It’s a placebo. And just as effective. ascrenray, coffee cat, and Little Nemo:
My complaint is that the incredibly expensive security that has been added isn’t effective. And because of the nature of security theatres, it can’t be both effective and painless. And the public seems to expect it to be painless.
Given all that, why waste the money?
But, by the same token, I simply don’t have sympathy for anyone who hasn’t bothered to read what TSA is allowed to do. Or what they claim should be causing false positives.
ETA: to address iamthewalrus:(3=, I agree it’s an asinine standard. Keys can be deadly weapons, too. And let’s not talk about the effectiveness of garrotes, or wire saws, as weapons, either.
Perfect security is a chimera. Let’s stop wasting time chasing it.
Once it is written, there can be no objection? What sense does that make? People are more likely to object to inappropriate grants of authority once they directly experience application of such authority. But you’re saying that at that point they have no reasonable right to object?
If I publish that I’m going to punch anyone in the nose, if I catch them wearing an “I’m with Stupid” t-shirt, why can’t I think that you’re an idiot if you only get upset with the policy once it affects you?
If they had any support, they wouldn’t be sagging.
But seriously, it’s hard enough finding a comfy underwired bra sometimes. Now I need to find one without just to fly? The last one I tried on wasn’t comfortable and looked like ass.
Because that’s human nature. There’s too much shit in the world going on to pay attention to most stuff unless it affects you directly.
And so what if you think I’m an idiot? That doesn’t mean I’m wrong about your punching policy. I should be allowed to stop you when you try to impose it on me.
I wouldn’t go around without an underwire bra either. But she did have another option, which was a pat-down search in a private room (IME these searches are same-sex):
Personally I think a pat-down is reasonable enough. And it sounds like a far better option than taking my bra off. But, that’s just me.
FWIW, my underwires don’t set of the walk-through detector but they have set off the wand (so do the screws in my arm). I don’t remember what the follow-up was, though.
Kinda puts the whole “no liquids in larger than 3 oz bottles” thing in perspective, doesn’t it?
Of course, this should hardly be surprising. People didn’t want to be safe after 9/11, they wanted to feel safe. Being safe, i.e. recognizing the actual risk of various activities and acting accordingly, well that might have felt inconvenient. Ah, but feeling safe–and you have to understand, by “feeling safe” I actually mean “feeling terrified”, i.e. freaking out at every vaguely swarthy person in a jacket in airport lounges and having terrified nightmares about 4 ounces of shampoo rearing up to kill us all–well, that may be inconvenient. But it feels like security.
So show your papers, citizen! The Committee for State Security has issued new directives for airline passengers! Security is Freedom!
I wear a G cup bra. (I should wear an I cup, but can’t find one in a molded cup style, but I digress.) Each underwire is somewhere around 14 inches long and 1/3" wide, definitely made of metal and there are two, of course (as well as two roughly 4 inch strips of metal on the sides of the bra under the arm, in this particular style bra). I think that if I was sufficiently motivated, I could tear the casing of my bra and rip out each underwire in less than a minute. I’m not real up on weaponry, but I could certainly contrive to poke an eye out with one as is, or tear out my underwires at home and replace them each with 42 inches of actual wire, folded in a trifold manner and unfolded on the airplane to use as a garrote. I could even take them out, sharpen the inner edge to a knife’s sharpness, put it back in the casing, sew it up and later use them as nifty scythe-like throat slitters.
I have never, ever tripped a metal detector with these huge honkin’ underwires, though I’ve flown at least a dozen times wearing this bra design in particular since increased security measures were put into place. Sleep well, America, you’re well and truly safe. :rolleyes:
Last summer–in fact, one year ago Saturday, well, the Saturday of Labor Day Weekend, one year ago–I flew on a flight which got extra screening at the gate. No idea why, I just remember that they wanted to pat down my bag–which held my laptop computer, a book or two, some counted cross stitch supplies, my purse, etc. and also pat down me. Well, probably a lighter level of patting down than the patdown search in a private room mentioned above as a solution to the underwire bra thing. I’m pretty sure that the pat down was not thorough enough to determine whether or not I had on an underwire bra-- I did not, as I think flying with underwires constitutes an unneccessary risk of setting off the metal detectors. At any rate, the pat down of my belongings felt way more invasive than the patdown of my person–which probably tells you something about how thorough each one was.
Unrelated to the above–last time I flew, I took with me a set of 5 very pointy metal sticks. I assure you, each one contains more than enough metal for two underwires. My metal sticks caused no problem whatsoever with the X-ray machine. But on Ravelry, which is dedicated to the knitting and crocheting communities, it is funny reading threads about taking pointy metal sticks or pointy non-metal sticks on planes. Partially because in some countries, one can’t take knitting needles on planes, while in the US, you can. But also just because some people take paranoia to the extreme of trying NOT to look like they are planning to knit, while taking stuff which can be used to knit but doesn’t look like it with them, and other people try to make their stuff look like knitting stuff and therefore harmless.
But there are certainly people who’ve had knitting confiscated, and others who have flown with needles that really should be classified as weapons. (Mine, mentioned above, were sock needles, so they are pointy on both ends, but really quite little).
Oh yeah, I have taken 10 inch bamboo knitting needles on planes, as well as 18 inch stainless steel ones. Never a problem. Even my grandma could kill somebody with one of those, but no, they’re fine as long as I don’t bring more than 3 ounces of moisturizer in my purse… :rolleyes:
But my underwire has never set off a magnetometer, although the minute bit of metal in my hair barrettes used to set off the one at Sky Harbor in Phoenix, every time. And that was years befor 9/11.
