TSA Changes Screening Based on Blog Suggestion

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."

Prediction

[ezzzD55J (697465)]

The blog will close (or be neglected) in a month or so after the flood of complaints become too much for them. They might blame the abundance of unreasonable or irrational people on the internet for having a blog up not being practical. (Actually I think it is true a blog is a terrible medium for handling complaints - use a ticketing system instead.) I hope not though, this looks really great on the surface. What's the catch?

What is this strange substance?

[stupidflanders (1230894)]

In other news, TSA is looking in to claims that some inspectors were unfamiliar soap, shampoo and other personal hygiene products...

Re:What is this strange substance?

[xoundmind (932373)]

In other news, TSA is looking in to claims that some inspectors were unfamiliar soap, shampoo and other personal hygiene products...

They read Slashdot?

RTFS

[moosesocks (264553)]

It's right there in the summary.

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.

Bullshit answer from TSA

[Shadow-isoHunt (1014539)]

The "binary explosive" plot involved TATP, triacetone triperoxide. Synthesis of AP requires time, ventilation, and an ice bath. The precipitate is NOT a liquid, it is a crystaline organic peroxide.

See: http://roguesci.org/chemlab/energetics/acetone_peroxide.html [roguesci.org]

Take two bottles onto the plane?

[itsdapead (734413)]

But that complexity, from what I can gather, is precisely the point (according to the TSA blog post) of restricting the liquids in secure areas of airport terminals.

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!

Re:Take two bottles onto the plane?

[niiler (716140)]

I especially liked this part:

The preparation of these bombs is very much more complex than tossing together several bottles-worth of formula and lighting it up. In fact, in recent tests, a National Lab was asked to formulate a test mixture and it took several tries using the best equipment and best scientists for it to even ignite. That was with a bomb prepared in advance in a lab setting. A less skilled person attempting to put it together inside a secure area or a plane is not a good bet. You have to have significant uninterrupted time with space and other requirements that are not easily available in a secured area of an airport. It adds complexity to their preferred model and reduces our risk, having the expert make the bomb and give it to someone else to carry aboard. They are well aware of the Richard Reid factor where he could not even ignite a completed bomb. Simple is truly better for them. Also, bomb-makers are easier for us to identify than so-called clean 'mules.'

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.

Problem is with hijacking, not bombing.

[v(*_*)vvvv (233078)]

The true threat with aircraft security is hijacking. A hijacker can take over an aircraft and use the plane as a missile. As someone pointed out earlier, if the goal was to just kill people, terrorists could just blow up prior to reaching the security check point or suicide bomb a crowd somewhere else. There are plenty of places to just blow up that would kill more people that can fit on a plane.

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.

Dear Customs People Throughout The World...

[pandrijeczko (588093)]

...I have it on good authority that there are an extreme minority of well-dressed Cthulhu-type cultists who are planning to cause air travel chaos and disrupt as many flights as possible over the next few coming months.

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

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm a frequent flyer, and fly around the world. By far, and I really mean by a far far way, the U.S. has the WORST experience you can ever have in an airport, and it's not just the security. I've been stuck in Dhaka Bangladesh without being told what was going on, and didn't feel as screwed as I sometimes feel in the U.S. (Full disclosure, I'm an American living in Japan, I might think twice about pulling off the same thing in the U.S. I did this in Japan.)

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

[Registered Coward v2 (447531)]

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.


Ask you for a date?

Re:No win situation

[freedom_india (780002)]

No.
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.

 

Re:No win situation

[Garridan (597129)]

I regularly wear two almost identical fleeces -- one has a zipper, one does not; also, I fly rather frequently. I've noticed that security *always* asks me to remove my zippered fleece, and never requires me to remove the one without the zipper. Every time, I think that I should wear a trench coat, and nothing more. They ask me to remove my coat, and I calmly comply, and proceed to the metal detector... but something tells me I'd get in *much* worse trouble than indecent exposure...

Re:No win situation

[Silver Sloth (770927)]

There's no place in this world that I want to go to that I can't drive to within a week or so.

