TSA proud of confiscating non-dangerous items

The items show here are, according to the TSA web site, an "empty metal bottle and a home-made battery pack, consisting of 28 rechargeable batteries connected by multiple resistors and held together in two layers with a silicone-based adhesive."

Do you like the way the TSA put the wires from the battery pack under the empty water bottle and arranged the two separate items in such as way as to make them look more like a Hollywood version of a bomb?

The TSA website headline: "Explosive-Like Item Intercepted at Checkpoint"

Security expert Bruce Schneier's headline: "TSA Proud of Confiscating Non-Dangerous Item"

Here's an excerpt from the TSA report:

The passenger [at Jackson-Evers International Airport] was an engineer and said he built the battery to power his DVD player for the long flight to Hawaii. After recognizing that the item could be seen by other passengers as a threat, the man surrendered it to Supervisory TSO Raiford Patterson and was allowed to board the flight.

Here's an excerpt from Schneier's blog:

My guess is that if Kip Hawley [Administrator & Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for the Transportation Security Administration] were allowed to comment on my blog, he would say something like this: "It's not just bombs that are prohibited; it's things that look like bombs. This looks enough like a bomb to fool the other passengers, and that in itself is a threat."
Okay, that's fair. But the average person doesn't know what a bomb looks like; all he knows is what he sees on television and the movies. And this rule means that all homemade electronics are confiscated, because anything homemade with wires can look like a bomb to someone who doesn't know better. The rule just doesn't work.

And in today's passengers-fight-back world, do you think anyone is going to successfully do anything with a fake bomb?

Did he get to keep the water bottle?

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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sonny p fontaine

so hey MDHATTER, if i’m hearing your typewritten words correctly what you’re suggesting is…um…well you know.
Individual

So when are we shutting down the airlines by refusing to participate in their kangaroo court of searches and seizures ?
fantasticpoison

i’m with the TSA on this one. have you ever seen people freak the fuck out in a closed space? it doesn’t take much to set them off; and some dude plugging a laptop into his water bottle has a pretty high likelihood. it’s an incongruity thing- if the batteries were in a plastic container labeled “DVD batteries,” it would be a nonissue. this is the TSA protecting you from stupid idiots creating panic.

ordinarily the TSA behavior is fairly considered lunacy, because it limits private rights without any real or perceived public benefit (see the post about the 3D printer)- but this is a longstanding and logical policy. i was 9 years old in 1988 when an airport security officer made me check a rubber toy snake in case a fellow passenger saw it and became agitated- i understood the logic then and now; and i’m surprised that more of you don’t. the officer wasn’t assessing the likelihood that my snake would bite someone, but the likelihood that someone on the plane would have an irrational reaction.

fun fact: the only injuries in yesterday’s LA earthquake were people who got injured in stampedes to the exits.
bendit

They’re protecting the man from would be vigilantes on the plane. As ridiculous as it is for a TSA rep to think this is a bomb, he’s saying it can scare other people.

If one person were to scream out on the plane that someone had a bomb, that person would have no chance to explain that he’s built a device to power his DVD player. Of course, this device has no certification from UL so who knows what kind of firehazard it is.

If this happened on a flight between Georgia and Mississippi, and the man was arab, he would be dead before he had a chance to explain himself.
Jeff

Individual…Ah, never.

Without trying, I was allowed to take a full 8oz bottle of water and a lighter through the security check in Detroit last week. But I have to say, although I know these checks are almost pointless, it does lend a sense of security to a mode of transport that probably deserves it. We need a bomb sniffer at every point, but that’s still a way off. The TSA people were very nice. So nice in fact that I sent the TSA a nice note. It’s never a bad thing to give people a pat on the back. People need the jobs and we have to cut them some slack too. Once in a while.
Takuan

hah! I remember the fooforaw when the hack vulnerability was raised based on brought on board computers.
Blackbird

Phikus,

I don’t know if you joined us in the reading of the story about the pilot who had his AIRLINE eating knife taken away because it had ‘serrations’…but we learned that pilots have a fire ax under their seats…which makes a much better weapon than even a flashlight. Plus, since he’s flying the plane, he really doesn’t need to hijack it. But I do understand searching them since there IS a demonstrated case of an employee trying to take down a plane in a suicide attempt. He however, was not the pilot. Plus, pilots can already apply to carry a weapon, just ask the pilot who shot a hole in the side of his jumbo jet.

