- If you sense that airport security lines are getting longer — much longer — you’re definitely not alone.
A combination of fewer Transportation Security Administration screeners, tighter budgets, new checkpoint procedures and growing numbers of passengers has created a mess at airports around the country. In recent weeks, passengers have reported epic lines at T.S.A. checkpoints, causing heartburn and angst, as well as missed flights.
BTW - what is wrong with us? I know this wasn't the point of your post... but seriously? Look at one of the nuggets toward the bottom:
http://blog.tsa.gov/2016/04/tsa-week-in-review-record-breaking-73.html
TLDR: In one week, TSA grabbed 73 guns - 68 of which were loaded - 27 of them had a round chambered
Who tries to board a plane with a gun... that is loaded... and ready to fire?
- Who tries to board a plane with a gun... that is loaded... and ready to fire?
I tend not to share this opinion because it make me look like a smug jerk, but many people, probably even a majority, are just dumb. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make them any less deserving of empathy. They're just stupid. Their brains don't work well. The people that bring guns with chambered rounds on planes are probably the same people that lease a Lexus while getting their power shut off, or allocate more managers than engineers to a project as a remedy for it being behind schedule.
I want to think they were all statistics professors.
- A statistic professor plans to travel to a conference by plane. When he passes the security check, they discover a bomb in his carry-on-baggage. Of course, he is hauled off immediately for interrogation.
"I don't understand it!" the interrogating officer exclaims. "You're an accomplished professional, a caring family man, a pillar of your parish - and now you want to destroy that all by blowing up an airplane!"
"Sorry", the professor interrupts him. "I had never intended to blow up the plane."
"So, for what reason else did you try to bring a bomb on board?!"
"Let me explain. Statistics shows that the probability of a bomb being on an airplane is 1/1000. That's quite high if you think about it - so high that I wouldn't have any peace of mind on a flight."
"And what does this have to do with you bringing a bomb on board of a plane?"
"You see, since the probability of one bomb being on my plane is 1/1000, the chance that there are two bombs is 1/1000000. If I already bring one, the chance of another bomb being around is actually 1/1000000, and I am much safer..."
But they probably weren't. Reading the article made me think of the people I see in security lines taking off piles of jewelry and rummaging around in their bag for their liquids or taking off elaborate footware. It always makes me wonder what they were thinking when they were getting ready to come to the airport, and the answer is they weren't thinking. I assume the same is true here. They didn't think "yes, taking my gun is a good idea," they simply didn't think about it at all. And that's what scares me. Think how many people we must pass every day that have a loaded gun in their pocket, people who think it's as natural as having their car keys.
So it's like this:
Obama is a secret muslim but he's also the president. And there are shootings every day and Wayne laPierre says that if more people were armed there'd be fewer shootings. And it's virtually impossible to buy a backpack or purse these days without it coming with two or three pockets for concealed carry (try it! You'll be amazed!) and the things are cheaper than power tools. So you succumb to Mitzi's peer pressure and you go for the two-hour training session and you get your concealed carry permit and you put a ".380" whatever that is in that compartment of your purse that you couldn't not buy and while your purse is a little heavier than it should be you have to admit that the heft is kind of reassuring and then when momma had the stroke and you had to put the dog in the kennel and move the duct cleaning and put your mail on hold and that last minute thing with Joe came up and the airport shuttle was late and you barely made it to the gate on time and you remembered to empty out your water bottle but
goddamn it
there's a reason your bag feels reassuringly heavy.
The second image also serves to outline the true bullshit of the TSA. Those are trophies, made out of inert cannon rounds, for the Ravens' former offensive coordinator Chris Palmer. Note that the gun used to fire those rounds was neither checked nor carry-on as it looks like this:
(hint - it's not the volkswagen)
I feel for Chris 'cuz I had a spent .50 cal pulled out of the desert by buddies on my keychain for fifteen years. Flew with it multiple times a year. Summer of 2011, flew with it multiple times a month. But then one fine day, I had the wrong screener at LAX, and I had it confiscated. No amount of argument over the fact that it was not only part of a bullet but that it had an eyelet soldered onto the back convinced him.
