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Of course the reaction to this is completely insane but what's even sillier is that they're continuing to assume that real threats would be things that they can

Of course the reaction to this is completely insane but what's even sillier is that they're continuing to assume that real threats would be things that they can see. If someone wanted to blow up a building they could hide a bomb in a backpack among hundreds of others and never show it to anyone. It's the same crap they pull at the airport where you must throw out your bottled water; and then their solution is to toss this bottle, which was classified a minute ago as a serious threat, into a pile of other unverified "threats" in the middle of a densely-populated area of the airport. How this kind of thing has gone YEARS without any serious backslash is amazing to me. It is so out of hand. While certainly bad things have happened and could happen, statistically modern society is pretty safe and we all have to stop being so damn scared of every little thing.

TillE 11y ago
To be completely fair about the stupid liquid rule, it was prompted by fears about someone making TATP on the flight. The precursors are not particularly dangerous on their own.
- makecheck 11y ago
  Given that control of liquids was a reactionary measure to an event that didn't actually harm innocent people or endanger an airplane (and was incredibly unlikely to begin with), it's debatable if it warranted any attention at all.
  - rhino369 11y ago
    TAPT is somewhat commonly used in terrorism, most well known attack was the 2005 subway bombings in London. The plan that caused the liquids ban called for 500ml of each component. The TSA certainly is reacting to a threat, but I'm not sure how much of an over reaction it is.
- jimktrains2 11y ago
  But, between you and a buddy or two, that's still a lot of precursor. It's not like they've actually solved any problems; they've just made the 3oz toiletries industry boom.
mikeash 11y ago
I think the liquids ban is dumb, but given that it exists, throwing confiscated liquids into a bin is completely reasonable. It's one of those weird game theory things. Your goal is to prevent dangerous liquids from being brought onto planes, but you can't reasonably tell them apart from other liquids, so you ban all liquids. Because it's banned, you can be reasonably sure that nobody is going to try to bring dangerous liquids through security in the first place. (Not because people always obey bans, but just because they know it'll be confiscated.) So you can be confident that all the confiscated liquids are not dangerous, and it's safe to just throw them in a bin. Yet you still need to confiscate them if you want to keep people from bringing the dangerous materials through. If someone wants to blow up a security line, there are much better ways to do it than allowing their liquid explosive to be confiscated, so you can be pretty confident that nobody is going to attack the system that way either.
- function_seven 11y ago
  Wow, I never really thought if it like that before. I always had the same sneering reaction to the bin of "possibly explosive liquids" at the security line, but now it actually makes sense.
- pain_perdu 11y ago
  This was a logically beautiful response, thank you.
- makecheck 11y ago
  The ban means little because the punishment is nothing. If I want to bring something bad on board, there are two outcomes: I succeed, or I don't, and maybe I have to endure a brief scolding. The difference now is that if I fail, I know my mixture will be stuck in the middle of a huge crowd of people for who knows how long, probably giving me time to go far away. The decision to throw all liquids into a bin has created a danger that would not have existed otherwise, which means the confiscations have lowered security. And collectively, unnecessary "security" measures slow down security lines, increasing the probability that more people will be in them and increasing the temptation to target security lines at all. The real goal should be to move people through so efficiently that there is barely a "line" to target in the first place, much less a massive crowd.

TillE 11y ago

To be completely fair about the stupid liquid rule, it was prompted by fears about someone making TATP on the flight. The precursors are not particularly dangerous on their own.

makecheck 11y ago
Given that control of liquids was a reactionary measure to an event that didn't actually harm innocent people or endanger an airplane (and was incredibly unlikely to begin with), it's debatable if it warranted any attention at all.
- rhino369 11y ago
  TAPT is somewhat commonly used in terrorism, most well known attack was the 2005 subway bombings in London. The plan that caused the liquids ban called for 500ml of each component. The TSA certainly is reacting to a threat, but I'm not sure how much of an over reaction it is.
jimktrains2 11y ago
But, between you and a buddy or two, that's still a lot of precursor. It's not like they've actually solved any problems; they've just made the 3oz toiletries industry boom.

mikeash 11y ago

I think the liquids ban is dumb, but given that it exists, throwing confiscated liquids into a bin is completely reasonable. It's one of those weird game theory things. Your goal is to prevent dangerous liquids from being brought onto planes, but you can't reasonably tell them apart from other liquids, so you ban all liquids. Because it's banned, you can be reasonably sure that nobody is going to try to bring dangerous liquids through security in the first place. (Not because people always obey bans, but just because they know it'll be confiscated.) So you can be confident that all the confiscated liquids are not dangerous, and it's safe to just throw them in a bin. Yet you still need to confiscate them if you want to keep people from bringing the dangerous materials through. If someone wants to blow up a security line, there are much better ways to do it than allowing their liquid explosive to be confiscated, so you can be pretty confident that nobody is going to attack the system that way either.

function_seven 11y ago
Wow, I never really thought if it like that before. I always had the same sneering reaction to the bin of "possibly explosive liquids" at the security line, but now it actually makes sense.
pain_perdu 11y ago
This was a logically beautiful response, thank you.
makecheck 11y ago
The ban means little because the punishment is nothing. If I want to bring something bad on board, there are two outcomes: I succeed, or I don't, and maybe I have to endure a brief scolding. The difference now is that if I fail, I know my mixture will be stuck in the middle of a huge crowd of people for who knows how long, probably giving me time to go far away. The decision to throw all liquids into a bin has created a danger that would not have existed otherwise, which means the confiscations have lowered security. And collectively, unnecessary "security" measures slow down security lines, increasing the probability that more people will be in them and increasing the temptation to target security lines at all. The real goal should be to move people through so efficiently that there is barely a "line" to target in the first place, much less a massive crowd.