Federal inspectors were able to slip a bomb past the TSA 5 out of 7 times, according to the Albany Times-Union. Here’s the best part: One fake bomb was placed in the same bag as a bottle of water. The TSA opened the bag, took the water, and let the bomb on the plane.
The TSA spokesperson responded:
“We don’t discuss the results because they tend to paint an inaccurate picture of the competency of our work force,” she said. “The tests are designed to be incredibly difficult and TSA does anticipate a fair level of failure.”
They seem pretty good at detecting Evian, though, don’t they?
Fake bomb eludes airport test [Times-Union via BoingBoing]
(Photo: antigone78)
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I won’t fly anymore. Not because I’m afraid of terrorists, bombs, or the likes. I just won’t fork over that much money to a company if they aren’t going to treat me like a customer. If I had to go through a security checkpoint every time I went to A&W, I’d stop going to A&W. If a store treated me like a shoplifter just because I entered their shop, I’d never f’ing shop there again. But the airlines treat everyone like a terrorist, you pay a small fortune for a ticket, and they look for any reason whatsoever to stripsearch you and ban you from the flight. And you pathetic SOBs keep going back.
But it’s not the airlines fault, its TSA or the Government
Don’t care. You will not get me into a fucking airport. By entering their security-nazi fortress you forfeit your otherwise-untouchable rights.
I have a rather reliable and comfortable car. If I need to go anywhere, I drive. At least that way I’m allowed a god damned bottle of water.
The security officers at airports are FAR better now than they used to be. Pre 9/11 an airport security officer could expect to make about $6/per hour. Exactly what level of competence can you expect at that wage? Really? This was not the fault of the assorted contract security companies. They can’t pay officers more than they are getting on the contract, not if they wanted to stay in business.
Yes, I’m glad they are testing. And yeah, they are always going to find problems. These screenings are being done by people. No amount of training can prevent an Officer from thinking about thier wife, husband, etc… instead of thier job. These tests let TSA (or contract company) know they have an issue. Employees can then be brought up to standard or removed, depending.
I flew out of Orlando the other day and I forgot that I had a 20oz coke bottle in my back pack.
I didn’t remember until I opened it at the gate to get some stuff out of the bag. TSA didn’t catch it.
Good thing I’m one of the good guys and it just contained sweet delicious coca cola.
I don’t know what would make people happy. There are people who want the TSA better trained (which, I totally agree with) and for them to recognize suspicious materials more readily but hate the delay and then there are people who don’t want airport security at all. The TSA could be 1000 times better but I can’t imagine getting onto a tiny little cylinder to go way up in the sky without someone at least making an attempt to see if the passenger sitting next to me is packing heat. Maybe I’m just one of the sheep that don’t care about their basic rights.
@JayP71: It is a little their fault. The contract companies all put in low ass bids.
I carried on two giant bottles of Kentucky Bourbon through airport security in Marion, IL. They were wrapped multiple times in my dirty laundry. They did these complex sniffing tests all over the outside and inside of my bag but never caught the two bottles of hooch.
First of all, the myth of liquid bombs is just that – a myth. You can’t take a fwe liquid components with you into the plane and mix them there into a deadly bomb. Yes, there are explosives that you can make out of liquids alone. No, there are none you can make without a lot of time and lab equipment.
Second, banning liquids because there is liquid nitroglycerin, but not banning baby powder is plain stupid. There are hundreds of highly explosive compounds that can be easily transported as powder and detonated with your mobile phone or whatever.
I think there’s two possibilities:
a) The policy makers really are that stupid and gullible and they ban fluids because they really think that it does anything for our safety
b) They want you to get used to following orders and not questioning degrading treatment
And anyway, why should they care about the safety of passengers? What better thing could happen to the Bush administration than some muslim terrorist blowing up a plane? I’m not saying they’re trying to make it happen, I’m just saying that they have no motivation to actually try and stop it from happening.
@ironchef:
The reason why a cargo hold bomb is impractical is because the bomber has no control WHERE the bomb can be placed. The choice for the potential terrorist is precision control where the bomb can be placed due to the small amount of explosives a bomber can reasonably use to take down a plane. Duh.
Oops. I guess you’re right. If a bomb just blows a big old hole through the plane at any old location, it probably won’t even make the evening news.
