this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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[–] [email protected] 359 points 3 months ago (11 children)

The TSA is something that shouldn't exist in its current form. They very often fail their audit checks and normalize invading your privacy to an extreme degree like body scanners and pat downs. If water bottles are considered potentially explosive then why dump them on a bin next to a line of people where they can go off? This is low grade security theater that inconveniences passengers at best.

[–] [email protected] 109 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's security theater through and through.

Apart from the obvious failings of these checks, think about what kind of damage a single backpack of explosives can do to a packed airport during holiday season. You can literally put a ton of explosives on one of those trolleys, roll it into the waiting area and kill 200 people easily. No security whatsoever involved.

Reality is, most security measures are designed to keep the illusion of control. Nothing more. Penetration testers show again and again that you can easily circumvent practically all barriers or measures.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago (4 children)

The goal is not to stop the people in the queue being attacked, its to stop someone boarding a plane with the means to hijack it

[–] [email protected] 54 points 3 months ago (1 children)

They fail gloriously at at that too.

Whenever they get tested the red teams manage to smuggle in everything needed to hijiack a plane plus a kitchen sink.

The few times that terrorists tried to board planes, they made it through security and were caught by other passengers.

[–] FinalRemix 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

That's what's changed. Before, a hijacking meant a free trip to south America or Cuba. Now it means you're likely to die if you don't stop the hijackers. A planeful of pissed off passengers determined to live are gonna stop a would-be hijacker.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Yeah, and you don't need the TSA for that. Just do as they already do: lock the cockpit.

[–] w2tpmf 5 points 3 months ago (5 children)

Little known fact: many of the pilots behind those locked doors are armed as well.

The Flight Deck Officer program allows pilots to volunteer to become deputized Air Marshals. They receive training and are issued a badge and a gun.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They had to do something about the plague of people hijacking planes with bottles of water.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago

IIRC water happens to appear similarly to a lot of explosives on the metric they use for what the composition of items in the scanner is.

Improvements are being made though so soon we may be allowed to take water through unrestricted:

Why Airport Security Suddenly Got Better (13:01) https://youtu.be/nyG8XAmtYeQ?si=RTjA8GRuZaMIJs9d

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I’ll drown him! I swear to god I’ll drown him!

[–] Maggoty 4 points 3 months ago

Ah yes, it's okay if we die, just don't take the corporate infrastructure with you when you go...

[–] [email protected] 91 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's basically the only type of jobs program that both sides of our broken government can agree on: petty nonsense that looks like it might do something useful, but really doesn't, and only inconveniences the poors.

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[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The main reason that rule still exists is to sell overpriced water. Otherwise they could just ask you to drink some of it to prove it's water.

[–] cactusupyourbutt 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)

you are allowed to take empty bottles with you, just saying

[–] [email protected] 25 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Some airports have no place to refill and have only hot water in the toilet sinks. It's inhumane.

[–] LustyArgonianMana 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Which airport? I have never ever experienced this.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I can't remember which one it was. Maybe Munich?

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

This happened to me after a lunch break going back into the court room for jury duty. Didn't think about my soda until I got to the checkpoint, used to the TSA's mentality so figured the rest of it was forfeit. She just tells me to take a drink to show it's valid. Respect for people doing their job correctly, and using common sense.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago (2 children)

According to the story I heard as to the origin of the "no liquids over X amount" rule, years ago there was a terrorist that tried to smuggle hydrogen peroxide and acetone - which can be used to rather easily synthesize triacetone triperoxide (TATP, a highly sensitive explosive) - onto a plane in plastic toiletry bottles. They got caught and foiled somehow, and then the TSA started restricting liquids on planes. This was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, if I recall correctly.

And I happen to know, from a reliable source, of someone who accidentally made TATP in a rotary evaporator in an academic lab. So it seems plausible.

Not that the rule is actually effective prevention against similar attacks, nor that the TSA even knows what the reason is behind what they do at this point, haha. I just thought it was an interesting story.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

hydrogen peroxide and acetone

So there are worse cleaning chemicals to mix than bleach and vinegar

[–] lightnegative 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I believe you're mixing up acetone with acetic acid

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

No, acetone and peroxide, and generally a small amount of HCl as a catalyst. Makes triacetone triperoxide (TATP). It’s a primary explosive, but far too sensitive for real legitimate work. It’s primarily used by terrorist organizations because it’s easy to acquire the material and easy to make. The infamous shoe bomber had TATP in the soles of his shoes, fortunately the TATP wasn’t completely dry and that’s why he had trouble getting it to go off.

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[–] bitchkat 2 points 3 months ago (2 children)

At least they haven't taken away our shoes. And is there a limit to the number of 3 Oz bottles you can carry?

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 3 months ago

It's because all the shops inside want you to buy their shit.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (5 children)

The main reason why it exists is to provide jobs. The number of people who work at the TSA at every airport in every state...no representative wants to cut those jobs.

[–] [email protected] 51 points 3 months ago (3 children)

I fucking hate that this is a thing. "We can't stop doing this useless and/or detrimental thing, look at all the work it makes for other people to do!!!" Absolutely bonkers that it's just a standard political argument.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Agreed. I’d rather they be paid that wage NOT to bother me.

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[–] not_woody_shaw 9 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Same thing with medical insurance. It shouldn't exist but it pays a lot of people's salaries.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The worst part is if people only worked two or three days a week corporations would still be profitable and everyone would have a job.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

i once heared something like this:

"the idea of having more than those who have nothing is the very only reason shareholders can ever imagine someone would work for at all, thus they also falsely believe they would do something good when enforcing this by removing everything from those who already are vulnerable and thus create a living example of how you would end when you don't help them rob even more."

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[–] Maggoty 5 points 3 months ago

We could always use more traffic enforcement. Just switch them all over.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I mean if a state removed the TSA and spent the money on something else, surely they could use the money to create as many jobs as they removed but in an actual useful field.

[–] idiomaddict 6 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But would the TSA workers vote for them?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Probably not, but the people who just got a job maybe would.

[–] idiomaddict 2 points 3 months ago

I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I wouldn’t vote for a republican who got me a job, and I probably wouldn’t vote for anyone who got rid of my job (unless they were otherwise really great). So at least for me, getting rid of the job means you lose my vote and replacing it doesn’t necessarily gain my vote.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Could we pay them to dig a ditch and fill it back in again? It'd be just as useful.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

No, it'd be more useful just on account of the harm they are not doing. I don't give a rat's ass what they do instead, hell, do a huge UBI experiment and just let them chill. Might as well.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

If it’s just for the jobs we can put them to work doing something useful like carrying bags for old people in the airport. Literally anything would be more useful.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

They treat people like cattle because they are protecting the airplanes and the airline's liability, not the people onboard or in line to board.

If people think it's unsafe people won't pay up to fly.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I recently realized that I have been boarding planes for years with multiple boxes of razor blades in my carry-on.

...Not a single checkpoint picked them up.

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