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This just adds confusion as to the purpose of all this.

The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me.

These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but that isn’t going to be happening to liquids in your bag. This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives notoriously popular with terror organizations can’t be detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.

It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.

Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater.

TSA Chief Out After Agents Fail 95 Percent of Airport Breach Tests

"In one case, an alarm sounded, but even during a pat-down, the screening officer failed to detect a fake plastic explosive taped to an undercover agent's back. In all, so-called "Red Teams" of Homeland Security agents posing as passengers were able get weapons past TSA agents in 67 out of 70 tests — a 95 percent failure rate, according to agency officials."

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/investigation-breaches-...

I find it interesting to contrast this with my experience flying out of China. I was taken to a private room and shown the digital colored X-ray of my bag on which a box had been drawn around an empty lighter, I was asked to remove it myself and hand it over, and I went on my way. All in under 5 minutes, no pat down, no fuss, and no one physically rifled through my belongings. (Granted I was a tourist so that might well not be typical.)

I'm not sure what their success rate is when tested by professionals but the experience definitely left me wondering WTF the deal with the TSA is.

This sounds like my experiences in Toronto. It’s less adversarial than the experiences I've had in the U.S.

My experiences were basically a form of, “Hey we saw something that caught our attention and might be an issue. Let's work through addressing this."

One case it was a handful of 3.5" galvanized nails. "Whoops. Okay, so, this bag used to be my makeshift toolbag. My other one ripped and I had to get one last minute--" "No problem. Can you remove them? You can either surrender them to us or we can get them mailed back to you, but I'm guessing it's not worth it..." I was so defensive because to me it looked bad but they weren't actually after me in the way I thought they'd be.

The second time was that I had an "Arduino Starter Kit" full of bundled up wires and random chips and such. Once they saw the box they didn't even ask me to un-shrinkwrap it, and unlike the nails, didn't re-x-ray the bag.

Both times they rotated their screen and pointed to the box framing the item in question on the colourized x-ray.

Meanwhile, the TSA looks at me like I'm, at best an annoyance, and at worst a criminal, when I ask them to inspect my camera kit manually (film, not digital). And that inspection consists of swabbing 35mm film canisters - like, the shell of a 35mm roll is going to tell them anything useful?!?! It's a complete sham.

I guess they're probably operating on the assumption that at worst a few short nails stuffed in a small film canister are no worse than the metal handle from a rolling suitcase.

The swab is for common explosives. The canisters are a bit on the small side but I guess could still pose a threat if packed with high explosive and a bit of shrapnel.

The apparent annoyance (or worse) is the part that gets me. The entire process just feels needlessly adversarial. At least they didn't insist on patting you down or emptying out your bag!

Worst and most aggressive pat down I have ever experienced was in Toronto for no reason that I can think of, so I have learned to be stoic about all interactions with gate keepers, regardless of country. You never know when someone had a bad cup of tea just before the met you.

New York is the worst security I've ever come through for just being needlessly horrible. Like screaming at people because they didn't literally put their feet on the "footprints" on the floor.

Toronto was fine. Just a slightly incredulous conversation about how we could take 3 weeks off to travel Canada.

Only time I have ever been shouted at by personnel in an airport was at JFK.

That's just a New Yorker's way of saying "I love you and want you to get home safely".

They thought I had a gun in Toronto airport and were surprisingly calm about it. (I didn't actually have a gun.)

Flying back from Beijing, I had bought a lot of books. I filled my bags with it, so they were very heavy. When the agent came to try to check my backpack, he casually grabbed it, and fell on the conveyor belt trying to lift it. He looked at me with shock. "I'm done", I thought. He opened the bag, and saw a box of zongzi the university gave me, on top of the books. He instantly became radiant, gave me a pat on the back, and just indicated the way.

If I were him, I'd have let you bribe me with a zongzi. Those look delicious!

I know it's a joke, and they probably get only a tiny minority of cases... but the Chinese government makes a huge show of executing people that do stuff like this.

> the Chinese government makes a huge theater of execution people that do stuff like this.

This sentence has a critical grammatical error, but I can't figure out what it was supposed to say.

Execution should be executing

Also not sure about the usage of theater there. I'd probably swap it out for "show". Never heard theater used like that although it is pretty close to a standard idiom, "to make a show of something".

Thanks, changed both.

Once at a security checkpoint to a museum in Shanghai, they saw my water bottle, and then told me to take it out and drink from it.

In the 90's USA was sensible. I was flying with a thermos of hot coffee in my carry on. As soon as they took out the thermos and felt the heat radiating from the lid the agent said, "I don't think they would heat it", smiled and passed me thru.

Now when I fly I have to be careful. When they ask purpose of visit I say sightseeing. I used to say tourist, but with my accent that once caused alarm when the agent thought I said terrorist.

I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for saying "I'm here for terrorism"

On the other hand, if somebody said "I'm here for terrorism" and the immigration officer laughed that off, imagine the shitstorm if that person turns out to be a terrorist.

For the individual employee the cost of wasting someone's time by escalating the case and detaining them is zero, the potential cost of letting someone slip by is realistically tiny but potentially huge

The point is that the situation must be really crazy if we reach a point where someone (mostly foreigner) saying "tourist" is being confused as to saying "terrorist". Airport are full of tourists, and exactly 0 person on the planet would reply with "terrorist".

>and exactly 0 person on the planet would reply with "terrorist".

Unfortunately you give your fellow humans way too much credit.

Much like the people that rob a bank by writing a note saying to hand over all the money... on the back of their own deposit slip.

So when an immigration officer makes an error parsing the tourist's words, you think the security protocol ought to be to let the tourist pass through the gate?

> I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for saying "I'm here for terrorism"

Its like those stupid questions on US immigration forms, e.g.

"Do you intend to engage in the United States in Espionage ?" or "Did you ever order, incite or otherwise participate in the persecution of any person ?"

It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who should answer yes will really answer yes ?

Might as well just turn up at the immigration desk, slap your wrists down on the counter and invite them to handcuff you .... why bother with the form !

> It's like, really ? Do they seriously think someone who should answer yes will really answer yes ?

No, they do not think anyone will check 'Yes' to that box.

The purpose of the box is that it's a crime to lie when someone checks 'No', and that tends to be an easy charge to bring.

So, the purpose of the form is to generate convictions for lying on the form.

> the purpose of the form is to generate convictions for lying on the form.

Yeah but if the immigration officer has reason to question you about those sections of the form then surely they have more than enough evidence of the underlying crime anyway ?

No they’re playing the long game. It’s for if they need to deport (and/or jail) you later.

Lying on a customs form is a valid reason to revoke a visa, and it’s an open and shut case.

Is traveling to the US for the purpose of engaging in espionage not also a valid reason to revoke a visa?

Yes. And murder is illegal. And yet, Al Capone was in Alcatraz on tax evasion charges.

Intent to commit espionage is not a crime (but committing or attempting to commit it is) Lying on the form is. It is probably easier to demonstrate intent to commit espionage than to catch them in the act.

Wouldn't it be easier to make those things illegal and then prosecute them instead of the lie? For prosecuting a lie you need to prove 2 things, the thing lied about and the lie itself, so it seems like a more difficult prosecution for no reason. Also how does every other country in the world manage to not have these questions?

That crime alone wouldn’t give you a basis for denaturalizing and deporting people who commit certain kinds of crimes.

This is what happens when a legal system and a political system is taken over by specialists with little to no other skills.

Instead of politics being about setting policy to work toward desire outcomes, politics becomes about ensuring the viability of future political processes. Instead of the legal system being about defining crime, establishing punishment and carrying out said punishments it becomes about ensnaring others in legal "gotcha" moments like lying on a form. Society is not safer because of the outlawed nature of lying on a form. Society is not better off because someone is convicted of lying on a form. The individuals who participate in the prosecution are better off because it gives them an opportunity to advance their career.

> Also how does every other country in the world manage to not have these questions?

You sure about that? Many other countries have what would be considered odd questions on their forms.

Also, saying "every other country" is a mighty wide brush. There are a whole lot of countries where the rule of law doesn't come first and they can simply do what they want if they suspect you of anything regardless if they have a law or not.

Making false statements to federal officials is itself a crime. The intent of having those sections is to be able to have legal recourse against people that lie on them, which hopefully deters people that would lie on them from attempting to immigrate in the first place.

Believe it or not it’s a question on the pre-clearance form for travel to the US: ”are you or have you ever been a member of a terrorist organisation” - I always wondered what the rationale for that was

It's easier to deport people for lying on their immigration form than for having been a member of a terrorist organization

But to prove lying you would have to prove being a terrorist anyway...

No, being a member of a “terrorist organization” and the government allows itself latitude in defining that. It’s much easier to associate someone with an organization than to show personal acts of terrorism.

Right but to demonstrate that you lied about X they have to demonstrate X. So by the time you're deporting someone for the lie you could just as easily have deported them for the thing itself.

You're making assumptions the thing they lied about and the thing they are being deported for are the same, and quite often the thing you're actually being deported for is not a reason to deport anyone at all.

You come to the US and make a social media post saying Trump is a big fat dummy head.

You get deported for lying about being in a terrorist organization.

Is that actually a realistic example? I’m having trouble following what’s happening in the US

100%.

This pattern of government behavior is everywhere. One common one is the yellow sheet (form 4473) for buying a firearm in the US.

Here is an example of a question

> “Are you an unlawful user of, or addicted to, marijuana or any depressant, stimulant, narcotic drug, or any other controlled substance?”

No matter the state law, federal law says it's illegal.

So, what happens. At some point you buy a gun in Colorado. Then lets say you get on the news and talk about legalization, or you talk about anything that catches social media popularity and someone in the government doesn't approve of. Well, you better not have any record of a marijuana purchase anywhere, or pictures of you doing it because you've just committed a federal crime and the ATF/FBI can kick down your door as they please.

Member of a terrorist organization. Did you protest for Palestine action? Then you're a member of a terrorist organization, and they don't have to prove you did any terrorism or planned any terrorism. It's a form of thoughtcrime.

I liked the “have you been in contact with someone with Ebola” questions the kiosk used to ask people entering Canada.

I’m like, uhhhh, I dunno, maybe? A little late to inform me that I was supposed to be asking/testing everyone.

If I knew the answer to that was yes I'd already be at the hospital ...

It could probably be part of the premise for a gag in a hypothetical Liar Liar 2 after Jim Carrey haphazardly finds himself mixed up in one 30 minutes earlier in the movie, so there's that.

> I always wondered what the rationale for that was

One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. An easy way to keep communists out of the country.

And we've seen how easy it is to expand that list with "antifa" groups just recently, with antifa groups in Germany having to deal with their banks closing their accounts because the banks were afraid of getting hit with retaliation in their US business.

There were no liquids rules in the 90s.

The US embassy in London do this. You can take liquids in, as long as you drink from them at security.

I am a strong believer in the "low-tech" solutions for this kind of thing. I seriously doubt the terrorist suicide bomber knows if drinking the explosive is going to prevent them from taking the mission to the end (ie. they will die in 5 min, in 30 min or in 24h), so they will start panicking when asked to drink from the bottle.

Was it just you? Or do they apply the same policy for every visitor with a bottle of liquid?

Just a guess but at a museum I assume they're looking out for vandals. If it's a water bottle the counterpart would be something like concentrated sodium hydroxide in which case a single sip is sufficient.

Not sure how they would handle dye in a paper coffee cup though.

This is/was fairly common, I've experienced it on the Chinese subway a few times and I've seen a few clips of it happening online. No idea if it's official policy or not, though.

I saw them do this to a few others in line.

So if a suicide bomber can drink explosives, they will be fine. As long as it's not poisonous within a few hours, should be no issue.

[flagged]

That is the way!

Flying out of HK after visiting SZ, I was quietly and quickly surrounded by men with guns after my bag was xrayed. I like nice clothes, especially neatly laundered and pressed shirts. I had an Altoids tin with a few brass collar stays for those shirts. Brass. With a pointy end.

When I was kid long before TSA was even a thing my family flew up to visit the grandparents. My mom had us pack our own bags with some of our favorite toys. My brother decided to bring his Megatron, but sadly left it out of Robot mode. It was quite a scene at the X-Ray when every single agent in the area came running with guns drawn at once.

Interestingly, I had the exact same experience leaving Shanghai - I had picked up some nifty lighters at the wholesale markets. They took me to the room, had me take them out, and I was lucky enough to be able to hand them off to a friend who was staying. No fuss, waiting, or intimidation. They just took care of my honest mistake.

I was flying out of Chicago and I had a big metal bolt that was hollowed out to store pills inside. They showed me the scanned image, and you could see everything clear as day - steel bolt, hollow core, Xanax.

I flew into the UK once with a small nerf pistol. Going in, no problem. Going out I was asked to remove it, lol.

Heathrow is annoying in that you need to go through security every time you change terminal (or enter one for the first time when arriving internationally).

Had to go through security 4 times in a day due to a colossal fuck up by an airline.

Each time they flagged something different on a different person. Still no idea what they were looking for in a purse 3 of 4 times.

It’s wildly inconsistent and I kinda doubt it’s intentional fuzzy logic.

The different Heathrow terminals have different security requirements. I suspect it’s based on countries they fly to from each terminal, but it could be age if equipment.

It is frustrating for security to act like you’re a total idiot for following a process another terminal says is fine (like leaving very small electronics like Kindles in your bag).

Oh, well.

Indeed. Other airports in Europe even have separate terminals or areas for Schengen and non-Schengen destinations, with passport control and sometimes security scans again between them.

Bonus points to Zurich (Schengen but not EU, just to test the edge cases) - I think they have an airside metro where each car is segregated for a different security category of passenger.

I had exactly the same experience in 2008, the year of the Beijing olympics. It seemed futuristic then and I can only assume their technology is even better now.

A lighter is very different from a weapon. I'm sure they can see everything they need to see with X-rays. Do you think they find a white guy flying out of China to be a likely terrorist? (I'm assuming you are white or asian.)

I've never had a bad experience with TSA but I hate taking off my shoes and all. I really question the value of those security measures.

There are countries that for whatever reason do not allow lighters on airplanes.

One time my bag was searched furiously because they saw a lighter on the machine, but had trouble locating it. Took two people about 15 minutes. Finally found it. It was very tiny.

Can depend on the lighter. A $1 plain lighter is fine in some countries while a $3 pressurized “jet” lighter is often prohibited.

I haven't had any particularly bad experiences with the TSA either but I have been physically searched a few times. The entire process is definitely slower and more involved. The contrast of that coupled with the published failure statistics just leaves me wondering. I'd rather we got rid of them but if we must keep them I think we could do at least a bit better.

Almost every time I've had a secondary search I've thought "Yeah, I can see how that looks suspicious on x-ray". A large block of cheese as one example.

My two favorite pull-asides were for a three inch toy cannon my son brought back from a civil war site and my 18 inch plastic roller I carried to the Boston Marathon. I was allowed to proceed with both but the roller required a supervisor's approval and the cannon actually had to go up two levels.

You don’t have to take your shoes off anymore!

> Do you think they find a white guy flying out of China to be a likely terrorist?

What does skin color have to do with this? And yes, oppressed groups in China, like the Uyghurs, have support in the west. Among white people.

Maybe the winning strategy is comprehensive mass surveillance which flags you in a database long before even showing up at the airport and then the security theater just provides a suitable pretense for an arrest.

> What does skin color have to do with this?

It affects their perception of how risky you are, obviously. Accurate or not.

In fact, security tech in China will openly classify you by race/ethnicity.

Of course according to the US government terrorists are now white US citizens, so you could say they have become more open-minded.

Yes, although the US is genuinely one of the least racist places in the world, that's more about how bad the rest of the world is.

In China the CCTV view just tags you up as Han/Uyghur/African/whatever. Nobody would even think twice about it.

There's not even a forum to discuss it, not because it upsets people to be confronted, it's just so casual and matter-of-fact it'd be strange to even talk about. Like of _course_ the Uyghurs are the dangerous ones.

The same Uyghurs in the US would be judged by theie religion und be tracked down by ICE

> Correct. In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled.

This is oft repeated, but as a federal job, the bar is at least slightly higher than those typical AlliedUniversal/Andy Frain/Etc mall cop guards you see all over the place. I have no doubt that many are incompetent, but I think it is a big unfair that it gets singled out as a "jobs program" given that the bar is on the floor industrywide for security.

An interesting comparison would be FPS, which is the agency that does security checks for federal buildings, also under DHS same as TSA. They are armed despite many of them having an indoor only role (a few do patrol larger campuses outdoors). Thus, I suspect the requirements are somewhat higher. They are generally more thorough in my experience, except for one time where they did not notice one of my shoes got stuck and didn't go through the X ray, which is funny because they insist on all dress shoes being scanned as they have a tiny metal bar inside. The same shoes go through TSA just fine.

> This is oft repeated, but as a federal job, the bar is at least slightly higher than those typical AlliedUniversal/Andy Frain/Etc mall cop guards you see all over the place.

Cool. So the TSA sucks up all the people slightly overqualified to be mall cops, which prevents them from outcompeting all the barely qualified people for those roles. And thus the barely qualified can have a job as a mall cop.

So, sounds exactly like a jobs program.

> as a federal job

Aren't they all contractors?

No, none of them are federal contractors. They are direct employees but not sworn law enforcement. You apply on USAJobs.gov and go to FLETC for training, although the topics are very different than sworn/1811s going there, ex no firearms training. Some airports, SFO being the only notable one iirc, choose to contract their own security as an airport/municipal contract with TSA approval, in which case TSA only staffs some executive/oversight roles. Occasionally you see staff in green DHS uniforms rather than blue TSA ones, such as the dog handlers, however I believe they are still under TSA, not sure if they are armed though as it is not the typical blue TSO/STSO uniform.