Try driving from Europe to the USA or vice versa - Ok it was done in 'The Long Way Round' but it wasn't easy.

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.

Re:I don't see it as a suggestion board

[$RANDOMLUSER (804576)]

The TSA is yet another bloated and overbearing government organization that will never go away. The employees are unionized which furthers the impossibility of removing this mess.

Indeed. I loved this howler from the liquids blog:

Whatever you think about our policies -- please recognize our Security Officers who train and test every day and will do whatever it takes to make you and your families safe when you fly. They are the best in the world and are on your side; please give them a little recognition when you see them.

Puhleeeese. Anybody who's ever flown in the US knows that the TSA is an inner-city jobs program. The notion that you're going to achieve security by having drones check things by rote is laughable. Had all this mechanism been in place on 9/11, the terrorists would only have had to be slightly more careful than they were, and they still would have succeeded.

Re:Liquids and a /. car analogy.

[aristolochene (997556)]

regular drinking alcohol (i.e. 40-45% by volume) will not ignite if you put a match to it. It requires pre-heating an strong flame source to get it to burn. (Try making a molotov cocktail with room temp vodka, a rag and a match and you won't get very far).

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 /. analogy of cars is required here - you *cannot* prevent a car being stolen (or aeroplane being blown up), the more you secure you make it , the more tempting a target it becomes to high-end thieves(committed, organised terrorists). But that doesn't mean that locking the doors and setting the alarm (x-rays and searches) is a bad idea......

Re:Liquids and a /. car analogy.

[SharpFang (651121)]

But that doesn't mean that locking the doors and setting the alarm (x-rays and searches) is a bad idea......

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.

40% will burn, when preheated

[langelgjm (860756)]

As the other poster noted, you have to preheat the alcohol. I make "cafe brule" for special occasions, which is basically coffee mixed with brandy, orange extract, and sugar. In order to ignite the brandy, which is standard 80 proof (40%), you heat it in a saucepan for a few minutes. After that, taking a match to it creates a nice blue (and extremely hot) flame, that's actually quite difficult to put out (it takes more than walking by). It's quite impressive when done in the dark, especially when you stir it, and remove a still-flaming spoon from the mixture!

Re:Liquids and a /. car analogy.

[ta bu shi da yu (687699)]

Wow. What a waste of good booze. What's with you people? Drink it - don't burn it!

Re:Liquids

[somersault (912633)]

:O the reason is that George Bush believes in man-made Global Warming, and is trying to cut down on pollution by removing unnecessary weight from planes!! *gets dragged away by men in dark suits and shades*

Re:Liquids

[russotto (537200)]

The given reasons (August 2006 Heathrow plot) for the liquids restrictions are bullshit. The real reasons are highly classified.

Yeah, but the document was misplaced and found by a reporter. Here's what it said

TOP SECRET/TSA/NOFORN EXCEPT UK,CA

Page 1/1

1.1 Rationale for TSA liquids restrictions policy

This section intentionally left blank.

Re:What about the rest of the world?

[CaptainZapp (182233)]

Unfortunately this practice of having all the electronics out has now spread to the rest of the world

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.

Re:Didn't know?

[ta bu shi da yu (687699)]

Precisely. I find it quite amazing that there are "field offices" who can just make up policy on the fly. I'm even more amazed that little or no information is being shared between offices and the main operations!

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.

Re:Didn't know?

[ta bu shi da yu (687699)]

Oh come on. Surely they have an operational manual? When they create policy or decide what needs searching, surely they would communicate this back to head office. If the electronic devices they were looking for were so dangerous, why weren't they notifying the main organization as to their concerns?

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?

Re:Didn't know?

[afidel (530433)]

It's not that the devices themselves are a threat per se, it's that the complex xray signature of an electronics device with a battery makes it difficult to interpret what you are seeing when there are things above and below them. Therefore they have you remove them to get a cleaner picture of both your luggage and the devices. I'm surprised this isn't national policy considering that laptops are already singled out to the point of them having to be out of any type of satchel.