NEWS: TSA Would Allow Sharp Objects on Airliners
 

Isn't it sad when I'm thrilled by the thought of being able to (hopefully) carry my old swiss army knife again!

In this morning (11/30/05) Washington Post:

TSA Would Allow Sharp Objects on Airlines
Screeners to Focus More on Bombs
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 30, 2005; Page A01

A new plan by the Transportation Security Administration would allow airline passengers to bring scissors and other sharp objects in their carry-on bags because the items no longer pose the greatest threat to airline security, according to sources familiar with the plans....

:rolleyes:

Screeners will not seem them as scissors, but rather as steak knifes, and you are back to square one.

just like shoes ... oh...they are more than 1 inch in thickness, mind you are wearing flip flops.

Give me a break! It's inflammatory rhetoric like this that shows everything that is wrong with the culture of public debate in today's society. Like there's going to be a bloodbath in the cabin because some guy's got a pair of scissors and a Swiss Army knife - I'll take him down myself before that happens! :mad:

"TSA needs to take a moment to reflect on why they were created in the first place -- after the world had seen how ordinary household items could create such devastation," said Corey Caldwell, spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, which has more than 46,000 members. "When weapons are allowed back on board an aircraft, the pilots will be able to land the plane safety but the aisles will be running with blood."

What an absolute idiot.

She should never leave the house and do the rest of the planet a favor.

Corey, you are one of the stupidest people on the planet. You really put the "Low" in Lolo.

Deleted

Tools up to seven inches long will be allowed.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/11/30...les/index.html


How long is an ice-pick?
Or box cutter?

Foolish change.

This is a shocking breakthrough of common sense at the Transportation Slowdown Administration. Of course, I would likely print out a full color TSA bulletin prior to attempting to carry anything onboard for the first several months after this policy goes into effect just in case Orville Overzealous hasn't yet heard.

Why? Explain how someone is going to hijack an aircraft with one. Do you think all the passengers are going to just sit there and let them stab everyone?

Like hell they would! In a post 9/11-world, whoever tried something funny would see his arse summarily kicked by whoever could get their hands on him.

And besides, if everyone's allowed to carry ice picks and box cutters and whatever, it's not like the passengers will be defenceless - hey, I might just start carrying a box cutter to be able to intimidate the bad guy... :rolleyes:

More kool-aid, sir or madam?
 

Ice picks and box cutters are not credible weapons to hijack a plane.

People with irrational fear of these items ought to stay home under the bed and never, ever venture to the mall where these items are not only permitted but are actually sold there. :eek:

Finally, there's a shred of common sense at The Second Al-Qaida, but some 'fraidy cats have to get all scared and worked up about it. :td: :td:

This paradigm shift didn't happen post 9/11. It happened on 9/11! This method of attack was essentially shut off during the actual hijackings themselves. Flight 93 was the famous story. The people on the Pentagon airplane knew what was happening but couldn't react fast enough. IMO, the reason the terrorists lost the element of surprise was that they underestimated the robustness of our ability to communicate. They understood the value of information warfare when they shut off transponders, but they didn't possess even an infitesimal fraction of the ability they needed in order to conduct an adequate infowar attack to maintain the element of surprise. Like it or not, bin Laden is a smart guy and he understood this; hence, his decision to scale down the attack.

If the bad guys had conducted an effective infowar effort cutting off (as a minumum) all types of voice and data communication, we may not have concluded that the attack succeeded because of the procedure to cooperate with hijackers. Then, where we would we be?

There are so many moronic concepts within the quoted material I don't know where to begin. But since Spiff duly pointed out the idiocy of the FA's statement -- hey babe, what about wine bottles that get sharp edges once it's been cracked over your stupid skull -- I'll pick on someone else. To wit:

By his logic, you have to ban full bottles of wine. However comma, I don't think he'd appreciate me testing this little hypthesis on his pumpkin head. :mad:

Wasn't this a nickname for Curly???

By his logic, it has nothing to do with airplane security - you need to install metal detectors and institute full scans at every restaraunt and bar in America where drinks are served and customer safety is at risk from drunken diners. Must we now remove all the steak knives from steak houses?

