gregh  2007-07-30 04:06  homeland_security  security  tsa   

Bruce Schneier interview with Kip Hawley, Part I:

Kip Hawley: Screening ideas are indeed thought up by the Office for Annoying Air Travelers and vetted through the Directorate for Confusion and Complexity, and then we review them to insure that there are sufficient unintended irritating consequences so that the blogosphere is constantly fueled.

Aha! We've had our hunches.

Imagine for a moment that TSA people are somewhat bright, and motivated to protect the public with the least intrusion into their lives, not to mention travel themselves. How might you engineer backwards from that premise to get to three ounces and a baggie?

The Vice President has investments in a company that manufacturers sample-size bottles.

gregh  2006-09-05 07:02  homeland_security  security  tsa   

I went to Boston over Labor Day weekend.

As the last things I packed at 5 AM, I didn't give much thought to my toiletries as I threw my deodorant and toothpaste into an outside compartment of my bag and took off. I got to Oakland International, and the security line snaked through baggage claim, past 3 or 4 carousels, and up the back wall. Things didn't look promising. Thankfully, it was 6:00 AM and my flight didn't leave until 7:40.

The line moved very quickly, as it happened. Time wasn't going to be a problem.

But maybe security was? As we were getting ready to land, it struck me that I had inadvertently brought two prohibited items onto the plane: my gel deodorant and my tube of Crest toothpaste. Now, I had nothing evil planned, and the containers did actually hold deodorant and toothpaste. Nonetheless, if these things are so evil, how could they have been allowed to slip by? Surely a toothpaste tube shows up on an x-ray machine? What about a deodorant container?

Now, I don't really feel the current bans are all that meaningful or likely to prevent an attack, but I'd at least like to think items that are obviously not supposed to make it on a plane will be snagged. Especially if they're much more likely to cause a security situation.