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London, The War on Shampoo, and Perhaps the Return of Sanity |
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Thursday, 09 November 2006 |
I traveled to London last week and I'm glad to report the war on shampoo is alive and well (general photos here , baby photos here). Bruce Schneier has a good explanation of what an absurd over reaction the liquid ban is. Rather than repeat many of the same criticisms I thought I'd share a little first hand experience about how the ban works in practice.
First, it was clear that people who have not yet traveled under the new rules are confused and unprepared. One woman told me she forfeited $150 worth of cosmetics because the bottles were larger than the 3 ounce limit. The TSA launched a 3-1-1 advertising campaign to educate travelers about the program. Every traveler can carry a single one quart zip lock bag containing three ounce or smaller containers of liquids.
Second, the system results in a ridiculous number of false positives. Every security checkpoint now has a table filled with half empty water bottles and a ready supply of quart size zip lock bags (I wish I had taken a picture of one of these tables). Each time a bottle of water is confiscated or a bag is searched to find the hair gel someone forgot to put in a zip lock bag the system fails. The system makes travelers safer only when legitimate threats are stopped.
Finally, the system just does not work. Out of four check points on the trip at least twice we later found liquids in our carry ons that were not in the zip lock bag that the screeners missed (a bottle of hand sanitizer once, and a container of baby food).
On a more encouraging note, we returned on Tuesday night to encouraging election results. It's not clear to me the Democrats have a better strategy or even if they did would be able to act upon it, but at the very least we can hope for gridlock. Inaction beats continued bungling.
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Last Updated ( Thursday, 09 November 2006 )
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