This type of garbage just serves to remind me that in any profession, fully half the people are below average. I'm guessing I know which half provided the best quotes for that article....

My biggest bugaboo with the prohibited list has been the fact that daily you see bottles of wine and drink carried on board. What better weapon than a broken bottle. I think that is much more dangerous than a small knife or pair of sissors. The TSA wants screeners to focus on IEDs more than small sisors. Hope this all comes to pass and the flight attendants should realize those wine bottles are much worse than any little knife.

Airline passengers will be allowed to carry small scissors and tools onto planes, reversing a rule that led to confiscation of many thousands of sharp objects at airports since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, a Homeland Security Department official said Wednesday.

Transportation Security Administration chief Kip Hawley on Friday will announce changes to the list of items prohibited in carry-on luggage and to the airport screening process, according to the official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the plan has yet to be announced.

With federal air marshals on planes, bulletproof cockpit doors, armed pilots and 100 percent screening of checked baggage, the threat of a terrorist taking over an airplane has lessened since the 2001 attacks, the official said. The biggest concern now is explosives.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1358697

Banning some sharp objects (while allowing wine bottles, pencils, laptops with screens, etc.) and taking those away at checkpoints was effective public relations, especially for those leisure travelers not skilled at critical thinking. This approach was also easy. Perhaps TSA is mustering the will to concentrate on true dangers to airliners.

Haven't you seen Basic Instinct? Sharon Stone PROVED to us that an icepick can be a weapon to hurt people! :D ;) :rolleyes:

UA93 was ~40 minutes leaving EWR. If not for that, there likely would have been no passenger intervention and the hijackers would have successfully hit the 4th target, whatever that was. Reinforces your point about the level of planning, they had the basics figured but no contingencies and had to continue to the planned IP (near Cleveland) in order to pick up the waypoints from there.

Sounds like there is still hope for the TSA management. As a side note I saw that even DFW has a GE EntryScan now (terminal C - I don't know about the rest of them yet), which to me is another indication that TSA is ramping up their ability to check for explosives in a more efficient way.

DFW Terminal D also has a GE EntryScan3. ^

^ ^

Bart for President!

Or at least as TSA head honcho.

Here's another thread on the same subject with some spirited discussion over in the Newstand forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=498249

Please, I don't know any screeners at my airport who are thrilled to tell grandma her cuticle scissors can't go on the plane.

Great!

So how long until they decide to let us keep our shoes on?

The "ruling establishment" has to get back some of its popular support. And alienating the business traveller community in the name of "war on terror" has not worked wonders with the approval ratings.

This coming year should lead to a bit of pressure increasing. :)

Deleted

Not So Fast.....
 

I saw TSA head honcho Kip Hawley on the "NBC Nightly" news tonight with the ever-annoying Brian Williams. Anyhow, the point that Administrator Hawley was stressing can be summed up in one word: "inconsistency." He (Hawley) basically wants to keep everything in a constant state of flux to confuse and throw off the plans of "terrorists." After reading these threads for the last several years, a common theme from the flying public seems to be the lack of consistency from airport to airport, terminal to terminal, and checkpoint to checkpoint. This consistency will not be forthcoming from the likes of Mr. Hawley....."inconsistency" was a theme he stressed in no uncertain terms on the news tonight.

Pat what's her face from the Flight Attendants union also made an appearance in the report and expressed her dismay that "contraband"
like scissors and small pocket knikes were going to be allowed once again.

Greg

Whatta CYA comment from Hawley.

The bad guys scoped out their ground, taking several flights (just ask James Woods) before they did their jobs.

And Hawley thinks that consistent non-shoe carnival airports is going to thwart terrorism? That's how $5.5 billion is protecting us?

Pre 9/11 I was relieved of my Swiss Army knife - the indispensible "Picnic" model which all the tools a civilized man needs: corkscrew, bottle cap opener and lockable blade of a decent size for cutting bread and cheese.

