Busted: TSA making up its own myths?

The TSA’s “mythbusters” are at it again, and this time they’re trying to debunk my claim that bottles of water are safe enough to be cleared for takeoff. But in trying to prove how dangerous liquids are, is the government propagating a few myths of its own?

Of course it is.

Never mind that the TSA doesn’t bother to address how lighters and breast milk can pass muster, and water can’t. Never mind that its video “proof” that liquids are dangerous could have been created by any Hollywood special-effects studio, and has in no way been independently verified.

And never mind that all of the evidence it cites that “liquids remain a real threat to aviation security,” lacks the sourcing required to make it credible.

No, I think what bothers me more than that is the way TSA forwards its arguments with half-truths and “facts” that are impossible to verify.

TSA claims it spent eight weeks conducting “extensive research by some of the world’s leading explosives experts.” Who are these “experts”? What, exactly, did they discover? Does the TSA expect us to just take its word for it? And which one of these experts voted that a cigarette lighter wasn’t a threat, but that bottled water was a threat?

Would these experts be willing to sit down for an on-the-record interview?

And take TSA’s claim that it’s testing “technology capable of screening sealed bottled liquids for explosives.”

I spoke with one of the companies that has created a device capable of screening liquids, and it told me a slightly different story. The company says the TSA has known about its system, which can weed out dangerous liquids, since 2005. But, “we simply have not been given the opportunity to meet with the appropriate officials at TSA and DHS to review the capabilities,” a company representative told me.

Sounds as if TSA want to keep this liquid and gel ban going indefinitely.

So I put it to our friends at the TSA. If you really want to “bust” the myth that liquids are not a threat, it’s time to come clean with the American travelers you are supposed to protect.

Give us the names of the experts who you consulted when you determined liquids were a threat. Tell us exactly what they found. Explain to us why factory-sealed water bottles have to be discarded at your checkpoints. Tell us why you’re so certain that breast milk and lighters can’t be used by terrorists.

And while you’re at it, tell us why you’re ignoring technologies that could be used to screen these supposedly dangerous liquids.



  • morty herman

    don’t be absurd. If they let you carry water bottles aboard the financial loss to the vendors on the “other side” of security would lose their shirts.

    of course the TSA could allow anyone carrying a bottle of water to take a sip before going through…(who would drink an explosive?)

  • Jasper

    I was striken by your comment in one of your earlier columns: The TSA want to be busy keeping tooth paste and drinks of planes in stead of chasing down the terrorists.

    It would be nice though if you could show a link between the airport drink vendors and the TSA. I am quite surprised quite frankly that no drinks vendor has yet said soomething stupid on the subject.

    Perhaps you could investigate how much the revenue of ‘after security’ beverage vendors has oncreased since the ‘no-liquids policy’ started. After all, all those extra drnks are just as much an extra cost to the traveller as the security taxes and fees we pay these days.

  • TJ

    And who is checking the bottled water and toothpaste being delivered to those vendors on the “air” side of security?

  • Tim

    TJ – I think it depends on the airport, but at Detroit’s Metro (DTW), the liquids to be sold (water, juices, etc.) are run through the same X-ray machines as our luggage is. It always amazed me to see the delivery person load up the conveyer belt with boxes of liquids to go through the same X-ray machines that apparantly can’t determine if my factory-sealed water bottle is safe.

  • Britt

    The liquids ban has always perplexed me. You can fit at least 4-5 of those 3oz containers in your ziptop bag. I’m sure some chemistry student could come up with a harmful combination that doesn’t require more than 15 oz of liquid. How come no one ever points this out?

  • David

    If you point out to the beloved TSA that 4-5 of those 3oz containers can fit in your ziptop bag and that a reasonable chemist could fashion a harmful device from such, the asshats at the TSA will ban all liquids/gels. Shortly thereafter they’ll ban shoes since an incendiary device was once concealed in a shoe. Then some bright government star will realize clothing is just a method of concealing prohibited items, and then we’ll all be flying in the nude.

    Luggage? Oh my, no, can’t put that on a plane; much too easy to conceal something dangerous there.

    Terribly sorry, but only naked people with no luggage will be allowed on this flight.

    Oh, and sir, you’ll have to lose that erection before you board the plane – it might go off at any moment!

