That was freaking brilliant. Everything was spot on.
The absurdity of the rules pre-date 9/11. I was trying to fly back from Canada to the US and they wouldn’t let me take a cigar punch on board - because it looked like a bullet. But get this, my 4" pocket knife WAS fine to take on board. I stood there holding the two things and told the guy, “I can’t take this on board because it LOOKS like a bullet? Even though I can’t hurt anyone with?”
“Correct.”
“But I can take my knife, which I could stab someone with?”
“It is under 4”, you can take it on board."
“OK then.” They gave me a card board box and I checked in the cigar punch and made it back.
My airsmith friend had even more issues trying to bring his tool filled briefcase. I guess they were worried he might unscrew the wings.
I really like the idea of replacing bullets with Tic-Tacs. For one thing they are much cheaper and easier to fabricate. They also pollute the environment less–no lead and are eaten by insects and bacteria.
Okay, I have to admit, I’ve been trying to find clips of this show since I first heard of it. I’m really, really, looking forward to it… maybe coming to Netflix? Please?
The one point I never see, is that TSA screening creates a chokepoint at the airport. The next terrorist attack won’t happen on a plane, it’ll be in the line waiting to get on the plane. How many people could a suicide bomber take out there? And what are the TSA agents going to do about it? Oh, wait, they aren’t actual cops.
Don’t say BOMB! Or chokepoint!! Ok guys, take him in back…
“I’m sorry sir. This water might be a bomb. You can drink it right now, or we’ll throw it in this gigantic bin right here in the terminal that’s almost full of other drinks that could be bombs”. – TSA employees across the country
Di-hydrogen Monoxide is no laughing matter. It kills thousands of people a year. Inhaling a small amount can kill you, and ingesting too much is poisonous. It can also destroy steel beams - you know - like the kind in the World Trade Center!
It really just goes to show how much of a joke that open bin of discarded “explosive” liquids sitting at the checkpoint itself really is.
She’s a she, Scott. Guys, come get Scott and escort him back to the nice air conditioned room. Thanks.
Luckily there’s no giant bin of possible explosives that could be detonated near such a chokepoint.
It’s not just airports. I went on a cruise out of Baltimore to Bermuda a handful of months ago, and the TSA port security confiscated my waiter’s helper corkscrew because of the 1.25" foil blade.
I muttered a bit, especially as I had carried the same thing multiple times through Ft. Lauderdale’s port, but it was only a $3.99 item that they would return after the cruise.
Of, course, I then proceeded to get on the ship, go to the dining area, and was handed a set of silverware including a 5" steak knife.
I wish he’d gone a bit into how private jets have zero security, because that stuff is only for the plebes.
Hmmm, seems like it wouldn’t be hard to legally contrive flights such that all passengers were actually partners in the chartering of a private flight.
This is generally well-done, but around 1:43 he cites the increased use of air marshals as one of the reasons we are safer, which is a huge fallacy.
Since 2001, more Federal Air Marshals have BEEN arrested for committing crimes themselves than the total number of people arrested by the FAMs. And the FAMs have been involved in several high profile screw-ups, including shooting a mentally ill man in the back as he ran OFF a plane and scrambling fighter jets and forcing a diversion of a plane because some brown people swapped out their SIM cards on an international flight.
Starting with UA93 on 9/11/2001, passengers and crew have repeatedly demonstrated that they won’t put up with bad guys on planes. They crashed UA93 rather than let it be used to attack the White House, they extinguished the shoe bomber’s fuse (using now-banned bottled water), they tackled and smothered the undie-bomber’s fuse, they threw coffee in the face of the Mauritanian Canary Islands hijacker, etc. A 9/11-style plot today would require that the bad guys neutralize the passengers and crew, and the range of scenarios where bad guys successfully neutralize all the passengers and crew EXCEPT the FAMs is extremely narrow. Probably narrower than the range of scenarios where the bad guys neutralize the FAMs and take away their guns (after all the TSA screeners’ efforts to keep guns off of planes…).
The Federal Air Marshal program needs to die with the rest of the TSA.
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