This was in Switzerland. I asked the screener why it was couldn't have this particular knife. She said it's the lockable blade. What do you need that for? So I don't cut my fingers off, I said. She smiled and put the knife in a pouch that was waiting for me when I got off the plane in Basel.

I hope these will be allowed again. I keep one at home and one in Switzerland for my lengthy work stays there. I am always concerned that one will get over looked in my packing and remain in my too many pocketed briefcase leading to loss of knife or even a fine.

As many have pointed out, hardened cockpits plus the fact that there are plenty of weapons on board every flight for those trained to improvise mean that this rule was irrelevant from its inception.

Exactly. If it isn't dangerous now, it hasn't been dangerous for the last four years. This has been nothing but window dressing to make the ignorant masses "feel" safe. It had nothing to do with a real threat.

Uh-oh.

I recall reading a shortly-after-9/11-interview with a Continental pilot who was left unidentified by the reporter so the pilot wouldn't get in trouble; the pilot's idea was to have EVERYBODY on board the plane armed with a knife -- if they didn't bring their own, they could pick one up from a box at the gate. "If somebody tries to hijack my flight," he said, "I want them to have to deal with 200 angry people carrying knives."

Wow! Imagine what that would be like given the number of "suspicious" flyers reported by fellow pax. Imagine wading into a mélee of 200 (or even 20) untrained armed travellers.

Fact is that the hideous 9/11 attacks were a long, long time in the planning, were low-tech attacks designed to catch a sleepy system off-guard, and have already had the desired effect: the killing of many people, the toppling of a symbol of Ameican culture and business, and the burdening of the American population with fear and fear based hastily constructed "security" which cost us dearly in money, dignity and freedom.

Yes, we need security at airports. We also need intelligence and professionalism in the desigh and delivery. What we have is an overblown panic induced, inefficient and non-agile system.

If there were really lots of terrorists out there, we surely would have seen more terror focused on other forms of transportation or other kinds of gathering places.

Dec 20th -- Why?
 

I won't comment on the security aspects of all of this, but I thought long & hard about the date the TSA chose to implement this "improvement."

1. We all know that this will be right in the middle of all the Christmas flying period. When the inevitable chaos occurs, all of it will be masked by the normal chaos of flying during this time of year. TSA wins.

2. This circus will impress the infrequent flyers immensely. The media will follow right along, because there will be an ample supply of the "anything for security crowd" to shove a microphone and camera in front of. TSA wins.

3. The infrequent flyer mass influx will produce ample opportunities to find prohibited items, justify this change, and make examples of several of our fellow citizens. There will also be ample opportunity to detain and arrest those terrorists who get caught with dangerous items such as a joint or two or a large amount of cash. TSA wins.

4. The TSA spokesholes have reinforced the cause/effect spin to "compliance versus checkpoint waiting times." Civil liberties and security bang for the buck aren't even in the equation anymore. TSA wins.

You have to hand it to them -- they know how to work a crowd.

I'll try to be "extra visible" to the news crews so I can tell them just how much this new round of harassment equates to 1 step forward, 3 steps backwards. ;)

What I find interesting
 

is that according to the NY Times article:

"These kinds of sharp instruments are now found in about one in four carry-on bags."

Perhaps the TSA has just given up trying to keep small sharp objects off of planes seeing as how it would appear the message has not sunk in.

3) Here in California (at least, here here in california) if you get caught with pot, odds are it gets confiscated and you go on your way (should the D.A wish to pursue charges, that would be exceptional). Rather common and almost never reported...

4) Was it a violation of civil liberties when screening was privatized? I work with people who used to be privatized before 9/11 and according to them the TSA is more customer-service oriented then the preivious model...

I disagree that "it would appear the message has not sunk in." The "message" was illegitimate from the get-go over four years ago.

IMO, if these objects are found in about 25% of carry-on bags, that shows just how many people don't see the banning of these items as legitimate.

Scaremongers at the TSA and the flight attendant unions can try their hardest to convince us that these items are credible threats, but it looks like people don't universally believe them.

The private screeners never, ever harassed me the way the The Second Al-Qaida does.

Federalizing airport screening was one of the biggest blunders this nation has ever made. :td: