Let me try to get this ongoing investigation story straight for a moment, it was in 2 "foreign-looking" men's CHECKED luggage, stored in the belly of the plane - which pax normally don't have access to at all - whose crime was simply being seperated from their baggage, and being re-routed by UA? And, of course, guilty of not proving to TSA that they didn't know each other.

The next TSA 3-1-1 amendments & list of prohibited: no empty Rx or OTC Rx bottle (half empty okay or no ?)

Since I cannot hand-carry my SwissArmy "knife" that's always part of my traveling tool kits on the road as a banned item, now I cannot even leave it in my checked luggage. "Ahh, Sir - can I declare this now & check it in a tamper-proof, sealed evidence bag and give it to the Captain to safeguard since he might be ARMED up front in the cockpit already, and retrieve it upon landing?" "Oh, no - you need to leave it home or throw it away in that big bin before you reach the counter here ...." "Ah, I see ...."

Ditto the same for carrying more than 1 cell phone in your checked luggage .... ah, it's a non-working one. "Hey, I'm going oversea and this is an unlocked GSM phone that I plan to buy & use a locally purchased prepaid sim card since the ****** rates (fill in your hated US mobile phone carrier name here) are too expensive." "Ah, no - you cannot check it & definitely NOT tape it together" "Okay, how about those wires & cables - it's the universal charger & usb cord .... alright" Clear to go on this one.

Now, what rules will be implemented for any travelers taking more than 1 or 2 cell phone in their carry-on luggage? Dunno yet - TBA.

I always travel with at least 2 mobile phones, sometimes 3 depending on the needs - I guess DH will have to hold one of them for me on our oversea trip next month - Oh, Lord, 2 PDA's/smartphone and a slider plus a MP3, headphones & cords, and chargers, etc. stuffed inside the backpack (Wow, that's a "mobile command post" on top of a laptop with webcam, hmm .... "give this guy a full secondary & hand search after the WBI"

Wait, he's got a First Aid Kit, hi-power LED flashlight & a 3 oz Hand Sanitizor inside his 3-1-1 bag. Definitely, more grounds for giving the 3rd degree. "Arms up in the Air & HOLD, please ...."

The point is that everyday items that we as travelers, FT or not, carry on our trip on land, by air & by sea / Amtrak & Greyhound sometimes can be easily used as WMD (ha ! ha !) and be turn into components of a dirty bomb - but, these items serve a practical purposes for our daily living.

Those band aids in my FA Kit are sometimes used for other purposes if I forget to take along a small roll of electrical tape (so, from now on - no more DUCK tape in any traveler's luggage ??) How about those AA or AAA batteries ?? I once taped them together so that they won't be all over the place inside a plastic ziplock bag (hmmm .... what does it look like to the X-ray operator, rounds of ammos??)

To play it safe, I guess I will consider leave behind my mini analog travel alarm clock (since I never, never trust hotel's wakeup call, period) since it's easily converted to (and TSA will call it too) a timing device when "bundled" with tape or wires together in the luggage ?? (Ahh .... those wires are my Ethernet / RJ-45 cables ! Is that a newly prohibited item too ??)

I guess as we edge closer to the 9th anniversary of 9/11 next Saturday, TSA will be on "extra alert" and stay "focused" with its mission of protecting America's traveling public, better safe than sorry - so what a plane full of pax got extra ground time @ Amsterdam yesterday & no doubt, some missing their connecting flights with this "conspiracy" threat investigation.


P.S. DH said to me last night, "no wonder we aren't flying much these days unless we have to" "Yup, time to gas up that SUV & hit the road for the Labor Day trip to Lake George" Wait, we will have a good chance to see CBP in action if we run into their roadblocks & checkpoints - sure, what the hell ....

For a second I almost thought this poster was serious!

Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

With the help of a cooperating FA, it is possible to "breach" the aircraft's cargo hold, right - assuming the men knew exactly where it is (phones might be GPS enabled, right ??)

Assuming the would-be perps won't freeze to death in the de-pressurized ?? cargo hold (okay, been watching those movies about plane takeover a while back ....)

I think that's the problem.

