BubbaLoop

As I have discussed at some length in this thread (including an interesting exchange with TSORon), peroxides are not volatile enough, and test strips not sensitive enough, to detect traces of them in the air above a solution, no matter how concentrated. There are no test strips capable of detecting peroxides when waved above a solution. This is pure security theater.

WillCAD

So volatile, in fact, that in all liklihood any such chemicals would have detonated the would-be terrist directly to Valhalla on the cab ride to the airport, correct? At least, that's my understanding from the little I've read online about explosive liquids.

FliesWay2Much

You've described a close cousin to hypergolic rocket fuel, except that the oxidizer generally is nitrogen tetroxide. Your HAZMAT experience is 100% correct. The other aspect about hypergolics is that they don't explode; they burn. If one or both of these chemicals doesn't kill you at home or on the way to the airport, releasing a quantity of N2O4 vapors into an airliner in flight would do a good job dissolving most peoples' lungs. Regardless, this scenario is nonsense because you couldn't handle it without killing yourself first.

greentips

Any possible way we could come up with a means to make the hand-waving strips positive to see what they'd do?

spd476

Are there any liquid explosive plots that are viable? Everything that I have read makes it sound like you would need lab conditions that are not readily available in an airport/airplane. Either that or they are so volatile that the bomber would likely blow himself up before getting to the airport. Was the liquid explosive plot that caused the war on liquids a viable plot?

I see some comments posted on the TSA Blog asking what happens if someone refuses the testing. There also are some asking why liquids aren't allowed through the checkpoint if they can be tested. I have a feeling they won't be answered.

studentff

Has anyone on FT *ever* reported a positive on the liquid test strip? My guess is no. Given that many FTers have seen positive ETD swabs, "positive" NoS alarms, etc., the lack of a test-strip positive makes me highly suspicious that there is no such thing and that the test strips really are nothing but blotting paper and pure theater. If that is case, it's possible even the screeners don't know.

There's been some success in the past figuring out what TSA is doing by looking at public procurement records to see what they buy. Has anyone looked for the test strips in this fashion?

Yes a liquid plot is viable; this one resulted in a death in 1994 and nearly downed a 747.

However, there are several interesting things to note about this plot:

1) Neither the USA nor anyone else overreacted by banning liquids. In fact, this plot occurred more than a decade before the war on liquids. There was much more common sense pre TSA. Governments around the world realized that the best course of action was to disrupt the plot and severely punish the terrorists, not to harass and terrorize millions of innocent passengers.

2) The successful device used nitroglycerin stabilized in a cotton-like material in a contact solution bottle. a) Pre war-on-water ETD could detect nitroglycerin quite well. b) liquid soaked cotton balls (or wet clothes/rags) have never been banned under the war-on-water. c) Contact solution is explicitly permitted by TSA under the medical liquid exemption (though it may be confiscated at random).

3) The successful plot bore little or no resemblance to the Hollywood-type plot portrayed as justification for the war on water. There was no makeshift lab equipped with ice baths and temperature control in the aircraft laboratory. Peroxide explosives were not used.

So while the fantastical plot described by TSA in 2006 does not seem practical, there are practical plots. However, why any bad guy would resort to notoriously unstable, unreliable, and dangerous (to the perpetrator) liquid explosives when there are much more reliable technologies available and reliable ways to get them onto aircraft is beyond me.

BubbaLoop

Let me simplify this discussion a lot: There is nothing specifically dangerous about the liquid state of matter.

Explosives can come in all states of matter, and be prepared in different states (liquids stabilized onto solids, etc). There is no reason the TSA should be testing/limiting our sodas and not our chocolate bars.

TheGolfWidow

Has anyone submitted their drink for testing and then actually had the strip turn purple or develop a faint + sign or do whatever it is that happens when a drink is positive for [something or other]? What, exactly, happens to you and your formerly refreshing beverage at that point?

T.J. Bender

Well, I would think that the first thing that would happen is the TSO hands you a cigar and wishes your family the best of luck with their little bundle of joy.

Seriously, I don't even want to know. I'm sure it would involve lots of barking and a demand to know where you got that dangerous drink, followed by a "resolution" patdown (in a bathroom?) and removal from the secure area for rescreening.

All that said, I'd much more likely chug the drink and hand them the empty cup upon being told that I'd been "randomly selected".

sbagdon

Which sounds that more terror would be created by the binaries, and not the results of mixing the binaries.

Let's remember that this is about the execution and prevention of terror. That does not functionally relate to things going boom (though there is a possible link).

spd476

If these magic TSA strips do indicate that there are explosives present, 99.99999+% of the time it's going to be a false alarm. Some unlucky passenger is going to have a miserable experience at the hands of the TSA, police, etc.

However, on the incredibly rare chance that it is a terrorist and they have some magical liquid bomb, what is the TSA going to do? I doubt the terrorist is going to wait for additional testing to be performed and will simply detonate the bomb. If they have an elaborate plot to get this liquid past security, no matter how they do it, I figure they have a way to detonate the bomb. It may not be as lethal and flashy as blowing up a plane, but blowing up a busy gate would probably get the same terror effect. The same thing would happen if they were caught at a busy checkpoint.

chollie

I suspect if a test ever does come back positive, the fall-out will all be on the passenger - the pax will get extra attention, groping, bag searches, reports, name forever on government databases somewhere (after all, the pax must be guilty of something if his/her name is on a government report somewhere).

The vendor will be off the hook - I seriously doubt that if a Starbucks beverage tests positive, TSA is going to immediately shut down Starbucks, confiscate all Starbucks drinks in the sterile area immediately, freeze all Starbucks employees and conduct a rigorous swabbing of the entire shop and its workers.

After all, a 'bad guy' could never infiltrate Starbucks (protected by TSA's magic 'trusted vendor' program). A 'bad guy' would instead immediately put however much 'nasty' he's carrying into his beverage while at the gate (the same 'nasty' that he presumably slipped past the checkpoint).

Somebody in TSA procurement signed a sweetheart deal with a good friend to supply TSA with over-priced, useless test strips and now TSA is trying to find a way to use them. After all, now that they've been caught over-ordering and stockpiling goods in warehouses and lying to Congress when caught, I suppose they have decided to 'use up' existing supplies (ordered from cronies and friends) before asking the taxpayer to pay for more.

Orion

This happened to me at Salt Lake City on Delta a few weeks ago. They told me they were checking on the vendors.
I really don't need a reason. We have to comply. Just get on with it.

Darkumbra

"we have to comply" .... "resistance is futile" - sorry, but I'm not yet ready to be branded and shackled.

RockyMtnScotsman

Well of course that's the next step after the (predictable) failure of the liquids test to yield any positive finds.

Incrementalism my friend, Incrementalism.