No…what they did was take away a TOOL used to ensure the safety of the flying public. Kinda like what the TSA was supposed to be for. At least, I think they were supposed to be looking out for us…in the beginning. After those 5 seconds though, I don’t know what happened to them.

They took away a tool for inspections…THEY’RE TRYING TO KILL US… : )
Takuan

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/09/will-boeings-787-be-safe_n_80776.html
johnson

I’m with fantasticpoison. It’s easy to feel superior to a bunch of dumbass TSA guys. But these are slightly-above-minimum-wage security guards whose real job is to make YOU feel like every other passenger is being carefully screened for terroristic devices and shit. I’m sure there are plenty of ways a truly dedicated bomber could slip past them with one or more mayhem-causing objects. But for the purpose of keeping mass hysteria in abeyance, asking you to check a thing that looks — to 99 percent of the population — bomb-like, is probably the best we can hope for considering the number of people flying and the amount of money above ticket price that we’re willing to spend on “security”. For this same reason I get annoyed at people who roll their eyes and sigh mightily when asked to remove their shoes for the metal detectors. Maybe this is Stockholm Syndrome, but see how easy it is to fall asleep on a flight where there’s no metal detector or fat-assed blowhard telling the impatient hipster to take off his sweatshirt before proceeding. Besides, while I like to think I’m not a complete retard, I’m still not sure I’d be psyched to sit next to a guy with a DVD player wired to his massive homemade battery pack.
Chevan

I wish the TSA would actually ask the other passengers what they think if they’re going to say that other passengers might think something was a bomb.
Takuan

the fact is they cannot stop a bomb.
kenmce

#16 posted by BillyShears ,
The agency needs a top-down overhaul, it’s just so much complete, concentrated fail.

The agency is actually working perfectly as designed. It’s just that its actual purpose is not identical with its stated purpose.
Takuan

http://www.btnmag.com/businesstravelnews/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003835107
Daemon

We need hollywood to start making bombs look like TSA agents, polititians and the like.
jitrobug

So, when do we get to enlist battery companies in the fight against TSA’s war on batteries?
Ugly Canuck

Hah-llywood makes too many bombs as it is. Bombs like speed racer, the x-files flick. Too many others to list.
Hans

TSA: “What is that, electronics”
Traveler: “Yep, it holds batteries”
TSA: “You know what else is made of electronics? The TIMING DEVICE of a BOMB!”
Traveler: “Huh?”
TSA Supervisor: “That’s some good work, Lou.”
Takuan

could we have “Idiot” and “Non-Idiot” segregated flights? We could put all the hysterical idiots on their own plane and be left alone.
Takuan

where is this going?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/With_Folded_Hands
Anonymous

I’m afraid to comment on the TSA blog. What if I end up on some government watchlist?
SamF

@#19 – Phikus:

Sorry, my previous post was meant as a joke. Thus my comment about the only way to fix the problem is to just keep people off of planes. :)

I’m fully aware that this screening does little to deter actual terrorism, and mainly just serves to inconvenience everyone.

Anyway, I doubt the terrorists have any interest in bombing anything in the U.S. Their goal is to terrify people and make them live in fear. Obviously they’ve already accomplished that.
airshowfan

23: The TSA people were very nice. So nice in fact that I sent the TSA a nice note. It’s never a bad thing to give people a pat on the back. People need the jobs and we have to cut them some slack too.

The people working the security checkpoints are not the problem. The people writing these stupid rules are the problem. Even if the people at the checkpoint had all the common sense in the world, they still have to follow the stupid rules if they don’t want to lose their jobs.

31: pilots have a fire ax under their seats…which makes a much better weapon

You know what could make an even better weapon against an airliner full of people? The controls to that airliner. Which a pilot has in his/her hands, by definition. So clearly, the answer is autonomous, pilot-less, passenger-carrying aircraft…
Blackbird

AIRSHOWFAN:

So clearly, the answer is autonomous, pilot-less, passenger-carrying aircraft…?

