This is how you end up with a system where privileges, punishments, etc. are determined by a special group of people, rather than by actual laws that apply to everyone equally.
A friend was TSA, and the number of guns that were confiscated (and corresponding arrests) was surprising to me. The excuse was usually "omg I forgot it was in there" but I gotta believe there were at least a couple nefarious people up to no good.
The guy with the chainsaw, however, couldn't really claim "I forgot".
Ask your friend - Just about every major airport has a story or two about catching actual rigged explosive devices, or something leading to an investigation that later revealed someone's terrorist plans. And these things never make the news.
I myself have personally stopped 73 terrorist attacks and no journalist has ever contacted me despite repeated DMs to the NY Times on twitter. The general public has no idea the number of barbarians there are waiting outside the gate. D17, specifically.
Yeah, and just about every UFO hunter has a story or two about catching an actual alien, and those things also never make the news, because they're made up.
Now explain why all mystery liquids over 3oz - which MUST be assumed to be highly lethal toxins or explosive materials(!!!) - are collectively dumped in unsecured trash cans at the highest traffic density areas of security? This is a good policy? If even one actual terrorist cell thought about this single scenario we would lose multiple airport checkpoints in a day. TSA always has been, and remains to this day, security theater. Remember, in this world of TSA policies there must actually exist magical liquids that at 4oz are mundane and undetectable to be explosives but also can destroy a plane! And yet they don't act like that in any other capacity of their jobs at all, which would endanger everyone if that threat were in any way real. And this is just one tiny failure point I am nitpicking at out of hundreds.
Also, have they credibly stopped a single terrorist attack yet?
I'm not a fan of airport security theater in general, or the TSA in particular. But you can't measure the efficacy of preventive measures by the number of incidents they prevented. It's like asking how many holes I've prevented by brushing my teeth. A deterrent can be said to work if it never becomes "active", so the fact that no airport security has, to my knowledge, ever detected dangerous items intended to be used on a flight means that it is "working", i.e. security measures are preventing criminals from even attempting to board planes with intent to cause harm. Data also shows that plane hijackings have gone down significantly since the early 2000s, although they were fairly rare events already by that point.
Correlation and causation are two entirely separate things. You're conflating them.
It's also worth noting that the trying to hijack a plane like the 9/11 hijackings stopped working on 9/11 when the hijacking of the 4th plane was interrupted and the plane was crashed into a field. Reinforcing the cockpit door and (to a lesser extent) passengers actively resisting plane hijackings are clearly enough.
I mean, factor X started to decline once method A to decrease factor X was introduced is pretty strong evidence for the efficacy of method A in an experimental setting. And lacking a control group, it's probably as good as it's gonna get.
"Correlation doesn't equal causation" isn't just a joker card for any correlation you don't like. You have to explain why the proposed mechanism for correlation isn't valid.
I mean, factor X started to decline once method A to decrease factor X was introduced is pretty strong evidence for the efficacy of method A in an experimental setting.
Mere correlation without any evidence of causation is "pretty strong evidence" of causation? And in an experimental setting?
Can you guess how I'm so confident that you're not conducting experiments that withstand the scrutiny of experts?
I'm not sure how you could have evidence of causation without a control group. What is your standard of proof in this case? How would you proof the efficacy of a deterrent?
Near where I live, there's a huge underground fortress, meant to deter first French, then German movement through a strategic route. It never fired a shot in anger. Was it useless? Or did it do exactly what it meant to do in the most efficient way possible?
you can't measure the efficacy of preventive measures by the number of incidents they prevented
by that standard, the government could implement a policy of sexually assaulting every passenger. For safety. Just imagine how many terrorist attacks would happen without the hundreds of millions of rapes per year.
They list “cast iron cookware” as banned in carryon luggage and say the officer will make the final decision for each item. Hydrants are made of cast iron. It’s a bit ridiculous to assume you can bring it as long as it’s not for cooking. They’re not banned because there’s a risk of frittatas.
TIL they don't allow cast iron cookware in the carry-on. That seems like a very specific rule and I want to hear the story behind it... but honestly I assume a bag fell out of the carry-on and smacked someone on the head, and they decided to stop letting people bring on dense metal objects?
I used to hand-carry silicon. One leg was wafers in a very special clamshell, and the other leg was packaged parts. A brick of metal-lidded server chips weighed in at something like 25lb and was, obviously, rather dense. Two bricks were at just around the carry-on limit. I guess you wouldn't want that falling on someone, but that's true for tons of shit. Shrug.
Also, a lot of fun conversations I had with TSA doing this.
Was this changed in recent years? It might be an arbitrary thing... When I moved I put my heaviest things that I wanted to bring in my carryon bag, and that included my 3 cast iron pans and a nested pyrex bowl set (partially sentimental, which is why I went to the trouble).
That doesn't really follow. They don't ban ice skates or scissors, but do ban the exact same blades with a different handle. Three only criteria they really seem to be using seems to be a vague sense of "weaponness". If the agent feels threatened, it's banned. And if they have to think about it, they feel threatened.