We have the 3-1-1 rule because a no-talent assclown named Kip Hawley watched both Die Hard 2 and Harry Potter and believed what he saw in the land of make-believe was true.

so, i'm not clear....the two men didn't have anything illegal in their checked luggage...and may or may not have known each other...but do you guys think that the stuff they had was not set up to look like a bomb? cellphones and watches taped to bottles?

Only for a few seconds, and please, don't laugh too hard - but it's good for one's sanity.

It's a good thing I postpone our vacation next time till 9/14 - one year, we cruised out of NY harbour once on 9/11 and there were armed Coast Guardmen escorting onboard as we sail out of the lower Hudson Bay until we pass the VZ Bridge with M16's - but, I know 2 of my employees on active Army Reserve duties are reporting again to their camp/stations next weekend, so God knows what ....

Tax dollars at work, we are paying for it !

Got an idea - I will buy pink duct tape instead, put in DH's checked luggage and tell her to switch to Tums, wrapped with a bright yellow ribbon bow.

Don't forget Die Hard with a Vengence for your binary liquid explosive. Die Hard 2 was the airport, and none of the terrorists were even on a plane at all.

Only one of them had "stuff" and no, I don't think it was made to resemble an IED. They were most probably gifts and taped together so as to be protected during transport.

The TSA and FBI apparently don't think so either. Move on.

I'm watching KTBS (ABC affiliate) in SHV right now & they are replaying what was probably the ABC story from last night w/all the now defunct claims & insinuations as 'fact'.

I know this is Louisiana & there are people here who still believe the earth is flat, but I would have expected someone @ the news station to have least looked @ a computer during the course of the day to see if anything interesting might have happened in the world.

Like maybe the FBI publicly stating there's no link to real tewwowists.

Or that UA re-routed these guys because of a gate change in ORD that caused them to miss their flights.

Just the basics.

That, for lack of a better term, is why local TV news sucks, and it's not just in Louisiana. A good example is the Geraldo wanna-be in IAH saying that General Aviation was a security threat.

I used to have a couple of these. Hollow red cardboard tubes with "DYNAMITE" printed in helvetica bold. They cost about $9.95 each mail order.

One was set on top of my burglar alarm, with wires feeding into the alarm. I figured if an intruder was sufficiently stupid that would scare him.

I gave the other to a friend as a gift, he and his buddies used to play with it; any time someone new visited they tossed it to the new guy, and got a laugh out of it. After a couple years he left it in a closet of his condo party room and forgot about it. A few months later he came home to find his whole street cordoned off, lots of Chicago police and fire department, after a while he saw a bomb squad dude in full regalia gingerly carrying the toy out of the building. Needless to say, my friend kept his mouth shut and avoided laughing.
Personally, I'm sure the bomb squad dude knew exactly what it was, but had to act serious to not embarrass all the other cops and fire dept. folk who had made a big deal of swooping down on the scene.


Anyway, after that I decide it best to remove mine from the burglar alarm. I think I must still have it in a box somewhere, but I've moved twice since then... who knows when it will turn up.

My point is, don't jump to conclusions that there was anything malicious about the pepto bismo and cell phones. Maybe it was just his way of telling someone that they had diarrhea of the mouth.

I would best way to called Blogdad Bob will have more investigations against those 2 terrors who got a fake explosives into checked bags. I believe they will find the evidence. I wasn't aware of TSA does not take own responsible to searchable the bags and they didn't find any suspicious bags were being screened through CTX machines.

No, I don't think so either. Lets TSA doing their jobs. They will have best everything they can. AMS police will have more investigating against 2 terrors.

They already have. TSA has already installed new inline baggage screening system. It is already have been installed new inline baggage screening system all US Airports. I think old CTX-5500 will phase out of the ticket lobbies.

On the BBC World Service audio feed this afternoon, two commentators said it was a fairly regular practice for people from the Middle East to tape items together as gifts so they can be easily handed out to the recipients.

And, I just found this article on the BBC page:

During the family vacation, my wife got sick on both the outbound and return legs. We had to overnight in our connection cities. The bags went on to our final destinations.

I wondered about the security ramifications, though I didn't ask. I mean, we sort of did choose to separate ourselves from our bags.

CV

As this story unfolds, I think we have yet more evidence, as if it was needed, that the US Govt and in particular those involved in security are ****s.