I must rant.
I read today that the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) is winning the war on moisture! As of today, the laws of physics have changed, rendering the following items non-explosive:
- Small amounts of Baby formula and breast milk if a baby or small child is traveling
- Liquid prescription medicine with a name that matches the passenger’s ticket
- Up to 5 oz. (148ml) of liquid or gel low blood sugar treatment
- Up to 4 oz. of essential non-prescription liquid medications including saline solution, eye care products and KY jelly
- Gel-filled bras and similar prostethics
- Gel-filled wheelchair cushions
- Life support and life sustaining liquids such as bone marrow, blood products, and transplant organs carried for medical reasons
I’m sorry, but all of these restrictions are just ridiculous and I’m pissed off. I’m pissed off because I can’t bring a bottle of water with me on a plane. I have to remove my shoes and pass them through an x-ray machine. Musicians can’t fly with their instruments. Even mothers had to drink their own breast milk before a security guard would allow them to bring a bottle on board for their baby. All because the government is too busy lying to the public and hiding behind the smoke and mirrors excuse of “security”. Well it’s not security; it’s security theatre. It’s all a show and it’s all a waste of our time.
The government wants you to believe that they’re doing something to make you safer – well, they’re not. They can’t. I understand that the UK was monitoring a group that they suspected of plotting a terrorist act on a trans-Atlantic flight using “liquid weapons” and that the US forced them to act before they could identify all of the members of the group – so now there are others still at large, capable of carrying out this terrible plan. I understand that. But wasn’t this “liquid bomb” possible last month, too? And last year? Why was I allowed to bring shampoo then? Why will I be allowed to bring shampoo next month when the “terror alert” drops back to oh-so-safe orange? How dare they compromise my safety if, in fact, it is possible to make a bomb out of shampoo?! Why is mother’s milk dangerous on Monday but safe again on Wednesday? Simply put, if there is a substantial risk to aviation, nothing should be allowed on board (hold or cabin) unless it can be positively cleared. Otherwise we have to accept a degree of risk (as we had before this “alert” was raised).
We’re fighting a swarm of wasps with a baseball bat. We clumsily swing at the cloud of perceived aggressors, invariably miss, and only serve to anger each and every one of them – all the time getting stung in the ass. The government has no clue what it’s doing. There is no precautionary measure that will stop an individual from doing whatever the hell they want to do. So why infringe on my rights? Either make us all strip naked on the plane and drug us into complacency after a thorough body cavity search, or just let me bring my goddam bottle of water with me. Thank god they stopped people from carrying iPods on planes last week! Those iPod bombs are really dangerous. But what the hell were they doing to stop someone from entering the airport terminal with four suitcases full of explosives and blowing the hell out of every one of the thousands of poor souls who were stuck waiting for hours thanks to the “heightened security”? What are they doing now?! It’s all bullshit.
Oh, and here’s a list of things you are allowed to carry with you on a plane:
- Cigar Cutters
- Corkscrews
- Cuticle Cutters
- Knitting and Crochet Needles
- Scissors – metal with pointed tips and blades shorter than four inches in length
- Toy Weapons – if not realistic replicas
- Screwdrivers (seven inches or less in length)
Still not allowed to bring snakes, though.
Benjamin Franklin once said something along the lines of, “People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both”. This has never been more true than today.
Hey, spend less time getting po’d on your blog and more time answering my emails!
Anyway, a couple comments:
Ben Franklin’s quote did not have the word ‘temporary’ in it. Don’t go revising history to fit your argument!
But Ben was right-on. Security vs. freedom is always a balancing act. Sometimes there are too many restrictions. Sometimes too few.
Perosonally I don’t think it’s theatre we’re seeing here. I think we’re seeing the first feeble attempts to avoid tragedy by (temporarily) restricting liquids. I agree that liquids should be restricted 100% from here on in if indeed it is possible to make a liquid bomb, it shouldn’t be a temporary measure. But then airlines would have to provide at least water free of charge, etc. It’s complicated and expensive. I know that just after 911 people were made to take a swig of whatever liquid they were carrying. I don’t think it’s a big deal to have to do that, even if it’s breast milk. Shit, have your baby drink it if it’s that repulsive. (By the way, it isn’t all that bad …) But this measure went away. Perhaps it never should have. Regardless, it’s a trade-off once again. If that little annoyance might save your life, it’s worth it.