I assume the technology part (secure flight) is heavily contractor run like most govt/defense technology, one of my old coworkers was briefly involved in that. Didn't say anything interesting about it beyond that they used one way fibers to upload the data into classified systems for processing without anything going back to the main system. The basic workings of the system are described in the SORN/PIA notices though IDK how up to date they keep them.

> They are armed despite many of them having an indoor only role

Are the outdoors more dangerous?

By outside I mean some of them actually drive around in patrol cars and within their premises would make arrests for any trespass or other crimes. The ones I had the occasion to interact with were just doing badge/visitor approval and baggage screening. A checkpoint officer could of course have the occasion to use force, but so could TSA and they are unarmed and generally do not use force, deferring to local police.

I routinely conceal large bottles of liquids on my person while going through airport security. I've probably gone through airport security in various places with a 1.5L bottle of water more than a hundred times now. Haven't been caught once, although of course the US-style scanners could presumably defeat this.

Same with hot sauces, perfume and the occasional bottles of wine. I really don't like to travel with a checked-in luggage, so this is a frequent problem.

Luckily I own lots of Rick Owens clothes with large hidden pockets.

As for me, my our bags have been taken off the line to be inspected the last 3 times someone in my family forgot large toothpaste tubes in their carry on.

A plastic water bottle isn’t triggering a tsa pre check metal detector. I’m totally doing this next trip

They could theoretically revoke precheck for doing this, but my guess is they won't because it is a believable accident (just like people leave them in their bag all the time) and given that the sign warning about firearms mentions that even that is just a five year suspension, not permanent, my guess is they wouldn't even bother for an harmless item.

I've never done that yet I've never had any trouble finding water past security or even on a plane?!

Airport prices in the UK for recreational travel work like so:

Flight from London to Barcelona: £16

Bottle of water past security: £5

Train to airport: £26

Taxi enters drop-off area for 30 seconds: £7

A person who wants to get the advertised flight at the advertised price has to be very careful.

> Taxi enters drop-off area for 30 seconds: £7

To be fair, I entirely understand the absolute necessity for this.

The reason for its introduction is before hand the PHVs (Uber etc.) of this world would, instead of using the car parks, go up to the drop-off area and wait there.

Because there was no charge and no penalty, what they would do is drop off a passenger and then sit there waiting for their next job to ping on their screen.

This became a particular problem at Heathrow T5 where the drop off area is relatively tiny.

The result would be that at busy hours, private individuals attempting to drop off their friends and family would be unable to find space and end-up double-parking and causing safety hazards.

For a while they tried to use airport Police to enforce it, but the volume of PHVs was just far too great. Hence the cameras, charges and penalties were introduced.

It should also be noted that at Heathrow, if you do not want to pay the £7, you can instead drop people off for free at the Long Term Car park and they can get the shuttle bus back to the terminal.

Rather than charge everyone £7 or more for a drop off, wouldn't it make more sense to charge the people abusing it an absurd amount? I'd much rather see a £25 fee after 90 seconds and an additional £125 fee after 5 minutes than £7 for 30 seconds.

It seems less about making things more efficient and more about just squeezing a little bit out of money out of everyone.

On the other hand, one can also question if the £16 cost for the flight makes any sense. A more correct price would be £500. It's about time that the airlines pay the same taxes for fuel as everyone else.

What is the correct cost for a flight leaving in 3 hours with an empty seat? What is the correct cost for a scheduled flight leaving in 2 months with no seats sold yet?

Tickets aren't the same price for everyone, and planes fill to variable levels. Plus there are addons like luggage fees and beverages that have a huge markup. What is the best way to solve for that?

Besides, it averages something like 53L of fuel/passenger to make that trip. Hardly necessitating £500.

I agree. A mandated minimal price per km.

Tangential, but given the myriad externalities of air transport, such low fares for flying are deeply unethical and a perverse incentive that we are going to need to address one day.

Take an empty, open water bottle through security and then fill it up at the free water fountains!

There is often no free water.

I've been all over the USA, continental Europe, and Japan, and there have always been water fountains. Granted, I've never been to one of the "don't drink the tap water" countries.

Correct, I pay for it for you, every April 15th.

Which airports?

Price of water from water fountain (to be found on basically any western airport and most non-western I've ever been to) - 0.

I get your approach, but say where we live (Switzerland) if you have something not tightly around your body like a fleece jacket, you have to take it off and put it through scanner, this is default. Sometimes they still ask me to go down to t-shirt even if its obvious I don't have anything in pockets.

Not worth the hassle for something that is mostly free and probably healthier compared to plastic bottles stored god knows where and how long. I'd imagine if they catch you, you are going for more detailed inspection since its obvious you didn't forget 1kg bottle in clothing you wear by accident.

Even in your own car dropping off your friends or family at a UK airport (at least the London ones) requires paying a £6 fee now. Just to get to the dropoff area, even for 30 seconds as you say.

But hey, at least the luggage carts are free…

In Edinburgh the (small, we often need 2) luggage carts are now £2.

At Edinburgh airport, you can park at the Park and Ride nearby but it costs a tenner to get from there to the airport - a distance you could walk in about 20 minutes.

Right, but what do you think the alternative is? There is limited space close to the entrance of the terminal, it has to be rationed somehow. Also what happens in practice is people take advantage. A trust-based 30s wouldn't work. Even with the current fees you can hang around Heathrow drop off and see the police having to move people along, check unatended cars, etc.

There's limited space everywhere. It is rationed by people not wanting to be there. There's limited space at the baggage claim but nobody is charging you to be at the baggage claim.

You think people don't want to drop off at the airport? There's literally a multi storey full of short term parking at every Heathrow terminal. They wouldn't fit in the drop off area at all.

You are charged to be at the baggage claim. The airline pays it on your behalf, from your fare.

you are not charged to be at the baggage claim

If you can find a way to utilize the baggage claim services without paying someone at some point I'd love to hear it.

Just because you're not handing someone your card as you walk up to it doesn't mean you're not paying for it.

nevertheless you are not charged to be at the baggage claim. You can stand there as long as you want to, and your bank balance doesn't decrease.

Baggage claim being run by a charity, obviously.

> nobody is charging you to be at the baggage claim

Not yet.

The alternative is not charging. JFK somehow manages. Yes there's traffic, but it keeps slowly moving.

JFK is pure hell compared to Heathrow, never mind to an actually well-run airport. I'll stick to paying for my externalities.

I have three major airports in reasonable driving distance. None of them charge money to pick up or drop off at the terminal. It works fine.

And what's your experience of other world airports? Have you been to Heathrow? What about somewhere like Changi? It's not just the dropoff that sucks at JFK.

Public realm is almost universally terrible in America because Americans rarely leave and don't experience anything better. It's bad, actually, to wait in traffic for a large portion of your life.

See also: the revolt over NYC congestion pricing. The congestion fee in Manhattan should be $50 or more.

I've only transited through Heathrow, I haven't tried the driving experience there. I have tried it in various other airports in Europe and China. None of them charged money to drive up to the terminal either and they were all fine too.

Sometimes the American experience isn't different from the rest of the world and it's your experience that's unusual, you know.

You understand that e.g. in Chinese cities they restrict car ownership and you have to enter a lottery/bidding system to get valid plates. Cars are a luxury. European cities have their own restrictions and discouragements. Rationing happens in many ways.

I have still never experienced an airport with pick-up/drop-off traffic as bad as JFK, and I've travelled to almost every country in Europe, plenty of countries in Asia, and Canada. Maybe South America can beat it though, TBD.

That's probably a "JFK is unusually bad" thing, not an "everything is terrible in America and those idiot Americans don't know any better because they never travel" thing. I haven't been driven to JFK since 2001 and I don't remember what it was like then, but driving anywhere around NYC requires great patience.

London is worse _overall_ for traffic than NYC, so I don't think it's that. I like America and Americans, but it's a fact that they don't travel much. JFK is not just bad for drop-off, it's chaos and run-down in general.

Yeah it’s got out and out criminal at this point. Not sure why we should accept a £6.40 charge to drop someone or collect someone from an airport when that’s the actual function and necessity of using an airport. I got charged £100 at COUNCIL OWNED Manchester airport for picking up a friend who accidentally had put themselves in the drop off zone rather than the collect zone. Just completely vile and disgusting corporatism at every single level.

Are you saying they fined you for picking someone up in the drop off area? If so that's pretty wild. It's all just traffic at the end of the day.

Yes. They have paid sneaks standing around and the second you do something like that they radio to the people who control the barriers so you can’t get out without paying it. Just completely f*cked state of affairs.

https://www.manchesterairport.co.uk/terms-and-conditions/dro...

“ 1.3 Breach of these terms and conditions may result in Parking Charges up to £100. An additional fee of up to £70 may be applied for the costs of debt recovery.

9.1 Drop-off only: The Drop Off Zone may only be used to drop-off passengers and not for pick-up. There are separate designated areas for the pick-up of passengers. Use of the Drop Off Zone for any other purpose will result in the issuance of a Parking Charge.

I do that all the time in certain airports when the drop off is essentially empty with 0 line but pickup is a half mile row of cars.

Kinda antisocial. If everyone acted like you the drop off would be clogged as well and some people would miss their flights.

The drop off is frequently clogged anyway so you have to plan for that. Where I'm at the airport will advise the use of the opposite one if things back up. Early in the morning the departures sign will suggest using arrivals if you see traffic backing up and vice versa in the evening.

Shhhhh

When people say "water" here I have to assume they mean "vodka". Otherwise you can just bring an empty bottle and fill it on the other side. It's the toiletries that pose a problem.

I've been in many airports where there is no water on the other side of the X-ray. At KLIA and DPS they have none to buy even, and then you have to fight for it on the plane. At CDG you have to buy it, no water fountain. It's extremely aggravating.

I’ve definitely found free water fountains at CDG.

Now, one of the Bucharest airports literally does not have potable tap water. Their well, being under an airport and all, is contaminated. By email, they did inform me that the water is microbiologically fine. Unsure of their pipe to the municipal system was been built out.

Probably a issue with PFAS contamination. Stuff was used in firefighting water, and has contaminated just about every airport and the surrounding area's groundwater, all over the world. So while microbiologically safe, it has PFAS issues.

Depending on the airport and terminal (e.g. shitholes like Frankfurt, especially terminal 2), filling it on the other side might mean a washbasin in a stinky toilet because they'd rather you buy overpriced bottled water. And many airports that do have at least water fountains only have some that seem deliberately designed to prevent you from using them to fill any reasonably sized bottle.

Also, don't count on security not throwing away your empty water bottle anyway just because they can.

Disappointingly, in my case it's usually just water. I'm walking towards security with my bottle, I can either slip it in my pocket or put it in a bin. Not throwing it away saves a bit of time and quickly becomes the default choice.

Some airports charge money for water after security.

Others disallow even empty bottles at security screening

> Others disallow even empty bottles at security screening

I haven't encountered this. Could you name some?

Nobody disallows empty bottles through security, that's a lie.

I have had an empty water bottle thrown away once so it's not a lie even if it might not be universal.

"Someone threw this away once" is not the same as "banned at security."

Where do you put the water bottle?

its very much about looks. Uk airports (used to?) seize aftershave in bottles that are the shape of grenades. Its very obvious what they are (made of glass, branded, spray out aftershave) but they are banned nonetheless.

The real question here is whether you can buy the exact same bottle again in the duty-free after security.

I've flown with someone who simply said she has prescription medication with her.

I mean it was the truth. It was legitimately prescription medication. In this case. But I can imagine someone could lie.

I can't speak to UK airports but TSA policy is that any medication needs to be in the original container, including prescription medication. So if you have any unmarked pills they'll toss them if they find them, same with multiple different pills in a prescription pill bottle or similar.

Yeah I also regularly bring a razorblade (for my old fashioned safety razor). I have got caught once but it's worth the risk of wasting a few minutes.

If this was really about security, it would be set up so that just deliberately breaking the rules for the sake of minor convenience actually had some consequences.

If I wanted to blow up a plane with liquid explosives I would just... Try a few times. If you get caught, throw the bottle away, get on the plane, and try again next week.

> In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater.

This matches my experience. I recently flew out of a small airport that flies 2 fairchild metro 23 turboprop planes up to 9 passengers. There were four TSA agents to check the 5 of us that were flying.

You gotta love the TSA. They serve no real purpose, but its a monster too big to kill, staffed by people who desperately cling to the notion they're doing something important.

They don't stop hijackings (locking the cockpit door does that), they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber), they don't stop weapons (lots of airports outside the US have simple metal detectors for that.)

They do however cost the govt a lot of money, keep a lot of expensive-machine-makers, and in business, improve shampoo sales at destinations, waste a lot of passenger time and so on.

So... what's not to love?

The grunts working for TSA on the floor at airports aren't desperately clinging for the notion that they're doing something important, or working towards some lofty, noble, and/or altruistic goal.

It's just a job.

They're principally motivated to do this job by the promise of a steady paycheck and decent benefits -- the same motivation that most other people with steady paychecks and decent benefits also have.

In my experience many of them do feel like they're doing something important, and some seem principally motivated to do the job by the promise of being able to bully travellers.

>do feel like they're doing something important

First I agree TSA is mostly theater... however if you HAD to have it, you want the people to work like this. I might be old-school but I think everyone should have pride and responsibility in their work. Even if from the outside it is meaningless.

100% no reason to be a bully, that is not pride/responsibility. Every job has ass assholes.

> Every job has ass assholes.

Yeah, but jobs that are police-adjacent have them at a very high rate. Almost like they select for it or something...

>Yeah, but jobs that are police-adjacent have them at a very high rate. Almost like they select for it or something...

Proximity to violence is probably the measuring stick you're looking for.

Police spend the bulk of their day credibly threatening violence. Just about every word that comes out of their mouth, pen or keyboard while they're at work is implicitly back by an "or else". Everyone who isn't an asshole is gonna wash out of that job, start doing something behind a desk, start a PI firm, etc. etc. So you're left with rookie and assholes and the occasional exception.

The TSA, all your non-police state and municipal enforcement agencies, etc, etc, are gonna serve to concentrate "asshole lites" people because anybody who isn't will have issues spending their day dispensing what are basically "do as I say, or pay what I say, or else the police will do violence on you" threats on behalf of the state and so they'll jump ship as they become jaded same as cops do, but the pressures are less because they're not as proximate to the violence.

You can take this a third step out. There are all sorts of industries, jobs, etc, etc. that exist soley to keep the above two groups off your back. Nobody wants to hire these people, but are basically forced to under 3rd hand thread of violence. Same effect, but still watered down.

Even more removed are jobs where some fraction of the business is driven to you under similar circumstances. For example, ask any mechanic. People forced to be there by a state inspection program are consistently the worst customers. And there's the same wash out effect. People get tired of arguing about tread depth or whatever and they go turn wrenches on forklifts or whatever.

Proximity to petty power might be a better measuring stick. The same sorts of people gravitate to those jobs as the people who sit at the DMV window and tell you you need to get back in line, wait another two hours, and go to a different DMV window with the correct form.

Probably the reverse: obnoxious people who seek badge-given authority but fail police entry exams (e.g. the psych part), carry on to other forms of employment that offer badges and uniforms, but have lax standards.

You never saw that Reddit thread where the guy who barely got his GED insisted he was a "federal officer," did you?

> They don't stop hijackings (locking the cockpit door does that)

9/11 also stopped all future hijackings. Up to that point passengers were trained that if they stayed calm they would likely survive. Now? Short of the hijackers getting guns on the plane, passengers will absolutely fight back.

> they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber)

Suicide bombers are probably the main vector that TSA helps avoid even if they miss some items sometimes.

> Suicide bombers are probably the main vector that TSA helps avoid even if they miss some items sometimes.

Not really, but this is because there are pretty much no suicide bombers anywhere in airports. They are incredibly rare.

But if you're a suicide bomber, by the time you get to the TSA checkpoint you can do a ton of damage inside a terminal during a holiday season when all airports are packed. Until then no one is stopping you.

There are many events where you can go that is full of crowded people.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manchester_Arena_bombing

Why are they rare?

There used to be suicide bombings in the news all the time. Hijackings were the reason they instituted the metal detectors at airports.

Improved security seems unlikely as a reason, given how many tests they fail. Was it just a fad? Did they decide it wasn't getting them what they wanted at a high personal cost? Did they find something more effective?

Common things don't get into the news. How many people died in car related accidents in your country yesterday - it almost never even makes the morning news in your country, much less international news.

There's lots of suicide attacks in poorer African countries.

But the west by and large won the war on terror, it broke up all the state sponsored terrorist camps, and built a vast surveillance network capable of spotting people trying to build these devices. Israel was the flashpoint and they built walls and put cameras and AI everywhere and just flat out ignore human rights. It's just really hard to radicalise someone to that extent and not have them show up. Isis was also behind a lot of the attacks and they don't exist anymore. Afghanistan and Pakistan also don't shelter terrorists anymore because they might have kicked the US out but they don't want them back again.

Most of this is terrible from a civil liberties / human rights / sovereignty point of view, but if you wanted to stop suicide bombings it worked.

As far as the terror in terrorism goes, blowing up a plane or hijacking it and flying it into a building is a much bigger impact than blowing up a queue of people. It doesn't need to be rational.

I grew up in a time and place when terror bombings were "commonplace". And while actual bombs were rarish, bomb alerts were not.

The impact of a bomb at a post office or shopping mall or commuter train was way more impactful than planes. Only a small number of people flew, and that was easily avoided if you cared. It's a lot harder to process when a place you go regularly explodes.

Flying into buildings is not gonna happen again. That tactic didn't survive even a few hours as UA 93 demonstrated. Passengers won't allow it, and these days the cockpit door are locked.

That’s what happened in Brussels.

