TSA: "Sir, this is an improvised electronic device."

This fellow attempted to board a plane with an IED ("improvised electronic device") and was turned away by the TSA.

Yesterday I flew out of Rapid City, SD as part of some work I'm doing. I was in the security line when I heard my name paged. This crack security staff was digging through my bag. They were concerned because I brought a microcontroller programmer. Actually, it wasn't just the programmer, it was the 1 ohm resistor I had spliced in series with the power lead to measure current, and the 10 second RC filter I had placed across that to give my DMM a better chance of reading the average current.
"Sir, this is an improvised electronic device. You will never be allowed to fly with this."
I responded to many questions with information about my occupation, circuit theory up to and including Ohm's law, and a discussion of the market for bicycle power meters. But they still would not let me fly with the programmer. I had to leave it behind.
I was finally able to fly out ten hours later, with a brand-new-in-the-box MSP430 programmer. Apparently, it's not "improvised" if it comes in a printed box.

Link (Via Makezine)

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

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spinach

Why do US citizens put up with such absurdity?
Anonymous

@ THECYNIC… Man, welcome to the 21st century. In Europe we have this trains we call “High Speed Trains”, that run at an average of 250 km/h (155 mph), and counting that you don’t have to be two hours in advance and that train stations, unlike airports, are usually near the center of cities, on trips under 1000 km (620 miles), they are usually faster than planes (although not always cheaper).
roboshobo

when i moved to LA in 03, i flew with a circuit-bent speak and spell in my luggage. i’m still amazed that it wasnt confiscated as it had a mess of toggle switches and wires poking out the side.
xadrian

Why do US citizens put up with such absurdity?

Because we’re sheep ruled by stupid sheep.
Patrick Dodds

@ Spinach: Why do UK citizens do the same? Oooh no madam, no make up, water, perfume, photography (your’s, not ours that is…..). The terrorists have won when all the politicians agree that wider society should be like living in an airport: ID cards, security cameras, chain shops, armed guards, queues, expensive consumables everywhere, everyone knowing where everyone else is or is going to be….
Dan

I can’t tell you how much safer I feel knowing that this madman is not allowed to fly with his improvised multimeter. Imagine the damage he could have done had he been allowed on that flight. That multimeter could have been turned into a… umm… NON-functioning multimeter.

This TSA nonsense is just getting silly.
aeroplane

I love the indescriminate use of acronyms. “Sorry sir, this is an Incredibly Enviable Dame. I can’t allow IED’s onboard. We will hold her for examination and possibly drinks later.”
RingMod76

So TSA personnel are ignorant, amped-up jackasses. What’s new?

TSA is to airline safety what Soviet political trials were to due legal process. (i.e. a show)
jtg

Funny. My boss and I fly in and out of Rapid City with what are basically homemade electronics (for bio-medical research) all the time. I’ve had my bag searched but never been hassled like this poor guy.
phasor3000

Spinach, in theory the security checking is supposed to prevent terrorists (yes, they do exist, despite the apparent BB consensus to the contrary) from taking weapons and bombs onto planes (which they would like very much to do). In practice, it’s just a time-wasting annoyance which serves only to keep a bunch of stupid, lazy people ungainfully employed in government jobs.

btw, the fact that Homeland Security and the TSA are inept, bloated, inefficient, authority-hungry government agencies doesn’t “prove” that the threats they are supposed to be protecting us from don’t exist.
Anonymous

you guys that talk crap are all idiots. until somehting happens you dont appreciate those that really care about yours and the rest of the publics safety just. pretty much how military personnel were treated like 2nd class citizens prior to these two conflicts, they were treated like idiots that couldnt get any oher type of job so they joined the military, oh but now theyre heros right! because you wimps wont go fight yet you live here sheltered from the horrors of true life…until something happens that effects you directly you just go about your business like sheep. but the military and people like those that work at TSA are the sheep dogs keeping the wolf away from you and yours. @SSh0l3s
DragonPhyre

The TSA has never caught a person trying to get on an airplane with any sort of explosive device. They have missed every single one of them.

So. It’s just for show.
Bob

The link isn’t working.
Anonymous

My 1.5 oz. of Maple Syrupy in SEALED bottle LABELED that and .75 oz. tooth paste could not go on the plane, but my 6.5 oz. of Contact cleaning solution could with NO extras checks but Xray. I could not even touch them until past the security check. Oh, by the way, my GEL insoles made it past the Xray machine and NO extra checks.