Problem in your logic, passengers are already treated as a problem, so they’d be out too. I guess it would be a pilot-less, passenger-less, jet ferrying around flight attendants with nothing to attend too.
You know what they could do…search for UFO’s…they’ll have plenty of time! : )
Phikus

Passengers can freak out for any reason whatsoever. Maybe they just don’t like your hairstyle (you could have a bomb hidden in it, right?) Just because a device is UL certified, does not exempt it, or the one carrying it from this. Sanity and reason are the only things that might prevail, and they seem to be sorely lacking right now in those making or enforcing the policies, especially in the TSA; and therefore trickling down tot he typical passenger. An “arab” looking person is still setting passengers on edge, regardless of what he’s carrying, and that’s racist. (Never mind that 7 of the 19 supposed “high-jackers” have been spotted since their alleged suicide in perpetrating 9-11.) Are you saying “arab looking” folks just shouldn’t be allowed on planes? Please. You are being part of the problem, not the solution.

One of my best friends is a commercial pilot. He still always has to go through the TSA’s every day and they have stolen items from him. Recently they “confiscated” one of those big multiple d-battery flashlights from his carry-on luggage. He needed it to regularly inspect his plane before take off to ensure its safety. Don’t you think: a) It’s safer to have the plane inspected before take-off? b) It’s NOT A WEAPON (though you could conceivably conk someone over the head with it, just like just about anything, including a cast on someone’s arm) and c) If ANYONE has the right to carry a possible weapon, it should be the pilot, the guy in whom passengers are entrusting their lives in anyway? If a high-jacker produced a box-cutter against a pilot with a weapon (and pilots are trained with using them these days), do you think the high-jacker could be successful?
simra

Okay, that’s fair.

Ummm… no, it’s not. If passengers’ ignorance is sufficient to establish a perceived terrorist threat then ignorance of the law ought to be a reasonable alibi when committing a crime. The acid test should be: could this device reasonably be employed in an act of terrorism that results in a fatality? If there’s no *real* physical threat then it should be allowed to board. That said, if the passenger were to subsequently wave the device around and make threatening remarks, then the overt threats might establish evidence for a punishable crime.
Willirubin

@39
…you had a pocket knife on you?
octopede

Wow…it’s like the TSA have just totally given up on trying to achieve any verisimilitude of legitimacy.
mikelotus

well at least most terrorists that have been found in the US so far have been stupid and theatrical too.
Thinkerer

If Homeland Security and the TSA are going to attempt to fight terrorism with stupidity and theatrics, it would seem that a useful solution would be to build things that look commercially produced, since ingenuity and improvisation are apparently heinous acts.

Thus, putting a bunch of batteries in a molded plastic box with a bunch of “Dell” stickers on it would probably have passed muster. You could probably put a “Powered By Intel” and a “Vista Compatible” sticker on a Claymore mine and get it through.

The water bottle used suggests that the passenger was probably using the battery pack to power his bike lights too, since it’s not the easiest thing to shoehorn a bunch of batteries into.
Apreche

Let’s say I go on a plane with just an opaque water bottle. What prevents me from standing up and saying that there’s a bomb in the bottle? That will scare people just the same as with that battery pack. Even if they force everyone on the plane naked, I can say I swallowed a bomb.

There is no way to prevent this kind of scare. So if the only threat an object poses is to cause this kind of scare, let it go, since it is not making things any worse than they already are.
amuderick

On my last flight, my iPhone died and my kid REALLY wanted to watch her movie. 3+ hrs remained in the flight. I disassembled my external iPhone battery pack which takes AAA’s and, using medical tape and a pin from my first aid kit, put together a new pack using AA’s.

It looked worse than the photo above and I was using the tray table as a workbench with my pocket knife, tape, batteries, springs, wires, etc.

Why did no one think I was a terrorist? Because I had a kid.
Takuan

since a bomb can be made to look like anything, nothing can be allowed on the plane. Since a terrorist could look like anyone, no one can be allowed to fly.

Kip Hawley: You are an incompetent idiot.
Falcon_Seven

We all should just agree -to simplify understanding of events between now and 12:00 Noon, January 20, 2009- that anything, at all, that George W. Bush had a hand in since 12:00 Noon, January 20, 2001, is FUBAR. That way we will not be surprised to read about stupid, inane, stuff like this that is happening.
SamF

They need to make up some stickers that say: “Certified NOT-A-BOMB by the TSA”.

