Security Theater: Now With Less Security
I was rooting around in my bag a couple of hours ago looking for a nice pen I “borrowed” from the Mandarin Oriental in Geneva (very nice hotel — pushing US public policy in a more pro-Rolex direction is now my top priority) what did I find but a Swiss Army Knife that someone or other had put in one of my Switzerland gift bags. I didn’t really think much of it, but on reflection I carried the bag in question onto the plane for the Geneva-JFK leg of my return travel. And I cleared security for the JFK-DCA leg with the knife in the bag and only didn’t wind up boarding the flight because it got canceled.
In the latter instance, I was even singled out for special enhanced scrutiny, but they still let me take a knife on the plane — the precise thing all this security is supposed to prevent. But God forbid I’d tried to walk through security with a couple of brought-from-home Diet Cokes to drink while waiting — there are big markups and profits at stake in the liquids ban.
43 Responses to “Security Theater: Now With Less Security”
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November 18th, 2008 at 4:30 pm
their are big markups and profits at stake in the liquids ban.
Admit it, you’re doing this on purpose.
November 18th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
Actually, you’re allowed to take them on board since 2006:
“A recent policy change means that corkscrews, knitting needles, small scissors and knives with a blade shorter than 6cm can now be carried in hand luggage on domestic flights and international flights to Europe and Asia.”
http://www.consumer.org.nz/newsitem.asp?docid=2615&category=News&topic=Airline%20security%20rules%20relaxed
November 18th, 2008 at 4:39 pm
Wow. The Four Seasons huh? What do the Swiss want from you? That is not some proletarian dive like the Ritz Carlton or the Four Seasons!
November 18th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
John DE @ 2
That article is from New Zealand. I don’t think it applies to the US.
November 18th, 2008 at 4:45 pm
Oops, that was a bad link, it was for New Zealand. It still seems that the scissors are okay, but maybe the knife is strictly speaking banned, but they’ve publicly said it’s not really a concern.
http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm
November 18th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
I have a computer bag that has a pack of matches in it. I estimate it’s been through security about 30 times. No one has ever made an issue about it.
They are much more on the ball with noticing liquids, especially the really expensive ones in tolietry kits.
November 18th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Next time I fly I really want to try to take a completely frozen water bottle through security. I am picturing myself getting into a heated argument about it, along the lines of “Didn’t you take elementary school science? Water is a liquid, ice is a SOLID! You only ban liquids, not SOLIDS!!!” Unfortunately, I then picture myself in handcuffs, or at least detained long enough to miss my flight.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:12 pm
i picked up this nice little LED flashlight in Greece. Only after i took it home in my carry on bag did i realized that if you flip the top back, it’s also a cigar lighter (think hot, blue flame). So no danger there or anything.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
My father-in-law, a retired naval officer, flew to visit us a few years ago. When he got here he noticed that he forgot to remove a half-dozen 9mm rounds that were in his carry-on. On the way home, though, TSA took away a jar of peanut butter he was trying to take back with him.
It’s crazy.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Matt, back when I was flying a lot, I usually had a bottle of water in an *outside* pocket in my carry-on, and I think it got through maybe one out of four times. I’ve carried toothpaste 100% successfully.
Generally speaking, the screeners are just looking for the most recent one or two big things, rather than the laundry list of things that are “dangerous” but most people volunteer their contraband so it looks like the process is much more effective than it really is.
November 18th, 2008 at 5:54 pm
In spite of your surname, the idea of you being an agile, light-on-your-feet knife fighter made the TSA security guys crack up laughing and they forget to take the Swiss Army knife away.
November 18th, 2008 at 6:16 pm
A few years ago, I found a 5″ Gerber E-Z Out blade in the desert in Idaho on the way to a vacation in Yellowstone. Flying back to the east coast, I made it through three separate connections before realizing it was still in my jeans pocket (not in carry-on), as I was coming out of Dulles.
It’s stainless steel, not aluminum or ceramic – I suppose it wasn’t magnetic enough. PS: As we began the vacation, on the way to the terminal, my mother set off the metal detector and was searched for two foil-lined tea packets.
November 18th, 2008 at 6:19 pm
Back in 2003 or so, I found myself in a security line, busily emptying my pockets for everything metal, when I pulled out my swiss army knife. I didn’t really want to lose it, I didn’t have the time to run it back out to my car, so I decided to try to smuggle it. I put everything else in the thing and went through the metal detector. It went off. They wanded me, and it beeped every time it went over my pocket. They decided that it must be the rivets on my jeans.
On the way back, I didn’t set off the metal detector, and so I successfully carried my knife on a round-trip voyage, post 9/11. Glad to know that all those horrifying delays are making me safer.
November 18th, 2008 at 6:26 pm
I had the little scissors in a grooming kit (clippers, little moustache comb, I kick it like I’m Tom Friedman) taken from my carry-on in a bus station in Jacksonville. When I told them that the bus station in NYC didn’t have a problem with me boarding with it and that NYC knew a bit more about terrorism than Jacksonville I got denied boarding and had to wait to the next bus. On the plus side, nobody’s flown a bus into a building while TSA is on the job.
November 18th, 2008 at 6:58 pm
My frail 85 year old Indian grandmother attended my brother’s college graduation her in the US. She had worn one of her best silk saris, which had copious amounts of gold thread woven into it.
We left for the airport immediately after the ceremony.
For 20 minutes or so, airport security scanned every inch of my frail 85 year old grandmother’s sari and patted her down carefully before determining that yes, it was just the sari, and nothing else.
