Bottled Water is not terribly dangerous on a plane. Allowing water is potentially dangerous because it is a fluid. Many explosives and hazardous or flammable/combustible fluids resemble water. Many fluids which are inert but can be mixed with other fluids to create dangers follow these guidelines too.
Couldn’t they just confirm it is water? Well… like… how? Sniff it? Let’s ignore covid etc. that’s still kinda gross right? Having someone sniff your water, being the one that has to sniff other peoples drinks? All sorts of silly little problems. A booger falls in or a nose hair or whatever. But many chemicals that can pose a risk have no smell or can have their smells disguised. On the opposite end- a chemical with dangerous fumes etc- someone could die or be hurt sniffing that. For obvious reasons “taste testing” is out too. I suppose they could install spectrometers or allow chemical test strips or something that are used to test the liquid- but that’s not perfect, still lots of…
.. potential problems and expense, and any which one of these methods or most conceivable methods of security for checking out water are going to add yet another step in security screening and yet more delays. Imagine how an airport like JFK might run during the winter holiday peaks with snow storms and such going on amongst peak travel- and now we are having to wait out testing every passengers water…? I suppose they may be able to settle for a visual inspection, but that precludes non transparent water bottles. And I mean… if you allow only clear bottles people will start complaining “what’s so dangerous about a non clear bottle..?” And people will say: “so water is safe but tea/soda/juice are deadly weapons…?”
“Water is safe but if I add koolaid/crystal lite/etc THATS deadly?” And then we will scoff because you can carry the drink mix and the water through security and mix them in the other side, but if you walk through security with them mixed together you need to toss it out?
So I mean, there are these 90000 reasons big and small for why it might be a pain or cause problems to allow water to go through security. That said- airport security for all its restrictions is painfully mismanaged, Almost pointless. A mish mash of compromises and poor policies which allows huge gaps while being overly focused on minute details. A major reason though is… money. Simply put, much the same as many amusement parks and venues don’t allow “outside food or drink,” prohibiting certain items like drinks incentivizes travelers to buy in the terminal where a water or soda might cost 4-6x or more what it costs outside.
also just going to point out that all this security is theatre, its an act put on to make people feel like the government is doing something useful, when in reality its fairly worthless. The TSA has been shown multiple times in multiple different ways to be completely worthless. The TSA fail almost all breach tests they are subjected to at 95% failure, their training is showned to only have 11% of their behavioral markers being even cited to any scientific with only 5 of the 20 sources fitting pear review standards. 137 out of 178 of their behavior markers are from "news articles, opinion pieces, presentations created by law enforcement entities and industry groups, and screen shots of online medical websites that do not meet GAO's definition of valid evidence."
Here's the report that quote is from
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-17-608r
Well said. Yes. Theater is the intent. Politics asides and ignoring recent congestion caused by post covid demand surges overlapping major holidays and a staff level that hasn’t returned to pre covid levels- Ben Gurion airport in Israel is consistently ranked among the worlds top international airports. Ben Gurion saw over 24 million passengers in 2019 compared to the pre covid figures of JFK airport in New York USA- one of the worlds busiest airports- at around 32 million a year.
Normally Ben Gurion is an extremely fad and efficient airport, and despite Israel being a major target of regional and international hostility and being in an area known for various conflicts and terrorist or militant organizations- Ben Gurion is very safe. Their security is very unlike what you see at American airports.
For starters, Ben Gurion tries to avoid massive passenger queues before security. Gathering large number of people closely together before they’ve been security screened is just creating a target and opportunity. You don’t need to slip a bomb past security to kill 150 people on a plane if you can just walk up to the unsecured area of the airport and stage an attack against the hundreds of thousands of people huddled up. Ben Gurion doesn’t have the senseless scrutiny of every passengers every little item. They do have screening and “sniffers,” but a major tactic they use is to… employ skilled security professionals. Security and airport agents observe passengers. Their systems and employees look for the suspicious. Where is a person coming from or going to? For what purpose? How are they dressed, what kind of luggage or amount of luggage do they have? Who do they say they are, and does the person you see seem to match that? Do they behave oddly or suspiciously? How’s their body language
? By observing, “people watching,” and applying logical deduction with some general assumptions, you can pin point suspicious passengers and those are the specific passengers who may need to have enhanced screening, additional scrutiny, or be informally interviewed by security. There are lots of other effective strategies used elsewhere when it comes to either providing high quality security or providing efficient security; or finding the balance between the two. By and large what we have in the US isn’t particularly either and relies primarily on passengers being familiar with and practiced at the process to have any sort of efficiency. The truth is that a critically high level of security in US air ports would largely making flying prohibitive for most people. To protect the industry, we just don’t bother; and honestly we don’t really need to. Actual incidents of the sort critical security would prevent are EXCEPTIONALLY rare. We are talking billions of passengers flown per single..