I was hoping these events could be used to impose fines/jailtime for airlines/airports/security that have queues longer than 5 people, but you know, counter-terrorism can’t mean making life better for the public.

> I was hoping these events could be used to impose fines/jailtime for airlines/airports/security that have queues longer than 5 people, but you know, counter-terrorism can’t mean making life better for the public.

Not even at private airports or business terminal can you can manage not having a queue smaller than 5 people. So this is a really no-go from many points of view.

BRU did something incredibly retarded after the incident: moved the queue outside. I mean yes, in open air a bomb is less lethal than in an enclosed space, but will still kill people.

And like others said, we developed capabilities to track hostiles before they can actually blow up a bunch of people. That's why you don't see FRA or MUC or CDG or LHR being blown up daily.

> Now? Short of the hijackers getting guns on the plane, passengers will absolutely fight back.

I'm not even sure guns would hold some wannabe heroes back.

Guns on planes aren't terribly effective. Firstly cause puncturing the hull will end badly.

But also because there's a lot of people in a very confined space. A shooter has no space to maneuver and threats on all sides.

It's not even heros-required. Most passengers know the math. Hijacking means certain death anyway, so you may as well roll the dice.

> they don't stop weapons (lots of airports outside the US have simple metal detectors for that.)

There are 3D printed guns.

Those tend to have extremely limited usefulness. Good enough to assassinate a single person at point blank range before they catastrophically fail but (unless something has changed) not much else. Plastic just isn't cut out for the job.

You still need metal parts, notably a gun barrel capable of holding extreme pressures until the bullet gets up to speed. That isn’t plastic. The grip and frame might be plastic, but not the barrel.

This is either incorrect or only technically correct. In the context of smuggling a weapon through a metal detector at a checkpoint there are nonferrous and even entirely plastic variants. Possessing them is generally illegal because essentially the only purpose is for assassinations.

Those are exotic parts that would have to be manufactured specially. You don’t buy them off the shelf. They are costly to procure and difficult to work with. One doesn’t just load up the 3d printer and push Go. To be clear, I’m sure a homemade gun can be passed through a metal detector checkpoint, but that requires some real thought and skill. More than likely, the real weak link at the checkpoint is not the detector “seeing” the gun but the half-asleep agent missing it, given the red-teaming results which show even very traditional firearms have a good chance of slipping through.

the handle on roll type luggage. not the actual handle but that is where you would hide a long piece of thick wall tube. not that a long piece of would be nessacery. a short one would do, the point being the metal detectors do not stop you from bringing metal into the airport.

Of course. Lots of metal goes through the detectors. The point is that the detectors “see” it and that’s then your chance to catch it. Whether you actually do or not is another question. But 3d printing a gun doesn’t give you a “plastic gun.” Btw, this is the same reason why the “Glocks are plastic guns that go through metal detectors unseen” stuff in the 1980s was always a myth. Glocks have a polymer frame but they always have a metal barrel.

Don't you still need metal bullets for the 3d printed gun?

Those don't generally have any ferrous components.

yes but the spring in the magazine does.

also the rails on the lower, the barrel, etc.

If you want a gun you can use more than a couple times need metals. However if the goal is one shot plastic is good enough. Even plastic bullets will work - not well, but one well placed/timed shot is all we are talking about.

Not in the context of someone smuggling a weapon through a security checkpoint. At least not unless they're certain that it's small enough not to trigger the detector.

That said I will note that it is generally illegal to possess such nonferrous weapons regardless of circumstance.

No idea. I only replied to the guy saying that "metal detectors stop weapons". Which is false.

The evidence is in US law. Because they would be undetectable, 3d printed guns are required to have some metal inserted into it to be legal (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3D-printed_firearm#United_Stat...). I think a guy who can 3d print a gun and wants to bring it onto a plane could probably skip that step;)

> The evidence is in US law.

Laws written by people utterly ignorant of the subject they're legislating is not evidence of anything.

"I only replied to the guy saying that "metal detectors stop weapons". Which is false."

Taken in a strict boolean sense, yes, but real-world policy is rarely boolean, and mostly about tradeoffs and how many nines of reliability you want to spend on.

Metal detectors will catch the vast, vast majority of guns ever produced, which is their whole point of existence.

You are better off using a lathe to make a gun.

> they don't stop bombings (there are much better targets for that, which don't involve killing the bomber),

I think you should read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_airliner_bombing_a...

The only reason you believe aircraft bombings aren't being stopped is because you live in a world where rigourous security has stopped all aircraft bombings.

Yeah. The "security theater" absolutely does play its part in stopping attacks. Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in. They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.

> Without it, airplanes would be an extremely easy target for any nutjob to commit mass murder in.

They still are, but I'm not comfortable spelling out details. The 95% TSA failure rate should lead you to this conclusion naturally.

> They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic.

People have plenty of such things with them as it currently stands. Plenty more can be trivially brought on board in a checked bag or even pocket. But again I'm not going to spell it out.

> I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.

Well that's unfortunate because it already is. I think the primary things protecting passengers are the cost of entry (the true nutjobs don't tend to be doing so well financially) and the passengers themselves. Regarding the latter, the shoe bomber was subdued by his fellow passengers.

Did you drop a sarcasm tag? Anyone can make a fire on a plane as they allow lighters on a plane, and batteries, and any number of flammable objects. None of that is facing any scrutiny nor stopping crazy people from being crazy.

Yes it's possible to make a fire on a plane, but it would be even easier to cause a big fire if there was zero monitoring of bags. As flawed as airport security is, it should generally catch things like somebody trying to get a carry-on bag full of gasoline or extremely large lithium-ion batteries on board.

I take security that catches 50 or even 20% of threats any day over 0 security.

Ironically, both India and China forbid lighters on planes. Famously you see a collection of them around the bins just outside the airport as all the smokers leave them for others.

Flammable liquid and all high temperature lighters are forbidden, as are Li-ion batteries over 100kWh.

You can buy up to 5L up to 70% alcohol after security, no? Sounds pretty flammable

You can bring 5-6 100mL containers of gasoline into the airport without raising suspicion.

Can get that up to 99% with the right salts and some vigorous shaking.

s/100kWh/100Wh/

But you can still have multiple batteries (I think up to 10 or so) as long as each individual one is less than 100Wh.

I've heard that cell phones often catch fire on planes, and the crews know how to deal with that. I guess they have to because the odds of one going up are pretty good across so many flights.

People drop them into the mechanism of their seat and then reclining punctures the battery.

It's easier to deal if it's in carry on bag. This is why batteries are forbidden in checked luggage. Once it all burns the airplane has got to land asap and it's an emergency.

My checked luggage did not pass xray multiple times because they detected powerbanks. I had to come back and take it out. However it also did pass xray a couple times with powerbanks so it's not a reliable system.

Alternatively, I checked 3-4 20k mAh powerbanks in my luggage on my flight to Utah and it never got flagged or detected.

like yes I pointed out it doesn't always work. sometimes I don't even know if anybody is watching the screen

Once you pass security, you can buy as many very flammable bottles of alcohol as you'd like

> They wouldn't even necessarily need a bomb, anything that can cause a big enough fire mid-flight could be potentially catastrophic. Over past few decades many airliners have crashed because out of control fire in the cabin / cargo hold. I really don't want it to be easy for any random person to cause such fire.

It is that easy for a random person to cause such a fire.

It’s probably not that difficult to figure out how to overcharge lithium ion batteries so that they’re prone to catching fire or exploding when connected to a resistor that will overheat them.

Wireless relays are commodity items you can order online from hundreds of vendors.

Most would-be attackers are not suicidal, I suppose. You would have to be in order to start a fire on a plane that you are on.

Most airplane attackers are, or at least since airplanes no longer take off with checked luggage from someone who hasn't boarded.

Non-suicidal hijackings have pretty much been eliminated by cockpit doors as well as 911 changing people's reactions.

> Most would-be attackers are not suicidal

That's definitely not an assumption in the threat model.

Trains are a much easier target in most countries. Generally only the high-speed / cross border ones have any security at all. Until maybe 10 years ago you didn't even really need a ticket to get access to one (now ticket barriers are common).

There's a pretty strong trend in that timeline of two types of "bombings":

(1) Bombings in which the bomb is supplied by someone who isn't flying on the plane;

(2) Failed hijackings in which there was no intent to bomb the plane, but a bomb accidentally went off.

also, people always immediately think of terrorism, but TIL that life insurance policies are responsible for way more plane bombings than I thought

When flying international in to the US, we literally all stand in long lines watching the TSA agents. TSA serves as the introduction to America... I can't think of another country where the personnel aren't groomed and 'height / weight proportionate'.

None the less, this is still effectively an entrance checkpoint to a 'secure area' aka the large airport you're flying to, as you've now already gone through security.

I don’t think it’s just the TSA tbh.

A couple of years before the pandemic I managed to make it all the way from London Heathrow to Auckland, New Zealand, passing through Dubai and Brisbane on the way, with one of those USB rechargeable plasma lighters and a Gerber multitool in my hand luggage.

Completely unintentional, of course, but due to #reasons I had packed in some haste and made the mistake of not completely unpacking my day sack, which I also used to carry my laptop for work, first.

I stayed in Auckland a couple of days and the items were eventually picked up on a scan before my flight to Queenstown. The guy was very nice about it: he had to confiscate the lighter, but he let me post the Multitool to my hotel in Queenstown.

A couple of years ago I did something similar flying out of Stansted but, that time, it was picked up at the airport and, again, I was able to get the items posted back to my home address.

Nowadays I always completely empty all compartments of all bags I’m taking before repacking, even when I’m in a hurry.

I no longer keep multitools in random bags that I sometimes also use for travel. I figure it's just a matter of time before I forget it's there when I'm packing in a hurry. (I don't travel as much any longer but still.)

"In the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled. It's all security theater."

Over here, it's G4S pork barrel contracts.

I'd believe that. I was in a situation where a bag started smoking _in the security checkpoint_ (it was a camera battery failing), and the TSA agents all abandoned the checkpoint. As a result, the FAA issued a full ground stop and had re-screen every passenger in the airport.

> the US, the TSA is just a government jobs program for the lowly skilled or unskilled.

I thought that was the US military?

I don't necessarily agree with the OP, but a lot of TSA is ex-military.

I thought that was the US police force?

TSA Is not great, I have been groped by TSA twice, I have never been pat down by any European airport staff

> It's all security theater.

It’s so much worse than that. Because the department of homeland security was formed in the panic following 911, many of the laws meant to protect our civil liberties (which have existed decades/centuries before the DHS was formed) haven’t been amended to explicitly apply to DHS staff as well.

So what ICE is doing right now could only happen with the loopholes that apply only to DHS staff.

So if not for the security theater of the TSA, Stephan Miller might not have had a mechanism to get the ball rolling on his murder squad that is ICE.

Can you be more specific? I have no idea what you're talking about re loopholes, DHS staff exclusions, etc.

Sure. I am not a lawyer, but I can give one example to the best of my ability.

One Civil liberty I see Ice violating is the Fourth Amendment which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. But, for Boarder Patrol (under the Department of Homeland Security) there is a border search exception to the forth amendment. Border patrol can conduct searches without a warrant or reasonable suspicion.

You might be on the fence about that. We do have to protect our boarders... sure. but the way the law is written, this border exception is applicable anywhere 100 miles from the border.

That area covers 2/3rds of the population of the United States. --

So if you are wanting a power grab against your own citizens you would definitely try to use that loophole in creative ways. And that starts by using DHS staff that can claim their actions fall under the border search exception.

This write up is a little off the cuff, so the details might be loose, but I hope this demonstrates the rough outline.

Any large organization is going to have some terrible employees.

TSA is much more skilled than the security people employed by the airlines that proceeded them.

While still theatre to a degree, that was 11 years ago.

Do you have evidence that anything has changed?

In Europe you pay to go to the theatre. In the US you pay not to go to the theatre, they call it TSA PreCheck®.

It's about making people feel safe.

We're not rational beings, so what do you do about an irrational fear? You invent a magical thing that protects from that irrational fear.

You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist attacks far more.

You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what about the extremist who works for the airline?

So you invent some theater to stop people from panicking (a far more real danger). And that's a perfectly acceptable solution.

> It's about making people feel safe.

I don't think that's a common perception of airport security. Few people take reassurance from it, most consider it a burden and hindrance that could stop them getting their flight if they don't perform the correct steps as instructed.

The lifting of this restriction is an example, the overwhelming response is "oh thank goodness, now I don't have to pay for overpriced water" and not "is this safe?"

I thought so too. But having talked to a few people who are generally afraid of flying, they absolutely do take re-assurance from the security theatre. They are very much not interested in having the ease of subverting this security explained to them.

People stopped flying after 9/11 and airlines lost money until the TSA was created and made people feel safe to fly again

Did that really happen in the United States? Certainly not anywhere else.

Regular passengers tend to be the ones care about the price of water in the terminal while rare/first time passengers tend to be the ones nervous as hell about everything from getting the bags checked in to the engines falling off the plane during takeoff/landing.

I disagree. It is a burden and hindrance, but I'm pretty sure that if you just removed all the checks and let people board like in a bus, there would be complaints.

They're not complaining on the bus...

A bus isn't going to fall out of the air and land in the ocean. A bus isn't going to be hijacked and flown into the top of a building.

And the fact is that there's been some level of security since the 1970s or thereabouts after a fair number of hijackings. Any serious debate is about restrictions around liquids/knives/etc. (Some of which related to isolated incidents like the shoe bomber and others of which seem like pretty clear overreach--like I can't bring a hiking pole in carryon.)

This is what JSX does and people love it.

A lot more people I've talked to about it say the theatre makes them feel uncomfortable and intimidated rather than making them feel safe. Airport security staff being so gruff and expecting people to know what to do (which casual travellers often don't), then not being able to properly explain what to do and shouting at people...

I really don't buy that the illusion of safety is high on anyone's priority list, it's more that a bureaucracy will grow as much as it can, employing more and more people who might not have better prospects, and no politicians want to be seen to be "comprimising people's safety" by cutting things back. Then "lobbying" from those selling equipment and detection machines probably helps everything keep going.

If it was actually cut back to a proper risk-assessed point of what's strictly necessary, people going thorugh would think "is this safe not having as much security" for about 30 seconds and then never think of it again.

> Airport security staff being so gruff

More of a issue that power goes to their heads.

Do not get me started on airport security staff in the Netherlands that cracked some insulting jokes about my nationality. I was not amused...

Or the idiotic "remove your shoes" so we can x-ray them... What next, go naked? O, that is what those new scanners are for that see past your clothing.

If i can avoid flying, i will ... Its not the flying, its the security. You feel like being a criminal every time you need to pass and they do extra checks. Shoes, bomb test, shoes, bomb test ... and you do get targeted.

The amount of times i got "random" checked in China as a white guy, really put me off going anymore.

Arriving, 50% chance of a check. Departing, 100% sure i am getting 1 check, 50% i am getting two.... Even won the lottery with 3 ... (one in entrance in Beijing: "Random" bomb check, one for drop-off luggage, and one for security) .... So god darn tiring ...

And nothing special about me, not like i am 2m tattoo biker or something lol. But yea, they see me, and "here we go again, sigh"...

> More of a issue that power goes to their heads.

I'm sure this exists too, but isn't the mundane rationale more likely? That gruffness is inevitable because the work sucks?

Overworked, understaffed, the days blur together because it is boring, mostly sedentary work. They are ground down from dealing with the juxtaposition of their role; internally TSA are told they are important because their vigilance is heroic and prevents catastrophe, yet the general public views them with annoyance if not disdain. _Everyone_ they interact with is impatient, and at the that scale of human interaction nobody is really a person anymore, just a complication to throughput.

> You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist attacks far more.

This can be traced to people in a car believe they can control whether they have an accident or not (and largely can). In an airplane, however, you have no control whatsoever.

> This can be traced to people in a car believe they can control whether they have an accident or not (and largely can).

This is true. In France, about two thirds out of the people dying in a car accident are the actual drivers responsible for the accident, according to the 2024 Road Safety Report.

"largely" is true, but because planes are more than 3x safer people are still being wrong when they fear plane travel.

People try to treat "largely" as "fully" and that fails.

It's not about statistics. It's about control and knowledge. I know if a car I'm in is driving safely. I can ask the driver to calm down or let me off. In a plane I have nothing. I'm just sitting in a tin can, no idea whether the pilot is flying responsibly or not. No idea whether the landing is routine as hell or kinda sketch. Even if i could talk to the pilot the only thing we can do is land.

And have you thought about airplane landing? It's insane. This big clunky metal bird full of literal jet fuel coming in at like 400kmh or whatever, bouncing around on the tarmac as it's desperately trying to regain control and slow down.

Honestly I don't see how a rational person could not be stressed out in that situation. Yes we all know it usually works out, but we also know if it doesn't work out we're very likely going up in a ball of fire. And no matter what the stats say it doesn't feel like a safe situation. It feels like a near death experience. Seriously. Every time I fly I mentally come to terms with the fact that I might die. Every time we take off and land I'm feeling the bumps and jerks, listening to the sounds and wondering whether this is normal.

I fly at least a few times a year, and I don't take any drugs for it, but I fucking hate it.

> I know if a car I'm in is driving safely. I can ask the driver to calm down or let me off.

Do you know that all the other cars on the road that might hit yours are being driven safely?

How do you feel about busses and trains?

> And have you thought about airplane landing? It's insane. This big clunky metal bird full of literal jet fuel coming in at like 400kmh or whatever, bouncing around on the tarmac as it's desperately trying to regain control and slow down.

A car is a metal box full of fuel kept under control by four rubber balloons.

At least a plane is heavily monitored for safety, checked before every flight, and controlled by highly trained professionals.

> Honestly I don't see how a rational person could not be stressed out in that situation.