November 18th, 2008 at 7:00 pm
Sorry, to complete my sentence properly…
For 20 minutes or so, airport security scanned every inch of my frail 85 year old grandmother’s sari and patted her down carefully in order to determine that yes, it was just the sari which was setting of the metal detector and nothing more sinister.
November 18th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
Somehow, it really does seem like that knife should have a swing-out USB plug ‘blade”.
November 18th, 2008 at 7:58 pm
Michael B. Sullivan: “They decided that it must be the rivets on my jeans.”
Oh, man, that’s stupid. But it’s also nothing compared to this:
Last season on Terminator, Cameron – the “good Terminator” – goes to high school with John Connor posing as his sister. Of course, the school has a metal detector at the door with security guards telling everybody to take off “rings and bling and put it in the basket”.
So a “girl” with about 350 pounds of metal in her goes through the metal detector, right?
John sees this isn’t going to be working. So he goes up to the security guard and says, “This is my sister. She’s got a metal plate in her head. Really, it’s a big one.”
The security guard waves his wand over her all metal skull. Cameron says, “I fell. Hard.”
He waves her through.
Probably the deadliest weapon in history admitted to a high school. It was hilarious.
Later, said weapon goes into the girls john. One of the girls is examining herself in the mirror, she asks, “Do I look fat?” Cameron naturally says “Yes.” The girl turns on her, “What’s your problem?” Cameron says, “You asked.” Another girl says, “Bitch whore much?” Cameron says, “I don’t understand.” The other girl says, “I said, bitch – whore – much! What are you looking at?” Cameron decides this broad is hostile and gives her the “Termination look” as she says, “I’m looking at you.” The girls get scared and bug out.
The show has some funny moments.
I’d really like to see them do an episode where Cameron uses the “head plate” trick to get through an airport metal detector.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Matt, That is now legal. Just like the Leatherman Tools that the 911 hijackers used. They had to claim they were box cutters because box cutters were illegal. But knifes with a three and one half inch blade were not.
Do not embarrass the Bush administration. That would be unseemly.
No one will buy you dinner if you keep this up. It is a right wing nation after all.
Some of this comment is snark.
November 18th, 2008 at 8:46 pm
successfully boarded a plan with an ice ax in plain view strapped to my backpack
November 18th, 2008 at 9:50 pm
It’s not just transit where searches are crazy; several years back when the PacTen decided that the lines into football games were too fast and hired searchers I walked into Stanford Stadium completely forgetting that I had picked up a backpack I hadn’t used since a camping trip with a rather substantial knife still in it. Somehow they managed to open the pack, look through it, and not find the knife. Now if I’d had a can of soda that would complete with their concessions….
November 18th, 2008 at 9:51 pm
It is a rather bizarre double standard isn’t it? But you know, one person probably couldn’t take a plane with a Swiss Army Knife (this argument has its problems I know), but, hypothetically, one person COULD with dangerous liquids.
November 18th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
I’m not so sure about that, Daniel. Picking the right lock with a Swiss Army knife and cutting the right cable in the avionics compartment would probably pretty much bring down the plane faster than mixing a bunch of liquids together in the john – said bomb would have to be of sufficient strength and placed properly to bring down the plane.
Watch the Wesley Snipes movie, “Passenger 57″, sometime. He plays an airline security trainer who goes up against a professional airline hijacker (brilliantly played by Bruce Payne) who has his own people on the plane as passengers, a stewardess (Liz Hurley! Hot!) and a steward in the hold – who supplies the weapons used from the food carts (which, as everyone knows, are never searched – you could smuggle a nuke on board a plane with them). Snipes forces the plane down by escaping into the avionics compartment and forcing the plane to dump its fuel. Of course it’s a Hollywood movie, but it didn’t look all that hard to do and probably isn’t in real life since nobody would expect anybody to do such a thing when it was designed.
This Web site has it right:
How to Hijack a Plane
http://pintday.org/archive/20051122
And this one:
How to Hijack a Plane (in a few easy steps)
http://www.mydigitallife.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2165&Itemid=29
November 18th, 2008 at 11:05 pm
Careful admitting that on the internets, Matt. You could end up on a two month vacaton to Gitmo.
November 18th, 2008 at 11:29 pm
I’m a semi-regular flier (5-10 times per year) and know the drill pretty well. I get to security with my pockets emptied, my shoes untied and my laptop out of my bag. Sometimes, though I forget a half-empty water bottle in my bag. I know I’ve done that when they grab my bag, ask (with a stern voice) who it belongs too and then give me a serious (but short) talk about the inappropriateness of bringing a beverage past security.
Meanwhile, the gift shops past security are full of nail clippers and files and all sorts of stuff that could be as dangerous as a box cutter. They take water bottles and shoes seriously and that’s it.
November 19th, 2008 at 2:51 am
You people need to get your act together and learn what is now allowed: http://www.tsa.gov/travelers/airtravel/prohibited/permitted-prohibited-items.shtm
Matches and lighters are okay in carry on now.
November 19th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I travel cheaply a lot and get around that by finishing my water bottle before i go through security and then they let me take my bottle through because it’s empty and then I go to the first bar and have them fill it up on water. silly but still…
November 19th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
It’s almost as if they’re trying to only fight the last terrorist so that something scary will remind us all to vote Republican again.
Naah, couldn’t be.
Boy, will I be glad when someone with a political incentive to *succeed* at antiterrorism is on the job again.
November 19th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
Oh, give me a break. I won’t accept anyone as being serious about security until they abolish all the regulations about pocket knives, etc. That’s all in the category of things done because they’re visible, not because they’re useful. Consider: El Al does not forbid pocket knives, and nobody takes security more seriously than they do. For furthur information go over to Bruce Schneier’s site; he’s someone who actually knows something about security, and has posted about this at some length.
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