I, white(NO tan at all)with short beard and glasses.
jenjen

Where exactly does home made electronics appear on the list of prohibited items? Nowhere. Snowglobes appear (any size… bizarre) but not home made electronics. Assuming they don’t qualify as sharps.
http://www.tsa.gov/assets/pdf/Prohibited%20and%20Permitted%20Items_printerfriendly_3-16-07.pdf
Dave Hecht

To be fair, no one has managed to blow up a plane or use weapons on board since these measures have been implemented…so no matter how absurd it all is, they can always fall back on the claim that it is effective as a deterrent. This is not to in any way say these kind of absurdities should be tolerated. However I would love to know if there is any good data out there on how many occurrences of such overzealous TSA action there in comparison to hassle free movement. Are these cases occurring at a rate that is really significant, or are they statistically outliers that can be reduced by better training/hiring/literacy practices, and less targeting of info-conscious blogger types?

Or is it really approaching time to travel in bagless in clear plastic jumpsuits?

Art project!
cank

I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I think it is a good thing you aren’t allowed to bring circuit boards or resistors or whatever it was this guy was trying to bring. Send it in the mail.
gollux

If you want anything to reach its destination, go to your nearest UPS service center and freight it. Pretty much anything that is even slightly suspicious will be confiscated and destroyed by the TSA. Your robot project you have spent weeks on is an “improvised electronic device” just waiting to burst into flame, explode and take an airliner out.

Sorry you didn’t know that, but that’s the way they view it as their simplistic world denotes that anything with wires sticking out of it is a potential bomb. They don’t have the engineering training or even the curiosity to educate themselves as to analyzing any weird technical stuff that passes under their nose and the easiest way to deal with it is “to just say no” and toss it in the trash.
zuzu

#25 thecynic

way to invoke http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_vividness

Furthermore, I challenge you to substantiate the assertion that Security Theater is not more expensive (as measured in time, money, lives) than if another violent act equivalent to 9/11/2001-9/13/2001 were to occur again in the next decade.

I wager that the presentation of another such extremely unlikely event is cheaper (over a 10 year period) than all of this TSA / Homeland rigamarole.

Calculating how often a 9/11-like event would have to occur to justify the total cost of operation for TSA and Homeland Security in order to break even is an exercise left to the readers. :)
Anonymous

We are underpaid government “need a job” workers. I am now undergoing evals to prove my worth to the organization. Some of the things I have to over and over to pass is kind of dumb, like don’t use the back of your hand to pat down someone unless its a sensitive area, go figure!
qDot

Say it’s a prototype Japanese sex toy. They always stop asking and send you on your way after that.

(I have done this, but it actually WAS a prototype Japanese sex toy. I’ve never seen someone so happy to be wearing gloves. :) )
A New Challenger

Trains are the wave of the future.
dougrogers

Probably, they later found it in a garbage can, panicked a whole city and blew it to smithereens.
Christovir

Trains are sooooo much nicer than planes, in just about every way: comfort, convenience, cost, environment, risk. Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I’ve seen how a train system can be done well and done poorly. Some people say, yeah but for trains to work in America they would need big subsidies. True, but how is that any different from the airlines we subsidize today?
Anonymous

This cracks me up. For about 9 months of last year I was working on a project which had remote locations in NYC, MIA, and CHI. I am based in SFO.

I made field trips nearly ever week for testing/installs etc. Each time I was carrying a proprietary black box about the size of a loaf of bread. It was military grade, sealed anodized container (removable endcaps with screws)… and the thing was wired insanely inside. More custom electronics/ rough circuit boards than you could imagine. Loose red/black wires…. you couldn’t have made anything that looked more like a suspect devices than this… it was straight hollywood.

Further, I always carried it in a carry-on size pelican case that was padded, sealed, etc. The case also had some other sensitive power components, replacement parts… and often a number of hand tools, wire cutters, pretty much you name it… full size screw drivers, etc..

I carried it on every single time. I think in 40+ flights it got opened once. Not even a bat of an eye. Insane what this thing must have looked like on an x-ray machine. I always used to just laugh. And more than a number of times I was stopped, and my backpack with my laptop, or liquids were searched. Absolutely insane… plus a number of times I was also carrying a gold anodized high gain antenna that was about 36″ long…

Traveling day in and day out through some of the most trafficked and monitored airports… TSA is an extreme joke.