If people want to kill us or frighten us – short of The U.S. building two great walls and closing every port and runway – they will find a way. You’ll never get the stat down to 0%, just as you will never get 0% homicide rate or 0% child abuse rate or 0% of anything that the world would be better off without. You can use common sense procedures to mitigate, but as soon as someone’s answer to “so why are we voluntarily submitting ourselves to police state level abrogations of of personal freedom, dignity and privacy” is a snappish “Well, I guess you won’t feel that’s way if it’s YOUR loved one who is torn assunder!” – that’s when I Get. Really. Angry. I’m a mom and the teensiest insuation that my objections to the systematic decimation of the things like Bill of Rights or even just Accountable Customer Service, could result in Dead Loved Ones, strikes me to the core. And I know I’m being terrorized all right, the only question is, by whom? That, and where’s the buck to be made by it?
@eross:
Inspect a fluid? Seriously you must be joking. Not all chemicals have an odor you can detect (like peroxide).
Plus liquids come in bottle that are asking for longer wait times. What if you hide the liquid in a bottle of wine….how long would that take to inspect? How about a liquid bomb wrapped up in a sealed contact lens fluid bottle (where you can’t see the liquids).
It’s NOT PRACTICAL. Seriously…a total liquid ban ISN’T a big deal. Their job is hard enough already. Just be glad it isn’t a ban on carry-on luggage.
@ancientsociety: Yes, but a lot of people are saying they’d rather drive — which is an option.
@memphis9:
Are you being facetious? Because it’s actually true. About ten years ago, someone set off a liquid bomb on an aircraft that raised holy hell with the fuselage, but didn’t manage to detrimentally impact the airframe. The passenger next to the bomber was killed, but the plane landed safely.
@levenhopper: BULL. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: private security forces competition and competence. If a private security company had these horrible results they’d lose their contract, plain and simple. TSA is government, meaning they sit on their asses with 100% job security.
The current regime has traded actual security for an enhanced image of security.
@THRUST: great plan. explain how i would implement your plan and take the hawaii vacation i just had? or the one to europe?
by the way, speaking of that Hawaiian vacation, i had a jello pudding snack in my carry on going through security. They confiscated it. I said “it’s not even a liquid!” and they told me it’s a “gel.” lol…reminded me of that recent SNL skit with dane cook:
[www.youtube.com]
@ironchef: actually, the Israelis do this all the time. They simply make you take a sip and swallow. This would eliminate cans but would still let you take through your bottles and starbucks.
the israelis also, by the way, have a much smarter system of security that has kept their planes safe for decades.
@EtherealStrife:
Private security screeners are even WORSE. They don’t even bother with criminal background checks. And private screening companies hire too many temp workers with NO histories at all.
[www.sptimes.com]
This was an article about the state of things BEFORE 9/11 under private screeners. You had it your way. It didn’t work.
@Treved:
even for contact lens fluid? Take a sip? Forget it. No way.
What you said about the sip test isn’t true. El Al has a total liquids ban too with the exception for breast milk and certain medications.
They won’t even let you on board.
A full bottle of contact lens solution is allowed.
“Volumes greater than 3 oz. must be declared to the Security Officer and cannot be carried in your clear, one-quart bag.”
You have to show it separate from your ziploc bag; but you can bring it.
@Treved: Y’ wanna go to hawaii, take a cruise ship. Y’ wanna go to Europe? Take a cruise ship to hawaii instead.
@EtherealStrife: “If a private security company had these horrible results they’d lose their contract, plain and simple.”
Wow, that’s the most ignorant thing I’ve seen on here in a long time.
Perhaps in your world, filled with fluttering butterflies and butter scotch unicorns, sure. But given what we’ve seen in how viciously and callously (/sarcasm) Haliburton, Blackthorn and the rest are treated in spite of their fraud, overbilling and failure to deliver, I must ask, “Are you stupid? Or just a troll?”
And, love how these supposedly rugged, individualist free-thinkers are always the first to mewl the party line when reality intrudes on the dumb propaganda (TSA policies in this case). Whenever the government or your (Conservative) politicians tell you to jump, you whimper, “How high… Sir?!”
@Treved: Apparently in the London plot that inspired the liquid ban, the plan was to use a bottle with a false bottom, or secret compartment, essentially. The bottom portion of the bottle had the explosive chemical, but there was real Gatorade or whatever in the top part, so that it would seem legit if inspected.
hmm…let’s change annual to weekly, recertification to rectal & i think we have a method to really instill some motivation in the screeners! i sure as hell wouldn’t let a bomb thru if i knew my cornhole was gonna bear the punishment for missing the mark.
Most terrorists are Muslim. A handful are not.
I understand that these tests are meant to be hard, but jeez, that failure rate seems too high to be comfortable with. Along with increasingly shitty airline services, the TSA isn’t making it too appealing to fly these days.
