It’s basically the only type of jobs program that both sides of our broken government can agree on: petty nonsense that looks like it might do something useful, but really doesn’t, and only inconveniences the poors.
Comment on Technically Correct
Someonelol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
The TSA is something that shouldn’t exist in its current form. They very often fail their audit checks and normalize invading your privacy to an extreme degree like body scanners and pat downs. If water bottles are considered potentially explosive then why dump them on a bin next to a line of people where they can go off? This is low grade security theater that inconveniences passengers at best.
psivchaz@reddthat.com 4 months ago
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
Ouch, owie, my democracy
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
The main reason that rule still exists is to sell overpriced water. Otherwise they could just ask you to drink some of it to prove it’s water.
cactusupyourbutt@lemmy.world 4 months ago
you are allowed to take empty bottles with you, just saying
jol@discuss.tchncs.de 4 months ago
Some airports have no place to refill and have only hot water in the toilet sinks. It’s inhumane.
LustyArgonianMana@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Which airport? I have never ever experienced this.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Boise eh?
Rhaedas@fedia.io 4 months ago
This happened to me after a lunch break going back into the court room for jury duty. Didn't think about my soda until I got to the checkpoint, used to the TSA's mentality so figured the rest of it was forfeit. She just tells me to take a drink to show it's valid. Respect for people doing their job correctly, and using common sense.
fermionsnotbosons@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
According to the story I heard as to the origin of the “no liquids over X amount” rule, years ago there was a terrorist that tried to smuggle hydrogen peroxide and acetone - which can be used to rather easily synthesize triacetone triperoxide (TATP, a highly sensitive explosive) - onto a plane in plastic toiletry bottles. They got caught and foiled somehow, and then the TSA started restricting liquids on planes. This was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, if I recall correctly.
And I happen to know, from a reliable source, of someone who accidentally made TATP in a rotary evaporator in an academic lab. So it seems plausible.
Not that the rule is actually effective prevention against similar attacks, nor that the TSA even knows what the reason is behind what they do at this point, haha. I just thought it was an interesting story.
m4xie@slrpnk.net 4 months ago
hydrogen peroxide and acetone So there are worse cleaning chemicals to mix than bleach and vinegar
lightnegative@lemmy.world 4 months ago
I believe you’re mixing up acetone with acetic acid
SgtStrontium@lemmus.org 4 months ago
No, acetone and peroxide, and generally a small amount of HCl as a catalyst. Makes triacetone triperoxide (TATP). It’s a primary explosive, but far too sensitive for real legitimate work. It’s primarily used by terrorist organizations because it’s easy to acquire the material and easy to make. The infamous shoe bomber had TATP in the soles of his shoes, fortunately the TATP wasn’t completely dry and that’s why he had trouble getting it to go off.
fermionsnotbosons@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
Requires an acid catalyst for the reaction to actually proceed, but yeah, could definitely ruin your day - although a lungful of chlorine gas is nothing to sneeze at either.
bitchkat@lemmy.world 4 months ago
At least they haven’t taken away our shoes. And is there a limit to the number of 3 Oz bottles you can carry?
SuperNinjaFury@lemm.ee 4 months ago
You can bring as many as you can fit in a single (quart size I believe) ziplock back.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Honey would you grab my water for me please?
CosmicTurtle0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 months ago
The main reason why it exists is to provide jobs. The number of people who work at the TSA at every airport in every state…no representative wants to cut those jobs.
AltheaHunter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
I fucking hate that this is a thing. “We can’t stop doing this useless and/or detrimental thing, look at all the work it makes for other people to do!!!” Absolutely bonkers that it’s just a standard political argument.
nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
Agreed. I’d rather they be paid that wage NOT to bother me.
ASeriesOfPoorChoices@lemmy.world 4 months ago
so, we pay more (fastpass or whatever it is) for the privilege. 😅
not_woody_shaw@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Same thing with medical insurance. It shouldn’t exist but it pays a lot of people’s salaries.
AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 4 months ago
The worst part is if people only worked two or three days a week corporations would still be profitable and everyone would have a job.
SSJMarx@lemm.ee 4 months ago
What’s wild is that if you replaced them with a single payer system or whatever else, you would still have a lot of bureaucratic work that needs to get done by the new system, so most if not all of those jobs would still exist - they would just shift from trying to deny people care to trying to connect people to care.
vonxylofon@lemmy.world 4 months ago
It shouldn’t exist? I’d like to see you pay for your medical expenses out of pocket.