Because fuck the TSA.
Although I may knuckle down and pay the fuckin' $85 for pre-screening. I was planning on coming back every three weeks from LA this season but I just bought a 1-way for $88 so I might be flying more than I intended.
When I flew home after the accident I was wearing a ridiculous contraption designed to immobilize the upper and lower arm yet allow elbow movement. It took me 15 minutes to get the fucker on, it was made of metal and the tears of children. This but mine was bigger and had a strap that went under the shoulder and a full wrist immobilization strap that sucked getting into and out of.
Knowing the horror stories, I called the airport in advance, got a medical waiver on the early boarding fees, and arrived two hour early. Guy at the ticket counter was awesome, pure professional. Saw me, and said, and I quote "Sorry about what the TSA is gonna do to you here." I show up in the line, and they ask em to take the brace off. I say no. they made me wait 30 minutes before someone came and did a full pat down, explosive residue test, went through my computer bad and wrote down all my prescription meds, then made me wait another 30 minutes before letting me go.
At this time I'm a fat fuck of a guy with an 18 pound brace and a shattered wrist. They also treated the two cancer patients with a MD note to NOT go through the body scanners, explaining that these two people had radiation treatment pellets in them and metal stents. Both of these people, traveling together with me to Vegas, were also treated like shit. I seriously debated filing a complaint, but fuck it nobody gives a shit. The TSA is nothing more than theater and now you can pay to get in the fast lane, so the people who fly often are going to be at least a bit immune to the shit show.
- Because fuck the TSA.
When you hire people off ads on the backs of pizza boxes...
How many guns didn't they find?
Shot a wedding in Oakland in 2002. Got picked up by people who I didn't know, who didn't know me, who had been told to "look for someone who looks like a photographer." I bought them dinner 'cuz they'd spent an hour walking up to strangers and asking if they were me.
We don't know each other but we're sitting around making conversation. About what? About shit that we lost to the TSA. "I lost my knitting needles." "I lost my nail clippers." "I lost the wine I was bringing for this wedding." "Weird; they didn't take my knife," one lady says.
I make an observation about how little Victorinox jobbies can likely make it through etc. She stops me and says "No, I work for Buck."
That's when she pulls up her pant leg and
No, it wasn't "ceramic." Yes, it was that big. Yes, I have other stories. I know a guy who went through two connections with a couple highway flares in his carry-on by mistake.
You won't find a TSA fan here... I bloody well hate the whole charade. I guess I forget how many gun-toting Murcans I am surrounded by.
Also... is that huge gun (pictured) the nose canon out of a warthog A-10? (EDIT: I just noticed the title of the picture which told me it is)
'tis.
The thing the TSA took away from me? smaller than my finger.
Two of my most prized possessions are a pair of 50 (not .50) caliber practice rounds, used for loading practice during WWII. They're made out of rock maple and loaded with bismuth to approximate the real thing so that loaders could get good at shelling Japanese submarines. They look very much like this:
And despite the fact that I bought them on a trip, and despite the fact that the gun that would fire them (if they were real) looks like this
I opted to have them shipped.
Because TSA.
So could a thermos. So could a ham. So could lots of things. Let's be honest - if you were attempting to hide contraband, you aren't likely to hide it in something that looks like contraband. But you miss the point: the TSA bans things like that sometimes. They ban things like that in some airports. They ban things like that on some days. They ban things like that in certain kinds of weather.
Let's be clear - my smaller-than-my-pinky had passed through TSA screening at SEA, SFO, LAS, BUR, LGB, ABQ, PHX, ONT and LAX. The fourth or fifth time through LAX it got confiscated. Theoretically, there should be top-down instruction on what's contraband and what isn't and how to deal with it. There just isn't. Some airports be like "huh cool keychain" and some other airports be like "ZOMG WE COAT THE TERRIST" and those airports might be the same airport on the same day at the same f'n gate.
