I snitched on a guy - was this the right thing to do?

I doubt it, and am surprised anyone could believe what you just conjectured - that there are just as many captures as there are false alarms? I might be misunderstanding what you mean. Anyway, based on my personal experience as someone who fits the stereotype of someone who likes to blow stuff up, I can categorically state that 100% of all pant wetters have been incorrect 100% of the time - an astoundingly poor record.


No it isn't!

I'm quite happy with the odds that there are virtually no mischief makers attempting to do what most people think they are going to do, and if they do attempt to do it, I am perfectly content knowing that most of the time (but not all of the time), they will be smashed to a pulp by other passengers before completing what they set out to do. I don't really care about the 0.0000001% chance that they might be successful. I have a life to live.

Of course I care about the safety of individual passengers, just as much as I care about my own safety when I'm in the office, at the supermarket, at the movies, or riding the train to work.

Prior to 9/11, a criminal could use a boxcutter or Swiss Army knife to threaten a passenger or FA, and the pilot would go along with the criminal's demands, including allowing access to the cockpit.

That changed on 9/11, before the morning was out. It is no longer a viable method of taking control of an aircraft, and the Bad Guys know that.

In 2011, therefore, someone on an aircraft who threatens someone else with a boxcutter or pocket knife is no different than someone in a cinema, library, bus, office building, school, or supermarket who threatens someone else with a knife. We don't screen people entering those places to ensure they don't attack others with a knife; why should we worry about it on a plane? I'm willing to take my chances with unscreened, potentially knife-carrying people at the shopping mall, the train, my office; why not on a plane?

Further, if someone with a knife threatens someone else, the other passengers will pile on and beat the snot out of him.

Or as jtodd put it:

The paranoia continues to spread .... If you read more on FT and in other places, you'll see that many people slip things into their pocket to avoid the possible confiscation of their property (part of the reason the screening lacks effectiveness, and irradiating all passengers doesn't address it as there are still anamolies - really a body cavity search is the only answer and I'll pass, thanks!)

I'm curious what you think the value of taking that bottle and putting it through an x-ray machine that cannot detect anything of the contents really is? What did that accomplish? NOTHING different from walking through the WTMD with it in the back pocket ... if you see something that truly can be a threat, eg a GUN behind security, go ahead and mention it but take your general paranoia elsewhere.

Despite what they want you to believe, it is extremely unlikely the bogey man got in line ahead of you. Are they out there, sure - but you're still much more likely to be in a car accident or have a heart attack than run into a terrorist at your local airport. (and your recognizing them as such is even less likely)

Not an expert on means to kill people, but I'm guessing you could smash your duty-free bottle of vodka and inflict some serious damage almost as easily, if that was your intent?

Maybe all duty-free items should be sold in rubber bottles

Do you know how many false alarms there are ? And how many captures ?
Your "personal experience" hardly constitutes statistical proof.

I cannot understand your being happy with the odds - part of the reason there are so few attempts is, yes, airport security - which you are quite happy for pax to circumvent. You're seriously suggesting we can rely on other passengers to save the day when a terrorist is on board with a weapon ? How many times has this happened as compared to the number of successful attacks ?

Airport security may suck - but if you want to fly, you agree to be undergo a check as they see fit. If you choose to circumvent the check (by placing something in your pocket) and someone alerts security - you bear responsibility for your actions.

While I fully agree that 99.9+% of cases may be false alarms, I believe that's a fair price to pay for the small precentage of cases possibly preventing a disaster.

So you are okay if they want to strip search you? Just in case, of course, or do you believe it its okay because you do not think YOU would every be subjected to it?

It.should not be a case of anything in the name of security.

your behaviour is un-Australian.

Actually, there are very great differences between an aircraft and an office building.

An aircraft is a confined space, there is nowhere to run, no escape and no help available. Your assumption that other pax "will pile on and beat the snot out of him" is simply an assumption, and for those at the receiving end of the knife, might be too late to matter.

You are also wrong about people not being screened in various places you mention: quite a few office building, including most civic/governmental building screen people, many schools do as well.


Clearly you didn't understand my point.