P. S. No, I am not American.
BurningRiver@beehaw.org 4 months ago
“The government made 25% of my district unemployed, why didn’t I get reelected?”
Ask it from that side and you have your answer.
AltheaHunter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
I wasn’t asking a question. I understand why politicians do it, I just think it’s a sign of a terrible system.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 months ago
We could always use more traffic enforcement. Just switch them all over.
Bumblefumble@lemm.ee 4 months ago
I mean if a state removed the TSA and spent the money on something else, surely they could use the money to create as many jobs as they removed but in an actual useful field.
idiomaddict@lemmy.world 4 months ago
But would the TSA workers vote for them?
Bumblefumble@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Probably not, but the people who just got a job maybe would.
frezik@midwest.social 4 months ago
Could we pay them to dig a ditch and fill it back in again? It’d be just as useful.
nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
No, it’d be more useful just on account of the harm they are not doing. I don’t give a rat’s ass what they do instead, hell, do a huge UBI experiment and just let them chill. Might as well.
ayyy@sh.itjust.works 4 months ago
If it’s just for the hubs we can put them to work doing something useful like carrying bags for old people in the airport. Literally anything would be more useful.
interdimensionalmeme@lemmy.ml 4 months ago
We could pay them to do nothing* that would be just as effective.
*not nothing but do whatever they want
TWeaK@lemm.ee 4 months ago
It’s because all the shops inside want you to buy their shit.
Lets_Eat_Grandma@lemm.ee 4 months ago
They treat people like cattle because they are protecting the airplanes and the airline’s liability, not the people onboard.
If people think it’s unsafe people won’t pay up to fly.
akakunai@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
I recently realized that I have been boarding planes for years with multiple boxes of razor blades in my carry-on.
…Not a single checkpoint picked them up.
Vilian@lemmy.ca 4 months ago
To be fair a explosion in a on the side of a line not gonna kill anyone, now a explosion in the airplane windows, maybe?, i get their argument, not that’s a good argument
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 months ago
The major airports have huge crowds. And we know from unfortunate experience that suitcase bombs can kill hundreds of people.
leisesprecher@feddit.org 4 months ago
It’s security theater through and through.
Apart from the obvious failings of these checks, think about what kind of damage a single backpack of explosives can do to a packed airport during holiday season. You can literally put a ton of explosives on one of those trolleys, roll it into the waiting area and kill 200 people easily. No security whatsoever involved.
Reality is, most security measures are designed to keep the illusion of control. Nothing more. Penetration testers show again and again that you can easily circumvent practically all barriers or measures.
Tamo240@programming.dev 4 months ago
The goal is not to stop the people in the queue being attacked, its to stop someone boarding a plane with the means to hijack it
nednobbins@lemm.ee 4 months ago
They fail gloriously at at that too.
Whenever they get tested the red teams manage to smuggle in everything needed to hijiack a plane plus a kitchen sink.
The few times that terrorists tried to board planes, they made it through security and were caught by other passengers.
FinalRemix@lemmy.world 4 months ago
That’s what’s changed. Before, a hijacking meant a free trip to south America or Cuba. Now it means you’re likely to die if you don’t stop the hijackers. A planeful of pissed off passengers determined to live are gonna stop a would-be hijacker.
Liz@midwest.social 4 months ago
Yeah, and you don’t need the TSA for that. Just do as they already do: lock the cockpit.
w2tpmf@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Little known fact: many of the pilots behind those locked doors are armed as well.
The Flight Deck Officer program allows pilots to volunteer to become deputized Air Marshals. They receive training and are issued a badge and a gun.
intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Well, conceivably those in the cockpit could be manipulated through other threats. Either threats to crash the plane, or threats to hurt the people in the back.
KyuubiNoKitsune@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 months ago
They had to do something about the plague of people hijacking planes with bottles of water.
Tamo240@programming.dev 4 months ago
IIRC water happens to appear similarly to a lot of explosives on the metric they use for what the composition of items in the scanner is.
Improvements are being made though so soon we may be allowed to take water through unrestricted:
Why Airport Security Suddenly Got Better (13:01) youtu.be/nyG8XAmtYeQ?si=RTjA8GRuZaMIJs9d
intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 months ago
I’ll drown him! I swear to god I’ll drown him!
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 months ago
Ah yes, it’s okay if we die, just don’t take the corporate infrastructure with you when you go…