TSA does not inspire any confidence in me. I thought I should share a story that my boss recently experienced…
He was going through security and they pull his bag off of the xray belt and rummage through it to find one of those yoplait yogurt cups and proceed to tell him how he can’t take it on the plane…so he takes it and as he was getting ready to toss it out the TSA employee asks if she can have it! Being a nice guy he gives it up. Then the best part, the TSA woman asks if he has a spoon too!
Too dangerous to take on a plane but ok for a TSA employee to eat.
My older brother flew in to visit me last week and had a great story about his time at the airport.
When the announced that the threat level was ORANGE over the airport PA system he just started shouting “Oh my God, everybody panic! It’s threat level ORANGE. Wait, oh, never mind…”. Yeah it was kind of obnoxious, yet also kind of hilarious and appropriate.
I feel this response would do well to be repeated thousands of times over in airports across the country until we find a slightly more level headed response to the threat of terrorist threats like the blokes in Glasgow who managed to set both themselves and a luggage cart on fire in a most terrifying display of idiocy.
Also, the TSA is really, really ridiculous. I think Mayor Bloomberg should be in charge of their training and policies. Perhaps they’d calm down about water and nail clippers and focus on real threats.
My sister recently flew to Tampa Florida from Atlantic City NJ. She had her baby (under a year old) and her 11 year old daughter along for the flight.
The idiots at the TSA checkpoint took the baby’s formula, even though he can’t drink normal milk yet. They provided no alternative to her, or offered formula for sale on the other side of the checkpoint.
I was under the assumption from reading the rules regarding liquids that if you had a baby, you were allowed to carry enough formula for the plane ride, the rest had to be packed.
Throughout the second hour of the trip, the baby was crying because he was hungry, but couldn’t be fed because the jerks at the checkpoint.
Her return flight back to NJ was fine and she was allowed one bottle of formula for the ride.
There is no consistancy accross the board for the TSA agents. Someone in power needs to be held accountable for the lack of training of the agents as well as providing alternatives on the other side of the checkpoints for situations like this.
somebody set tsa up the bomb. all your liquids belong to them.
on a side note, we are talking about the same security plans that posted the military guards at the screening machines with unloaded m-16s.
[www.americansbehavingbadly.com]
@levenhopper:
The fact that it happens now is less acceptable than pre-9/11, because of all the added BULLSHIT we have to put up with which is SUPPOSED to be resulting in increased security.
So it seems we’re bending over and taking it and getting absolutely nothing in return.
I habitually carry some very sharp blades, for a quite innocuous reason. Traveling in the States a little while ago, I realized on a plane that I had them on my person. Out of (perhaps cynical) curiosity I wondered if they would be detected. I took 24 flights in a three week period.
I had my shoes sniffed, my computers examined, my clothing fumbled with, and answered innumerable humorlessly inane questions, and I had a bottle of whisky ‘confiscated.’ At one airport, I was even treated to ‘special security measures,’ for the quite good reason that I had bought my one-way ticket in cash the previous day.
I still have the blades.
I believe the purpose of most of the so-called security is primarily propaganda, and the maintenance of a climate of fear.
As a police officer who happened to be working a TSA checkpoint when the “red team” came through a few years ago…
I can tell you the fake bomb looked like you have seen on tv, except when you physically open the bag, it was labeled that is was a non-live test device).
TSA caught the bomb in the carry-on, but missed a gun a female had strapped just below her crotch.
Its a good thing they notified me just before they came through, else it coulda got ugly.
@mac-phisto: Um… Bad idea. Start probing the back door of TSA smacktards that screw up and within weeks the security agency will be staffed by lonely gay men who will mess up on purpose for a little tough love.
@Amy Alkon: Lets see here… We have the muslim radicals which make up most of the terrorists worldwide. (Note that regular non-terrorist muslims hate these f**kers and take all the flak for things that aren’t their fault). Next we have the second largest terrorist group, the IRA, which is pretty much all kaput. And smallest of the terror groups is a small group of Quebec radicals. Can you believe it, frickin frenchy-foo canadian terrorists who demand a their province be soverign and their cheese be free.
@btdown: Hmmm. New security precaution. We must grope the crotch of any attractive women boarding a flight to make sure they ain’t packing.
@Amy Alkon: If you’re going to troll, at least put some effort into it.
@grayFalcon:
Liquid bombs a myth? You obviously didn’t pay attention.READ>>>>
[en.wikipedia.org]
@Art Vandelay:
Most “Amy”s are terrorists. Some are not.
I actually flew El-Al recently and they let me bring my water bottle through security without any hassle. El-Al has smary security and they know that a 17 year old white kid isn’t a terroist with a liquid bomb. Its all about smart security and common sense, something El-Al has and the TSA doesn’t.
