Science Fair Entry Shuts Down Airport Terminal 380
OverTheGeicoE writes "A graduate student was returning home from a science fair in Omaha with his handmade entry in his carry-on luggage. When the TSA discovered it, they shut down the airport terminal for several hours, until they could determine it was harmless. All of this has happened before, and all of this will happen again, so before you fly with your homemade Minty MP3 player, make sure you take a look at TSA Blogger Bob's warning or it could wind up looking like this."
Who gives a fuck? (Score:4, Insightful)
They're not always wrong, you know... (Score:2, Insightful)
Even if the device is harmless, it doesn't mean they don't truly need to give it a few extra *really* careful looks.
This is not a troll. I had something similar happen to me, but don't feel a burning desire to recount it play-by-play or have the FBI file re-opened.
(Yes, really)
I will just say that it was a perfect storm of fluke events and the fact I was carrying a home-built electronics project in my *checked* luggage that caused their BAO to take extreme interest in my bag, and myself.
At some point, those of us who are building this stuff need to take a step back and remember that we're probably smarter than MOST of the TSA employees who will come across our devices. Fear of the uknown, anyone? Not exactly new.
We shouldn't be surprised when they freak out. We live in the age of shiny, plastic, crap. Bare wires scare people.
Fed-Ex may be the path of least resistance.
Re:In this post-9/11 world, we can't be too carefu (Score:5, Insightful)
Why bother voting Palin? You know there's a Democrat in the white house RIGHT THIS SECOND right? And the Democrats have had control of house, senate, and white house within the last few years, and they most certainly didn't finally fight this TSA nonsense- in fact, in the 80s, they were in favor of something like this.
Can't blame Bush anymore. Guess you'll have to accept that they are all corrupt control freaks, eh? Both major parties are opposed to freedom, privacy, and any amount of self determination. I understand that once you pick Red or Blue you want to assign all the Bad Things to the Other Color, but it's just not that simple.
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:5, Insightful)
I just love it when people quote entire passages from our historical documents in some sort of futile effort to try and remind all of us of our "Rights", like they actually exist anymore.
It's almost as futile as replying to AC posts.
Re:TSA is Populated by... (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course it is. But that is completely besides the point.
In this case, something unknown was called "scary" and thus "a threat" because they were idiots. This is lowest common denominator thinking at its finest. They want Sheeple who will obey even the most stupid of requests that have no basis for except for the security theater that we have.
And enough people WANT the security theater or worse, don't give a shit either way, that they hand over their lives to the very same idiots making such stupid decisions as this, and the poor lady that had her insulin confiscated because it violated the "liquid" ban policy.
These cases will continue until such time as we comply to their every rule. Ensuring we are the sheeple they want us to be. This is why more people out to cry out loudly and go to jail exposing these tyrants with badges every chance they get. If 10,000 people did this every day, they'd change the rules.
Re:I don't know much about electronics.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly? As someone who has seen real improvised explosive devices? It kinda looks like one. It also looks like any of about a million other possible home electronics kits stuck into a mint tin, but a bomb is definitely one possibility. Important point to remember here is that many of the people that make this sort of thing aren't terribly good at it. Especially if they just plan to make and use the one. Small devices like this are a lot less common than they used to be in the major theaters (Iraq and Afghanistan) these days from what I understand, but we were trained to look for stuff just like this (common household goods with suspicious wiring/electronics) and found a few that would have taken off a hand or leg, or disabled a wheeled vehicle.
Thankfully most of the cheap homemade jobs don't actually explode, but a few do. I can see caution at least. Seems like they could just get him to turn in on in an isolated spot though. Couldn't be enough explosives in that to hurt anyone more than a few feet away.
Re:In this post-9/11 world, we can't be too carefu (Score:3, Insightful)
"Can't blame Bush anymore."
I blame Bush for starting this stuff. I blame Obama for not ending it.
Re:I don't know much about electronics.. (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, all the device needs to do is LOOK like how a dangerous device might look like to an untrained individual. Then the person would wave it around and threaten things. Also, why does it need to be looking like an improvised explosive device? it could be looking like an improvised GPS/Radar/Radio/Cockpit jammer.
Rule #1 in first year engineering courses should be "Don't take your prototype on an airplane"
--jeffk++
Re:I don't know much about electronics.. (Score:3, Insightful)
"as someone who has seen real improvised explosive devices? It kinda looks like one."
Fair enough. I understand why a couple boxes with wires and odd looking kludged together electronics can look like a bomb under xray.
Here's what I have a problem with: These people said "This looks like a bomb". They then proceeded to take this object out of the suitcase, open parts of the device, arrange it on the table, put a paper ruler under the device, and take a picture of it, before conducting any render-safe operations.
These people are fucking idiots. Are they trained to go poking around devices that look like bombs? I thought that SOP for something that looked like a bomb was as follows:
1. DON'T FUCKING TOUCH IT.
2. Call the bomb squad.
What if this had been a real explosive device? They could easily have set this thing off in the terminal with all their prodding and poking, causing numerous casualties.
On the other hand, if they realized that this was not an explosive device then they should not have blown the thing up. They either handled a potential IED in a remarkably unsafe manner or they knowingly detonated a safe object. Either way, the TSA has proven their incompetence.
Re:In this post-9/11 world, we can't be too carefu (Score:5, Insightful)
Your Palin comment, while designed to be funny, isn't. Have you even seen what she thinks of the TSA and all that or you just assuming? In the end, all you've done is proved you're even more shallow than she is.