Maybe use those stickers that change color after 24 hours so you can’t bring a bunch of bomb components on individual flights and then assemble them into a bomb later.

Although that does bring up an interesting point. What if they did let this battery pack on board. And they let some other guy come on board with some sort of circuit board all by itself. And maybe one other guy has some “grey playdough” in containers for his kid. By themselves, these are harmless enough. But maybe once on board these guys get together and suddenly they have a bomb.

I think there’s only one solution to this problem: We have to stop letting people onto planes. When too many people get together in one place, bombs are bound to happen.
alainsane

“After recognizing that the item could be seen by other passengers as a threat…”

So it’s passengers’ notions of what’s threatening that’s governing TSA choices???

How many passengers does it take? One? Two? A majority? Anyone seated in first class?

Does this power apply equally to people other passengers see as a threat?
Sean Grimm

Mission Accomplished!
Anonymous

Hands up, all those who think Kip Hawley looks like a bomb?
-Eric Grant
Anonymous

While I can somewhat understand the idea of a “perceived threat,” that is something that other passengers might see and assume is a bomb, I can’t help but think that if the TSA were actually an organization that the public trusted, then said public would make the assumption that if it were a bomb it would have been confiscated.
But since no one in their right mind trusts the TSA these days, I can understand people on a flight seeing this device and thinking that maybe the TSA “security” might have missed something. The TSA’s disgraceful reputation is a much bigger enemy to them than any terrorist.
chroma

I’ve flown with an entire carry-on bag stuffed with similar batteries before and during the TSA regime (not in the last 2 years though). It is a great way to get around the checked bag weight limitations if you’re flying with a robot for a fighting robot competition.

I guess I’ll have to figure out something new.
veffekt

Go team! We are all winners in the special olympics of security theater.
Anonymous

I would not be surprised if the TSA used clips of CSI Miami and Law and Order for training materials. This does not discredit those shows but when a CSI calls a video card bomb making materials it it would follow that the TSA would concur.
Andrew W

@46 – you’re actually making the argument that its perfectly acceptable for people to be panicky idiots, and jump at their own shadows. And for pointless “security measures” to be put into place so people don’t go headfirst into mass hysteria.

Why not make the argument that Cory and Bruce and other, very smart people, have made: stop being so freaking afraid of everything, and start understanding what the real risks are. You and I and the majority of the world have a vanishingly small likelihood of being the victim of terrorist activity. We have a near 100% likelihood of being greatly inconvenienced by some stupid, pointless rule should we try to fly. Because of these security measures intended to make us all feel better, people miss major life events, suffer financial burdens, are detained for no reason, and innocent people are shipped off Syria to be tortured.

This isn’t about if you can fall asleep on a flight because that hipster you’re so afraid of didn’t have his jumper properly searched. This is symptomatic of a much larger problem that is having a far-reaching impact.
Justavoice

Judging by the picture one can only assume the TSA has an illustrated stick figure book and a bunch of Looney Toons cartoons they use to help train their incompetent employees…
dfletcher

It’s totally true. I made a silly messaging machine to leave messages around the house for my lovely wife.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8L2gHWCx2A

I wanted to take it home to Chicago to show it off to my family, but I thought about this – the TSA would certainly have confiscated it.

I don’t think it looks like a bomb, but you can’t underestimate the stupidity of these people.
Andrew W

Wow, holy crap! I don’t know if this just got posted, or I’ve been looking at a cached version, but there’s a note on the posted article on the TSA site.

I’m going to repost it here, since I don’t think many will revisit the site. Its not a full-on mea culpa — they’re still claiming they were on the right track since batteries are scary, and they’re claiming people said they doctored and not arranged the wires — but its the closest thing that site’s shown to sanity in a while.

—

Editor’s Note:

My name is Ellen Howe and I am responsible for the content of this website. We obviously had a lapse of judgement on this story and you folks in the blogosphere have done a good job of keeping us honest. The points made by Gizmodo, Boing Boing, and Bruce Schneier were compelling.

First, the headline is misleading, we totally over-hyped it.

