It seems Americans are finally figuring out that the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t seem to have their security in mind, at least at airport security checkpoints. Many Americans are accidentally violating a ban on liquids and gels carried onto aircraft placed into effect a month ago. And many more are openly flouting the ban.
In addition, pilots and flight crews admit they are largely unconcerned about people carrying liquids aboard aircraft.
People who flout the ban say, for instance, that there is no way they are going to pack their expensive colognes and perfumes in their checked luggage where it could be stolen or broken in flight and baggage handling. Others just want to be able to drink their bottled water during their flights.
TheWashington Post recounted the stories of several such travelers, and the Transportation Security Administration, as you might imagine, is displeased that people are ignoring their arbitrary and useless ban.
“Travelers must realize this isn’t a game,” [said TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe]. “The threat is real and it continues, and we appreciate the public’s cooperation. Is it the perfect system? No. But does it make it right to sneak things through security? No, it doesn’t.”
“There are obviously limitations to this ban,” said Clark Kent Ervin, a former inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security.
Pilots groups have criticized the measures, saying they notice the security holes all the time. They say authorities should focus more on developing systems to identify potential terrorists, not just their weapons.
Gary Boettcher, a pilot and president of the Coalition for Airline Pilots Association, a trade group that closely tracks security issues, said he constantly sees people drinking from illicit bottles of water or putting on lip gloss when he walks through the passenger cabin. Most of the time, he said, it doesn’t bother him.
“They are just doing their routines like they always did,” Boettcher said. “An old woman drinking a bottle of water doesn’t concern me. . . . The whole screening process is a facade to make the public feel safe, to show that the government is doing something.”
Passengers said they didn’t feel any safer after reaching their destination and realizing they had inadvertently left a banned item in their carry-on bags. — Washington Post
Bottled water is a threat? The pilots sure don’t believe that. And neither does anybody else. Most everybody sees these measures for what they are: security theater, useless feel-good measures intended to make people feel like the government is doing something to keep them safe, regardless of how much real security the measures give. An all-out ban on liquids certainly doesn’t make anyone any safer in reality.
Most people are complying simply because they don’t want to miss their flight or be subjected to hours of interrogation as a suspected terrorist, simply because they want to have something to drink aboard the flight. In other words, they’re afraid — not of terrorists, but of their own government.
Way to go, Homeland Security. I thought the whole idea was to make people secure, not afraid. It’s clear now, more than ever before, that the point is to make people feel afraid and beg for Michael Chertoff to protect them from the bogeymen.
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Karl Marx would love the popular moves among politicians in various state governments and the federal government to ban so-called "junk" food in schools, and to "put healthy food in" convenience stores and on the tables of those they define as poor. It's a very elitist and arrogant mindset that promotes this ideology, and it needs to be addressed.
Ultimately, the war supporters in Congress prevailed in the vote on the resolution. Still, the vote was significant because it places every member of Congress on the record as supporting or not supporting the unconstitutional, costly, violent occupation of a country that never attacked us. This vote should serve as an important reminder to the American people of where their representatives really stand when it comes to policing the world, empire building, and war.
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Todd Tyrtle
Sep 15, 2006
My question regarding this whole thing is why does it take a “near catastrophe” (if you believe the news) before the TSA actually does something. If the possibility is out there, why did they wait until a big scary threat popped up before checking for it? Likewise, why are the terror alerts only going up after something happens, never before? Okay, perhaps they do go up before elections.
Michael Hampton
Sep 15, 2006
You’re catching on. It’s a complete illusion made to look like the government is doing something.
The U.S. has known about the threat of liquid explosives since the foiled 1995 Bojinka plot, and maybe before. Did anything change? Were liquids banned from the aircraft cabin? The answer, of course, is no. (They were screened for a brief time on certain overseas flights, but that’s it.) And while technology existed before last month to detect liquid explosives, the government didn’t bother to try to acquire any until after the latest foiled plot.
As for the color coded terror alert, it’s a joke. It doesn’t get raised before something happens, they say, to avoid tipping off the terrorists. Afterward, it’s just pointless security theater.
Roxan
Sep 15, 2006
I don’t know. Personally I think it was all a big scam to keep the
people scared.
Our borders are not secured and are left wide open.
Our Government doesn’t care:
1. Who the people are hanging around Home Depot.
2. The Massive Illegal Alien Marches.
3. Or who waltzes across the borders.
4. Won’t prosecute employers for hiring illegals.
5. Won’t go after groups stating they want: Aztlan, De plan de San
Diego,Anahuac or the communists professing open borders (this is
dangerous to ignore this).