She believes all of THESE kinds of examples are nothing more than Politically Correct Security. The problem is that the LEFT WING handcuffs how we do things because it might "offend" the terrorists ^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Muslims and incite them to commit acts of terrorism. So we pat down Granny's Diaper, confiscate Insulin, Fondle little kids and least ... smash a toy MP3 player.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2630366/posts [freerepublic.com]
If you're going to criticize Palin, make sure it is legitimate. This isn't one of those cases (there are plenty to choose from)
Re:Security Theater (Score:5, Insightful)
except that this actually isn't security theater. It's the useful kind of security procedure that actually prevents bad stuff happening. Screening of cargo and investigation of suspicious looking bits of cargo is how they stopped the printer-cartridge-bomb plot, for instance.
It's all very well to knee-jerk off about how the TSA is full of idiots and they're trampling over your inalienable rights and freedoms and blah fucking blah, but at least spend a few minutes thinking about the context. This science project was a fairly simple, hand-built electronic device with improvised casing whose purpose isn't immediately determinable. The TSA says, and I'm happy to defer to their superior experience on this specific point, that bomb detonators they catch often look like - in fact, are - fairly simple, hand-built electronic devices with hand-built cases whose purpose isn't immediately discernible. Are you seriously suggesting it's 'security theater' to screen airplane cargo and take a closer look at improvised electronic devices? Really? If so, I'm damn well not flying on _your_ airline.
It's not like they arrested the kid and hauled him off to Guantanamo Bay or something. They found a suspicious device and performed an exhaustive investigation to figure out what it was. Which came to the right conclusion. I don't really see that anything happened wrong here.
Re:Who gives a fuck? (Score:2, Insightful)
The founding fathers did a job on you. There are no "inherent" or "natural" rights independent of any government. That's a bunch of philosophical rhetoric that they used to sell The Constitution. It looks great on paper but in the absence of government or society it's not even worth wiping your bum with it.
In the real world, in the absence of government, I could walk up to you and smash you in the head with a rock killing you and then take everything you have without consequence. There's your "inherent" rights.
And if you still think those rights are "inherent" then I suggest you take a trip to Somalia or Afghanistan or Syria or Bahrain.
Re:Watch the video on the linked site. (Score:4, Insightful)
The TSA should be experts on bombs, and it should be their job to be professionals at identifying bombs.
Sure, I agree, but as long as we're talking about "reality", it won't happen until we decide we want to pay what it would cost to staff the TSA checkpoints that way.
You don't get to decide whether something is or isn't dangerous when you haven't got a 12-year old's knowledge of electronics.
Which is exactly what happened here. The TSA staff didn't decide anything. They *presumed* it was dangerous, and called in somebody who had the training that in an ideal, non-financially-constrained world they'd have right there at the gate.
That's what everybody ends up doing with expensive technical expertise. The person you call up on the support line for software ought to be an expert in that software, and ideally very knowledgeable about the systems that software interacts with. But it won't happen until we choose to favor companies that give us good service over those who give us lousy service at the lowest possible price.
Geeks with Altoid can electronics projects aren't a use-case that was considered in the system design. So what? Is that really such a surprise? What should be surprising is that people bright enough to design and build circuits can't figure out that it'd be simpler and less hassle to put their tiny mint-tin projects in a FedEx envelope and ship them rather than running it through the carry-on security checkpoint. I'm not saying there's anything wrong about sort of forgetting how clueless mundane folk are; it's an easy mistake to make. But it's just silly to bellyache like it's something that *somebody else should fix for us*. Nobody is going to fix anything for us, until we persuade them to.
Of course if you think you can convince our fellow citizens to pay what it would take to people who can be trained as experts in bomb identification and then follow through on that training, I'll cheer you on. But until you manage that I'm shipping my homebrew junk rather than carrying it on. And I'm not planning on holding my breath until you succeed.
Context (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, the real problem here is that the governmet has decided to take reasoning that makes perfect sense in a war zone and apply it to our communities.
At places where IEDs are a common and real threat to soldiers, it makes sense to treat any jury-rigged wiring as a potential IED. In a country that has millions of people flying every year without a single actual incident of a bomb, it doesn't.
Same with all the no-knock raids that end up killing innocent people. It is perfectly reasonable for the resident to have a gun in hand when responding to someone busting into his house at night. It is also perfectly reasonable for a cop to defend himself. The problem is the idiots in the police department that think it is a good idea have our cops act like soldiers in a war-zone, just to enforce laws which aren't a life-and-death matter.
Re: "without consequence" (Score:5, Insightful)
In the real world, in the absence of government, I could walk up to you and smash you in the head with a rock killing you and then take everything you have without consequence. There's your "inherent" rights.
That is only true in isolation; that is, only if you and your victim are the only people to witness. Otherwise, there will probably be consequences. Do that to someone in your same hypothetical absence of government in front of the victim's friends or family or other such group that we humans have evolved to form so readily, and I highly doubt that you would be walking away "without consequence".
So called "inherent rights" and "natural rights" are not necessarily, clear, discrete properties of an organism or a person or however you are defining us. Rather, they are more like emergent properties that will emerge naturally from being the gregarious social organism we have evolved to be. Rights appear because of the "social contract" of being such an organism.
And if you still think those rights are "inherent" then I suggest you take a trip to Somalia or Afghanistan or Syria or Bahrain.
And if you think in such a place a person can do anything like you suggested in your hypothetical example, you are also much mistaken. There will be consequences. Take away someone's "right to life" and unjustly kill them in front of anyone, friend or family or other, who thinks fondly of them for feels you are being unjust, and you may just find there are consequences to infringing on someone's so-called rights.