Because we’re sheep ruled by stupid sheep.

This TSA nonsense is just getting silly.

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

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.

So. It’s just for show.

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

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

Art project!

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.

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. :)

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

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..

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).

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.