Another point. Uric Acid (present in urine) can be distilled and made into an explosive compound (so says the Poor Man's James Bond, I haven't tried it).

Maybe the in-flight lavatories will be shut down now, too.

For that matter, it probably doesn't take much to buddy up with the caterers for the flights, either. Guess we WILL have to ban in-flight beverage services after all. :(

Yes, I have be reading and watching the news and I know they were using liquid explosives and I know they are afraid the bottled beverages sold after security in the terminal could have been tampered with, but the terrorists cannot magically turn a bottle of water or coke into explosives. But that brings me back to my main point...This threat was mainly based around threats taking place in the UK and a certain UK sports drink and while I know we must take precautions here and I am more than happy to not take my own drinks on the plane for the immediate future it just is hard for me to understand them not allowing people to buy bottles of water or diet coke in the terminal after security and take them on the plane. The whole thing doesn't bother me a whole lot because I never drink much while I am flying anyway, but I know alot of people either want to or need drink alot of water while flying for health reasons and such.

Like has been mentioned a few times over the last 30 hours, not all workers in the terminal go through the background searches. At most airports only the SIDA workers go through the background checks and FBI fingerprinting. An unsavory person could be working at Hudson News helping the terrorists. Better to be safe.

Just another hole in the system. There is nothing preventing someone with a bomb package from waiting along an airport perimeter road, have their colleague, perhaps a catering or ramp worker stop their truck for a moment, toss the package over the fence undetected, then it will get loaded on the aircraft.

I could sit here all day long coming up with holes the TSA will never plug.

We need to face some facts - we will never be fully safe and risk is part of the equation.

By now, with more information at hand, the TSA should be preparing to unwind these screening procedures and return things to normal. If there is evidence the threat is still out there, we should be notified.

I have an idea -- let's just ban passengers.

Grandma and Grampa probably have important medicines. It's certainly not fine for them!

We don't need to go that far off the cliff. First we can have virtual strip searches; then the full-monty; then body cavity searches; then medication to flush the digestive and excretory system; then chained passengers; then naked only passengers; then sedated passengers; and only then no passengers. :eek:

I'm really just waiting for the underwear bomber. You guys just wait'n'see what the TSA has in store for us then!!

"Virtual strip search"? Help me out here, the imagination isn't up to speed today.

Thats what the Onion said.

No, I totally agree I was just seeing what it's like to play devils advocate. I was telling everyone who would listen yesterday in cases like this I would always error on the side of caution. The only thing I don't like is that if there is some indication US domestic flights are at risk then I would appreciate them letting us know something since this operation is no longer a secret.

They'll be looking for Weapons of ... Destruction ... :D

Backskatter X-Ray -- Supposedly only strong enough to get through your close, but not penatrate the skin. Safety of this is questionable.

Exactly what you have said. The primary is rendered pointless if you have a secondary for everyone at the gate. In that senario, I could care less if people were getting guns from the janitor, the clerk at the water bottle store, or anywhere else, because it should be caught at the gate screening, and you are not airside until after the gate screening. Thus the main checkpoint is pointless.