A suspicious-looking item is not the burden of proof for surrender of said item. This looks much more like the Wylie Coyote bomb of yesteryear. In this case, the item was easy to spot but not harmful. TSA finds far more interesting items through improvised explosive device (IED) drills every day.

To be clear, we did not doctor the photo. The wire was not attached to the bottle, but was resting underneath it as the passenger placed it in the bin.

There is credibility to looking at batteries as they are commonly improvised by terrorists: click here.

- Ellen Howe
Anonymous

Wouldn’t it be easier for the TSA to ban stupid panicky people instead?
Anonymous

*minor spoilers*

Now that “The Dark Knight” has been released, will the TSA update its ever-expanding possible bombs list to include fat, bearded guys?
jmath

this has a familiar ring to it, even from pre-911 times. I was traveling with a collapsable taiji sword (read plastic handle and flimsy metal collapsing blade) in my carry on luggage. The reason I was given for having to check it was: “some people on the flight might think it was a real sword.”
BillyShears

Even prior to 9/11, it took a special brand of “Doesn’t get out much” to think a homemade battery would pass through an airport security checkpoint.

Water bottles of varying degrees of transparency and size are still the biggest joke. They’ve come to illustrate – along with random shoe checks – the completely random, reactionary, after-the-fact, plug-the-hole-in-the-dam-with-your-finger mindset that is the TSA.

The agency needs a top-down overhaul, it’s just so much complete, concentrated fail.
Antinous

In other explosive news:

Counter-terrorism police in France are searching for 28 kg (~61 lbs) of the plastic explosive Semtex and detonators that have gone missing.

French police search for missing explosives
SpeedRacer

Hey. This works. I consider small children a threat. This means I can get the TSA to kick all the children off the plane when I fly.

Sweet!
dainel

“We must treat every suspicious item the same and utilize the tools we have available to make a final determination,” said Federal Security Director David Wynn. “Procedures are in place for a reason and this is a clear indication our workforce is doing a great job.”

But after they have made the determination that the device was not actually dangerous, they do not say “sorry, our mistake”, but nevertheless still confiscate the non-dangerous object. One problem here is that the TSA rates it’s own effectiveness by the total number of objects confiscated (whether dangerous or not). A more accurate measure would be to give them points for every dangerous objects confiscated, but take away points for objects confiscated unnecessarily.

“It’s not just bombs that are prohibited; it’s things that look like bombs. This looks enough like a bomb to fool the other passengers, and that in itself is a threat.”

If it were actually Kip Hawley saying that, that should be front page news. He would be admitting that the TSA’s job is not to actually prevent terrorist attacks, but merely to appear to do so to the public. But it’s not, it’s only Bruce Schneier saying he imagine Kip Hawley may say that.
mdhatter

Phikus, your tin-foil hat and my tin-foil hat should get together.

Did you know the 757 was the first commercial plane that could be flown remotely, by cutting the pilots out of the loop, from the ground? Supposedly it’s in case the pilots lose consciousness so the plane can be landed. I had the first generation Boeing 757/767 manuals from the late 80′s at one point.

But hey, that’s crazy talk, and thoroughly beyond my ability to prove or prevent. So shhhhhh.
Phikus

SAME@5: Do you think that people who really want to sneak bomb components onto a plane successfully would be so obvious as to have these components look anything like Hollywood make-shift bomb components (even independently)? Do you really think they couldn’t get away with it if they wanted? All independent testing has shown that, for all their undue and ignorant pre-emptive paranoia, people can still sneak weapons, including box-cutters, onto planes. Here is but one example, post 2001:
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4176/is_20031019/ai_n14565273

BILLYSHEARS@16: You nailed it. I could get by with a little help from folks like you… =D
drblack

A real terrorist could infect themselves with something deadly and get on a plane or put a bomb into their body.
These two are obvious and I won’t give any other ideas.
The entire “war on terror” is as much of a failure as the ‘War on Some drugs” Both of these “wars” actually make the problems much worse,make us less safe and less Free.
They both increase the power of the governmnet over the individual and make lots of money for some nasty people.
vonmises

Oh I’m sure if the TSA just received more of your money, they could improve hiring and training. It’s for your own good, citizen.