Airport security is a stupid idea, it’s a waste of money, and it’s only there for one reason: to make white people feel safe.
George Carlin
I traveled by air recently and got nailed by the TSA for having a 4-0z bottle. Not 4 oz of liquid, but a 4-oz bottle, in my luggage.
As you know, TSA has embargoed a state of matter: liquids. Not solids or gases, just liquids.
Their logic goes like this. Liquids are somehow more dangerous than solids or gases. TSA decided (with no supporting science) that no more than 100 ml of a liquid (3.4) ounces maybe carried in a single container.
The strange part of my experience is that the liquid was confiscated, not because I had more than 3.4 ounces but because my liquid was in a 4-0z. bottle. Mind you, the bottle was clear and the TSA turkey could see that it was less than half full, but “Rules is rules, Mac. I gotta confiscate it.”
“But the bottle is only half full,” I protested. “The capacity of the bottle is molded right into the plastic: 4 ounces. There can’t be more than two ounces of liquid in there.”
"Is that a 4-ounce bottle in your shaving kit? Whaddaya think I am—stupid?" (Uh.... yeah)
“Sir,” I was informed, “it’s not the amount of liquid, it’s the capacity of the bottle. When the bottle is larger than 3.4 ounces, we can’t estimate the amount of liquid in the bottle”
(I was smart enough to think, but not say, “So TSA agents are too fucking dumb to divide 4 by 2?”)
Oddly, though, they don’t set a limit on the total amount of liquid you can carry other than to say that all of your 3.4-ounce bottles must fit in a one-quart Ziploc bag. I can jam six 3.4-ounce bottles in a one-quart Ziploc bag. That’s about 20 ounces.
Twenty ounces of a liquid explosive like nitroglycerin could do some serious damage to an aircraft, possibly bring it down. Granted, nitroglycerin is very unstable but we’re talking about suicide bombers here. If the nitro goes off before a suicide bomber gets on an aircraft, well, better luck next time.
Want more bang for your buck with liquid explosives? How about a gallon of nitroglycerin? It’s easy enough for terrorists to get a gallon of nitro on an aircraft. Six guys, each carrying 20 or so ounces of nitroglycerin in their Zip-Locs board flights at different airports. The nitro is packed in various small opaque containers (e.g., shampoo, creme rinse, after-shave, lotion). The six waltz through TSA unsullied and fly to the same destination. All of the nitro is transferred to one guy who catches a connecting flight out of the destination airport, with about a gallon of nitro in his back pack. Nitroglycerin is so unstable that a sharp blow to any one of the three-ounce containers will detonate it. The resulting blast will detonate the rest of the nitro. The effects should be devastating.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 11:40 AM and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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More TSA Idiocy
George Carlin
I traveled by air recently and got nailed by the TSA for having a 4-0z bottle. Not 4 oz of liquid, but a 4-oz bottle, in my luggage.
As you know, TSA has embargoed a state of matter: liquids. Not solids or gases, just liquids.
Their logic goes like this. Liquids are somehow more dangerous than solids or gases. TSA decided (with no supporting science) that no more than 100 ml of a liquid (3.4) ounces maybe carried in a single container.
The strange part of my experience is that the liquid was confiscated, not because I had more than 3.4 ounces but because my liquid was in a 4-0z. bottle. Mind you, the bottle was clear and the TSA turkey could see that it was less than half full, but “Rules is rules, Mac. I gotta confiscate it.”
“But the bottle is only half full,” I protested. “The capacity of the bottle is molded right into the plastic: 4 ounces. There can’t be more than two ounces of liquid in there.”
"Is that a 4-ounce bottle in your shaving kit? Whaddaya think I am—stupid?" (Uh.... yeah)
“Sir,” I was informed, “it’s not the amount of liquid, it’s the capacity of the bottle. When the bottle is larger than 3.4 ounces, we can’t estimate the amount of liquid in the bottle”
(I was smart enough to think, but not say, “So TSA agents are too fucking dumb to divide 4 by 2?”)
Oddly, though, they don’t set a limit on the total amount of liquid you can carry other than to say that all of your 3.4-ounce bottles must fit in a one-quart Ziploc bag. I can jam six 3.4-ounce bottles in a one-quart Ziploc bag. That’s about 20 ounces.
Twenty ounces of a liquid explosive like nitroglycerin could do some serious damage to an aircraft, possibly bring it down. Granted, nitroglycerin is very unstable but we’re talking about suicide bombers here. If the nitro goes off before a suicide bomber gets on an aircraft, well, better luck next time.
Want more bang for your buck with liquid explosives? How about a gallon of nitroglycerin? It’s easy enough for terrorists to get a gallon of nitro on an aircraft. Six guys, each carrying 20 or so ounces of nitroglycerin in their Zip-Locs board flights at different airports. The nitro is packed in various small opaque containers (e.g., shampoo, creme rinse, after-shave, lotion). The six waltz through TSA unsullied and fly to the same destination. All of the nitro is transferred to one guy who catches a connecting flight out of the destination airport, with about a gallon of nitro in his back pack. Nitroglycerin is so unstable that a sharp blow to any one of the three-ounce containers will detonate it. The resulting blast will detonate the rest of the nitro. The effects should be devastating.
George, we miss you.
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 11:40 AM and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.