Evading Airport Security
The news is reporting about Evan Booth, who builds weaponry out of items you can buy after airport security. It’s clever stuff.
It’s not new, though. People have been explaining how to evade airport security for years.
Back in 2006, I—and others—explained how to print your own boarding pass and evade the photo-ID check, a trick that still seems to work. In 2008, I demonstrated carrying two large bottles of liquid through airport security. Here’s a paper about stabbing people with stuff you can take through airport security. And here’s a German video of someone building a bomb out of components he snuck through a full-body scanner. There’s lots more if you start poking around the Internet.
So, what’s the moral here? It’s not like the terrorists don’t know about these tricks. They’re no surprise to the TSA, either. If airport security is so porous, why aren’t there more terrorist attacks? Why aren’t the terrorists using these, and other, techniques to attack planes every month?
I think the answer is simple: airplane terrorism isn’t a big risk. There are very few actual terrorists, and plots are much more difficult to execute than the tactics of the attack itself. It’s the same reason why I don’t care very much about the various TSA mistakes that are regularly reported.
Wm • December 4, 2013 6:46 AM
I had a job that took me flying about 1 to 3 times a week when all this enhanced security began. As a result of an airline’s ß0mß sniffer detecting an alarm clock I was carrying to be a ß0mß (it had a phosphorus dial), I was put on an internal watch list. I couldn’t fly that airline without going through 3 to 4 searches. I quit that job and haven’t flown since. Won’t be flying ever again in the states.