A rational person would not be worried. The fear is very much an irrational reaction and a psychological problem that a few people have. Most of us will happily go to sleep on a long flight and our biggest fear is boredom.

A lot of people (here and elsewhere) don't get how many people are just terrified of flying. I was on a flight many years ago (on admittedly a pretty rough transatlantic flight) when the woman next to me was basically in tears and grabbing my arm.

Personally, I don't love being bounced around in a plane but I'm reasonably confident that wings aren't coming off the Boeing jet--whatever the company's other faults.

I'm certainly a lot more nervous driving in a snowstorm or on a twisty mountain road.

If you're in a commercial plane, the driver is acting immaculately, with a margin of error so small you'd never be able to notice any problems. So you'll never need to ask the driver to calm down or let you off.

(But it's worth noting that all the control in the world won't keep you safe in a car. You can have/be an inhumanly perfect driver and it's still pretty dangerous to be on the roads.)

And then every other complaint you list is irrational. "how a rational person" avoids being stressed out is by knowing it's safe. The bouncing on tarmac is safe. Ball of fire is less likely than in a car. Bumping and jerking happens in lots of safe situations. The sounds are normal.

I'm not saying it's wrong to feel fear, but do not pretend the fear is rational.

> This is true. In France, about two thirds out of the people dying in a car accident are the actual drivers responsible for the accident, according to the 2024 Road Safety Report. --- This is because a large number of accidents don't involve another car.

To add to this, here's a piece of anecdotal evidence. I've watched a lot of traffic accident videos in my life, and in the vast majority of the videos including two vehicles, both drivers are at fault.

They may not be legally at fault, I don't really worry too much about that, but by my judgement they could have avoided the accident by paying attention or driving slower or driving less aggressively etc.

Same goes for pedestrians by the way. The absolute vast majority of pedestrians who get hit by cars could have avoided it by paying attention and taking some responsibility for their own safety.

And if France it's anything like the UK, the absolute vast majority of these deaths are people driving drunk at night. If you are driving in city traffic at 20mph commuting to work your chance of dying is nearly zero - there's always a chance someone else might be speeding and crash into you, sure, but it's nowhere near the general rate of deaths in cars.

As a seque to this - knowing the above, I find it insane that various institutions are pushing for more and more aggressive driving aids.

My perception is that drink driving is now pretty rare in the UK.

The biggest dangers I see regularly on the road is simple aggressive driving. Overtaking too much, tailgating, multiple lane changes in one go (on motorways), not driving slower in bad conditions.....

That not true. Drunk driving is not remotely the biggest cause, let alone the "vast majority". Speeding is.

And also: note you're only considering the pov of a person inside a car. In the last decade deaths among pedestrians and cyclists have skyrocketed, courtesy of society willingly accepting that it is normal and rational to have 4000kg vehicles with 180bhp being used ubiquitously to move 70kg humans to the grocery store. Since public infrastructure is completely designed around cars, with pedestrians and cyclists pushed to the edges or protected from cars by lines of white paint, it's no wonder this is happening.

I stand corrected - I looked it up and yeah, you are right, drunk driving is only the cause of about ~20% of road deaths in the UK.

>>And also: note you're only considering the pov of a person inside a car.

Well the person above was talking about how dangerous driving is, to which my argument still stands - if you are just commuting to work in or near a city, your actual risk is incredibly low(as the driver or passanger).

Crucially, deaths among pedestrians and cyclists are skyrocketing in the last decade; those people can't really "control" whether the 4-ton SUV with a 6' high bumper mows them and their kids down.

I've driven around blind corners to discover people standing in the middle of the road. I also read in the paper about people being run over in crosswalks. I use crosswalks, too, and I make sure to look before I step into it. When I jog, I look at the driver's eyes to see if he sees me (if he doesn't, I step far off the roadside). Yes, as a pedestrian you do have a significant amount of control.

> It's about making people feel safe.

It doesn't make me feel safe. It makes me annoyed. Since TSA are government agents it also pokes a tyranny button for me. I despise TSA with a passion and there is not a damn thing I can do about it. They also have the gall to offer a paid service to get around the delays they cause with taxpayer money. If airport security checkpoints need to be done it shouldn't be government doing it.

> It's about making people feel safe.

I think this is true but had to be seen in the bigger context: the Bush administration wanted people to feel that there were threats which required sacrificing things like civil liberties, balanced budgets, or not being at war because if you didn’t fight them “over there” the nebulous “they” come here in a never-ending swarm. Even at the time we knew that the threats weren’t serious but the people making those decisions saw it as part of a larger agenda.

I think it’s simpler, at least for some politicians.

You have to do something. If any other terror attacks happen and you didn’t do something, then “why didn’t you do something?” So you do something.

> It's about making people feel safe.

I think it is the opposite. It is supposed to be a visceral reminder that we are not safe, and therefore should assent to the erosion of civil liberties and government intrusions into our lives in the name of safety.

The government who wages the wars and brings its terrors home invades people's privacy and comfort in the small amount of time they have away from the toll they put to pay their taxes, and the people are thankful, after all, all of it is for their safety.

> It's about making people feel safe.

My guess it's more about being able to say: 'We did everything we could.' If someone does end up getting a bomb on board. If they didn't do this, everyone would be angry and headlines would be asking: 'Why was nothing put in place to prevent this?'

See also all the other myriad types of compliance theatre.

>It's about making people feel safe.

It adds stress. I fondly remember flying in the 80s vs today. Travelling back then was more chill.

Just a lot more people are flying today. Better information flows about flights help to some degree but more planes that are more packed are on the other side of the ledger.

I know literally nobody panicking from some idea of terrorist attack against airplane, this is not a thing in Europe. Neither my old parents, neither any of my colleagues etc. Its not 2001 anymore and even back then we were mostly chill.

But I can claim one thing for sure - people hate security checks with passion.

Airport security never makes me feel safe. It makes me feel violated and anxious.

I haven't really flown before 9/11, but I have used the subway in my city daily both before and after they installed metal detectors and started randomly asking people to put their bags through a scanner. I'm deeply nostalgic for not having to deal with this utter bullshit.

It reminds be of how after a fire at a tube station a lot of people decided to commute by motorbike because of fear of fire.

I seriously doubt that most people are happy with the tradeoffs of safety vs. convenience provided by the TSA. The general idea of x-ray, metal detectors, sure, that's all good. But the stuff with taking off your shoes, small containers of liquid, etc., no. I think if we reverted to a simpler system with fewer oddly specific requirements layered on top, most people would not feel significantly less safe, but would feel less inconvenienced.

The thing about shoes is just dumb anyway - I don't know if there was some period of time where it was required elsewhere around the world but I never experienced it. Literally the only times I've ever had to take off my shoes were during the two times I've visited the US (vs. a over a dozen trips to European and Asian countries).

Liquid restrictions were also lifted in my country four or so years ago for domestic travel, so it's still annoying when getting ready for an international trip and I remember I still have to do that...

It was a reaction to a very specific incident that happened just after 9/11 so the policy basically took effect at the same time the TSA started existing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_63_(2...

I have to take my sneakers off about three to four times a year while traveling around Europe.

I flew out of the UK twice in relatively short succession in ~2018 and the first time was out of London City: did not have to take off my shoes. I was pleasantly surprised by this and concluded common sense had prevailed and it was no longer necessary. The second time was Gatwick, and based on my prior experience I did not take off my shoes. I got yelled at because "everybody knows you have to take off your shoes at the airport!". Then got subjected to an extra search of my luggage as punishment. Of course there was a razor in my bag of toiletries (one of those Gilette cartridge ones with a million blades - not an oldschool safety razor) and promptly 'got got' for that as it could have potentially injured the person searching my belongings. 0/10 would not recommend.

It’s a $12 bn/yr production. I don’t think that’s perfectly acceptable. Let’s invest in loudspeakers if all we’re doing is shouting at people.

> You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in a road accident, but people don't fear that. They fear terrorist attacks far more.

On the contrary, a competent and responsible government should counter the hysteria, not enable it. It should protect citizens from car crashes rather than making a 18-lane highways through residential areas, and it should implement effective measures that reduce effective risk and panic regarding airline attacks, instead of pushing the fear even further with TSA.

One man's fear of safety is another man's job safety.

Yeah as we've seen with MH370, literally nothing stops the pilot from committing mass-murder-suicide at any point. We just need to trust that they're not feeling particularly depressed that day.

While MH370 is still "officially" unsolved, there were definitely industry wide updates to processes after the Germanwings crash.

Officially yes, unofficially there's really no other explanation.

> You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality - short of forcing everyone to travel naked and strapped in like cattle, with no luggage. And even then, what about the extremist who works for the airline?

This is said as an axiom, but we have protected against the motivated terrorist, as shown by the safety record.

Mitivated terrorists pivoted to driving cars into crowds and shootings.

Don't forget strapping knives to their hands and slashing into crowds.

As horrific as truck attacks, mass shootings, and suicide bombings have been, no-one have been on the same order of magnitude as airborne terrorism attacks.

The Bataclan, Las Vegas, Nice truck attack - all enormous tragedies. But compare to 9/11, Lockerbie, Flight 182, etc.

Bataclan = 132 deaths + ??? injuries

Nice Truck = 86 deaths, 458 injured

Lockerbie = 270 deaths (presumably 0 injuries)

Air India = 329 (also presumably no injuries)

Conveniently leaving out 9/11, was an attack on the scale of Bataclan, but due to the nature of air travel, had a much higher death toll.

So like, just one not on the same order of magnitude?

No, the vast majority of terrorist truck, car, bombing, shooting, stabbing attacks have single digit casualties due to the security measures in place and the level of difficulty (thankfully) in killing large numbers of people.

For a given number of people, money, resources, and risk, an attack against an airliner will have disproportionate casualties and effect. As above, a similar amount of co-ordination was required for Bataclan vs 9/11, with an order of magnitude fewer casualties.

Have we protected against the motivated terrorist, or only the motivated terrorist on an airplane?

Is your contention that there haven't been any terrorist attacks, therefore airport security isn't effective?

Because over the last 25 years, there have been a _lot_ of "successful" terrorist attacks in the West, and none of them were on planes.

My point is that if improved airport security just shifts terrorist attacks to other places, the overall safety benefit is not as great as it may at first seem.

If those attack vectors are intrinsically less effective at causing mass destruction then that’s an improvement.

A plane hijacking can evidently cause enormous destruction with minimal equipment and personnel. Even just a bomb on a plane can easily kill 200-500 people depending on the plane’s capacity.

Ground-based attacks since 9/11 have been evidently less effective because a bunch of guys with guns attacking a train station or a rock concert can’t do as much damage as quickly as a hijacker essentially flying a cruise missile into a major office building.

That's nonsense - if it was true, all anti-terrorism measures would be self-defeating, but they're not. Decades of aircraft-based terrorist attacks have been completely halted by airport security, and there's no been no correlated increase in other mass casualty events.

Exactly, air security has actually done a really good job over the last 25 years. I hope they keep improving it.

> You can't protect against an opponent who's motivated to learn the inherent vulnerabilities of our systems, many of which can't be protected against due to the laws of physics and practicality

Ah yes, the insidious opponent who learns the inherent vulnerability of ... huge crowds gathering before hand baggage screenings and TSA patdowns.

And these crowds are only there only due to a permanent immovable physical fixture of ... completely artificial barriers that fail to prevent anything 90-95% of the time.

Very true. The queues need to be improved.

Not a chemist…but if someone can carry on 3 bottles at 3.4 ounces each, now they have 10 ounces.

Two people do it and it’s 20 ounces. All within the “TSA Standard.”

This is where the liquid limit never made sense to me…if we were serious about keeping these substances off of planes, we would limit the total liquid…right? Or require that any liquids get checked.

I just don’t see how per-bottle liquid limits are anything close to deterrent for motivated attackers…but they sure are deterrent for me when I forget that I put a hotel water bottle in my bag.

On one hand, I think it's a valid criticism to say it's security theatre, to a degree. After 9/11, something had to be done, fast!, and we're still living with the after effects of that.

On the other hand: defence in depth. No security screening is perfect. Plastic guns can get through metal detectors but we still use them. Pat downs at nightclubs won't catch a razor blade concealed in someone's bra. We try to catch more common dangerous items with the knowledge that there's a long tail of things that could get through. There's nothing really new there, I don't think?

One little know crazier example of how things linger around for decades is how the H1B program actually allowed for renewals of visa stamps within the US.

After 9/11 the only reason people were made to go to another country to do it is because the US State department wanted people 10 printed and face scanned at places that had the equipment to do them: the embassies outside the US.

Now all airlines are basically human cattle-herding boxes at 35K feet for the metaphorical H1B cows.

Lots has been written about this.

The post-9/11 freakout is a GREAT example of the syllogism "Something must be done! This is something, so we must do it!" -- IOW, a train of thought that includes absolutely no evaluation of efficacy.

Security expert Bruce Schneier noted, I believe, that the only things that came out of the post-9/11 freakout that mattered were (a) the reinforced cockpit door and (b) ensuring all the checked bags go with an actual passenger.

The ID requirement, for example, was a giveaway to the airlines to prevent folks from selling frequent-flier tickets (which was absolutely a common thing back then). (And wouldn't have mattered on 9/11 anyway, since all the hijackers had valid ID.)

to nitpick, the 100ml rule doesn't come from 9/11 but from 2006 attack attempts

That something could have been lawmakers going on major media saying, unequivocally, that flying is safe, warning not to give away freedoms lightly and even making a show of flying commercial themselves.

That something didn't have to include trading freedom for surveillance/inconvenience/increased exposure to poorly trained LEO's.

The world we live has been shaped more and more by the funders of certain politicians and major media to make us fearful of boogiemen. The payoff is increased surveillance and more authoritarian governments.

> The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids.

The limits were instituted after discovering a plot to smuggle acetone and hydrogen peroxide (and ice presumably) on board to make acetone peroxide in the lavatory. TATP is not a liquid and it is not stable.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_pl...

This illustrates a point though. TATP you could synthesize on a plane is entirely inadequate to bring down a plane. It also requires a bit more than acetone and hydrogen peroxide. Pan Am 103 required around half a kilo of RDX and TATP is very, very far from RDX.

The idea of synthesizing a proper high-explosive in an airplane lavatory is generally comical. The chemistry isn’t too complex but you won’t be doing it in an airplane lavatory.

> TATP you could synthesize on a plane is entirely inadequate to bring down a plane

Even a small fire can down a plane, especially when distant from diversion airports.

No, you can’t bring down a plane with a small fire. If that was possible terrorists would use a newspaper and a lighter.

A small fire in the right place (like a wiring loom) can definitely bring down a plane, but generally attackers don't have the specialist knowledge to achieve that, and those places are not easily accessible between meal services.

They don't block lithium batteries, so...

there are other, very similar compounds in the same family that are indeed liquid.

After 4 years of Russia/Ukraine, does anyone think that a terror group would take down an airliner with anything other than a drone? Why take any operational risk of actually going through security?

The fact that nobody has flown a drone with a hand grenade gaffa taped to it right into the middle of some politician's security cordon says to me that either a) terrorists are not smart enough to go for the low-hanging fruit (and the Republican terrorism in NI demonstrates this isn't the case), b) it's actually a lot harder to do than that, or c) the intelligence agencies are really, really good at stopping people from doing that, and even better at keeping quiet about it.

I'm going with option C.

It was always theater, Bruce Schneier did a great set of blogs and tests back in the 2001+ time showing flaws throughout the process. At the same time, he pointed out that humanity had already adapted their response to airplane hijackings _that day_ (the Pennsylvania flight). An airplane exploding from a bomb is definitely scary, but not as scary as airplanes being turned into missiles by a few suicidal passengers.

From my understanding, the new CT machines are able to characterise material composition using dual-energy X-ray, and this is how they were able to relax the rules.

I am not up-to-date on the bleeding edge but that explanation doesn’t seem correct? The use of x-rays in analytical chemistry is for elemental analysis, not molecular analysis. (There are uses for x-rays in crystallography that but that is unrelated to this application.)

At an elemental level, the materials of a suitcase are more or less identical to an explosive. You won’t easily be able to tell them apart with an x-ray. This is analogous to why x-ray assays of mining ores can’t tell you what the mineral is, only the elements that are in the minerals.

FWIW, I once went through an airport in my travels that took an infrared spectra of everyone’s water! They never said that, I recognized the equipment. I forget where, I was just impressed that the process was scientifically rigorous. That would immediately identify anything weird that was passed off as water.

Here's an article that talks about Dual-energy CT [1]. And another one talking about material discrimination using DECT [2].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectral_imaging_(radiography)

[2] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2719491/

Neither of those articles seem to support the idea that you can do molecular analysis with x-rays. They are all about elemental analysis, which is not useful for the purpose of detecting explosives.

Not sure if they use dual-energy x-ray as in [0], but you don't need to if you take x-ray shot from different angles. Modern 3D reconstruction algorithms you can detect shape and volume of an object and estimate the material density through its absorption rate. A 100ml liquid explosive in a container will be distinguishable from water (or pepsi) by material density, which can be estimate from volume and absorption rate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual-energy_X-ray_absorptiomet...

See also beepblap's comments further below where they elaborate on this a bit (it's not just simple dual-energy xray apparently).

Hm, isn't it enough to just detect water and flag everything else as suspicious?

If your liquid is 80%+ water (that covers all juices and soft drinks), it is not going to be an explosive, too much thermal ballast.

There's still no evidence that peroxide-based explosives are stable enough to be practical. And nobody every explained why the few liquid ones are so dangerous, but the solid ones get a pass when they are more stable.

It's a good thing that airport brought some machinery to apply the rule in a sane way. But it's still an insane rule, and if it wasn't the US insisting on it, the entire world would just laugh it off.

