couldn’t get through with any sort of liquid or gel<\/a>. No toothpaste. No Starbucks coffee. No cologne. No bottle of wine you bought on your vacation. No sun screen. No lotion. No water. No shampoo. No topical medication. No liquid make-up. Baby formula?
\nWeeeeellll .. maybe. And even if you could have bought them beyond security, no taking them on the plane.<\/p>\n(And let’s not even talk about banning all carry-on luggage.)<\/p>\n
And how long will that last? I mean, sure, today, maybe tomorrow, it might make sense. Did all the bad guys get caught? If not, might they try a last ditch effort to do the deed? <\/p>\n
But in the long run, can they really ban all liquids and gels going through airport security or going onto a plane? Is that realistic? And what next? Short of everyone going through security having to strip down and being handed paper robes before going off to the gate — and submitting to body cavity searches — there’s no way to keep people from bringing dangerous stuff onto planes<\/em>. Some stuff, stuff that’s just dangerous, sure (yes, no containers of gasoline, no propane tanks,
\nno shuriken<\/em>). But as the general public disdain and quite rational questioning of the current banned list shows, preventing people from bringing tiny Swiss Army Knives, or bottle openers, or tweezers doesn’t really make anyone feel safer, and doesn’t really make anyone safer, either.<\/p>\nWhat are the lessons that will be learned from this foiled plot? With any luck, it will be the right ones. More likely, if the urge to do flashy displays of security in the past are any indication, it will be the wrong ones.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On the other hand, I’m glad my travel this week was on Monday, not today. This particular plot, to my mind, shows the essential futility of the current airport security…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-homeland-security","category-travel"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9740,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/11\/08\/europeans_join_the_zip_lo.html","url_meta":{"origin":10209,"position":0},"title":"Europeans join the Zip-Lok Army against Liquid Terror","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 8-Nov-06 9:08am","format":false,"excerpt":"EU folks are getting on the \"put all your tiny amounts of liquids in a Zip-lok bag before you carry it on\" bandwagon. Passengers were allowed to take only small...","rel":"","context":"In "Travel"","block_context":{"text":"Travel","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10180,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/17\/waiting_for_the.html","url_meta":{"origin":10209,"position":1},"title":"Waiting for the next pat-down …","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 17-Aug-06 2:12pm","format":false,"excerpt":"The Global War on Liquids continues: U.S. authorities are advising women not to wear gel bras on airplanes as information developed in the foiled London plot points to an expanding...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10200,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/13\/fighting_the_la.html","url_meta":{"origin":10209,"position":2},"title":"Fighting the Last War (on Terror)","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 13-Aug-06 2:05pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Any military person will tell you that the biggest mistake militaries make is planning to fight the last war. Tactics evolve, weapons evolve, players change. If you plan your defenses...","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10151,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/23\/the_global_war.html","url_meta":{"origin":10209,"position":3},"title":"The Global War on Liquids – Revised Edition","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 23-Aug-06 10:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"The following liquids, previously the weapons of well-known or suspected terrorists, are once again Safe to Bring Aboard Airplanes. Unless the TSA folks at the security checkpoints decide they aren't....","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":38366,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/06\/the-utterly-unsurprising-tsa-scope-creep.html","url_meta":{"origin":10209,"position":4},"title":"The utterly unsurprising TSA scope creep","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 6-Aug-13 8:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"Because, really, having a security agency protect just airports is kind of silly. \u00a0Thus, they need to protect everything, including \"all high-risk transportation targets\" -- trains, natch, but also bridges, interstate highways, as well as \"sporting events, music festivals, rodeos.\"And for reasons (and with results) that are, of course, too\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10008,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/09\/27\/the_war_on_liquids_victor.html","url_meta":{"origin":10209,"position":5},"title":"The War on Liquids – Victory!","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Sep-06 9:51am","format":false,"excerpt":"The TSA has decided that liquids aren't really a threat any more on airplanes. Or, not as much of a threat. Or not as enforceable a threat to be mitigated....","rel":"","context":"In "Homeland Security"","block_context":{"text":"Homeland Security","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/politics-law\/homeland-security"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10209\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}