Promotes further illegals to come by offering:
1. The Dream Act.
2. The Anchor Babies.
3. Free Schooling.
4. Free medical care.
5. Drivers licences.
And they are even suing now to protest hanging around places like
Home Depot for work. Most other people have to have permits to do
anything. Many of these people are illegal and have no business
suing us.
Imagine if they win: How many more will come in when they hear about
illegals winning huge law suits?
Where does it stop? Why won’t our government enforce its laws?
I wonder if it has anything to do with the North American Union and
the NAFTA Super Highway.
To me: 2+2 does not =5. To me, wide-wide open borders and all this
blather about 9/11, Terrorism and Homeland Security DO NOT ADD UP.
William
Sep 15, 2006
I know who you’re listening to, Roxan! Me too… RIGHT ON! You said it all.
juan
Sep 15, 2006
the process for actually mixing an explosive out of liquids takes hours, and requires cold.
DA
Sep 15, 2006
American, living in London, working in banking. Used to take four or five Biz Class trips a month out of Heathrow. Now I’m taking the Eurostar to Paris for Long Haul. And so are my co-workers.
No such restrictions on The Continent, even if you fly INTO London. Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?
Why the disparity? Didn’t the folks on The Continent get the memo? Or did their Intelligence Services decide The Threat was fabricated?
L
Sep 15, 2006
One of my clients loves to tell us stories from her youth. She used to be a flight attendent back in the late 60’s early 70’s. A few years ago she told a story of being hi-jacked. The guy had a ligter and bottle of what he said was gasoline. So the threat of liquids has been around for 30 plus years.
I am glad to hear the public is rebelling. I am more concerned with the maintence of the planes than the minute chance of terrorism.
Donna
Sep 15, 2006
Has any one seen “V for Vendeta? Looks like real life in America. Scary.
Rumple Stiltskin
Sep 15, 2006
Just wait. Pretty soon, all US airline passengers will be involuntarily catheterized and declawed. They’ll keep going as far as people are willing to put up with or allow.
Darrel
Sep 15, 2006
The U.S. has known about the threat of liquid explosives since the foiled 1995 Bojinka plot, and maybe before.
“The U.S. has known about the threat of liquid explosives since the foiled 1995 Bojinka plot, and maybe before. ”
There is no threat of liquid explosives. It is impossible to bring different elements on to a plane and use the plane’s bathroom as a lab. It takes an actual real lab and specific intruments and far more time than a Planes bathroom allows to do what we are told these “terrorists” were attempting to do.
This is pure propaganda designed to advance the “terrorists are around every corner waitng to kill you” fairy tale.
Peter
Sep 15, 2006
Four to six ounces of potent, high-explosive material can easily be concealed in the average rectum (sorry about the graphic description. A nine-volt battery and a blasting cap can easily be slipped by airport security. This isn’t hypothetical; this is a physical reality. One ounce of military grade explosive is is more than enough to shatter the fuselage of a wide-body jet airliner. So far, this hasn’t happened, except for one sketchy incident that ocurred over Scotland more than ten years ago. Is the next step a strip search and rectal probe for all air travelers?
Kuato
Sep 15, 2006
Well what about those walk through xray scanners like they had in “Total Recall” that was pretty cool.
But in all seriousness. It helps to spread the word that these theatrics will and are causing our freedoms to be diminished over time.
Alot of people I talk to actually think they foiled a big terrorist plot in “stopping” the terrorists from making explosive aboard those flights not too long ago.
I actually think they were just patsies. Impossible mission, to go on board a plane with said ingredients and to destroy it… kinda like Rocco with his revolver about to waltz into a room with 9 guys… “what are you going to do with the other 3 Rocco? make them laugh to death?”
floppy ears
Sep 15, 2006
In Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada a couple of employees of an airline told me how a lady was upset at them because she was told she couldn’t bring her apple on board…all because it contain a liquid. I replied that most of the human body is liquid and what does a nursing mother do, cut off her breasts? They didn’t understand the stupidity of it all. If there is a legit threat and this is all the reaction we get, we are doomed. If there is no legit threat and they are doing this, then they should all be tarred and feathered and then fired.
Emmett
Sep 16, 2006
The sheeple will continue to believe whatever appears on TV and in the mainstream media. The dumbing down started 30 years ago; the nonthinking idiot and illiterate products coming out of school are exactly by design. Don’t question anything because the ‘others’ won’t go to lunch with you. Don’t challenge because the ‘others’ won’t like you.