> FWIW, I once went through an airport in my travels that took an infrared spectra of everyone’s water! They never said that, I recognized the equipment. I forget where, I was just impressed that the process was scientifically rigorous. That would immediately identify anything weird that was passed off as water.

Something like 10 years ago, I had my water checked in a specialised "bottle of water checker" equipment in Japan. I had to put my bottle there, it took a second and that was it. I have been wondering why this isn't more common ever since :-).

No idea if it was an "infrared spectra machine" of course.

Cynically, it's so they can sell you another bottle on the secure side. If they spend money to give themselves a working mechanism to distinguish water from not-water, they lose the ability to create retail demand.

I understand the idea, but it's not completely true: I empty my bottle before the security check, and fill it after in a fountain.

Yes. The first step was upgrading to the new machines, now the size limits can be relaxed.

I'm fine with some liquid potentially being explosives, but the fact that security just throws them all in the same bin when they confiscate them makes me think that not even they believe it makes any sense.

Also, why 100ml? Do you need 150ml to make the explosive? Couldn't there be 2 terrorists with 100ml + 50ml? All these questions, so little answers...

Liquids are not explosive, they are assumed to be used to make explosives once onboard.

Regarding quantity, hard to find information, I guess they don't want to have a terrorist handbook to making explosives online, but I would assume that 100ml would mean multiple times this amount would not be enough to make an explosive large enough bring down an airplane.

In general, considering the overall cost of the measures, I would think that there is a valid reason and that "it does not make sense at first glance so it's just a security theater" does not hold.

> In general, considering the overall cost of the measures, I would think that there is a valid reason and that "it does not make sense at first glance so it's just a security theater" does not hold.

What’s your sense of the overall cost of the measures? It’s not clear to me if you’re saying that high or low costs help justify them.

most of airport security rests on the notion of going over a series of long tests will elicit unusual (fear, stress) responses from malicious actors and these can then be flagged for even thorougher checks which will then eventually lead to discovery, banning or removal of luggage

so it's not the test accuracy by itself but rather then the fact that these tests are happening at all

You have surprising faith that the system is well designed.

Malicious actors don't get as stressed as normal people who don't want to miss their flight about the long series of obviously pointless tests. Why would they?

And there isn't anyone who surveils the queues and takes the worried looking for further checks. This can happen around immigration checks. It happens for flights to Israel. But not in routine airport security.

Why would they? Because they are about to do the thing they planned to do for months or years? Because they may be risking their own life? Because they're worried about getting caught rather than following through? Because no matter how prepared they are they have never done that EXACT scenario before at that exact airport with those exact people? Because the human mind is a lizard brain even with training and preparation?

Still not a perfect systems, other countries manage this part much better (I've heard Israel is especially good at it, but I don't have direct evidence).

[dead]

> going over a series of long tests will elicit unusual (fear, stress) responses from malicious actors

Oh, man. Let me tell you what kind of response going over a series of long tests by armed authority figures elicits on normal good-intended people...

This kind of thinking is as legitimate as believing lie detectors work, i.e., not at all.

Israel is using those methods in their airport security, quite successfully given their threat level. The problem is that it does not scale well and requires very well trained and attentive personnel.

I have not been recently to Israel, so I do not know if there have been any changes in their system.

However, some time ago, for a few years I had been a frequent flyer into Israel.

In my opinion their system of airport security seemed far more efficient than what is now typical in Europe and immensely better than the circus that seems typical for USA.

The disadvantage is as you said, that their system requires numerous well trained personnel.

At least at that time, their system had very little emphasis on physical searching and luggage scanning, but it was based mainly on interviewing the traveler, normally by 2 different agents.

During a great number of security checks, my luggage has been searched only once, and it was definitely my fault. That flight was at the end of an extremely busy day and I was very tired, so I just wished for the security check to end as quickly as possible, to be able to finally rest in the plane. My impatience was transparent, which made me suspicious, leading to this singular case of physical searching, instead of just psychological assessment.

These guys turn up a number of "false positives" and use those backrooms to abuse Palestinian travelers.

No. They might believe it works quite well, though, but they're seriously mistaken.

My old neuroscience lab was approached 20 years ago by a three-letter agency looking to develop a rapid reaction time tool to measure the trustworthiness of new people in time-critical hostile situations.

Because of that proposal, I reviewed the literature on "lie" detector tests and their ilk. The evidence is great for them measuring stress, and flimsy for them measuring deception. Normal people get nervous when questioned. Psychopaths may show less autonomic responses. People can train to alter their stress levels. Data interpretation varies wildly by operator, as does accuracy. The only real value is trying to convince criminals they work, in the hopes they make a true mistake or confess.

tl;dr The accuracy is really low, and anyone arguing otherwise is trying to fool the criminals, trying to fool agencies into buying their equipment, or fooling themselves.

{{citation needed}}

I would not be surprised if this started out totally unrelated to explosives. Say that some toddler spilled an entire 3 liters of grape soda all over the plane. Or a hypochondriac brought cleaning agents aboard and gave everyone a headache.

Mostly sarcasm, but man do I see this pattern a lot. The risk mitigation apparatus is called in for something, they see an opportunity to overgeneralize and prevent an entire new category of potential mishaps, and the everyday folk end up really confused trying to reconcile the rules with their intent.

Reminds me of the parable about the bench guards. Is there an aphorism for this?

> Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore.

Everything I know about liquid explosives I learned from Die Hard 3.

Funnily enough, that’s also all the people who made the rules in the first place knew

These liquids show up as slightly different colors in the new CT scan machines and this can finally be reliably detected by software.

This is also why a bunch of airports no longer ask you to take electronics out of your bags.

Are these chemicals freezable? Because TSA lets through large quantities frozen matter that is liquid at room temp. E.g. you can bring through a liter of hot sauce if it's frozen when it passes through TSA.

So, security through obscurity mostly as a smoke show for the public, not actual terrorist countermeasure. It's like the TSA being unable to detect most traditional weapon in carry-ons. Business as usual it seems.

I remember reading something around the time these prohibitions against liquids were rolled out that said none of the two-part liquid explosives were powerful enough to take down a plane unless you were carrying an unusual amount of liquid to be traveling with, or storing your liquid in an unusual way. For instance, there should be no reason you couldn't carry an ordinary sized bottle of shampoo in your luggage. No idea how accurate this is, maybe somebody could set this straight?

Explosives that are inert liquid binaries aren't really a thing. That is something Hollywood invented out of whole cloth. The chemistry of explosives doesn't lend itself to such a form.

Chemical weapons often have liquid binary forms though.

>powerful enough to take down a plane

Is that the criteria used for restrictions? I don't actually know. I guess a firearm falls into that category. Does a wine corkscrew? A foam toy sword? A small fishhook? All items that are prohibited in the cabin

If those explosives are extremely powerful then do the limits actually prevent using them to do damage inside an airplane though? TSA isn't even effective at preventing you from bringing on sharp metal objects as long as they aren't particularly knife shaped.

> It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.

The liquids requirement was in response to a famous (at the time) plot by people in Britain to smuggle a two part liquid explosive onto the plane. So the context was, at the time, obvious and needed no explanation.

Is the capability of these explosives at a safe level if the liquid precursors are less than 3.5 fl ounces? If they are still capable of blowing a hole in the fuselage with less than 3.5 fl ounces then the limits on fluids are still pointless.

Modern airport x-ray machines use two frequencies and then estimate the density of objects and liquids. In theory, the can tell the difference between water and vodka. I wonder if the change reflects trust in this tech?

> It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.

That is a good statement. It IS a theater. So, the point for it IS the theater. The "evil terrorists" is just the scapegoat wrapper, similar to how officials in the EU constantly try to extend mass surveillance and claim it is to "protect children".

So how does that explain I can take 10 100ml bottles and an empty 1l bottle through security but not 1 full 1l bottle?

The same reason used for WA emissions inspections (since suspended). If your tailpipe emitted 99ppm of pollutants, you were good to go. If it emitted 100ppm, you had to get it fixed.

Good ole step functions.

I don't get your point about the tailpipe emissions. Of course there is a hard cutoff. What else could there be? Do you want them to gently suggest that you should maybe fix your car above 90ppm, and then rudely suggest from 95ppm?

The response they can do is that they either let you use the car or not let you use the car. That is binary. Technically they cannot even do that. All they can do is promise you that if you use your non-compliant car and they find it out they will fine you. Laws are after all just formalised threats backed by force.

You have to be able to fit those 10 100mL bottles into a single 1 quart resealable bag. At most you'd probably get about 9.46 of those 10 bottles in the bag but in practice it's fewer still.

1 US liquid quart is about 946.353 milliliters.

>>1 US liquid quart is about 946.353 milliliters.

Why not just say 1 litre and have the same limit as the rest of the world.

The surface level answer is "for Ronald Reagan reasons":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_Conversion_Act

Because we have quart-sized ziplock bags here, liter bags not so much.

...the rule wasn't implemented because you have quart sized bags, it's the other way around. Also it's not like 1 litre bags would be difficult to make and procure.

You can't, at least not where I live

If you have access to nitric acid you don't need any obscure lore. 3 ounces of a simple concoction a high school chemistry student could make is enough to blow a hole in an airplane. You also stand a good chance of blowing yourself up on the way to the airport.

They don't believe these liquids are actually dangerous, otherwise they wouldn't just throw them in a bin near the queue.

> extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids.

My understanding is that those are detected by the bag swabs.

I _thought_ that this was to stop people mixing their own explosives _on_ the plane? There was a whole court case in the UK about how people had smuggled it onboard and then were going to make it in the toilet.

They would need and ice bath, which is somewhat impractical.

I believe the "theater" is needed precisely for this - to catch bad actors. There could just be a long queue with some blind dog and scary looking guy at the end. What it still does is makes a bad guy sweat, plan against it and etc. You just can't have free entrance for all. However you will never prevent state actors or similar with any kind of theatre because they will always prepare for it.

Maybe I'm being naive, but it has always seemed pretty trivial to me to use the post-security shops to assemble something that will meaningfully damage the aircraft - so the whole thing smacked of theatre.

One theory that I've had for a while with regards to the no liquid policy is that it was somehow introduced by the food vendors on the other side of security, who want you to buy a drink and some food after you pass through.

Won't asking people to take a swig solve a bunch of those issues?

This was done! It created terrible publicity incidents like the TSA forcing women to drink their own breast milk to prove it was safe. And not all liquids subject to this are things a person should swig even if they aren’t explosives. The extremely negative PR rightly stopped this practice.

Is that practice not really common? I’ve seen that done as a matter of course on lots of international airports with baby food / liquid and no one seems to get too fussed about it.

People travel with liquids they don't intend to eat. Shampoo and all that.

There is also nothing that precludes explosives from being non-toxic. Presumably your demise is near if you are carrying explosives through security. What do you care about heavy metal poisoning at that point?

But also you can fill up a water bottle after security. Wouldn't it be fairly easy to make a pen or similar innocuous item out of sodium, and drop it in a bottle of water to make an explosion?

My point is that security can never be strict enough to catch someone who's truly motivated and funded, without making it impossible to admit people at a reasonable pace, and the current rules don't really help with that except for cutting down on the riff raff terrorists. But maybe those are more common than a trained professional with high tech weapons, I don't know.

FWIW, sodium in water is such a pathetic explosion that it would mostly be an embarrassment for the would-be bomber. It wouldn’t do any meaningful damage.

An explosion with real gravitas is far more difficult to execute than people imagine. (see also: people that think ANFO is a viable explosive) This goes a long way in explaining why truly destructive bombings are rare.

Airliners are also pretty robust against damage. Although they are not designed to resist explosions, everything is redundant.

This robustness is why fighters in WW2 used cannons for guns. Poking a hole in the side won't do anything.

> My point is that security can never be strict enough to catch someone who's truly motivated and funded, without making it impossible to admit people at a reasonable pace, and the current rules don't really help with that except for cutting down on the riff raff terrorists.

This is the classic HN developer arrogance and oversimplification, but let's accept this as true for argument's sake. It turns out that "riff raff terrorists" are the only ones we needed to stop as there's been no successful bombings of Western airlines in 25 years, and there have been foiled attempts.

The existence of master locksmiths (and door breaching charges) doesn't mean you shouldn't lock your door at night.

And nobody's going to fall for that "open the cockpit door or I kill the flight attendant" again.

> and there have been foiled attempts.

have there?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Failed_airliner_bombi... ->

2001: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Flight_63_(2...

2006: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_pl...

... which is what we're discussing here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_repercussions_due_to_...

2009: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Airlines_Flight_253

2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_transatlantic_aircraft_bo...

2016: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daallo_Airlines_Flight_159

2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Australian_aeroplane_bomb...

Literally none of these were foiled by the security circus we all have to go through.

If anything, they are evidence that serious attempts are foiled by intelligence services long before the perpetrators get anywhere near an airport, and the others were just incompetent idiots.

Nonetheless, I hope you recognise that incompetent idiots beget more incompetent idiots, if they think they'll get away with it. You don't want e.g. a spate of bank robberies, by idiots who've heard that rubbing lemon juice on your face makes you invisible to cameras. It doesn't matter that they'll get obviously get caught, the problem is a spate of idiots attempting bank robberies (because they're filled with confidence they'll succeed) could easily get people killed.

I don't like security theatre either, and clearly the whole thing is a job creation program and an excuse for vendors to sell flashy scanner devices. But you need visible deterrents, even if most people know they're theatre.

They also act as reassurance for idiots who wouldn't fly otherwise. Idiots' money spends just as well as clever people's money, and there's a lot more idiots out there than clever people.

Because we live in a society with a free press, we have the chattering classes asking "what can we do about this threat?", and government is expected to respond. People don't like to hear from the politician "you're idiots, we don't need that, you are no less safe if we do nothing", they like to hear "we're doing XYZ to address this threat, how clever and wonderful you all are, dear citizens, for recognising it. Your safety is my top priority", then we get the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politician%27s_syllogism

> The existence of master locksmiths (and door breaching charges) doesn't mean you shouldn't lock your door at night.

The TSA checkpoints are the equivalent of moving all your belongings onto the lawn, and then locking the door.

Why bother with the plane when now you have potentialy a magnitude more people in the queue to TSA?

I think the idea is that the new scanners they have are capable detecting liquid densities better so that they can actually tell the difference now?

>is reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives.

I've also had this done on my dialysis port at some airports here in India :-|

> These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but that isn’t going to be happening to liquids in your bag

There are more ways to find them. Look up Z score. TL; DR New detectors can discriminate water from explosives. Old ones couldn’t. None of them are doing IR spectroscopy.

I thought the point of replacing all the xray scanners with CT scanners was to be able to detect this sort of thing?

Schiphol at Amsterdam had this for a year or so, you could bring any type of liquid and leave everything in the bag. But they reverted the liquid rule, if I remember correctly, because of the confusion it caused.

This happened due to a change in regulation in Europe.

Some airports, like AMS or MUC, invested on new machines with higher detection capabilities, and decided to allow all liquids and improve efficiency in boarding. The EU updated the rules claiming those new machines were still not sufficient and airports should go back to forbidding liquids.

It was a mess. I remember flying from MUC and being allowed all liquids and on my return flight, also from EU, when trying to fly with a normal water bottle, security people looked at me wondering what the f I was doing: "Don't you know liquids are not allowed, sir!?"

Schiphol has been very relaxed. I once had a water bottle with probably 200ml of water still in it in my bag. I was told to not do that again and they gave me the bottle back.

Security theater and conditioning people into accepting invasions of privacy

Israel strips you naked and rubs the swipe between your legs thoroughly. Source: friend.

OP is talking about (mostly) TATP here. It's very easy to make, harder to detect with traditional methods and potent enough to be a problem. It's also hilariously unstable, will absolutely kill you before you achieve terrorism, and if you ask people on the appropriate chemistry subreddits how to make it you'll be ridiculed for days.

Yes, peroxide chemistries famously don’t show up on a lot of explosive scans. TATP is an example but not the only one and far from the best one. They are largely missing from common literature because they are too chemically reactive to be practical e.g. they will readily chemically interact with their environment, including most metal casings you might put them in, such that they become non-explosive.

That aside, TATP is a terrible explosive. Weak, unstable, and ineffective. The ridicule is well-deserved.

Is a open flame enough to ignite those liquids and don't they need something to press against to "explode" and not just cause a giant flame like gasoline?

In Zurich, you can buy Swiss army knives in the secure zone.

That's ok - 6cm blades are allowed. You can also carry it in a cabin luggage anyways.

realistically any broken glass bottle can be used as a blade.

Whether they are allowed or not, probably depends on the place.

In Germany, at Frankfurt, I had to dump in a garbage bin a smaller Swiss army knife, to be allowed to pass.

I had it because my high-speed train of Deutsche Bahn had arrived more than one hour late, so there was no time to check in my luggage.

After losing the knife, I ran through the airport towards my gate, but I arrived there a few seconds after the gate was closed. Thus I had to spend the night at a hotel and fly next day, despite losing my knife in the failed attempt to catch the plane. Thanks Deutsche Bahn !

>Whether they are allowed or not, probably depends on the place.

It's a EU thing, even though the Swiss are outside... and I was sure it was a directive until:

The recommendation allows for light knives and scissors with blades up to 6 cm (2.4 in) but some countries do not accept these either (e.g. nail care items)[citation needed]

I thought it was universal mostly since I had no issues at the airports.

Prior to the 6 cm rule, once I had to run to a post office at the airport and mail a parcel to myself with the pocket knife (which is also a memento)

Realistically, you could bring a nub of copper or steel or antler, and your glass bottle, and knap an excellent knife in a few minutes.

The security theatre is there to make people feel safe.

It's about emotion not logic.

...or be very anxious and resent air travel. I don't feel any safe through body searches, coupled with belt/coat removal, not wearing glasses and what not.

Personally, I don't know a single person who feels more secure due to the checks.

And to make some people richer.