What I was addressing was the suspect behavior of the pax hiding the bottle. By concealing it, he was preventing it from being examined by any means at all. You are willing to assume that someone who does something which is clearly a violation of security regulations has a benign motivation such as protecting his own property which he wishes to take on board the aircraft even though said property may violate airline or security rules. Maybe the guy has a shiny shoe fetish and maybe it really was just an oversized bottle of shoe polish. But, it could just as easily be something else not so harmless that might have been detected by examination. Shoe polish is usually dark colored, what if the contents of the bottle weren't the right color and that could have been detected by visual examination? I'm in the medical field and have been reading lately about some of the possible biological weapons; using one of those in a shoe polish sized bottle, you could easily kill off most of the pax on a large plane.

Just because many people on FT find it acceptable to circumvent security for their own personal reasons doesn't mean that those who consider such behavior to be dangerous to the general welfare are paranoid. Ad hominem attacks are usually used by those who know that their own argument is either weak or irrelevant, like making an analogy between having a heart attack and observing someone trying to smuggle something illicit through security.

Yes, we have heard the mantra before about the liquids ban and why it is necessary and, yet, there is nothing nearly conclusive showing that someone can bring a plane down with some liquid in a small bottle.

Doubtful. The TSOs can't even distinguish water by color, scent and watching the traveler drink it right in front of them. If they can't determine the non-threatening nature of water when demonstrated right in front of them, I seriously doubt they will know what to make of an off-colored liquid in a bottle of shoe polish.

Um, why bother trying to get on the plane and dealing with security? A terrorist could simply walking into the LAS baggage claim area on a Friday night around 8 PM with his shoe polish bottle filled with a biological weapon and wipe out a heck of a lot more people than those on a WN flight.

False. It went through the WTMD.

How often do they visually inspect the color of your toothpaste, anyways?

What is a bottle of shoe shine anyway? Shoe polish I have seen comes in a little tin. Like this. A shoe polish tin looks an awfully lot like a chewing tobacco tin. Is this what the guy had (or at least a plastic version)? Disgusting habit, but certainly not prohibited.

By the way, kudos to the CATSA guy for ignoring the OP.

Nope.

Nope.

Of course it's not proof, but it's a reasonable conclusion to draw based on what we do know. May I ask what proof do you have of your assertion below...

I base my educated and intellectual guess on the fact that every minor and insignificant security alert is presented as a win in this broad war of terror you are fighting. To date, after ten years of this, I can think of hundreds of formal complaints of unnecessary security alerts resulting from dumbasses seeing someone they think is suspicious that I have been privy to, and possibly thousands discussed in various live and online forums or listed on the websites of various civil rights groups. Add to this my own experiences and those of others I know of who are who have been removed from aircraft but not filed complaints with a civil rights group and I think it becomes fairly obvious that the vast majority of these alerts that arise from the logic challenged segment of the population are false alarms.

On the rare occasion that someone has seen something suspicious and it has actually turned out to be a good catch, the media has been all over it. However, I recall no more than a handful of these and most of those turned out to be nonsense too, once analysed by LE or the courts.


That is your opinion - one I disagree with vehemently.

Aha. Statistics!

Presumably, you are perfectly happy with the number of people killed in road accidents every year. How does that compare with the type of air disaster you appear to be concerned about?

Now we're definitely getting off track, but I just want to point out a few things. I'm going to be very generic here for obvious reasons.
1. Incubation and infection periods for bacteria and toxins, such as mycotoxin, is half a day to multiple days or more depending on the particular one in question. You're not going to bring a plane down this way.
2. Dissemination on an airplane of bacteria is not a practical(in the minds of a terrorist) use.

If the tsa has concerns regarding bio/chem use, none of their actions/sops at the checkpoints displays these concerns. In fact, their organization, processes and the way they go about screening actually creates a very large hazard and a target rich environment.

I think that we are straying away from the point that the OP is a grass and should be sleeping with the fishes. It's the Chicago way.

Canadian (well, not exclusive to Canada - it is originally from Australia) shoe care - several versions in liquid form. http://www.kiwicare.com/FR-CA/Products/Leather/