I once had to fly from DC to Dallas to Orange County to Seattle to Las Vegas in two days. I interacted with the TSA everywhere but Dallas. It went like this:
- DC: thought I would miss my flight because the lines were so long. Turns out the lines were so long because TSA in DC was unionized and refused to work before 8am. Didn't matter that the airlines had flights that left at 7; TSA didn't give a fuck. No plastic baggie for your shampoo? No problem. They were not the Shampoo Police.
- ONT: TSA is all about your shampoo. No baggie? They will give you one and frown at you.
- SEA: TSA hands out baggies. If you brought your contraband with you they've got a postal station that takes credit cards where you can mail your pocketknife back to yourself.
- LAS: TSA will sell you a baggie for $2. Confiscated items are auctioned off (as they are everywhere) but Vegas is the only place I've ever seen billboards advertising the sale.
Having interacted with more than my fair share of TSA employees, I will cheerfully agree that I don't want them using their initiative. However, the TSA is such a poorly-run, poorly-managed establishment that individual initiative is all they have.
But things are so much better than they were September 10th back when they were all private contractors, right?
riiiiiggggghhhhhhht.
My point was that carrying a foot long bullet/metal container onto a plane should be something that isn't allowed. Even if they couldn't be used as a weapon directly as they were designed, a giant bullet can still do damage outside of the gun.
If there is reasonable expectation that the things you mention could be used to smuggle things onto a plane, and that they are too difficult to check, they should be banned as well.
If the AC goes out, and assuming the lines of oxygen masks suddenly stop working?
What sort of danger would a big thing of dry ice have in those conditions? People would just put on their O2 masks and the airplane would scrub/release the CO2 from the atmosphere in time. As well, dry ice is CO2, so it would be noticable as everyone gets short of breath, and the big cloud of fog would be a massive tell as well.
3.2 oz of shampoo is an amount not enough for any of the conventionally existing gelled explosive materials to cause significant damage. The limit isn't arbitrary or stupid.
http://blog.tsa.gov/2008/02/more-on-liquid-rules-why-we-do-things.html
Can't ban thermoses. They can be used to transport organs and the like and you could totally hide shit between the walls.
Can't ban hams. That would gut the tourism industry because people bring food gifts home all the time.
You can ban scary things, though. It's always good for some security theater.
They allow Lithium Ion Freaking batteries on the planes but, get this everyone reading this thread, You can carry them into the passenger compartment but not your checked luggage. Don't worry though, they will have new rules for LIon in cargo holds in place by 2018.
Lithium ion batteries are required for phones and other tech to work. Secondly, the "explosions" that these things make aren't anywhere near severe or dangerous enough to damage the plane or be worthy of death. As well, it can take quite some time to get one of the things to explode in a decent fashion so far as I am aware.
Cargo holds likely experience a lot of depressurization, heat, cold, and other factors. these would likely damage or cause batteries to have issues and as a result the batteries should probably be kept in a fairly safe, controlled, environment.
The point of the rules is not to outright ban all things which can be dangerous at all, the point of the rules is to protect and ensure that nothing which is of imminent danger to an airplane is allowed onto the plane.
People can cause havoc with lithium ion batteries. People can cause havoc with dry ice. The measily little pop and fire isn't going to kill people, and the smoke and warning the device gives off, the tampering required to get the battery to explode are all too difficult to cause substantial harm with.
People aren't going to cause the instant death of 5 nearby people with a dry ice or a lithium ion explosion, and setting those things in motion is a very clumsy and hard to pull off sort of thing within the compartment of an aircraft.
Again, and I cannot stress this enough, the people running the TSA and making policy decisions are experts at what they do. Despite that their decisions may not seem logical, I am almost certain that if you had the scope and knowledge of the TSA that the people who set these rules do then you would undoubtedly consider the policies relatively tame and reasonable.