.. major incident. It’s on the level that passes a point where statistically, if people were trying, that with those numbers you’d be likely to have “one slip through” even the most draconian security over a span of decades.
So for the sake of the passenger, but more so the sake of the business, our airport security doesn’t aspire touch besides hoping to deter trouble makers simply through existing, and placating the public and passengers. That isn’t to say our security never catches any potential dangers at all- but largely it’s inefficient and questionably effective.
bring an empty bottle and let them fill it at a fountain themselves. The TSA only catches like 5% of shit anyway... flying back from SD they got butthurt i had toothpaste... toothpaste that had obviously been used.... so they offered to donate it to charity. If you're that fucking scared of it, that's you solution? What the fuck? beth beat me to it, but i was just so pissed about the toothpaste i skipped a bit.
I won't deny a lot of airport security is pig-headed and annoying, but all it takes is one laptop battery bomber and all of a sudden plane rides just a whole lot more mind-numbing.
Composition C doesn’t explode via any normal means of incarnation. Flame (outside certain “exotic” means) can release large amounts of energy but does so too slowly to detonate C4.
But- I’m not discounting your example.
1. Perhaps an electronic lighter, power bank, capacitor, or any number of easily carried electronics could be used or modified to release a short, high energy impulse that could detonate C4. So the specifics may be a little off but the principle applies.
2. As to the previous point, I support the overall principle of your assessment. We could keep the lighter and twine (or even use an actual fuse, perhaps slipped into the weave of an article of clothing) and substitute another type of explosive that can be detonated using fire. C4 can be relatively hard to obtain and has a cost point that makes it prohibitive for use except by well funded military organizations or those with access to military explosives. The properties of C4 make it desirable…
.. for certain applications it may be better suited for. So substituting another explosive- either an easier to obtain or create explosive, or if one had the access and budget for military grade high explosives, a more suitable substitute could work too.
i didn't know that about c4, but it doesn't have to be c4. Side note: i'm watching the daily show and this dude just said he preformed a vasectomy on himself; i had to do a double take and rewind it
lol you can investigate me if so compelled, i'm not gonna do any of that crap
edit: oh the vasectomy, yeah that shit got wild... i wouldn't recommend it.
could be vodka, which causes super drunk passengers, which causes, fights, which is still retarded as you can get there an hour early and get drunker at a bar, although it would be more expensive.... and hell, you can get drunk on the plane if you can pay for it.
Couldn’t they just confirm it is water? Well… like… how? Sniff it? Let’s ignore covid etc. that’s still kinda gross right? Having someone sniff your water, being the one that has to sniff other peoples drinks? All sorts of silly little problems. A booger falls in or a nose hair or whatever. But many chemicals that can pose a risk have no smell or can have their smells disguised. On the opposite end- a chemical with dangerous fumes etc- someone could die or be hurt sniffing that. For obvious reasons “taste testing” is out too. I suppose they could install spectrometers or allow chemical test strips or something that are used to test the liquid- but that’s not perfect, still lots of…
“Water is safe but if I add koolaid/crystal lite/etc THATS deadly?” And then we will scoff because you can carry the drink mix and the water through security and mix them in the other side, but if you walk through security with them mixed together you need to toss it out?
Here's the report that quote is from
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-17-608r
Normally Ben Gurion is an extremely fad and efficient airport, and despite Israel being a major target of regional and international hostility and being in an area known for various conflicts and terrorist or militant organizations- Ben Gurion is very safe. Their security is very unlike what you see at American airports.
So for the sake of the passenger, but more so the sake of the business, our airport security doesn’t aspire touch besides hoping to deter trouble makers simply through existing, and placating the public and passengers. That isn’t to say our security never catches any potential dangers at all- but largely it’s inefficient and questionably effective.
But- I’m not discounting your example.
1. Perhaps an electronic lighter, power bank, capacitor, or any number of easily carried electronics could be used or modified to release a short, high energy impulse that could detonate C4. So the specifics may be a little off but the principle applies.
2. As to the previous point, I support the overall principle of your assessment. We could keep the lighter and twine (or even use an actual fuse, perhaps slipped into the weave of an article of clothing) and substitute another type of explosive that can be detonated using fire. C4 can be relatively hard to obtain and has a cost point that makes it prohibitive for use except by well funded military organizations or those with access to military explosives. The properties of C4 make it desirable…
edit: oh the vasectomy, yeah that shit got wild... i wouldn't recommend it.