Same thing goes for having to use plastic ware. Shi-it man, who cares? It’s airplane food! No matter what cutlery you use it’s gonna be crap! But keep in mind that many people on board the 911 planes had their throats cut with razor knives, something you can’t do with plasticware. You’d be hard pressed to do it with a butter knife was well, but with plastic, no way.
Anyway, I disagree that the UK or US should be criticized for restricting liquids at all. It’s a new threat, something that hadn’t occurred to us before. I don’t think that when they first started making people take a sip of whatever liquids they were carrying it was because they suspected liquid bomb material. To be honest, I don’t remember WHY they were doing that.
But with new threats come new restrictions, and sometimes they don’t get it right. For example, in the pre-911 days flight schools weren’t monitored for people who wanted lessons in steering a plane but not landing it, it simply just never occurred to us that someone would be so crazy as to drive a plane into a building. Now they are monitored.
Give them time. They are politicians after all, they ain’t so smart. Perhaps with time and experience a better system will be developed. I know that the israelis have a super-advanced system they are using in their airports and on board El Al planes that monitor’s people’s vital signs for people who have high heart-rates, are sweating, etc. Not because the average terrorist is nervous about the attack — they are trained to be quite cool — bur rather they are nervous about getting caught. In trials they detected something like 87% of ‘fake’ terrorists they had trained to perform a fake terrorist attack.
Systems like this, along with vigilance, random inspections, etc. are probably the best systems going forward but as I said, it will take time and experience to get it right, and it will never be 100%.
Luckily for you and me we can just sit here and criticize because we are not charged with coming up with the system …
Hi, Josh! I just got back from Scotland yesterday. I was not allowed to bring lip balm (sounds too much like lip bomb?). Anyway, this was the most disruptive because without it I realize how much I am addicted. On flights our bodies and skin lose moisture and these in-flight health movies always recommend using lotion and lip balm. But now.. we can’t! I agree with Bob that if we’re not allowed these things they should be provided free of charge on the plane. BA can shove some Chap Stick in with that little toothbrush and socks in the bag they hand out on long-haul flights.
I was, however, allowed a bottle of water. I couldn’t bring it through the security check point, but once I was past that, I was allowed to buy an overpriced bottle from the shops in the departure area and bring that on.
Also for one’s convenience, the carry-on luggage size has been reduced. The signs in Edinburgh airport said this was from 5 July, so I am not sure what the reason is other than just to mess with passengers. Businesspeople who have been carrying the same case for years on the same business flights were shoving their cases in these tiny boxes to prove they could go on with them. Why? The flight wasn’t even full! All that man had was a briefcase. All that woman had was an ultra thin portfolio (although it was an odd size and didn’t fit in the box).
All this is not only annoying but it’s just really really boring. One bad apple is spoiling the whole bunch. But I guess that’s the aim of terrorism. It seems to be working.
Lots of tourism is now going to be local (in the UK they’re advertising caravan holidays because people just can’t bother with this nonsense when flying).
You’ll be happy to know that we had no problem whatsoever leaving the Barcelona airport on the 11th of August, which, if I recall correctly, was just one day after the big alert. Nothing was forbidden (other than the usual sharp-things ban). We did have a two-hour wait to check in, though, because the conveyor belt carrying the luggage to the plane broke. That was fun!
Anyway, now I’m back and have managed to avoid chapped lips since it was such a short trip, but I do worry about my British Airways flight from London to Los Angeles in December. I might just have to carry on some K-Y jelly to keep my hair from frizzing….
Hey big mouth! Yeah. You know what I’m talkin’ about.
Hey! No fair partially responding in an OT email no one else can see! I don’t have much more to say about the subject but your comment:
>I disagree with you completely, but it’s always nice to see a
>fearful American fooled by the spin machine.
… is off-base and inaccurate. We both agree that the implementation of the restrictions is whack. But to think that restrictions are necessary to begin with is not to be a victim of spin. Just think for a moment if some of the profiling restrictions were in effect on september 11th, 2001. They had at least one of the 911 guys targeted at the airport that morning but couldn’t do anything about it by law. If they had 911 may have been averted, along with two wars.
