Reply With QuoteChalk another one up for the good guys!!!!!!! Go team America!!!!
Friggin retards. I swear, bag check people have to be soem of the dumbest people in the world. They do not know how to process info and just seem top be trained monkeys.
TSA Confiscates Homemade Battery and Water Bottle, Declares Victory Over Terror
"For six long minutes on June 30, screening operations froze at Jackson-Evers International Airport's West checkpoint in Mississippi." Bated breath. "Transportation Security Officer Scot Peele leveraged his training and experience when he detected the suspicious item while monitoring the X-ray image of the passenger's carry-on bag." The "explosive-like" item that brought you this tense Jack Bauer moment? An empty water bottle and an engineer's homemade battery pack to keep his portable DVD alive on a long flight to Hawaii.
Even though, as Phil Torrone points out, a seasoned bomb expert could deduce in two seconds the battery pack—which is pretty much like a commercial one, except it's hand-crafted with 28 rechargeables connected by resistors and held together by a silicon-based adhesive—was not a bomb and totally safe, the engineer ultimately gave it up anyway to pass through "after recognizing that the item could be seen by other passengers as a threat." That photo that makes it seem vaguely ghetto bomberrific is probably staged too. (Why is the wire positioned to look like it's connected to the water bottle?)
Uplifting moral of the story: If something even looks vaguely bomblike to the wandering, untrained eye of the sweaty guy munching Ambien in the seat next to you, the TSA will bust it, regardless of its actual potential to cause harm (it is causing terror, after all). BTW, Phil says he hasn't had any problems flying with homemade electronics, but make sure anything you carry that has wires and batteries couldn't be mistaken as bomblike by the lowest common denominator of airline passengers. [TSA via Schneir on Security via MAKE]
Originally Posted by Ben
Chalk another one up for the good guys!!!!!!! Go team America!!!!
Things that look dangerous might get confiscated when you go onto a flight? Is there really anybody in the WORLD who doesn't already know this?
I expect a person to use their brain when doing when checking the baggage. The picture was even doctored to make it look like a bomb by attaching the cord to the water bottle. Trained monkeys.
Can somebody else make the "America!! FUCK YEAH!!" joke here please?
I'm really not feeling up to it.
He is using his brain. He thinks people on the flight might get in a panic over it, which would cause problems, so it got refused. They also probably wouldn't let you on a totally useless replica gun either, is that something that shocks you?
As for the bottle, I'm pretty sure the restrictions on containers would disallow that.
"a seasoned bomb expert could deduce in two seconds the battery pack—which is pretty much like a commercial one, except it's hand-crafted with 28 rechargeables connected by resistors and held together by a silicon-based adhesive—was not a bomb and totally safe"
I seriously doubt we have seasoned bomb experts working at airport security nor do we have the money to hire that many. Maybe each airport could have one, though, that could be called in to look at something like this. The dude was totally asking for trouble with that homemade battery.
There's a big fucking line all the damn time and security takes too long already. Verifying that someone's radioshack hobby project isn't an explosive just makes the process that much more tedious. If you're flying, don't try to carry on anything like this. Ever. You're just inconveniencing the universe.
OK, should the same go for hair gel?
That's why hair gel can now only be in small containers in your hand luggage. It's also why empty bottles get confiscated.
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