Originally Posted by
seadog83
By far the best example of this is liquids. Going through security you see a great big garbage bin filled with fluids tossed away. Under the guise that they are potential explosives.
Now what would happen if someone tried to bring *actual* liquid explosives through in a water bottle? They would get tossed in the bin with the rest, and no one would give it a second look.
So now you have a situation where either we have to treat every single liquid filled bottle (the vast majority of which are harmless) as a live explosive (shut down airport, evacuate, bring in bomb squad, etc) or treat every single liquid filled bottle, as well a water filler bottle. The former wastes huge amounts of resources, the latter completely discounts the threat of actual explosives.
It would be very difficult to bring a spontaneously explosive liquid up to the checkpoint. The concern with liquids on planes is that they can be used to make explosives on board. This would require mixing them in a certain way, injecting them into a pressurized container with a syringe, and having some sort of flame to detonate. Most potentially explosive liquids that are tossed into the bin with the others are completely harmless sitting there until discarded.