Well, screw the ‘others’. Be an individual. Think what you feel and follow it.
Eric, Florida, USA
Sep 16, 2006
Personally I don’t trust anyone in our government and I feel that everything they say is suspect. With that said I try my hardest to give them a hard time. Civil disobedience is fun and I practice it every chance I get in one form or another. Heck, sometimes I go out of my way to aggravate individuals and groups in our current government, make ‘em earn that paycheck.
There is NO way to fix the American government for one reason and one reason only. The American people are too afraid to force change.
CARY G DEAN
Sep 16, 2006
If the people of the world got rid of the Queen of England and her two
lap dogs bush and Blair, terrorism would come to an abrupt halt.
Just me
Sep 16, 2006
As somebody once (correctly) said “welcome to the ussa”.
Bill Fairchild
Sep 16, 2006
Bottled water could be a serious threat if: (1) the perp were somehow able to get it frozen during mid-flight, and then the frozen bottle of water could be used like a hammer to knock flight attendants unconscious; (2) the perp or another co-perp were also to carry on board a subtstantial quantity of pure sodium, for then the water could be poured on top of the sodium to start an unquenchable fire. Oh, come to think of it, the water in the plane’s bathroom could also be used to start the sodium fire.
l
Sep 16, 2006
fly paris hilton airlines… google that and see what you get!!
AluSky
Sep 16, 2006
How about some Big Brother with a side of horseshat?
gmill
Sep 16, 2006
I just got home from a trip to Toronto. I purchased 2 bottles of wine at duty free store at the airport. They bubble wrapped it and siad I had to check it with my bags and no carry on.
I get home to surprise my wife with 2 bottles of nice wine. Open my luggage and there is only one bottle of wine.
The Fing TSA is stealing from our checked bags. This is what it’s all about, they just want to steal our good stuff. Total losers TSA, go back to jail, scum.
I Know the Truth
Sep 16, 2006
This ban on liquids is BS and more people need to ignore that ban.
Hearing about people getting robbed by baggage handlers is also BS
and is really starting to piss me off!
THEY are trying to scare us with all these stupid fake phony terror
alerts and dammnit I am not SCARED anymore!
What’s next? Are they going to start making us take off all our
clothes and fly NAKED?? THis is going way too far!
Jennifer
Sep 16, 2006
Just an fyi, I had two incidences of interest while flying this week:
1.) TSA in my checked luggage unzipped and inspected my ‘Nu Bra’ which is a silicone stick on bra that looks like real boobs. I am assuming because it is made of gel. They did not put it back in the case and let them get mangled and punctured in my suitcase by putting them under sharp objects that they had dumped out of my makeup bag. When I wear them through security…nobody detects them. So, I could smuggle liquid explosives in my stick on bra if I was a terrorist and smuggle them on board.
2.) It was 80 degrees on my way to lax yesterday. I had to ditch my water before security. After security, I had to ride a shuttle (was as hot as hell in there as I sat for 20 min waiting for it to fill to capacity before it finally left) to a satellite terminal. By the time I arrived there, I did not have time to buy water. It was 30 min into my flight before I was served water. I asked for the entire bottle, and the stewardess said I was limited to drinking from the small cups since she only had 2 large plastic bottles to serve us from. She wouldn’t have enough water for everyone if she gave us the bottles. Needless to say I had a major case of dehydration by the time I was home at 9 pm. If they are going to deprive us of liquids…at least stock the plane with water??? It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure this out.
It makes me very upset that I have to endure this since I fly every week for work. Who is looking out for the good citizens of the US? If someone is going to hijack a plane, they can do it with their fist and beat the pilot up…so why put us through all of this????? I see no point.
Anonymous
Sep 17, 2006
Just carry an empty water bottle and fill in hin the bathroom on the airplaine and then look at the reactions of people as you walk back to your seat drinking from a water bottle.
Frank Drabin
Sep 18, 2006
Reading your comments is like watching the movie Airplane… LOL
Jerry A. Pipes
Sep 18, 2006
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed — and thus clamorous to be led to safety — by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
– H.L. Mencken
American public
Sep 18, 2006
On a different topic
I am tired of hearing about Mohammad, go back to your sand box and leave the rest of the world alone. Mohammad was a profit of nothing because he does not exist, he is a figment of the imagination of a mad man. The people and the religion are hateful and violent by nature. Islam is false and the koran is false, I shall use it as toilet paper.
