Tuesday, March 3, 2009

You can't fly with nail clippers

Chef's knives are OK, though.

SIR – As an airline captain I am also searched, along with my crew, prior to boarding our aircraft (Letters, February 16).

On one occasion, on an international flight, my nail clippers were confiscated – I assume security considered I might hijack myself with them. Prior to departure, the handling agent presented our pre-flight paperwork, together with a set of chef’s knives removed from a passenger. They were given to me for safe- keeping during the flight.

I stowed them next to the flight-deck crash axe.

OK, let's count the idiocies (viewers at home can play along, too!):
  1. Let's say that an Airline Captain wanted to do A Really Bad Thing with the airplane: crash it into a skyscraper, for instance. If this were to happen, I'm sure that everyone would be greatly relieved that the Government had taken away his nail clippers. Otherwise, it might have gotten ugly.
  2. As the current Gun Nail Clipper Control Laws are filled with loopholes, we clearly need urgent action. Maybe an Assault Clipper Ban. Or something. I mean, someone might hijack a plane or something.
  3. A mindless focus on the trivial, to the exclusion of the non-trivial means that the likelihood of a successful attack increases. Security resources are finite, and chasing this sort of thing take those resources away from more serious threats.
  4. The steady drip-drip-drip of an idiotic, intrusive government policy numbs the general public, making them less inclined meaningfully to participate in their own security. This participation is almost certainly not desired by the government, but acts to reduce the overall level of security in general.
Security guru Bruce Schneier has a good point about airline security post 9/11: the only things that have made a difference are reinforced cockpit doors, and the understanding that passengers have that they may have to fight to live. Everything else is theater. In this case, farce.

Hat tip: Stupid Security.

Update 10 March 2009 12:57: I'm not sure who linked to this (referral log says "Unknown"), but welcome! Take a look around - there's a bunch of Security Kabuki snark where this came from. And if someone would leave a comment saying who's linked here, I've be very much obliged.

UPDATE 10 March 2009 13:25: Welcome Register readers. And thanks to DaveC for the pointer. Seems comments at El Reg don't leave a referrer log.

7 comments:

  1. ASM826March 3, 2009 at 2:41 PM

    Ted,

    I don't fly if I don't have to. I hate being treated like a criminal, I hate being disarmed, and I hate paying for the TSA. But occasionally, I have to fly for work.

    I have a large titanium rod in my right leg. I have been through metal detectors in airports large and small, and once at a prison. It does not set them off. So, what sort of bladed weapon can you make from titanium?

    Here's one: http://www.divebooty.com/item/8813/evo-titanium_bc_knife.html

    But even if you take the gun, the knife, and the nail clippers, the thing that sent me back to martial arts classes, was the idea that you have to fight back. Immediately. The lesson of Flight 93 is you can't take the plane back, you have to stop them from taking it in the first place.

    I am the weapon. I can be killed. I will not surrender.

    ReplyDelete
  2. mdmnmMarch 4, 2009 at 1:11 PM

    My sister was a flight attendant both before and after 9/11/01 and recalls a pilot who was stopped for his Leatherman (which many carried, as the FAA required them to have certain basic tools on hand and the Leatherman tool combined several in a handy package) and told he couldn't carry it on because someone might use it to get into the controls. You can imagine how impressed he was.

    In this story, I'm more impressed that they accommodated a passenger's chef's knives.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TOTWTYTRMarch 4, 2009 at 9:17 PM

    "Security Theater" as Schneier calls it. You are right, a mindless focus on the trivial.

    Common sense is absolutely not allowed at the TSA.

    Too Stupid for Arbys.

    ReplyDelete
  4. DaveCMarch 10, 2009 at 1:20 PM

    This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  5. DaveCMarch 10, 2009 at 1:23 PM

    I am guessing that this is bringing some extra viewers: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/10/hand_luggage_banned_list/comments/

    The reference to this site is in a comment halfway down the page

    ReplyDelete
  6. PeautersMarch 10, 2009 at 2:30 PM

    As the address in the comment isn't a link, most people will have done what I did and opened a new tab/window and pasted in the address, hence no referer.

    ReplyDelete
  7. AnonymousMay 26, 2009 at 6:33 AM

    Love this post and it's 'dangerous' common sense.

    I'm just a schmo passenger but am always amused by the fact that after dangerous articles (like nail clippers) have been taken from me I can go buy a few large glass bottles from duty free, which can of course make excellent improvised weapons without too much thought/effort.

    Also this shoe scanning thing, they'll scan a woman’s high-heeled boot in-case there's a knife in there, when there is in fact a 4inch heel with a tiny diameter fixed right onto the bloody thing! As an added clue to the clueless, the heels are even named after an Italian dagger.

    At least they're not as dangerous as nail clippers.

    Also anyone remember the family who had to remove the plastic gun and handgrenades from a GI Joe toy at airport security. . .!

    ReplyDelete

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