2 part liquid explosives featured heavily in Die Hard with a Vengeance.

That was just strawberry jam.

Because the theater raises the threshold.

It's designed to protect consumer confidence so the economy hums along. A single plane is a few hundred people, but the effects ripple out. This is a big country, you need air travel to make it reasonable to connect the coasts, and the more people traveling the more cohesive and economically balanced the country is. They were fine with letting 1M+ Americans die from COVID to protect the economy. That's really all there is to it.

> . This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it.

Meanwhile, you get swabbed, the machine produces a false positive, the TSA drone asks you why the machine is showing a positive, you have no fucking idea why, and they just keep swabbing until they get a green light and everyone moves on with life.

If I recall correctly, it was WIDELY reported by sane, savvy people that no such liquid agents existed that could be combined onboard in this way.

Are there examples you can point to?

how does it add confusion?

if normal people don’t know, criminals/terrorists do, and the materials are commonplace but not screened for, then everything about the current approach is wrong.

and when has a plane been brought down by the evil explosives or stable liquids in recent memory?

so the theatre put in place is just that, huh?

I wonder if the improvements can detect trigger mechanisms better rather than testing the liquid itself.

Sophisticated detonators are very small. The size is well below anything you’d be able to notice on an x-ray. Trying to detect detonators is an exercise in futility. Fortunately, a detonator by itself can’t do any damage.

> This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives notoriously popular with terror organizations can’t be detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.

I used to work at a place that sold a lot of fertilizers. We mostly sold stuff like Monoammonium phosphate or potassium nitrate.

One time while cleaning out a back storage room I came across an open bag of ammonium nitrate. I picked that thing up, carried it around, putting it on a cart and wheeling it around kicking up a lot of dust, all the kinds of stuff that you’d expect while cleaning out a storage room.

A day or so later I got on a plane and they swabbed me and my bag before doing so. I was startled when I didn’t raise any alarms.

I was completely under the misguided impression they something like ammonium nitrate would be detected on a person if they had handled it within a few days of being tested and that would have to explain myself.

And yet .. nothing ever seems to happen! Even though it's so easy.

That means one of at least two things. Either the terrorists are stupid and easily impressed by the security theater. Or there are just not that many bad ombres out there trying to take down airplanes. Or something else I can't think of.

Any thoughts?

Drones.

I assume the logic was:

1) People demand the government be accountable for their failing to protect them

2) Government responds by increased giving the appearance of protecting them, since that creates more lowest-common-denominator sense of feeling safe than the government actually protecting them does; votes protected

3) Complaints of "security theatre" don't alter the above - they just have to wait until people have forgotten their fear while very slowly, bit by bit, without it being noticed, stop doing the nonsense

Or put simply: "terrorists win"

Its not just for explosives, by the way. Its also for solvents - for example, mercury, which could be used to weaken the airframe very easily.

Well, I watched the video of some former Delta Force officer, who said that you can sharpen your credit card to make a deadly weapon out of it. Let's ban credit cards in the airplanes.

Backpack can have metal reinforcements that would make a proper weapon too, Same broken glass bottles and what not.

The entire point is futile and pointless.

> Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.

Then satisfy our curiosity and provide more details as to which are the liquid explosives and which common ones are not detected ? ;)

> It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.

Have you considered just going long Palantir?

there's nothing to really understand

Ahh, the naïvety of the scientific mind! The security theater is intended to prevent government beaurocrats' mates from having to get real jobs and keep them happily sponging off public money. Also, set themselves up for post-career high paid gigs with those same private sector beneficiaries, so they can't be done for corruption during their career. Yes, really. Ask an AI about mid to late career public sector transitions to private sector and cross-examine 100 top examples across markets perceived as 'low corruption index'.

You mean Tony didn't really make £20m in his first year out of office from just giving speeches? I mean, that's what his tax return says?

You, sir, are a _conspiracy theorist_. Don't let that rotating door catch you on the way back in.

Security theatre.

And speaking of theatre in the air, most Indian airlines will make an announcement of turbulence just before food service starts.

This is to make the sheep - strike that - passengers go back to their seats and sit down.

It's obvious. The harder you make it to down or hijack a plane, the fewer downed planes you will see. It didn't have to be perfect to prevent and deter. Some security is better than no security. If you had no security at all you would see planes go down all the time.

And it wouldn't surprise me if some of the detection technology were classified.

It would not be "great" if governments were more open about their detection capabilities; that would cause more terrorism attempts and is one of the stupidest things one could do here.

> The harder you make it to down or hijack a plane, the fewer downed planes you will see.

You know that TSA fails in 90-95% of cases and that crowds before it are a much jucier target?

Have those crowds been targeted?

I see similar crowd densities all over the place. I can think of easier targets than the airport.

there is actually a science change that happened, and it's not (entirely) just politicians changing their mind.

The big thing going from X-ray (2d) to CT (spin an X-ray machine around and take a ton of pictures to recreate a 3d image) did a lot to let security people see inside of a bag, but the hitch is that if you see a blob of gray is that water, shampoo or something else?

The recent advance that is letting this happen is machines who will send multiple wavelengths of X-ray through the material: since different materials absorb light differently, your machine can distinguish between materials, which lets you be more sure that that 2litre is (mostly) water, and then they can discriminate

These machines don't really detect what kind of materials stuff is composed of, much of that is just a crude classification based on density. True identification requires broadband x-rays emission with spectral analysis.

Water, not water is all you need.

What if I told you, there is an app on the market https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWwCK95X6go

There's a whole ton of people taking about MRI -- MRIs are a completely universe than CT/X-rays

I think if an MRI was ever used for airport security screening it would cause more damage and disruption than the terrorist bombs it purports to detect.

It wasn't -- was just noting that people keep saying "MRI", when there's no 5T fields around most security checkpoints

Isn't the world of MRIs moving towards lower teslas instead of higher?

Research is going up; clinical is going down.

The idea behind the recent boom in low-field stuff is that you'd like to have small/cheap machines that can be everywhere and produce good-enough images through smarts (algorithms, design) rather than brute force.

The attitude on the research side is essentially "por qué no los dos?" Crank up the field strength AND use better algorithms, in the hopes of expanding what you can study.

Both. 1.5/3 T is standard, >3 T machines (such as 5 T from United Imaging) are becoming more popular (and affordable) and at the same time ultra low field ones keep improving and now they make some things that were impossible before now actually doable such as bed-side MRI (not in clinical practice of course, but there was nice engineering proof of concept with ultra low field MRI machine that could be powered by normal power outlet).

It's trying to, but "low" is still 0.5-1.5T.

I know nothing about the "industry" of MRIs, but from the physics side, (everything equal) more Tesla is better - at the end of the day, harder magnetic field gets you a stronger signal

it has been such a godsend flying out of Frankfurt where they have the new scanners and you don't have to empty out your bag anymore. So much smoother. Then I fly back and get all annoyed at the other airports. I was told Oslo airport is holding out until it becomes regulation to use the new scanners. Security-Theater is still what it is. It is super weak imho, despite never having seriously attempted a heist or trying to get contraband on a plane. I miss the good old days where you handed your luggage to a guy just before boarding the plane.

Germany has a very sad and weak airport security story. The security personal are hired and paid by the state (Land), and thus the state plans their capacity and workflow. The airport owner (i.e. FRAport) has no say in their internal work organization, as it is basically contracted out policework. For whatever reason, most german Airports I regularly use, use the same machine and broken workflow: There is only a limited amount of containers to put your stuff in to go through the x-ray, and the machine itself has an integrated container-return system using conveyors. As a result, each machine has only a single small table with a container dispenser to serve passengers. On that tiny table, only 2-3 people at the same time can get undressed, get water out of their handlugagge etc. Waiting passengers behind them are blocked.

I contrast that with my experience in Spain: Several meters before the machines, there is a large amount of unoccupied, huge tables with containers stacked everywhere, so everybody can get undressed and pack their stuff into the container trays at their pace of choice. Staff assists and tells the rules to individuall travellers. Once you are done sorting your stuff into the containers, taking off your belt etc - only THEN you take the containers towards the x-ray conveyor line. So there is hardly any blocking the line. Instead of a container-return system, a single human stacks the containers past the scan and returns them to the beginning. This is so much more effective.

Classic example of government run workflows: No one cares to optimize the workflow, and the one who would benefit from a speedup (the airport and the airlines) in terms of increased sales, have no say in the process.

Interesting. I can only speak for FRAports Terminal A where the Lufthansa flights go and they use the new bag scanners where I just need to get rid of my coat and belt to be scanned by the infamous "Nacktscanner". The first time I went through I thought liquids were allowed from all airports in the EU until I found out it was bag scanner dependent. Smaller airports are usually OK because queues are short and then I have the time to walk TSA through each individual item personally. FRAport has started adopting the "snake-through-duty-free" before the gate (pioneered by Stansted as far as I can tell) which is criminal in my opinion (it's not as bad as Stansted yet). Commercial workflows are thus not always better when the optimize time customer has to spend "not buying" overpriced meals and consumer garbage.

> Germany has a very sad and weak airport security story.

The system you describe is hardly unique to Germany, so this just reads like hyperbole or inexperience travelling.

> Classic example of government run workflows

This I can agree with.

Well I commute between Germany and Spain and I contrasted how those countries have very different systems.

>so everybody can get undressed

Wait what? What are you removing?

Flying in the US this week I removed nothing but a winter coat. Everything went on as normal, nothing out of bags, jut coat off.

Probably the same thing as you, but lost in translation. Removing jackets, maybe shoes, winter coats, hoodies etc.

Not undressed in the "everything but your underwear" sense.

Exactly. Plus belts, watches, removing phone/wallet/headphones from your pockets etc. And taking Laptop OUT of your luggage onto separate trays, your liquids into a clear plastic bag, etc. Very often, during that process, the staff members recognize people having liquid containers with more than 100ml capacity (shampoo, hair gel, etc.) and can tell the people that they can't take it aboard etc. I happen to fly frequently to what are busy tourist destinations, and especially older people seem to be completely unaware of any regulations what you can and can't carry along - even though those regulation have been in place for 20+ years. That is very time intensive.

I usually have to remove my jacket, and always the belt

The belt must be removed so that the buckle will not trigger the metal detector.

Belts with plastic buckles are normally OK without having to remove them.

> despite never having seriously attempted a heist or trying to get contraband on a plane

So you've tried casually? What does a casual heist look like exactly?

Can this X Ray bit flip memory or damage NAND?

It can erase EPROMs, so don't send your vintage computers through an X-ray machine.

Super Mario 64 airport security speedrun strat

for people that don't get the reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vj8DzA9y8ls

The bar for damaging memory is way higher than normal X rays.

Flipping bits is more fuzzy. In theory anything can flip bits in working memory.

It's a specific liquid scanner that's done on bottles that have been pulled aside for extra scanning (at least, that's what Frankfurt was doing a couple weeks ago)

As far as I know, it's not. You're now specifically told to not take liquid out of your luggage.

At least that was the situation when I flew out of London Gatwick last time - they had people going up and down before the scanners admonishing people to leave everything in their bags to avoid delay.

We had 4 bags go through, 3 had liquids (2 water bottles and one Barenfang) in them. All three were pulled for secondary screening, at which point they put the specific liquid bottles in a secondary scanner and cleared them.

So, yes, they stay in the bag, but then they're pulled out and scanned separately, at least in Frankfurt.

They're definitely not at Gatwick, at least not "by default".

I've noticed every airport is different, and major airports are usually more likely to have the big fancy looking scanners that help keep the crowd moving along, without taking everything out. Smaller airports seem to have less of that tech and are thus often more of a hassle.

And yet somehow, airport security staff frequently get impatient when people in line ask whether to remove their shoes, laptop, etc. As if the travelers are stupid for asking.

This is a fairly new change - the new scanners are being rolled out "everywhere", but not everyone has them again, and there were some snafu's last summer that caused them all to be decertified within the EU, and at least for a while only scanners from one company had been recertified.

It'll probably be chaos for the next couple of years while this sorts itself out.

Dual energy x ray has been around forever though, like decades.

Certainly, but a) not at the prices people wanted to spend to get 25,000 of them b) not at the maintenance cost for 25,000 of them c) without the software to (by someone's metric) discriminate between shampoo and bomb with enough error

25,000? Interesting. Is there anywhere I can read up on this?

There are a lot of airports in the Us and 2.5 million passengers transit them daily.

If you think you had it bad all these years, you should come and visit the Falkland Islands. I will be brief, but I will explain what going through the Mount Pleasant Airport (MPN) feel like for the average visitor.

For added context: Only one flight by a commercial airline a week on Saturday, comes in around 1300, departs around 1500. You miss it, you wait another week.

- The terminal is extremely small, the plane that comes around can probably fit around 180 pax, you could not fit that many people on the check-in lounge, which means a lot of times people have to queue outside, even in the winter.

- Check in is sluggish, with the Airline representatives in the Falklands calling for check in 4 hours in advance when a flight is full.

- After getting your ticket, security will check your bags and you will be asked to wait an undetermined amount of time, to see if a "random" check need to take place, again, the terminal is tiny, people often crowds waiting forever for their name the be shouted by some security person.

- If you manage to get passed this part, you are still not safe, security can still call your name when passing through or after immigration. Even if you are already in the wait lounge. Someone might still show up and shout your name.

- Immigration will scan your passport and charge you £40 for leaving the country.

- Now you are actually commit to the security checkpoint (these are the same guys that scan the bags on check-in). At any given time there is at least 10 in a 5m2 area. You are forced to take your shoes, no liquids are allowed, no toothpaste, take all electronics out of your bag, take jacket off.

- You are randomly tested for drug and explosive traces (GOING OFF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS)

- You may be patted

- All your belongings might be checked at this point as well.

All in all, you could be looking at a 2-hour ordeal from start to finish.

Do yourself a favor. Go to Maldives instead.

Mount Pleasant Complex is primarily a military base, not a normal civilian airport. That explains almost everything you’re experiencing. Civilian flights are effectively guests on a military base

MoD flights are managed by the Military on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. They use a larger aircraft where check in can take 10 minutes in the same process described for the Saturday flight. 190 people can easily be processed in about 60 minutes with none of the friction that is added by the private company managing the security.

I flew to Belfast in the mid-2000s. I don't remember the security screening as being that unusual (for an American), but the terminal architecture was interesting.

Hearing some of these stories of Belfast its hard to believe. Flew out of both Belfast International and Belfast City airports last year and they are by far the best airports I have ever had the luxury of travelling through.

Out of Belfast I flew into both Heathrow and Stanstead both are fucking miserable ordeals.

Dudes must be really bored there

Apart from a lack of space a lot of that is very normal, and it's hardly surprising things are a bit janky if they only have one flight a week.

That's crazy.

I have yet to encounter a reason to take more than 3oz of liquid with me on a flight somewhere.

Once the restriction was added, it seemed like "oh no how dare you" but in reality, I'm never carrying enough toothpaste to make this a problem.

Are other people truly struggling with this limitation? Feels more like a perceived issue than a practical one.

In the US at least, the limit applies to containers that hold more than 3oz. So I'm prohibited from bringing an 8oz toothpaste tube with an ounce or less left in it. This is an inconvenience if I want to fly for a multi-day trip without checking any baggage.

How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?

No successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.

I have a rock that keeps tigers away. For 30 years I have not encountered any tigers. That’s a pretty good record.

You should market the rock with a track record like that

To answer the parent question, no not even close.

TSA direct costs, passenger time wasted, flights missed, items confiscated.

All so no bombs on planes. But somehow also no bombs at sports events or music concerts, or on trains or subways, or courthouses or....

So the TSA is either stunningly successful or a complete waste. I'd argue a complete waste, but hey, everyone in a TSA uniform drawing a paycheck us entitled to a different opinion.

It's just not bombs that are a danger. You really don't want anyone to set the airplane on fire either, or start shooting people or holes into the fuselage.

AFAIK America has had plenty of shootings, and probably arson attacks too over that time period.

Other then https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China_Northern_Airlines_Flight... how often has anyone ever set fire to a plane (not counting bombs that caused fires). Is there even a single other example.

I agree on guns, but you can probably deal with that with much lower intensity security.

A year ago Air Busan Flight 391 burned completely after a single passenger power bank caught fire on the overhead compartment, and crew couldn't extinguish it. If that had happened on a plane that was in middle of an ocean for example, it would have been almost certainly a total loss with everyone dead, or at least ditching into the sea.

You're right that fortunately there aren't many cases of people causing fires inside airliners on purpose. But that doesn't mean it couldn't happen. When a single power bank can cause catastrophic results like this, I'm glad there's at least some monitoring of what people carry into the airplane in their bags.

You claim comfort from monitoring, and yet the easiest source of fire on a plane is z lithium battery. Which are expressly allowed.

In other words the TSA specifically does not seek yo prevent fires. The reason we don't have people setting fires on planes is because people don't want to do that. And if they did the TSA would be specifically useless in preventing it.

> But somehow also no bombs at sports events or music concerts, or on trains or subways, or courthouses or....

Boston marathon? The Madrid train bombings? 7/7? Ariana Grande?

Airport security has been stunningly successful.

But we don't have intense security checks at concerts, trains, or at marathon events as a result, do we?

This proves that intense security checks prevent bombs.

I don't know where you live, but where I live, we do.

I've traveled all over Europe and North America and have taken a lot of trains. Not once did I have to remove my shoe, scan my baggage, or had any kind of liquid restrictions.

Having a lot of experience with trains too, I can confirm this.

In Europe the major exceptions are Eurostar (Channel Tunnel) and the Spanish high-speed network, where the major stations are like airports, with airport-style security, airport-style departure lounges, and waiting. As I understand it, the extra security is at least partly an outcome of the Madrid terrorist bombings of 2004. Terribly self-defeating.