Redmond James
Sep 18, 2006
August 26 while on a delta flight from seattle to jfk. Young arab man sitting by the emergency wing door is told to hand over is 1.5L of h20 that he brought onboard. All the while exhibiting extremely wierd behavior. Getting up, sitting down. Walking half way into 1st class, then standing in the bulk head. I tell the flight crew, I start shadowing the guy. Then I notice punk#2 sitting near window 4 rows back from punk1. Punk2 is giving me the crazy eye look, while peering over the seat infront of him. No one else in the plane has even looked at me. Then while i’m standing in the bulkhead punk3 who looks american but has the taliban chin beard comes up and bumps into me. Startsa talking to me for a few seconds then sits back down. Flight lands fine, but it was a test run, judge passenger reaction, flt crew, no doubt.
Dave
Sep 19, 2006
If you think this country is secure, take a drive from San Diego over to, say, the middle of Texas. Mile after mile after mile after mile (some 1200 miles) of wide-open, unprotected border. Anybody could march right in any time they want, and they have, by the milllions in recent years. The government is full of shit.
Donna
Sep 19, 2006
Dave-I think you are right. Since the Government refuses to secure the border the border we have to assume they want it wide open. You can guess why.
Johnny America
Sep 19, 2006
It is prophet your moron, not profit. And as for the citizen-detective
‘Redmond James’ shouldn’t he have the intelligence to make coherent
statements before he comes to the ‘test-run’ conclusion based upon his
(paranoid) perceptions?
Bbrian
Sep 19, 2006
Because this is all about reaction and being proactive. If he TSA, NSA, CIA, FBI, USA, ABC, 123,…. were completely focused on protecting citizens, they would not wait around for something to happen.
However, since the ultimate goal is to create an Orwellian nation of mindless sheep, generating endless tax dollars, reaction is what is desired.
By only reacting, the government can create a desired reaction in the populous – fear. This can be used to control us and strip us of our rights. By reacting to incidents, the governement can say “See we told you something bad was going to happen. Now give us all your rights and we’ll keep you safe. We promise. We’re the governement. We’d never hurt you. Oh but you can’t take your wallet full of money on the plane. Money is flammable and therefore a travel and safety hazard. Give us $20 and we’ll let you mail to yourself in this envelope. After we take all the cash out of course. ANd oh hey, thats a nice watch…”
Brian
Sep 19, 2006
Oops. I meant to say “this is all about reaction and NOT being proactive.” sorry :(
Sep 24, 2006
Bugs 'n' Gas Gal's Lair
Sep 25, 2006
TSA allows small amounts of liquids, gels - Homeland Stupidity
Billy bob
Oct 19, 2006
You all must be democrats… blind to the idea that our gov’t is actually trying to protect us. You wouldn’t be complaining if one of your relatives died on a hijacked plane… even if 99.9999% of people had no ill-intentions with a bottled water, that still leaves one out of a million, or many times a year in the USA that we would have problems. I bet most of you that are complaining also avoid paying your dutifull taxes. Simma down and say thank you every once in awhile and be grateful for living in the best country in the world :)
Michael Hampton
Oct 19, 2006
Actually it’s more like one in a hundred million. You’re more likely to die from a lightning strike on a clear, sunny day. Is all this “security” worth it?
It MIGHT be, if it were actually security, rather than a sick dog-and-pony show put on by incompetent morons who wouldn’t know security from their own asses.
As for the Democrat thing, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m no Democrat, and you’ll get a lot farther by engaging in actual thought, rather than blindly obeying the propaganda you’ve been fed.
david jackson
Aug 07, 2007
The stupidity is continuing a year later. Rules asy 100ml sized liquids only . e.g. NOT a litre. But 10 100ml are allowed ! Stupidity.
Worse is that a terrorist aware as we all of the restriction, would simply place the quantity he required into a zip`lok bag and hang it in his trousers.
Putting expensive perfumes and deodorants in checked luggage is a risk. I personally have had many items stolen out of checked luggage, which promotes the inevitable question ” If baggage handlers can steal and remove items from secure areas, it MUST be simplicity for the same persons to place item s IN the luggage” . There’s a BIG loophole and security risk that nobody ever mentions.
Stop these ludicrous ineffectual rules, and fire most of the passenger security people. Reduce waiting times,and airport running costs . I don’t believe it would allow terrorists into aircraft any more than now.