Do You Feel Safer?

[flwyd]

Due in part to excessive personal hygene, tamheals was running quite late for her flight to Orlando this morning. When we hit traffic on I-70, I informed her that she would not arrive at DIA in time to check her luggage. After a rough decision about high heeled shoes, I consolidated her luggage down to one carry-on bag and one personal item, the latter containing her toiletries bag containing essential oils bottles, a tube of toothpaste, and small bottles of shampoo.

Speeding on Peña Blvd. didn't make up enough time, so she realized in the security line that she wouldn't catch her flight. When she got to the checkpoint, they informed her that her toothpaste and shampoo exceeded the allowed 3 oz maximum.

The purported purpose of draconian measures at airport security checkpoints is to make sure that flights are safe because nobody aboard the plane is carrying anything dangerous. However, the rule is not "Passengers may not bring dangerous items on board." Instead, there is a long list of specific items which are not allowed. I ca nunderstand not letting passengers take an ice pick on board (clearly dangerous). But they didn't say "Sorry, ma'am, you're not allowed to bring shampoo and toothpaste on the plane." They said "Sorry, ma'am, you're not allowed to bring this much shampoo and toothpaste on the plane." (I believe she even left her 2.5oz of personal lubricant at home.)

There are four possible conclusions to draw from this:

• There is a way to hijack an airplane with five ounces of shampoo and five ounces of toothpaste (and a dash of eye medicine and personal lubricant) which is not possible with three ounces of shampoo and three ounces of toothpaste.
  
• The TSA has no idea what can blow up an airplane, but some Muslims in England came up with a (well-shampooed) hair brained idea involving unknown liquids, so the TSA is throwing chemistry to the wind assuming any liquid in sufficient quantities can blow up an airplane.
  
• The TSA is well aware that you can't blow up a plane with shampoo, but wants to hassle you anyway for political purposes.
  
• The TSA doesn't trust its employees to make decisions based on the gestalt of a traveller's luggage, so they devise a spaghetti code security policy in the hopes that any terrorists get entangled in mindless rule enforcement.
  

Comments

[dr-tectonic.livejournal.com]

I saw a comic the other day with a classroom labelled "TSA Training" and on the blackboard was written "Inconvenience = Security!"

That really seems to be the basic principle here.