I witnessed this at the checkpoint in EWR Concourse A last night. Behind me in security was a guy, presumably from one of the stores behind the checkpoint that sells bottled drinks. He was allowed to place a tray full of bottles greater than 3.4oz thru the scanner, and bring it into the terminal.

What is the point of banning passengers from taking liquids through the checkpoint if store owners are allowed to bring them through by just putting them through the x-ray?

The liquids sold past the checkpoint are considered to be from a "trusted source"

Take it for what it's worth.

TSA has consistently been inconsistent about it's policies. Why should this be a surprise?

I figured they'd at least bring these goods in via the service tunnels, instead of doing this in front of passengers. You'd think passengers would wise up to this non-sense much quicker if they see that those bottles of liquid are no danger, even if they've only been x-rayed.

Capitalism trumps security. Always has, always will.

This is just the tip of the iceberg.

The more you learn about airport terminal operations, the more you realize the TSA is a farce.

Retail vendor operations are just one of the farcical elements.

If you really want a thrill, go chat up one of the managers and find out just how short the average terminal retail employee's tenure. Hint: It's so short the managers don't even bother with learning an employee's name and just read it off the nametag.

If you figure some of these employees are making minimum wage, and they work maybe 3-6 weeks before they -- without announcement -- stop showing up for work, they earn maybe $1500 gross before they disappear.

Assuming there is truly an effective background check made pre-employment, pick any number you want for the price of an effective background check and do the math.

And, here's the real kicker, many of these employees never actually resign. The first anyone knows they have quit is when they haven't shown up for work for several days in a row. Even though the TSA will tell you they do background checks on the employees, the employers don't seem to have good phone numbers for them when the employer tries to call and find out what's up.

And what kind of investigation is done into where these employees disappear to? None. Absolutely none.

The TSA is a political solution, not a security solution.

Of Course there are their airport employee ID tags still circulating...

I would like to work at either a hotel or a big airport after retiring from my real job. Interesting about the turn over. I should be able to do better than that. Weird goal, I know.

Two books for you: "Hotel Babylon" (which I've read) and "Air Babylon" (which I intend to read in the near future).

Exactly. Kind of hard to describe this further without presenting a paint-by-numbers primer for badness.

Combine this with the concept that you only need to penetrate a single terminal and you have access to the sterile area of every other domestic air terminal.

The concept of a "sterile area" is an expensive exercise in futility that diverts scarce resources. Adding layers of inane "security" at the passenger entry portals, even if perfectly designed and implemented, does not change the basic flaw.

^ You hit hit that one right on the head.

The other reason why the liquid ban is such a joke is that the liquids sold past security aren't screened, either. The driver of the truck bringing them in has to have a SIDA badge and SIDA parking permit (and requisite background check, which IMHO proves little about security risk) and the truck may get a perfunctory inspection by an airport police officer at the entry gate, but the drinks aren't "screened" per se.

Allowing passengers to bring their own liquids through security is safer...at least they're x-rayed!

Thanks for the book leads.

I think I have a desire to be out with people after working in a closet-sized office for so long.

There's even more to it, but let us just look at it this way ...

If you had a house with several entrances and only locked one of those entrances, would adding another lock to that one door increase your security? Would adding two locks to that door increase your secuirty? Would putting an armed guard at that one door increase your security? Would strip searching everyone who came in through that one door increase your security? No.

Assuming passengers represent a danger to air transport, the showy checkpoints are a futile attempt to make up for the inherently flawed "sterile area" concept.

The TSA is a political solution, not a security solution.