Originally Posted by xyzzy
The box cutters used on 9/11/2001 were absolutely legal to carry on board at that time. There is no evidence to suggest that the screeners on duty then were to blame for any of the incidents.
Exactly. This bears repeating over and over and over again.
The FAA's rules at the time (right or wrong) permitted knives with blades of four inches or less. Pocketknives, exacto knives, boxcutters, etc. WERE PERMITTED ITEMS and no US airlines (AFAIK) prohibited them.
There was widespread perception that the screening contributed to September 11. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mineta pushed for the federalization of screeners by his "zero tolerance" policies toward airport breaches in the weeks following September 11. Airport terminals were cleared repeatedly because of unplugged WTMDs and other outlandish failures.
Sorry to be such a pain in the butt about this - but not even the 9/11 Commission blamed the tragedy on the screeners. There was simply no causal link.
My personal view is that the allowed knives didn't "cause" Sept. 11, either, but that discussion has already taken place dozens of times here in the last five years.