Since no one else bothered to point this out, the TSA is not a unionized workforce. They are forbidden to strike, etc — it was written into the Homeland Security bill. I’m surprised Drummer_Kev’s inaccurate comment lasted a whole day.
I’m glad I only fly once every two or three years. Maybe by the next time or two I fly some of this craziness will be history.
@Art Vandelay: Hell, Amy’s username is flame777.
Funny, her other comments don’t look like they were intended to start flame wars. Why the change of heart I wonder.
I have been working for TSA for around a year. People get fired from there all the time. My co-worker who worked for 2 years got fired for failing a test 2x in a row just last week. The X-Ray machine that we used at checkpoint are really old. Probably from the late 80′s. That technology is really outdated and you guys would be surprise how hard it is to spot liquids, lighters, stunners, and bombs. Guns and knives you can easily see but the other items are really hard to spot. Blame the Government for not giving us more advance x-rays. Then we get blame for banning liquids. Ah HELLO! There’s something call Liquid explosives! People probably think we made up such thing.
CHUCUSCAD – That TSA Officer could have gotten fired. We are not allow to keep items or except tips even if the passengers give it to us.
MIKECOLIONE – That’s weird. If your traveling with a baby your allow to bring a certain amount. Next time ask to speak to a Supervisor. If you don’t want any hassle just place the milk in bottles that are less than 3.4 oz. I know it might be annoying but atleast the baby will have milk.
For those who accuse us of stealing. Don’t forget pre-TSA there were items being stolen all the time. Also we are not the only ones who handle the bags, there’s also those people who drive them to the plane etc. Of course I’m sure TSA employees steal too but don’t forget just like in any other jobs there’s always bad people.
Tons of grammar mistakes… anyway to edit my previous comment?
@guitarrocker1117: You must not have read all of the posts above.
For that little scheme to work, the TSA people would have to make a judgment call as to the likelihood of a certain individual being a bad guy or not. In order to do that, profiling would have to be used. And the mere possibility of profiling is enough to send many people into fits of rage.
Personally, I think it’s idiotic to NOT profile. At the risk of suffering the slings an arrows from the more enlightened folks on this site, it seems to make sense that considering the current state of world affairs that the security folks in American, British, German, etc. airports would perhaps scrutinize people of Middle Eastern descent and/or have Arabic/Muslim sounding names. But heaven forbid we should offend anyone.
“We don’t discuss the results because they tend to paint an inaccurate picture of the competency of our work force,” she said. “The tests are designed to be incredibly difficult and TSA does anticipate a fair level of failure.”
Whats so innaccurate about it? Many, not all, but much of the TSA are a bunch of nuerotic incompetent fools, and in some cases, total assholes. Need I remind you of the sippy-cup incident? Or perhaps the fact that those of us with middle eastern sounding names, note you may not even be of middle-eastern decent, somehow magically ALWAYS get the “random” check. I won’t even get started on stolen individual property.
In addition, 5-7 failed on a test means thats 5-7 times a real bomb could’ve successfully gotten onto a plane. Twist it any way you like, you guys fucked up.
I’m currently on a business trip in the lovely city of Detroit. Knowing that Detroit is one of the world’s worst cities, I decided that I would not travel here unarmed and unprotected.
I packed two knives – a 3.5″ Benchmade Axis folder, and an Emerson Combat Karambit. I carried the Benchmade in my carry-on, along with all of the wires, power adapters, etc. that were in my laptop bag and made it through without any problems. Not even a second look from the screeners – it went right through.
Yet these same screeners always question my laptop’s wireless antenna – they see the external antenna and freak out. They pull it aside, open it, examine it, ask me to power it on, take pictures of it, and act as though it’s ready to explode.
It’s true – our TSA is a joke; an exercise in “feel good” politics that the American public has come to expect.
TSA is a total scam on America. It’s a vacuum for tax funds and only provides a false sense of security.
I’m trained and licensed as an EMT, and often carry my gear in the same backpack that I use as a carry-on.
Two years ago, on my way to my brother’s wedding, I forgot to remove my bandage scissors from my backpack.
Guess what got through security without anyone noticing?
They should have been more careful, the wrong person with a bandage scissor could do something dangerous, like cut the clothing off of people…
This is what happens when you hire idiots, pay them nothing, grant them power, and give them a set of “rules” to enforce.
These people are federal employees. Having been one myself for several years, I have to say that most are idiots. Once they get into the Federal Employees Union, it’s almost impossible to fire them, so they don’t care. When they were made federal employees, my first thoughts were concern for travelers. NEVER put a federal employee in charge of anything they have to use their intelect for. Case in point…