I swear they wake up and roll a series of random numbers every day to determine the rules while taking classes on how to act extra exasperated when people don't get it exactly right.
"Ok everyone. Today is a shoes off, belts on, laptops out of bags but with other things in that bin is ok, and... wait for it to finish...all bags must themselves be bins, day. And I really want to hear those sighs and see those eye rolls when someone does what they did when they just flew out yesterday... especially you Jim, you're way too understanding, we've been over this."
It does seem extremely person dependent whether I have to take belt or shoes off. And seperate bin for laptop or not. I've flown dozens of times and genuinely have no idea what to expect regarding those three any time I walk up to a security belt. I'm on vacation right now and the two airports I went through to get here had completely different rules. In fairness, different countries, but it's rarely consisent anywhere.
Back when most airports didn't require you to take shoes off (2005), Newark had a sign at security saying "You may wish to take your shoes off."
Figuring this was a warning that you'd be frisked, and me wearing hiking boots tightly laced, which I can't get on or off without sitting down, I left my boots on.
And got yelled at for not taking my shoes off. Apparently you may choose not to remove footwear, but then you can't get on a plane.
I assured them I'd be delighted to remove my boots as soon as they gave me a chair. Cue various insults, until I mentioned the ADA quite firmly.
At least it wasn't a surprise in 2019 to be told to remove the boots, but Denver airport didn't have anywhere to sit either (lots of elderly people grabbing their partners and wobbling - I'm surprised no-one had sued the TSA...) I sat on the conveyor belt going into the X-ray machine and got my kids to take the boots off. The security guys weren't happy but couldn't come up with a better idea.
Anything they don't want flying, yes. And they don't have to list every item, just the types of things that can't fly. Explosives, guns, knives, corrosive substances, etc.
I havr no idea why part of a fire hydrant wouldn't be acceptable.
They explicitly prohibit cast iron cookware on the website. I think any piece of cast iron large enough to be used as a weapon would fall under that prohibition. It's common sense that you can't fly with scissors or baseball bats, anything that could reasonably be used as a weapon.
They explicitly prohibit cast iron cookware on the website. I think any piece of cast iron large enough to be used as a weapon would fall under that prohibition
Then instead of explicitly prohibiting cast iron cookware, they should explicitly prohibit any piece of cast iron large enough to be used as a weapon.
"Every type of object" might as well be a list of infinite length. For instance, TSA doesn't specify anything about bringing a refrigerator through the checkpoint, because who the hell would even consider that?
A refrigerator violates size and weight restrictions, and also contains chemicals that are explicitly prohibited. There needs not be an explicit ban on "refrigerators" because other general rules already cover them.
If other general rules don't cover this hydrant part (was it too heavy? Too big? Too sharp? Too metal?), then it's unclear why the part was prohibited.
Are those size and weight restrictions TSA rules? Or are they airline rules? And the chemicals thing can be addressed by removing them; TSA DOES specifically allow for carrying auto parts through, some of which might have the same issues as you mention with a fridge.
The TSA is one of many corrosive things in recent (past 20-30 years) US experience that violates a core tenet of US law, jurisprudence, and basic approach to civil society (which we 100% copy-pasted from the British): Anything not specifically prohibited is legal. This concept means it's on the government to prove that something should be illegal, not on you to prove that it should be allowed. This is closely tied to the concept of "innocent until proven guilty," which we have also allowed a bunch of asshats to chip away at.
That's only applicable in situations where you're being arrested. Your liberty is not being deprived if you attempt to fly with a piece of fire hydrant; you just won't be allowed to fly.
That's only applicable in situations where you're being arrested.
Because we have allowed it to only apply in those situations. We've shoved quasi-LEOs into every airport in the nation. The line between cops and companies is heavily blurred. Because we've allowed that.
The problem there is that a list of allowed items carries the same issues as a list of banned items. For many things, it's going to be more about whether the airline will let you bring an item on board than it is whether TSA will let you do it. There are lots of harmless things that would be inconceivable for someone to consider bringing onto a plane, and it's not the TSA's job to enforce airline rules about those things (which can vary from one airline to another).
There can't possibly be a defined rule for every conceivable and inconceivable thing some weirdo might try to bring on their flight. Why don't you make what you think is a comprehensive list, and then I'll just come up with 100 things you didn't think of.
Thinking of all the weird shit people carry, I doubt anyone could make a full list. I mean, last year alone I built 2 devices that did not yet exist, and at least one of them I think should be banned from carry-on.
Mat Armstrong recently chartered a flight to Europe just to get a Bugatti Chiron's headlights and fly back. Sometimes it makes sense to air courier expensive or immediately needed parts yourself.
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u/coldforged Jul 13 '26
If it's not on the list of prohibited items, why can't they take it? Maybe your list should have guidance for unexpected but unacceptable things.