No, I think it would be rather like sticking your head in the sand to say ‘since we can’t stop 100% of the attacks let’s just not worry about it’. And that’s not spin. Wherever you get your news, be it CNN, Yahoo!, NYTimes (especially NYTimes) , La Vanguardia or even blogs like instapundit and metafilter, the news is spun. The very act of publishing one thing and not another is spin. For every supposed fact you read you can find someone who refutes it.
To have an informed opinion based on what you’ve read is not to be a fooled and fearful victim of spin, and it’s insulting to labeled such.
So there!
Bob
It is my firm belief that, if you are under the impression that by not allowing lip balm on flights you are making anyone safer, you have been duped by a government that wants you to believe that they are doing all they can to fight this “war on terror” and should thus be deemed indispensable, when the fact is all they are doing is pissing in the wind. Feel free to replace lip balm with gel-bras, iPods, or shoes that have escaped the x-ray process – it’s all bullshit. This government feeds on our fear (kinda like the terrorists they claim to be “evil”). I maintain that no terrorist has ever(!) been captured by airport security thanks to these ridiculous screening processes. Maybe they should stop trying to prevent the [attempted] terrorist actions of last month and start thinking outside the box about how to stop the next guy. I agree that knives and guns and meat cleavers should not be allowed on flights. I don’t expect this rule to EVER change (nor should it). It’s this revolving door policy of the “dangerous substance of the week” that confirms my suspicions that all they are doing is fostering the illusion of safety. But if you actually feel safer and thankful for the newly imposed restrictions on your freedom, I envy you – your world is surely a nicer place than the one I live in.
And you’re wrong about the Ben Franklin quote. Though I fully admitted to paraphrasing in my original entry, the actual quote is, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety”. US History
Excellent ranting!
The security is all bollocks – at the height of it a teenage boy who’d run away from home managed to board a plane at Gatwick without a ticket, and it was only when someone noticed that he was upset that someone challanged him! (http://express.lineone.net/news_detail.html?sku=313)
And frankly if someone is smart enough to make a bomb out of an ipod, some chocolate and a trashy airport novel then surely they should be praised and there talents put to good use somewhere else.
Whew, I have to admit that the ranting did me a lot of good. I really had to get it out. And I wholeheartedly thank Bob for expressing his opposing opinion on the subject. He is a gentleman and a scholar.
Jan says that Bob is a “heavyweight” when it comes to intellectual conversations. I thought that “banterweight” would be more appropriate! Ha, get it? Banter-weight? Like banter? Like to speak wittily? Then I realized that the term is actually “bantamweight” and that I’m outta my league…
Ok then. Perhaps we are both wrong. I had heard that quote many times but never with ‘temporary’. According to wikipedia he didn’t even say it. Regardless, my aplogies.
But I wasn’t really arguing whether or not these restrictions work. Some admittedly sound absurd. In the midst of an emergency I think the UK government panicked and just banned everything.
No, my points were that SOME security restrictions are needed. Which you agree with. That they are messing it up? Seems like it. But you think that they’ve never caught a terrorist with these screening methods. I guess not. I don’t know. We’ll probably never know. You never read about the ones who didn’t get through, you only read about the ones that DID get through and go on to cause mayhem. Israel prevents hundreds of suicide bombers every year but it’s only news when one succeeds.
And I took exception with your thinking that somehow you are the only person on earth not affected by spin. No, I don’t feel safer knowing that lip balm isn’t allowed. Perhaps if it comes out that these guys were making a bomb with an iPod and lip balm I’ll change my tune. No one knows anything about what these guys were planning to do. I prefer to wait and see before passing judgement.
But the fact that you think this is a partisan issue tells me you buy into spin of a different nature. Are we honestly saying a democrat would have done differently? Based on what? And anyway, wasn’t it the UK that banned this stuff? Who exactly is ‘this government’?
Anyway, I think the issue is way more complicated than you’re willing to admit. In the meantime, drink Kool Aid powder and make it on the plane. And listen to the on-flight music selection, no need for ipod. All anyone really needs is Britney.