- People aren't going to cause the instant death of 5 nearby people with a dry ice or a lithium ion explosion, and setting those things in motion is a very clumsy and hard to pull off sort of thing within the compartment of an aircraft.
And they aren't going to cause the instant death of anybody with a bowling trophy, either.
Remember where this discussion started? Me pointing out that the TSA is crowing their safety record and celebrating their vigilance in confiscating a retirement gift from an NFL coach. Not "turned away" not "didn't let on the plane" but confiscated... and posted pictures on their blog... to show how safe they're making the world.
Again, and I cannot stress this enough, these are the chucklefucks that spent $160m on pornoscanners. You can be "almost certain" all you want, they are incompetent buffoons that have not, by any applicable measure, accomplished a single fucking thing.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/01/tsa-screener-confession-102912
Atten blackbootz also what a heck of a discussion
I remember waiting at the gate for my dad. There is a picture of me, age 3? 4? with my mom and dad on the tarmac as he is boarding a PSA get for a work trip. The first time I flew we went to Sacramento and we did not use a jetway; stairs rolled to the plane, and we walked 300-400 feet to a tram that they loaded our bags onto.
Flying used to suck in a lot of ways, but the payoff was better than now.
Ok this is me having an anxiety riddled moment.
Is the world getting smaller? Are our lives getting smaller and more constrained? Are possible futures being killed in the crib as we slowly lose little bits and pieces of peace of mind and personal freedom? I don't think I know a single person my age who associates any good feeling with airports. They are stress-inducers, bloated, over-dramatic security theater demonstrations of government ineptitude.
Look at this thread! There's a guy trying to make a 'it's just common sense' argument that you shouldn't be allowed a thermos on a plane!
/anxiety
All I can think of over the next 50 years are the bad things...the impacts of climate change, which we are just now going to feel, food and water becoming the next crisis, a potential for a rise in infectious diseases, what feels like an impending financial crisis, the burden of student debt over an entire generation of Americans, a continued loss of privacy and housing opportunities. I have this massive fear that this generation will be "the stagnant generation"...
- The meeting at the baggage claim is one of business, not emotion: get the bags, jostle for room, get out.
It feels like you can extend this sentiment so far beyond that of the baggage claim. The interpersonal, the intimate, none of it really feels tangible anymore. When you're constantly connected and constantly stimulated how can you feel.
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
The baby boomers are finally dying off, a sizable number did not save for retirement, many of them are fat and unhealthy and are starting to realize, 50 years too damn late, that their generation's history is going to be written by their grandkids, and that history is not going to be... pleasant. Allowing nature to take its course, in ten years the boomers won't be the biggest voting block any more and their median age will be 65. The hate on the millennials, strictly IMO of course, is based on a massive fear of what they are going to do once they get into power. Say what you want about them, but there is a huge contingent of them that are pissed off that Grandma and Grandpa paved the earth, looted the treasury, sold the manufacturing base to foreigners to play stock market and are now whining and demanding Medicare and SSI.
The biggest issues facing us when I was born were environmental damage, nuclear war, the Ozone Hole and the national debt hitting a HALF TRILLION dollars! The Japs are going to own everything! /snark. Measles and Smallpox have killed a combined 20 billion or so humans in our history, and both are GONE in my lifetime. The fish stocks off New England are rebounding, slowly but rebounding they are, the ozone hole is closing, The Clean Air and Clean Water acts were passed by Nixon of all people, and I doubt that we are ever going to see a full nuclear exchange in my lifetime.
Problems and Challenges exist for every generation, and the stuff you plan for is rarely the battles you end up fighting.
- The interpersonal, the intimate, none of it really feels tangible anymore. When you're constantly connected and constantly stimulated how can you feel.
This is why I started playing D&D again. eight knuckleheads in a room playing make believe and trying to piss off the DM. Oh, and some nights we actually end up playing a bit too. This sort of connecting with people turns out to be the best part of my astronomy outreach as well. I never thought that I would enjoy that, but it is what drags me out to a park on a clear night to stand around like a dork and be excited about space.