  • Rob

    We can look past all the crap about security technology vendors and marketing scams. We can even look past the DoD reports from before all of this nonsense stating that binary liquid explosives are simply not a threat because of the time, care, and fumes involved in making them viable.

    The real question I have is why do we care about explosives on planes? After 9/11 our assumptions about hijackers have changed. It is now understood that if hostile individuals are able to take over a plane, that everyone on that plane and a good number of people on the ground will die. Therefore it no longer makes sense to hand over control of the plane to a bomb-wielding individual. (Clearly some sort of timed lock on the airplane cabin door would resolve any emotional conflicts the crew might have about weighing potential deaths against actual.)

    Bringing a bomb onto a plane, which used to be an effective alternative to a gun or other device which might be more obvious in scanning, no longer makes sense. The best the attacker could hope for is dying, while killing a few hundred people in a manner no different than an accident. In fact it could even be dismissed as an accident removing the entire terrorist message. It makes more sense to target populated areas with substantially less security. I am sure with a little creativity you can think of many such targets, most of which would be impossible to dismiss as an accident and would strike far more fear into middle America, which is the goal, right?

  • http://www.soundclick.com/AMUC Michael T

    I think we’re crazy to let even naked people with no luggage onto the airplane. It’s been well-established that people with the right diet are capable of spontaneous combustion. Certainly this would be disastrous if it happened during a flight.

    The only truly secure method of stopping the possibility of terrorist bombings on airplanes is it not let anybody on the plane at all, not even the pilot.

    It’s not even safe to send the plane up into the air. Obviously, without a pilot at all, that could be potentially dangerous. Even some computer-controlled autopilot isn’t safe. (What if those evil hackers took remote control of the autopilot and had him crash the plane into something?)

  • Cat

    Actually, the “experts” you refer to about lighters are the United States Congress.
    Oh yes. It’s true. They passed a law first banning lighters from aircraft. Thus, the dreaded “Lighter Ban”. Then, because taking lighters was ridiculous, Congress then added to another law this prohibition. The TSA cannot spend money enforcing the previous law.

    So, Lighters are *still* prohibited from the cabin of passenger aircraft. But the TSA cannot take them away. Because the screener salaries are money the TSA spends, and it can’t pay a screener to take it away.

    You think things are ridiculous? Don’t blame the grunts for enforcing the ridiculous idiocy of Congress.

    And Rob, you’re applying rational thought to people that strap explosive vests to themselves, and are happy to blow themselves and as few as one other person to hell. Killing a few hundred isn’t a numerical victory, but it’s still a victory to the suicide terrorist mind.

  • lazarus

    For all you people complaining about things that are beyond your grasp:

    Why don’t we just get rid of TSA and post a “fly at your own risk” sign at every air terminal. Maybe that will help you sleep better at night.

  • Andy M.

    Thank you, lazarus. Someone eventually had to jump in with a textbook example of the fallacy of the false alternative. I am glad you were here to oblige and get it out of the way.

  • Michael

    There are no terrorists. Just the ones we have created.
    We have allowed ourselves to be robbed of our basic rights under the threat of losing security that was never there to begin with.
    If a group of people wanted to sneak a binary liquid explosive on a plane, it could still be done even WITH the 3-1-1 policy. All you have to do is have multiple people carrying the liquids. Done.
    This threat doesn’t exist. Period.

  • mystic_eye_cda

    Let’s assume I’m a smaller breasted woman than I am, and I want to sneak some kind of gel explosive on the plane. I’m going to buy a bigger bra and I’m going to make natural looking breast pads similar to the water bra and similar you can already buy. Or maybe I will buy a commercially made water bra and use a syringe to empty it and refill it. Then maybe I also make butt and hip pads out of more explosive so I look more proportionate.

    Or maybe I’ll make a fake pregnancy belly.

    Are they going to search my bra? Doubt it? Demand to see my bare belly, doubt it. Check my but for plastique but pads?

    If someone really, really wants to get explosives on the plane they will find a way.

    (PS I’m not a fanatic and killing a bunch of people really doesn’t appeal to me, and I’m unlikely to fly anywhere anytime soon.)

  • SuzieQ

    Actually the technology for scanning water bottles is already in use… in Japan!
    http://www.gizmag.com/go/7342/