Bob
now it’s a blog, and not just a newsletter.
note to AmJan- you can use your 4.0 oz. of alloted KY for lip balm.
Intellectual heavyweight? Is she taking the piss? Man, if she weren’t nine-and-a-half months pregnant I’d … well, I wouldn’t do anything I guess, I’d hate to get beaten up by a chic.
Anyway, just don’t get on a plane with a tube of vaseline intensive care with a fuse sticking out of it.
Bob
Rebecca, thanks for the tip. Who knew K-Y was so multiutilitarian?? Here’s hoping 4.0 oz will be enough to replace lip balm, face moisturizer, hand cream, toothpaste and hair gel during the 15 hours it will take me to get to California. Then, while I’m there I can stock up on the stuff (and buy stock in the stuff?), as it surely is much cheaper in the USofA!
BTW, speaking of Vaseline and fuses, I did have my bag (US: purse) inspected after the X-ray showed something that could have been a tin of Vaseline. It was a tin of mints, which I was asked to open, and then was OK’d to continue, and not a word was said about the decidedly un-mint-like look of the little blue Aleve and the long white Vicodin a visiting friend gave me for back pain a few weeks ago. At least we can still carry prescribed recreational drugs onboard! Hmm… anyone know the shelf life of Vicodin? Might come in handy on that cross-Atlantic flight..
Oh, and Bob, if you need beating up and Jan’s not available, let me know and I’ll be happy to step in. I’ve been on a no-exercise regimen since my back’s been out, so the odds are more even.
-Jan (aka AmJan)
Considering that the terrorist attacks in both Madrid and London had bugger all to do with aviation, I don’t see how all these new ‘security measures’ are supposed to make the world a safer place. I’m not aware of any new procedures having been put in place by any land-based public transport body (unless you count the Mets shooting illegal immigrants on the Tube).
To close this subject (or maybe open another can of worms) I’d like to share with you an essay called What the Terrorists Want written but a few hours after I wrote this original entry. In it, Bruce Schneier beautifully expresses pretty much exactly what I wanted to say in my post but was not eloquent enough to express. Take a deep breath and enjoy.
POP!
There goes the lid to the can of worms.
Nah, not really. This is a good article. And I agree with this guy that raising security levels and temporarily banning items on planes is in the long run ineffective. Intelligence and investigation, that’s what wins the race.
I just wanted to point out the article on the front page of the NY Times today:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/world/europe/28plot.html?hp&ex=1156824000&en=09d0e2102978e4b1&ei=5094&partner=homepage
Scary shit. Using emptied-out batteries, disposable cameras and the british version of gatorade to make bombs. If this stuff is true (and it’s not been proven yet) … me worry.
I just wanted to point out one thing — according to this article the US had nothing to do with either arresting all of these people or banning liquids on planes. It seems the Pakistanis jumped the gun by arresting the ‘ringleader’ in Pakistan, which forced MI5’s hand. They didn’t want to give the rest of the suspects time to destroy evidence and disappear. And when they intercepted a message that they thought said ‘Go now’, well, they acted. And is it turns out, overreacted.
Anyhoo, as I said in a previous post, the details are slowly coming out and based on these details we will all be able to make better judgements.
But one thing seems to be clear, these guys weren’t just whistling dixie …
Bob
Liam’s right. Why do terrorists have to attack airplanes? There are a million ways they can wreck havoc, which really puts the whole airport security issue pretty far out in left field. If they really want to “protect” us, they’ll have to start looking outside airports, to schools, malls, parks, busses, trains, highways, office buildings, Starbucks, McDonald’ses, cinemas, theaters — everywhere that people congregate. Why are they not doing this? Is it impractical? Is it unnecessary, because they’re only doing the airport security thing to keep us afraid? The latter seems to gel pretty well with my own perceptions of post 9/11 politics.
Ultimately, though, I’d say that all this security BS is probably an OK idea — I mean it may save lives, and if it does, then it will have been worth the hassle of packing your shampoo in your suitcase. But as a strategy for winning the “War on Terror” (and those are very big quotation marks there), invasions and metal detectors just reinforce my perception that the guys in the White House really know nothing about terrorism. Or that perhaps they do, but just don’t give a shit.