As a disclaimer… I’m a pretty clean cut white ~30 year old with blonde hair and blue eyes… scary stuff the world we live in this day in age..
sabik

The article isn’t clear, but it sounds like it’s the *checked* bag that was the problem, not carry-on. How else would you be paged first and find out it was about your bag later?

Which is an entirely different kettle of fish.

Of course, as the comments on the linked story say, shrinkwrap machines aren’t that expensive. That won’t help you much on the return leg, but even so that could be very useful (both in a good way and in a bad way).
B-2

Who knows ? Maybe they thoufht you were violating Ohm’s Law. Or possibly you can only take less than 1 Ohm of resistance on board……
Krustayshun

Link still down.
tempus

Not ‘ignorant’ jackasses. NEANDERTHAL jackass THUGS on the one and only power trip they will ever be allowed in their miserable lives. Read the new article on the new HIGH SCHOOL for ‘homeland security training’?
The job of TSA ‘personnel’ is ‘thankless’ because their behavior is usually– intellectually and socially– beneath contempt. And don’t forget that your tax dollars pay these people…
zuzu

terrorists (yes, they do exist, despite the apparent BB consensus to the contrary)

I’ll take that chance rather than put up with this bullshit. If you thought we lived in a risk-free world before 9/11/2001 you had your head up your ass. We’re all thousands of times more likely to die in an auto accident or from heart disease anyway, so please get some perspective.

“Can we have another option to fly? We’ll call it Fly At Your Own Risk Airlines. We won’t screen for anything and you can pay for your tickets five minutes before your flight just like in the old days, 1997.” — Bill Maher

p.s. a fun hobby to start is taking photos of all the tail numbers of every plane you can see during your airline travels; watchdog groups are still quite keen on monitoring “extraordinary rendition” aka torture planes.
Chuck

Reminds me of a slightly spooky thing.

Years before 9/11/2001 — I think this happened in 1997 — I’d met a guy who claimed he ran sort of a vigilante campaign whenever he went to airports. He’d pack electrical equipment — especially things with gauges, dials, etc. — in his carry on. After he successfully passed through security he’d confront the screeners, produce the equipment in his carry on, and ask them if they could tell it apart from a bomb.

It seemed odd that he’d want such limits imposed, especially since he mentioned — several times, rather obsessively — that he wanted to be an electrical engineer.

And yes, if you’re wondering, the guy gave off a creepy vibe.
mullingitover

Trains will never work in the US as anything more than a novelty. No one is willing to extend their travel time by a factor of ten to reap the comfort reward that trains offer. Meanwhile, no one is willing to fund the engineering necessary to drag trains in the US into even the late 20th century. Hate to say it, because train trips are a beautiful ride.

Meanwhile, yeah, the TSA inspection you get at the airport is nothing more than a meaningless ritual. I can’t find the numbers at the moment (and really these should be posted with any story even tangentally related to the TSA), but if memory serves they were in the jaw-droppingly pathetic category.
Anonymous

Well I would like to say that just because TSA is a joke and they let people get on airplanes with outrageous electronic devices doesn’t mean that I am pissed that they caught this one. Plus what do you expect from these people? They aren’t paid well enough to be brilliant, they don’t have the authority to make “the call” to let someone go through with in IED because one guy happens to speak Geek and understands that this is a what you say it is. Not to mention that just because it can do what you say it can, doesn’t mean it isn’t also capable of making something else go boom. Those underpaid guys who were just doing their horribly thankless job probably did the best they could with the tools they have and you are pissed because you couldn’t talk them out of taking away your toy(just because you can make it doesn’t mean you have the right to take it anywhere). I agree the device in the box is probably just as dangerous/innocuous but than think about how many things you trust specifically because of the brand/hermetically sealed container it comes in. . . I hate flying with these rules too, but I’m glad someone was trying to do their job that day.

Sorry about your widget
epp_b

I find it appalling that TSA inspectors are basically trained to be clueless, xenophobic chimps.

If these people are to be who we’re told they are (which, let’s face it, they aren’t), then they need to be trained properly and include specialists in some common categories of items people bring on board (eg.: electronics, hygienic products, chemicals/medications, etc.).

And maybe find a way to add some glamor to the job. Don’t make them egotistical, authoritative power-trippers, but just happy to be there knowing that they’re experts in their fields.