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[-] Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 359 points 1 year ago

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

[-] leisesprecher@feddit.org 109 points 1 year ago

It's security theater through and through.

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

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

[-] Tamo240@programming.dev 26 points 1 year ago

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

[-] nednobbins@lemm.ee 52 points 1 year ago

They fail gloriously at at that too.

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

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

[-] FinalRemix@lemmy.world 21 points 1 year ago

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

[-] Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago
[-] nednobbins@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago
[-] Wes4Humanity@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago

True, although those seemed like pretty seriously incompetent attempts

[-] Liz@midwest.social 19 points 1 year ago

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

[-] KyuubiNoKitsune 19 points 1 year ago

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

[-] Tamo240@programming.dev 9 points 1 year ago

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

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

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

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

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

[-] psivchaz@reddthat.com 92 points 1 year ago

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

[-] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 42 points 1 year ago

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

[-] cactusupyourbutt@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago

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

[-] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 1 year ago

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

[-] LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

Which airport? I have never ever experienced this.

[-] jol@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago

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

[-] Meimax@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Munich has refilling stations after security

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[-] Rhaedas@fedia.io 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

[-] fermionsnotbosons@lemmy.ml 29 points 1 year ago

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

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

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

[-] m4xie@slrpnk.net 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

hydrogen peroxide and acetone

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

[-] fermionsnotbosons@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Requires an acid catalyst for the reaction to actually proceed, but yeah, could definitely ruin your day - although a lungful of chlorine gas is nothing to sneeze at either.

[-] CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 1 year ago

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

[-] AltheaHunter 49 points 1 year ago

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

[-] nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 year ago

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

so, we pay more (fastpass or whatever it is) for the privilege. 😅

[-] not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 9 points 1 year ago

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

[-] vonxylofon@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

It shouldn't exist? I'd like to see you pay for your medical expenses out of pocket.

P. S. No, I am not American.

[-] Gormadt 7 points 1 year ago

Here in the states when we say "medical insurance shouldn't exist" what we mean is "the medical insurance industry shouldn't exist"

Basically the cluster fuck of insurance companies we have now shouldn't exist, we should just have a single payer type system where medical expenses are paid for through our tax dollars. In its current state it's a nightmare to deal with.

[-] JovialMicrobial@lemm.ee 4 points 1 year ago

A lot of private insurance in the US amounts to paying a couple hundred monthly to have the insurance and then they deny payment for basically anything and everything. So you pay them to pay out of pocket anyway.

Just got state insurance which covers everything, but very few offices accept it.

So yeah. Insurance in the US is super fucked up and people go without healthcare, even if they have insurance because they simply can't afford it.

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[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

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

[-] BurningRiver@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

“The government made 25% of my district unemployed, why didn’t I get reelected?”

Ask it from that side and you have your answer.

[-] AltheaHunter 7 points 1 year ago

I wasn't asking a question. I understand why politicians do it, I just think it's a sign of a terrible system.

[-] Bumblefumble@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago

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

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

But would the TSA workers vote for them?

[-] Bumblefumble@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago

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

[-] idiomaddict@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

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

[-] frezik@midwest.social 13 points 1 year ago

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

[-] nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago

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

[-] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

[-] Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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

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

[-] akakunai@lemmy.ca 4 points 1 year ago

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

...Not a single checkpoint picked them up.

It just hasn't had the right public messaging behind it. I can think of a few historically recent things that are security theater but have been successfully accepted by the public because of slogans, social engineering and authoritative messaging. TSA just needs their own marketing blitz.

[-] Vilian@lemmy.ca 1 points 1 year ago

To be fair a explosion in a on the side of a line not gonna kill anyone, now a explosion in the airplane windows, maybe?, i get their argument, not that's a good argument

[-] Maggoty@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

The major airports have huge crowds. And we know from unfortunate experience that suitcase bombs can kill hundreds of people.

this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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