In France by contrast you can still arrive 2 minutes before the TGV departs.

Concerts and things like sporting events in the US typically require any bags to be clear and only be of a certain size. They may also be checked. No outside liquids are typically allowed (mainly to avoid alcohol). Usually people are at least wanded to prevent weapons, but sometimes metal detectors are setup.

i've been to a bunch of concerts here in the netherlands and they do the most basic checks.

last time, they checked my wife's purse without a torch (so she could've hidden anything inside) and didn't check anything on me so i got in with two 1g edibles.

I think marijuana is legal in the Netherlands

You're very fortunate, you'll have to teach us your ways some day

There are even restaurants in London you can't get to without going through a scanner. E.g. half the restaurants at The Shard.

But to give an idea of how idiotic it is: Those are on the 32nd and 33rd floor. Next door is the Shangri La hotel of The Shard, where you can walk straight in and take the lift to the 31st (no scanners), and change to a lift for the 52nd floor (no scanners).

Wouldn't a terrorist want to bomb a building on the ground floor, anyway, so that all of it would fall down?

Last I checked, in the US there has not been a single instance of the TSA detecting and preventing a terror attack in its 25 year history.

And presumably they wouldn’t be shy about telling us if they had.

I assume they have some deterent value.

You can tell because some of the failed bombings (like the shoe bomber) failed because their plans were stupid to get around security, and if security wasn't there they would probably have used a normal bomb and succeeded

I have no idea if it has worked or not but you got to count deterrence too. If you have a lock and alarm in your house it might deter someone from even trying to break in. Of course you could never know if the deterrence worked (only attempts would be noticeable)

I don't think that the question is really "removing all checks". It's rather "are all those expensive machines necessary?".

I mean, they do find a ton of guns and ammunition. I wouldn't be so sure.

The main benefit from post 9/11 security is locks on the cockpit doors. And no longer telling passengers to do whatever a hijacker says.

Bombings are pretty rare. The last succesful plane bombing of a plane departing from the united states that killed people was in 1962.

This is somewhat false? There were four other bombings, two in western countries (specifically EU->US flights). None of these two were successful in terms of "the plane was downed", but bombs were carried on a plane and exploded, and security didn't stop that.

22 December 2001, American Airlines Flight 63 7 May 2002, China Northern Flight 6136 25 December 2009, Northwest Airlines Flight 253 2 February 2016, Daallo Airlines Flight 159

Ok so cockpit door was locked and thus nobody can hijack plane.

Of course even that has killed people.

I thonk it has more to do with process and pilot crew closing their door.

This is an asinine take - it literally has nothing to do with the theater we deal with at the airports in America

What's the actual reason then?

There's 200 other people on the flight that think this plane is going to crash instead of thinking this plane is going to land safely and a ransom is going to occur.

Prior to 9/11 hijackings were rare but still occurred with everybody living [1]. There is a notable truncation in the list after 9/11 of incidents per decade (across the world; so nothing special about TSA).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#19...

Locking the door of the cockpit, actual on the ground policing in terms of monitoring terror cells.

Better cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies

Don't forget to account for the risk we added by creating places where hundreds of people line up outside the security check. [0]

[0] https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2016/05/out-of-line-how... -- "The study also identified an easy way to make people a less attractive target — improve ticketing and security operations so that crowds of people aren't waiting in line."

How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over SREs at <tech company>? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?

- Half kidding but this is what a lot of CEOs/CTOs think, SRE is one of the least invested skills because it is so difficult to prove that they are worthwhile. Similarly they are invested into AFTER a major incident.

Depends who the 'we' is. It worked out great for the airports; increased drink sales means increased rent for airport shops.

no

No hijacked planes, no terror attacks?

There's also been none since I washed my hair this morning - certainly must be related!!

Clever

Not really….

I don‘t think that is true at all. There have been numerous hijacked planes since 9/11 including two in the USA just this decade.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings

Plane hijacking has been on its way out anyway after the turmoil of the 1970s. And that has probably more to do with a) the relative political stability of the post cold war period, and b) a general sense that airplane hijacking isn’t actually that likely to advance your political goals. If you read the list above, you see people hijacking planes all kinds of dumb methods, hardly any of them involves carrying an actual bomb onto the plane.

Of the two in the US this decade, one did not have a cockpit door as the plane was too small, and the other was by an off-duty pilot sitting in the cockpit…

Yes, if you read the list prior to 9/11 majority of all plane hijackings were equally dumb. And hardly any involved bringing an actual bomb on board (usually lying about having one was enough).

There has been way less terrorism in general too. I'm always curious whether the war on terrorism is that effective, or there's major socioeconomic factor that matters most (or there's just less lead in the air).

It's not "less terrorism".

Back in the day you needed to get onto TV and into newspaper headlines to get any attentions besides your neighbours. Today you can do that with a Facebook page and send your ideas worldwide.

And that works the back way too: instead of the news of bombing in some remote country you can't even find on the map you can get a funny cat videos to fill in.

In the 1970s everyone and their grandma was a member of some left wing revolutionary group, and half of them were working on some terrorist plot, bombing an embassy here, taking hostages there, hijacking an airplane, etc. etc. And in the 1980s every right wing reactionary had joined a right wing counter-revolutionary group, and 99% of them were plotting terrorist attacks (most of them targeting minorities). </exaggeration>

Today the cops are doing the job of the right wing counter-revolutionary groups, and relatively rarely do we get the right wing counter revolutionary terror attacks (but we definitely still do; just not as much). Meanwhile the left has pretty much abandoned terrorism as a viable tactic. It is mostly employed as part of an anti-colonial struggle of an oppressed minority sometimes under literal occupation of their colonizer’s military. But alas we only have a fraction of colonies today relative to the 1970s and the 1980s.

Minneapolis had a whole string of them just this month

> a) the relative political stability of the post cold war period

Most plane hijackings/bombings were middle east related (e.g. linked to one of Palestinian liberation, al-qaeda, or isis)

Not sure i'd call that a stable region of the world, especially now. Perhaps though the people involved just realized it was an ineffective strategy.

I made sure to say relative political stability.

I don‘t like it (in fact I hate it), but capitalism won the cold war. And communist revolutionaries went dormant as a result. The cold war brought a different kind of stability, particularly to Europe, and the end of it created a massive turmoil (mainly along nationalistic lines rather then political ideological ones).

In hindsight perhaps I should have been more specific and said “relative political stability along ideological lines.”

Not because of a sudden outbreak of sanity, but because they have CT scanners now.

3-1-1 is rarely enforced. I always got confused why the 100ml limit existed, since I could just take multiple bottles of 100ml of whatever I wanted and it was okay. Then I realized that technically I only could take 3 bottles but I’ve been getting away with more for decades.

It's not 3 bottles, it's 3.4 oz or 100 ml.

isn't it whatever fits in a quart-sized ziploc? i presume that's where the other poster estimated "only 3 bottles."

3-1-1 is an awful mnemonic, but it's basically: 3.4 oz containers in 1 1-quart ziplock bag.

I guess the comms people got their hands on it before they deployed the original mnemonic: 3.4-1-1

It’s as many bottles sized 100ml or less that you can fit in a 1 liter bag.

Yeah, but arent you allowed to exit and re-enter security as many times as you like as long as you have a valid ticket?

They'd probably find it suspicious

Then you hide them somewhere inside and go back out and in again

OR, you just have one or more accomplices ;-)

Yeah, I flew thru Eindhoven Airport in the Netherlands a few years ago, and I couldn't believe they let me through with water.

The security used something I would describe as out of an Iron Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view of my backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering midair, but I was still impressed. But the fact they let me keep the water was even more amazing, hahah.)

> The security used something I would describe as out of an Iron Man film, they were zooming around a translucent 3D view of my backpack. (It was on an LCD display instead of hovering midair, but I was still impressed.

I just flew with two laptops in my backpack which I didn't have to take out for the first time (haven't flown in a while), with a custom PCB with a couple of vivaldi antennas sandwiched in between the laptops.

It was a real trip watching them view the three PCBs as a single stack, then automatically separate them out, and rotate them individually in 3D. The scanner threw some kind of warning and the operator asked me what the custom PCB was, so I had to explain to them it was a ground penetrating radar (that didn't go over well; I had to check the bag)

Tel Aviv has allowing this for quite some time (10 years?). I guess they update their security devices as soon as new technology becomes available.

They don't advertise it, I found out by accident, trying to empty my water bottle by drinking when a security person told me to just put it together with the rest of my stuff. I had no idea that was a thing and was pretty confused.

They’re multi wavelength CT. Basically whenever you see a 4:3 box with a “smiths” logo over the belt it’s going to be a pretty painless process (take nothing out except analog film)

You can do realtime 3D flythroughs on CT scans with open source viewers. If you've ever had one, get your DICOM data set and enjoy living in the future.

Can you recommend one? I've tried Aeskulap and Amide and I found it hard to get the 3D views to work.

I've seen this too in the US, the newer machines let them spin the scan around in 3D space and must make it much easier to tell if something needs inspection or not

Yeah these are pretty common in the US, but they're just not ubiquitous. Many airports will still have a CT machine next to the old one and it just depends on what line you get out in.

> Not because of a sudden outbreak of sanity, but because they have CT scanners now.

What's is the evidence for believing so strongly that airports all over the world have been prohibiting large amounts of liquids due to widespread insanity?

I would say just as if not more important are probably some advanced nitrates detector.

Let me get this straight. If the article is correct, the new capabilities are related to better detection of large liquid containers, not determination of whether or not the liquid is dangerous.

So - you couldn’t take large amounts of liquids previously because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum total, or in containers that are too large) they’d throw it out and send you on your way.

But now that they have the ability to detect larger containers, they… do what? Declare that it’s safe and send you on your way with it still in your possession?

Dublin has been relaxing their restrictions for a while now, and when I travelled two weeks ago, had also completely dropped the rules. You no longer need to remove liquids or electronics from bags, and the liquids per bottle limits are much higher (don’t remember exactly, maybe 2 litres) with no restriction on total number of bottles.

I watched a YouTube video about it a few months back and apparently the new devices, at least those used in Dublin, are much more accurate in detecting the difference between materials that previously looked similar to the machines, they can also rotate the images in 3d to get a look from different angles. Both of these make it easier to tell whether a substance is dangerous, apparently.

Berlin had a mix of modern scanners and old scanners last time I flew. I had one flight where they were using the modern scanners. And then a few weeks later I used a different security gate and I still had to remove everything from the bag. If you fly from there, the security at the far end of the terminal has the new machines and is usually also the fastest because people generally use the first security gate they see. Good tip if you are in a hurry. The last few times I was through in a few minutes.

At some airports, you can now check your own bag using a machine that weighs it and prints a sticker. Then you drop it on a belt yourself and you walk through security scanners; all without having to talk to anyone. And finally you board using your phone. Lots of automated checks. I've boarded a few times now without anyone bothering to look at an id now. It seems that with self check in the id check at the gate disappeared. And inside the Schengen zone, nobody checks ids at security either.

Edinburgh dropped all liquids and electronics ceremony for a few months now. It's great. I have found that adds of your bag being put aside for further insepction seems to have increased though.

When you don't know much about a topic, probability is higher that your are missing some piece than some entity doing things that make no sense.

I know it's easy to get the impression that's not the case. But when your stop making fun of / belittle such events / persons / decision and be curious instead you start to realize that more often than not you are just missing a piece of information.

The truth oftentimes is just not interesting enough and not clickbait worthy.

You’re right. I am genuinely curious though, so I shouldn’t have been so snarky about it. I’ll try again:

I’ve always been under the impression that large containers of liquids were forbidden because they were potentially dangerous. If that hasn’t changed, and if the new technology is only about being able to better detect the presence of liquids in packed luggage, why have the limits on container size changed?

EDIT: So I see that the article says that it’s about being able to keep the liquids in your bag when going through security. But I thought liquids in large containers were forbidden from going through security entirely unless you had some kind of medical justification for them?

Not just the presence but the material itself: https://www.smithsdetection.com/products/sdx-10060-xdi/

It’s X-ray diffraction

I believe the article mentioned density as well. I suspect that is extremely key in determining what it is, or at least determining if it is something really odd that should get additional screening.

So they'll still make me toss out my dang sunscreen.

No, they'd make you take it out if the scanner / person is unable to classify the object.

It's not just large amounts of liquids: it was my understanding that this is both a restriction on large amounts of liquid, but particularly on large containers needed for an explosive of sufficient destructive power.

You could always easily work around the liquid amount restriction (multiple containers over multiple people), but if you still need a large container, it becomes harder.

I don't know if this is true or if a resealable plastic bag also works, for instance (that would be funny, wouldn't it?).

This might make sense if there weren't shops selling large bottles right after security. Ones full of highly flammable liquids, even.

I am not sure any of it makes real sense, it's just a variation of the "why" I picked up somewhere (that it's both).

But yes, that's easily worked around in the manner people brought up already (I did think of duty free bottles, but not camera cases, that is a good one).

Or if you couldnt simply take a large empty bottle through.

Howver if you rely on 10 people to take 100ml each that’s a far larger conspiracy and far less likely than one person taking 1l through.

Like what? Alcohol isn't flammable unless it's over 63%, and you aren't allowed to bring duty free alcohol on the plane.

Duty-free purchases are all hand carried into the aircraft, and "tamper-proof" bags are nothing of the sort.

Tamper evident, a very different thing.

Alcohol is flammable around 40%. French cooks aren’t using overproof brandy to do flambé.

Gunpowder doused in alcohol is, very famously for people interested in the history of rum, flammable if the alcohol is around 57.1% or higher, but straight alcohol/water without gunpowder is flammable at a lower strength than that.

>particularly on large containers

It's common for people to carry large metal equipment cases (for cameras, etc.) onboard

It can detect not only large containers of liquids, but (up to a point) what liquid is in them.

Have you never been screened where they swab your items and stick it in a machine? That is to detect explosives. They can use the first machine to target people for follow up screening.

I have, but what’s relevant is that I’m always commanded to dump out any liquids in containers bigger than the 3.4 oz limit before going through security unless they’re like a prescription medication. What I’m unclear on why that’s changed if the improvement that’s been made is in detection of liquids in packed bags.

So far, this machine has been used to reliably, 10/10 times, reject and discard my nivea deodorant.

My GF is from East Asia and has travelled almost 100 countries, anything from rich first world to poor 3rd world countries.

She was absolutely shocked to find that liquid container limits were enforced in northern Europe. She would just put her makeup bag with cleansers and gels and everything in her carry-on and travel the world.

Which companies were the big winners with all the post-9/11 security theater?

Booz, L3, Rapiscan, Smiths, Leidos, Verint... their logos are mostly everywhere at the airport

We transited through LHR yesterday. Still had to go through security - not sure why since we stayed on the air side.

Anyway, signage required us to empty our refillable water bottles. Odd. Thankfully we eventually found a refill station.

The scanners flagged a still sealed can of ginger ale left over from our incoming flight. It was "fine" but she still swabbed it. Shrug.

If you come in from a country that doesn’t fall under the TSA, you have to clear TSA before getting on a flight that does.

The worst I had was in India, flying to the US. Not only was there the normal airport security (despite having come in on a connecting flight from within India), but when I got to the gate (with only minutes to spare), there was a whole TSA check at the gate itself. Bags x-rayed (again), metal detectors (again), guy with a wand (again), the whole deal. Just getting to the gate, I had to show my papers to at least 6 people; every time I turned down a new hallway. That was my far my worst airport experience.

Flying with connections mostly within Schengen, or EU<>US via CDG, I never had to clear security again at layover, but I recently learnt this is rather an exception, and apparently it's a very common thing in most airports to have to clear security again.

LHR is actually notorious for this; you don't have to clear security again at LHR only when the connection is domestic.

In many other airports it's the same when e.g. you switch a terminal. Best to check for a particular airport what are the rules before booking.

It's super frustrating losing the contents of your water bottle and then having nowhere at all that you can refill it.

I think all UK airports have easy to find water bottle refill stations

The ones at LHR suck though. Often broken/next to no water pressure. Easier to just ask a coffee shop.

Pretty common to have to re-clear security at large airports if you've come from another country, I've had to do it every time when transiting through Dubai for instance.

Famously Steve Jobs had a story about shaving time off of boot-up and equating it to saving lives on the concept of people sitting their waiting for the computer to boot up just lost that much of their lives. [1] I actually do believe there is value in thinking this way and it is one of my biggest arguments against TSA. Everything has a cost, including 'security' and 'safety'. If you look at the very real human toll, and economic toll, that airport security has caused any potential gain is out the window in just one day of costs from screening, and that doesn't even get into the privacy destruction this has caused. I think I would get way to angry to comment on that in an intelligent way.

But that is just one argument. My real anger at airport screening is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and for a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how about for a few nickles?) get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc etc etc. We could actually save lives if we put effort into this technology for people instead of for a sense of security. But we probably won't. Because fear gets money but solving real problems that actually impact people doesn't.

[1] https://danemcfarlane.com/how-steve-jobs-turned-boot-time-in...

> My real anger is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and ... get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc

Airport screening of people doesn't yield those results. It's able to notice a big inorganic mass, or a chunk of metal, but it wouldn't spot a tumour, it gives nowhere near the level of detail that an MRI or CAT scan will give. The airport scanners are also much cheaper, coming in at ~250k USD rather than ~2m USD.

Even the xray machines used for bags, while expensive and capable, are designed to differentiate metals, liquids, and organics, not organics from other organics.

Both airport security and healthcare funding have their issues, but I don't think this is one of them.

I think the OP was lamenting the overall effort and resources that could have been applied to something more effective at helping people, such as improving the medical industry, not suggesting that airport screening equipment could be used for medical purposes.

I think the point is we can afford massive machines for the TSA that are essentially paid for by the Federal Budget, and used by millions each day for free, but we can't do the same for MRI machines.

