Took two flights this last week and was made to take my shoes off for both.

I opt out if the millimetre wave scanner though, so they basically just make it an additional thing for not toeing the line.

Upvoted for touching dick story

We are not the same

Years ago, my now deceased grandfather and uncle were flying together. My grandfather had a full ass pair of scissors in his fanny pack, because he was a practical man and having scissors on your person at all times is useful.

My uncle scanned the row of x-ray machines, and picked the line with the TSA agent that was inspecting booties closer than the x-ray screen.

My grandpa successfully made the trip with his scissors.

In Düsseldorf, after the full body scan and scan of my bags, I still had to take of my shoes, put them in a box, they scanned said box with shoes and after as I was putting on my shoes, using the metal seat to lift my feet, they complained about that because people sit there. Which is a fair point, but holy shit was I pissed off at the time. I hate that airport.

You can bring scissors on a plane.

Grooming scissors, sure. Full size scissors? Not a chance.

This is proof that rare dramatic instances are indeed, rare. And people have become hypervigilant.

Yes, full size scissors. Their website says up to 4 inches.

[insert Crocodile Dundee quote about a knife]

I definitely have scissors larger than 4"

In Poland i could just walk through a scanner without stopping and that was enough

Annoying part about the kabuki theatre that is TSA is that they are inconsistent airport to airport. Shoes gotta come off, shoes can stay on. Laptop by itself in a bin, or with other things in a bin. Other electronics (e-reader, battery pack, etc.) in a bin, or in your carry on. But if you make the wrong choice they will let you know… loudly.

Almost like security isn't the point...

Inconsistent within the same airport.

One time the line split into two, with announcers for each line shouting different instructions. One had you take all electronics out of bags, the other didn't. One lines instructions included taking your shoes off, the other didn't. The line without shoes off instruction had agents insulting people for taking their shoes off for not listening to instructions. 10M away there is an agent shouting at people to take your shoes off.

That reminds me of when the Los Angeles Clippers (an NBA team, originally from San Diego, named after the famous clipper ships) had a mascot named "Scissors". Very popular mascot up until they started using him to promote exercise programs for children, including the now-infamous "Run With Scissors".

Casual reminder: Materials such as magnesium or PETN are perfect for smuggling through airport security. Reason being, they only show up as an anorganic material in the x-ray thanks to their density. They lack any sort of smell that dogs could detect as well. Israel and Russia have used both of these successfully for terrorist attacks in the past, all of the explosives have been smuggled successfully through the security theater. Israel sent pagers with 2g of PETN in the batteries to Hezbollah and Russia wanted to get a magnesium explosive onto an DHL aeroplane to make it detonate during flight.

In both of these cases, the airport "security" did absolutely nothing to stop this. Better empty your bags everyone, because you are the security risk. Once you start allowing this type of nonsense, it will stick around forever.

Edit: I should mention, while the explosives for the Russian terrorist attack successfully got through airport security, because of a delay in loading the aeroplane, it never got on it and instead detonated in the container on the ground, luckily.

And also, if someone wants to come at me with some safety-security nonsense, this is all public knowledge. This has happened factually.

And if it’s busy and you’re in hurry say goodbye to your small electronics in the bin

TSA is moving away from ion mobility detection to mass spec detection. Mass specs are great at detecting it.

I had an online disagreement in the TSA subreddit about how moronic taking shoes off was. Those fascist pawns believe that shoe bomber reaction for years was justifiable.

I'm doubtful that this would solve anything, because for example in the case of Israel, the explosives went through multiple independent security theatres, and the PETN still successfully arrived at the victims. Like, if it happens once, okay, maybe it's a fluke, but if it happens multiple times throughout the supply chain and every single time it's A-okay, that's a problem. Israel heavily relied on regular commercial transport for their bombs. There were countless instances where they could have been stopped, but they weren't. And that is a worrying signal.

And even if all explosives would be detected with perfect accuracy, from now on, it still would be vulnerable to other points of attack. Just pay off a throwaway goon squad, let them smuggle ceramic weapons in their trousers into an aeroplane, and there you go. And I do believe Mossad and the FSB can come up with better ideas than that. IMO, there needs to be a more effective alternative, than this security theater nonsense.

Edit: And the reason why I'm against it is not only because it has been disproven so many times that it's impossible to enumerate. It's also the principle of "guilty until proven innocent", that is slowly but surely infesting our society.

they are inconsistent airport to airport

Forget TSA, international travel with my baby for the first time, anxiety problems, little time between connections, laptop and pram fucking freaked me the fuck out.