petaluma1

TV crew tried to sneak fake explosive device through Newark Airport security, feds say | NJ.com

Sounds like a "bomb" built by a committee to me. Why is TSA crowing about this? It's their job to find such things. (I read on another site that TSA at EWR is proud of the fact that they fail only 50% of the time.)

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ETA: Obviously, the title of the thread should be "TV crew tries......"
BTW, I note that Lisa Farbstein has blocked my twitter account again.

jfunk138

Have "wires" and "vacuum cleaners" been added to the prohibited items list?

jfunk138

The trumped up charges here remind me of that "clock" incident a few years back.

Boggie Dog

So it was a piece of PVC pipe with wires sticking out. it was verified by a bomb tech to not be a bomb. Where is the crime?

I don't condone civilians testing airport security but shouldn't all that happened be that TSA alerted on the item and determine if a threat was present or not?

edit to add:

Looks like a TSA employee has moved up the ladder: Lisa Farbstein, acting director of media relations

goalie

Given that this happened at EWR, I am absolutely stunned that it was found by the TSA

petaluma1

Concur. However, if you look at a picture of the thing, a blind man could have found it. Either the crew that "built" this thing was just plain stupid or they wanted to get caught.

Section 107

They wanted both/either (get it through or get caught trying to get it through) so they would have film of either outcome.

Keep in mind that not only are actual prohibited items prohibited in the screening areas but also things that are replicas or simulations of prohibited items are prohibited in the screening area. The reasoning for this is that replicas can be used to achieve "terroristic" objectives (i.e. use a fake gun to hijack or hold a plane hostage, achieve suicide by cop, etc.) and greatly disrupt normal operations (even though everyone knows that planes are now immune to hijackings because all passengers and crew are willing to die . And so things like college finger gun salutes, silk-screen representations of a gun on a t-shirt, and miniaturized revolvers glued onto heels of a lady's shoe are verboten.....

Not that they would ever have received it, but these idiots should have asked TSA and the airport operations and police department for permission to conduct such a test. Instead, these yahoos ignorantly extrapolated that the 90% TSA screening failure rates during highly planned and carefully controlled internal testing would apply to their amateur-hour test. Oops.

Not to mention, they are going to have some serious 'splainin' to do to some very pissed off network management types and financial backers as they have completely wasted the rest of their production budget on liar-, er, lawyers and civil fines.....

T2A

These guys were crazy and deserve whatever punishment comes to them.

Reality show crew allegedly tried to sneak fake bomb past airport security - Jan. 19, 2018

nachtnebel

Not so sure these are trumped up charges. If Joe Blow citizen pulled a stunt like this, he'd get charged. Why should these media types be treated any differently?

N830MH

Yes, it's prohibited. They cannot allow to bring vacuum cleaners. Don't bring along with you. Just leaves the vacuum at home.

FliesWay2Much

This fake bomb was in the Wile E. Coyote category of a "1 Each Acme Terrorist Bomb." In keeping with the cartoon theme, you would have been Mr. Magoo to miss this attempt.

jfunk138

Have you seen the pictures? It's pretty clearly a vacuum cleaner. Fear of shadows will get us nowhere.

jfunk138

ETA: Apparently they weren't trying to pull a fast one on TSA at all... It wasn't intended to be a hoax device, another overreaction by the TSA.

Endemol: Reality TV Crew Was Carrying New Product, Not Fake Bomb | Deadline

Boggie Dog

Figures that TSA would try to hype it into a "Big Catch". Marilyn Hartman shows what the TSA really is, incompetent.

nachtnebel

That story just quotes the Endemoi party line after the fact. Maybe it's true, maybe not. Stay tuned.