Not free. If you look at an itemized statement for air travel you’ll see that you’re paying the TSA for this treatment directly.

Not really relevant, just makes the whole thing worse imho. There are new carryon bag scanners which are basically CT scans I think. Again not really relevant just makes it all worse. We could afford better medical care but we spending it on security theater and power tripping.

Lots of stuff is funded by the US federal budget instead of MRI machines.

My point is that there's not actually any useful connection between the TSA scanners and medical scanners, it's comparing apples to oranges. By all means be angry about the lack of healthcare in the US, by all means blame other spending, but singling out the TSA is arbitrary.

Most of the other spending serves a useful purpose. TSA doesn't. Though they seem relatively benign next to the Gesta..I mean ICE

As I said, it's fine if you want a political opinion on government spending priorities, but that's not what jmward01 appeared to be suggesting.

I think it was, his phrasing was just somewhat ambiguous

Not that your thrust is incorrect, but a CT machine (used here at airports) and MRI machines are completely different beasts in not just cost but also complexity.

I think an MRI probably takes longer than the TSA scan so walk-through MRIs wouldn’t be practical.

Nobody or no item is getting an MRI at an airport. It's pretty common for people to conflate that with X-rays but MRIs work on a fundamentally different process and exclusively (outside of physics 101) requires liquid helium-cooled superconducting magnets to get anything useful.

There are an order of magnitude less MRI scans daily than US flight passengers, however, at 1/30th the frequency.

Granted, I imagine an MRI scan still takes longer than 30 airport scans.

Interestingly the price of the body scanners and a typical MRI are in the same ballpark, from my experience and what I could glean online.

I’m sure we do have a lot more MRI machines than airport scanners, right?

> My real anger at airport screening is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and for a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how about for a few nickles?) get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc etc etc. We could actually save lives

This always strikes me as a weird thing tech people believe about medicine. Full body scans just aren’t medically useful for otherwise healthy people. You’ll inevitably see something and it’s almost certainly going to be benign but might send you down the path of a lot of expensive and dangerous treatments or exploratory procedures. This is why there’s always so much debate about prostrate exam and breast exam age recommendations. There’s a tipping point where the risk of iatrogenesis outward the risk of disease.

People should be able to do full 3d scans of their bodies, and then doctors should be able to tell them what they should ignore. If they spot something abnormal they could suggest coming back 6 months or a year later to check if it has changed, just like mole scans. The problems that you suggest only come from people overreacting to test results. We can do better.

You can now in the US it’s just expensive, and of little medical value:

BS. Full body scans are amazing, and should be added to the normal health screening along with blood tests.

Doctors need to get out of the headspace where an MRI is something reserved only to confirm the terminal cancer diagnosis.

Pretty much all the supposed issues are solved by taking the second scan a couple months in the future.

I could dump loads of academic research on you about this topic, but it seems like you’re unwilling to engage.

I read most of the research on this topic. And it's all basically "overdiagnosing".

We had the same story about prostate cancer screening: "overdiagnosing", "people die with prostate cancer but not of prostate cancer", blah blah blah. It turned out that simply adjusting the aggressiveness of follow-up was enough to make prostate cancer result in significantly fewer deaths.

From my point of view: MRI is the ONLY tool that can catch things like pancreatic cancer before it's lethal.

Only in the Apple reality distortion field would I see the hubris of boot times being equated to saving lives. I see value in saving time, but without the celebrity worship, it's nowhere near the same in terms of importance, application, or utility. Besides, the same time saving desire has been a driving force in software by nameless developers since the beginning of software. Attempting to frame and attribute the concept to a single individual is dismissive and disrespectful to the work of others.

There’s alot to imaging. When my wife was battling cancer she was getting alot of MRIs and was in a trial for computerized radiology. We got to talk to the radiologist, who showed us the difference between what he found vs the machine. The machine spotted some stuff that he didn’t, but wasn’t as good at classification.

You also need context to appropriately interpret what you see.

> a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how about for a few nickles?)

Wait what? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penny_(United_States_coin)

From your link:

> In late 2025, the Mint halted the production of pennies for circulation, largely due to cost.

Ah damn, that was buried. They ought to change the rest to past tense then.

They're still legal tender, you can pay things with them. They just stopped producing new ones. It's supposedly permanent, but they can continue producing it any time in the future if they really wanted to.

Well, they still exist and you can still pay for things with them (though a lot of businesses won’t give you them in change, and just round up to the nearest $0.05).

I guess it’ll be a few years before they’re out of circulation entirely.

I almost exclusively take trains now because the experience of flying is one of repeated dehumanization, especially in the USA.

First, if getting dropped off in a car (most American airports this is your only option), you must suffer being screamed at by traffic cops while trying to navigate a perpetually under construction dropoff area. You get one (1) peck on the cheek from mum before some uniformed individual waddles over to yell at you some more.

Then you must wait in line at a check in counter behind fifty families with 4 large luggage items each, despite the fact that you only have a backpack. Why? Because when you tried to do online check-in and boarding pass, the site broke / said no, and the self-service check-in kiosk at the airport still isn't switched on despite being installed a decade ago.

At the check-in counter, a person who knows less than you about the country you're traveling to will inform you as a matter of fact that you can't get ok the flight until you buy a return ticket, since that's what their binder says and they don't understand your visa. You must wait for a supervisor to come and verify that your visa is actually valid.

Before security, you're offered the rich person line if you have the money to pay for it. Literally advertised as a "white glove experience." If not well, into security with the rest of the cattle.

At security, you get to be screamed at by TSA for not knowing the exact procedures of this airport you've never been to. Why must they have to tell Passenger, who is one person they see ten thousand times a day, over and over again that you have to push your box onto the automated belt yourself, rather than let it be pushed on as a train with the other boxes. Passenger must be stupid. Surely it's not because of poor signage that Passenger doesn't know what to do. And by the way, take off your shoes and let us look at your genitals. Oh, you don't want us to look at your genitals? Well then we'll have to just grope every inch of your body, and nut check you for making us do our job in a slightly more annoying way. Just in case you're terrorist scum, we'll check if you have bomb making residue on your skin, while someone else opens your luggage and digs around in it so everyone else in like can see what your underwear looks like. At TSA we offer full service sexualized humiliation, guaranteed!

The dehumanization never ends. Once on the flight you are packed in like cattle, so tight you're rubbing shoulders with the person on your right and left, while your knees dig into the back of the person in front of you. You're served a tray of slop that you have to pay for now. Security took your water bottle, but when you ask for water on the flight, it's given to you in a tiny plastic cup, that's free if you're lucky. Now sit there quietly while we try to sell credit cards to this captured audience.

Finally you land and it's time to get off the plane! Oh actually no, the curtain is closed in your face. Silly peasant, you must watch the first class passengers leisurely pack their things and stroll off the plane. Only until the last one is off may the dirty peasants pass the fabric barrier.

https://youtube.com/shorts/bpS6e3PGwiY?si=T2OB4dxtqztHtHLs

Los Alamos is developing these cool resonance based detectors

https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-fighting-f...

There is something I never understood: what if multiple people carry the limit of "explosive/flammable" liquid allowed and combine it inside the plane?

Defense in depth.

Nice to see them catch up with Edinburgh.

How is this news? A lot of airports in Europe had had this for years and even in England there were terminals within the major hubs where this was already the norm

Because Heathrow markets itself as a world class airport and they have been woefully behind the times with regards to updating their security tech

Heathrow is by far the largest airport in the UK, with several times more flights per day than any other, and flights to a broader range of destinations. So it affects a lot more prospective fliers. I looked up European airports and found some mention that Rome and Milan also have this new equipment, but they're both still significantly smaller than Heathrow.

Gatwick already had it too, at least a part of it.

The fact Heathrow got 30/40% more traffic than other airports in the same continent already having it doesn’t make the news worth all this noise.

Yes but Heathrow has around twice as many departures per day (edit after your edit:) than Gatwick.

This is on BBC news. Heathrow is twice as busy as any other airport in the UK. It's the easiest major airport to reach from London (other than LCY which is not that "major"). I literally know people who are leaving from Heathrow this week and are affected by this. C'mon, it's newsworthy.

Yeah and 50% more than Rome, but overall less than all airports already doing it in Europe. This news made front page out of two things:

1) English people do not know anything about continental Europe

2) Americans do not know anything about Europe

Oh okay, you're asking why is it on HN front page rather than more generally why is it newsworthy. That's a fair point. I suppose it's a big feat of logistics and engineering to manage a switchover at such a large airport with so many terminals

Schiphol had this for a while (several years I think, I don't fly often), but they reversed it a couple of years ago because European regulators didn't agree for some reason, and now liquids are forbidden again (discussed elsewhere in thread). So this surprises me and is news to me.

> For airport operations teams, the real benefit isn’t just traveler satisfaction. It’s throughput stability:

> - fewer stoppages caused by liquids mistakes

> - fewer tray-handling steps per passenger

> - less variability at peak banks (which is where hubs like LHR get punished)

Didn't know ChatGPT has started to call itself "John Cushma".

I noticed my eyes started automatically skimming right after that paragraph. It's funny my brain has learned to calibrate its reading effort in response to how much perceived effort went into writing it.

Still not allowed to bring in food, but now allowed to bring in unlimited soup? Ridiculous

Where were you prohibited from bringing in food?

> Many agriculture products are prohibited entry into the United States from certain countries because they may carry plant pests and foreign animal diseases.

> Prohibited or restricted items may include meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, plants, seeds, soil and products made from animal or plant materials.

https://www.cbp.gov/travel/international-visitors/agricultur...

Airport departure security (bringing onboard a plane) is different than arrival customs (bringing into a country).

Don't give RyanAir any ideas please.

Stupid question as I never flied: does the limit include drinking water?

Going to Edinburgh Airport, I was reminded that the tiny water bottle I forgot in my bag could be a bomb. I just went "Oh jeez I'm sorry... Here, have some water! You look like you need it!" Then I opened the bottle and drank it. He grabbed it out of my hands and said it had to go to some lab. So I went "Ok then, the chemical compounds in there are ... H2O and perhaps some carbon...? Idk. I'm not a chemist, but I'm fairly sure the worst thing it'll do is make me burp."

Thankfully, Edinburgh airport has relaxed it liquid rules. You are now allowed up to 2 litres, across one or more containers and they stay in your bag while going through security.

It seems that this is only in place at the security entering the terminal. I landed in Heathrow a few days ago and had to empty out my water bottle (which I got given on the flight to the UK) for the transfer security check.

I remember the days in the 90's when me and my wife could both carry back 5l containers of the local red wine in our carry on. I hope that comes back...

The free wine on the planes has gotten better since then. ;p

Frankfurt has been doing that for ages (2 years now?). They just got better scanners. But they don't cover all terminals or checkpoints, so you gotta know your way around.

I don't recall it in Frankfurt last summer, but it was definitely going earlier this month. Though, they've got a weird security setup for some of the gates, so I'm sure it varied from gate to gate. Dublin and Edinburgh have had it for a while too, Dublin since last summer. Really speeds up security.

Yeah, even small airports like Belfast City have had it for the past couple of years. Other London area airports (Luton, City, and Gatwick - not sure about Stansted) have had it for about as long, too.

Heathrow's definitely a straggler - I'm assuming it was a more difficult project for them due to their sheer size.

This is funny because just a few months ago, I was forced at Heathrow to chug -- not allowed to pour out! -- my entire water bottle that I had filled prior to my flight. The security person watched me do it and added, "bathroom's over there".

How did they force you to do that?

Anything a border official says is implicitly backed with the threat of, at a minimum, detention without trial and without basic humane treatment like access to drinking water. Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in this).

>Heathrow has well publicised cases

People attempting to enter illegally, not for failing to down drinks like it's a frat house...

It's probably much more boring. The choice was likely between leaving the whole water bottle and its contents in a bin of forbidden/discarded items, going home and missing the flight, or chugging it, or arranging a courier for said bottle.

Probably the act of defiance of pouring the contents onto the floor where there was no drain was implied to be disruptive and would have lead to harsher sanction for no reasonable payoff.

I doubt very much immigration told you to drink a water. Hell lost of the time you don’t even talk to them as they’re e-gates and it’s remote.

Security might have done, this is nothing to do with the border farce.

Heathrow is a fucking miserable place with spiteful staff and it would not surprise me one bit if someone decided to fuck with a traveller this way. I saw a girl running to catch a bus to another terminal for a connecting flight, and the guy controller her made an enormous stink about her "breathing on me". She was polite and apologetic but she got pulled aside and made to wait for everyone else to get through, got sternly chastised before being allowed to continue (whereupon she missed the connecting bus and presumably her flight). Same trip I saw them them shouting and swearing at disabled travellers who needed wheelchairs. Every other member of staff in the airport was stood around fucking with their phones and seemed furious whenever they had to do their job.

Horrible airport, avoid at all costs.

> Heathrow has well publicised cases (and is not unusual in this)

Share with us your best source for this.

Why did you allow them to humiliate you like this?

Because flights are expensive enough that for most ordinary people missing one would set them back years or decades financially?

If the median UK salary is >£35,000 I really wonder how arrive at the conclusion that missing a flight will set you back "years or decades"...

> If the median UK salary is >£35,000 I really wonder how arrive at the conclusion that missing a flight will set you back "years or decades"...

Ok, now take that figure and deduct tax, housing, food, utilities and so on - how much do you think is disposable/saveable? And then take the typical cost of a last-minute replacement flight and compare those two numbers.

too hyperbolic to take seriously

it would be incredibly inconvenient, and maybe missing other parts of a full vacation would set them back, but thats not the only reason people buy flights

In my experience the real issue with airports is the border control, not the security check.

Wonder what effect it's gonna have on duty free economy. I'm sure selling beverages is the big chunk of airport's revenue.

Doesn’t duty free shopping typically happen after one goes through security?

If you confiscate my Diet Coke at security, you have created demand for Diet Coke on the other side of security.

> TSA needs consistency in alarm resolution, secondary screening rates, and officer workflows—otherwise “keep liquids packed” becomes a promise that varies by airport, terminal, and even time of day.

...what? These already vary in the same airport literally by adjacent lanes...

I don't even know what I need to show at at the start of the line. My ID? My boarding pass? Both?

On my last trip I bought some different deodorant, because my usual brand was .2oz over the limit. Not sure why the brand wouldn’t just go with the TSA limit to make life easy for everyone. The new stuff ended up staining all my shirts. I largely blame the TSA for having to buy all new shirts. Next time I’m going to less of a stickler for the rules and hope for the best, as following the rules yields poor outcomes. Hopefully by that time the new rules will filter out to more airports.

And don't rely on the destination airport having the same rules when you fly back.

This used to get people doing EU -> London flights. The EU rules had already been relaxed, but you got bitten by the extra restrictions when you went to fly back.

Like most things, flying is a complete shitshow, but do it often enough and you get used to it and all of the foibles.

Regularly flying hand luggage only is a grind as you're at the mercy of the lowest common denominator in terms of rules on what you can carry. When I had to visit a string of customers with one or two flights a day I had to submit expense claims with various toiletries purchased several times over, it was questioned by the finance department and they asked about whether I should check in a bag next time, but they stopped pushing when I said that adding a checked bag to my tickets would have been about 10 times more expensive than just buying things as and when I needed them.

Hugely wasteful but then so is flying, and most of my trips could have been replaced with a video call if it wasn't for touchy-feely corporate politics.

Water: I use a generic cycling bidon for travel. I empty it before security and they're happy with that. Any sane airport will have places to refill it for free, if they don't I can just buy a bottle of water and refill it. No airport I've traveled through has wanted to confiscate an empty cycling bidon and if they did it's cheap to replace.

Okay but for personal toiletry stuff you need the rule scrapped at both ends of your trip.

Don't be sad. One step at a time. One more trip-end to connect to other trip-ends. Or do you want to wait with roll-out until the whole world is ready to do it at the same time? Always look on the bright side of life. :)

My deodorant isn't available in those small travel containers :(

And it's the only thing i really care about, I can do with any random toothpaste and shaving foam that i buy on arrival.

But maybe it will happen in my lifetime.

Ok, that's a bummer.

Here's a silly idea that is probably not new to you, but just in case: have you looked into refillable deodorant dispensers?

Eh, I use another product that's bearable to me when I go on plane trips.

But I want mine!

Then my original advice applies. Don't worry, be happy! Can't recommend it enough.

Good. This should happen on all airports now. Otherwise it's useless. You won't be flying from Heathrow to Heathrow.

Hmm, I once transited in Heathrow in a return flight from europe to the US and had to go through Heathrow security for whatever reason, where they subjected me to liquids rules way stricter than either my source or destination did.

E.g. 1 day use contact lenses and prescription creams all having to fit in a tiny plastic bag. So I'm happy for this change.

> Hmm, I once transited in Heathrow in a return flight from europe to the US and had to go through Heathrow security for whatever reason,

The US mandates that you have to go through TSA approved security before getting on a flight to the US.

Either the security at your European airport wasn't good enough, or the transit at Heathrow allowed you to access to things that invalidated the previous security screening and so it had to be done again.

The bonus is that if you get to go through US Immigration at the departure airport then you can often land at domestic terminals in the US and the arrivals experience is far less tortuous. I flew to the US with a transit in Ireland a few times and it was so much nicer using the dead time before the Ireland -> US flight to clear immigration rather than spending anything from 15 minutes to 4 hours in a queue at the arrival airport in the US (all depending on which other flights arrived just before yours).

It’s slowly happening at least in Europe: https://www.skycop.com/news/passenger-rights/airports-liquid...

You know they don't take your liquids at the destination airport, right?

People generally have a return flight.

Flew through Heathrow a few months ago. Signs flashing on the screens specifically saying laptops must be removed, security guys yelling “don’t remove laptops”