{"id":833,"date":"2007-01-02T18:08:03","date_gmt":"2007-01-02T23:08:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/?p=833"},"modified":"2010-05-01T22:51:38","modified_gmt":"2010-05-02T02:51:38","slug":"airport-security-and-snow-globes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/01\/02\/airport-security-and-snow-globes\/","title":{"rendered":"Airport Security and Snow Globes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Having recently traveled through airport security a few times (and taken off my shoes, and had my bag inspected, and had my body patted down by a stranger), I can definitely appreciate this article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some quotes:<\/p>\n

To paraphrase a classic line from Lily Tomlin, I worry that the person who thought up the rules for carrying liquids and gels on airplanes last year is busy thinking up something new this year.<\/p>\n

The thought arises partly because of a scene just after Christmas at an airport security checkpoint, where a half-dozen festive snow globes \u2014 like the ones with Frosty the Snowman in a liquid-filled glass globe that simulates snowfall when you shake it \u2014 were lined up on a counter.<\/p>\n

Wasn\u2019t that nice! The Transportation Security Administration had decorated the checkpoint! But as it turned out, Frosty and his co-conspirators had actually been busted \u2014 confiscated from passengers’ carry-on bags pursuant to the following notification by the security administration:<\/p>\n

“Snow globes, regardless of size of amount of liquid inside, even with documentation, are prohibited in your carry-on.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It just gets weirder, too:<\/p>\n

Inherent in the obsession on liquids and gels, Mr. Schneier said, “is the notion that we can stop the bad guys by focusing on tactics, which is moronic. I pick a defense, you see my defense, and then you, the bad guy, decide what to do. That\u2019s a game we can’t win.”<\/p>\n

He added, “Screeners are so busy looking for liquids that they\u2019ve missed decoy bombs in tests. We\u2019ve defined success so weirdly. When T.S.A. takes away some frozen tomato sauce from grandmom because it might become a liquid, they think of it as a success. But that\u2019s a failure. It\u2019s a false alarm.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

After getting through airport security on one leg of my trip, I found the entire gate lounge for my 747 flight with United sectioned off, and this is where I had to be patted down. I couldn’t understand it – we couldn’t even take water on the plane that we had bought from a store in the airport after the security checkpoint<\/em>. Needless to say, I was quite thirsty on that (13 hour long) flight.<\/p>\n

Of course, when I traveled on Qantas during my trip, I had no additional security to worry about – and Qantas, unlike United or American Airlines, had those neat up-to-date video screens at each seat, complete with on-demand video (including Top Gear) and video games – all for free<\/em>. Now that’s service!
\nStill, there’s humor to be seen in it all. Quoting Mr. Schneier again:<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s a good thing the shoe bomber wasn\u2019t an underwear bomber.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Heh. No kidding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having recently traveled through airport security a few times (and taken off my shoes, and had my bag inspected, and had my body patted down by a stranger), I can definitely appreciate this article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"webmentions_disabled_pings":false,"webmentions_disabled":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":3,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[385,26],"class_list":["post-833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-politics","tag-security","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pimUj-dr","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":918,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/10\/12\/never-fear\/","url_meta":{"origin":833,"position":0},"title":"Never Fear","author":"Keith Survell","date":"October 12, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"\"There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.\"","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5879,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2022\/11\/15\/frosty-november-morning\/","url_meta":{"origin":833,"position":1},"title":"Frosty November Morning","author":"Keith Survell","date":"November 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"We had our first real solid frost last night - when I woke up it was 28\u00b0F (-2\u00b0C) out - and so of course I had to try and get some photos. https:\/\/flic.kr\/p\/2nZp3Hu However, I had just cleared all the leaves off the lawn this past weekend, and there are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Photography"","block_context":{"text":"Photography","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/pictures\/photography-pictures\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":581,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2005\/07\/28\/airport-security\/","url_meta":{"origin":833,"position":2},"title":"Airport Security?","author":"Keith Survell","date":"July 28, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"When will people realize that this is STUPID and doesn't help anything? Just because one person had a bomb in his shoe DOES NOT mean that now EVERYONE needs to have their shoes checked!","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":899,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2007\/06\/18\/over-reacting\/","url_meta":{"origin":833,"position":3},"title":"Over-reacting","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 18, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Terrorism is a real threat, and one that needs to be addressed by appropriate means. But allowing ourselves to be terrorized by wannabe terrorists and unrealistic plots \u2014 and worse, allowing our essential freedoms to be lost by using them as an excuse \u2014 is wrong.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3479,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2011\/09\/08\/trust-no-one\/","url_meta":{"origin":833,"position":4},"title":"Trust No One","author":"Keith Survell","date":"September 8, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"In the post 9\/11 America, you are presumed guilty until... well, you're pretty much always presumed guilty.","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1174,"url":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/2008\/06\/13\/your-papers-please-part-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":833,"position":5},"title":"Your Papers, Please (Part 2)","author":"Keith Survell","date":"June 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Bruce Schneier's blog - the TSA has a new photo ID requirement: Beginning Saturday, June 21, 2008 passengers that willfully refuse to provide identification at security checkpoint will be denied access to the secure area of airports. This change will apply exclusively to individuals that simply refuse to provide\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "politics"","block_context":{"text":"politics","link":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.starkeith.net\/coredump\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}