong to happen and the threats about it are pure bullshit.
The TSA is just there to make people think the gov't is doing something about terrorism, and to keep people afraid. In fact, it's all bullshit, and a way to funnel huge sums of money into the military/industrial complex and keep the nightmare train rolling down the rails to an oblivion as it is headed directly off a cliff.
RS
Wow! (Score:4, Insightful)
Kudos to the TSA to spend the time and resources to do something like this. It blows my mind that, in my opinion, a government agency did something practical for once.
On liquids (Score:4, Insightful)
Previously Covered on Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:No win situation (Score:5, Informative)
What reasonable suggestions come by, TSA will implement it.
Unless TSA wants to be scrapped completely(being a creation of Bush), they will continue to work with passengers.
TSA does not know everything that goes on in each airport. Its management by exception. they set broad guidelines for safety and leave it at that.
Airport TSA contractors then try to fulfill those outlines, and use whatever means necessary to achieve it.
If it involves strip-searching lindsay each time, so be it is the attitude of contractors. And TSA itself pays them based on the non-incidents they have. So if a contractor was pretty lax and allowed Reid to blow up something, then TSA would not only cut them out of the gracy train, but also blacklist them, thus making sure the contractor stays in line.
Pretty much every government office works that way.
The good point is TSA is taking suggestions seriously enough to warrant direct interruption in contractor jobs to make sure passengers are not complaining.
To what extent this direct intervention would go on, is the question. It will stop when someone gets through security and then TSA comes down hard on even clothes (So the nudist flight company has a field day), or berefit of any incidents, we may even go back to the 1999 era slowly.
Parent
Re:No win situation (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
(extra points for wearing an Afro wig, and mincing about like Richard Simmons once you drop the trench coat.)
I don't see it as a suggestion board (Score:3, Insightful)
In other words, the passengers can alert the TSA to practices that don't seem right and its up to the TSA to find out why. Like the part about removing electronics and such from bags. It simply wasn't policy. Yet the TSA as a whole cannot know what every airport out of the ordinary unless there is some easy to access place to get that information. Its even better that it comes from someone other than their own people. I bet the local screene
Re:I don't see it as a suggestion board (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
Re:No win situation (Score:4, Insightful)
If you are European and don't want to visit the States occasionally, or if you're American and don't want to visit Europe, then I would suggest that you need to expand your world view.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No win situation (Score:4, Informative)
While regularly scheduled passenger service is not available, there are places you can go to seek passenger accommodations aboard cargo vessels. It's not The Love Boat, but it didn't look nearly as uncomfortable as steerage^Wcoach on a passenger plane.
Note to
Parent
Re:Liquids and a /. car analogy. (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, stronger alcohols (80-90%) will ignite. And for that reason you'll have a tough job taking them on board a plane (and this goes back way before 9/11). You could possibly try and use aftershave / perfume, but the overpowering smell would probably alert people before you get a chance to make a molotov cocktail.
There simply is no way of covering every single eventuality and still ensuring an economically viable transport system. The whole point in airline security is to prevent some of the obvious risks.
The
Parent
Re:Liquids and a /. car analogy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless you spend over 15 minutes in front of the door fumbling with the multiple locks and alarms, you call in locksmith twice a month to let you in, and you got arrested twice for attempt to get inside your own car.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Those represent two very differnt types of dangers - someone armed with a knife would be a lot easier for passengers and flight crews to subdue, even with makeshift weapons such as pens, laptops, and fire extinguishers etc. Given today's climate I doubt passengers would be passive anymore in the face of such a threat - witness what happened to the guy who tried to
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
40% will burn, when preheated (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Liquids and a /. car analogy. (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The given reasons (August 2006 Heathrow plot) for the liquids restrictions are bullshit. The real reasons are highly classified.
Re:Liquids (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Liquids (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:MacGyver? (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Mountain moving. (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:Mountain moving. (Score:4, Insightful)
Which is one of the reasons I left Illinois.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe in a lot of cases is has as much to do with the attitude of the person being screened as the screener.