The motivation behind the liquid limits is that there are extremely powerful explosives that are stable water-like liquids. Average people have never heard of them because they aren’t in popular lore. There has never been an industrial or military use, solids are simpler. Nonetheless, these explosives are easily accessible to a knowledgeable chemist like me.

These explosives can be detected via infrared spectroscopy but that isn’t going to be happening to liquids in your bag. This reminds me of the chemical swipes done on your bags to detect explosives. Those swipes can only detect a narrow set of explosive chemistries and everyone knows it. Some explosives notoriously popular with terror organizations can’t be detected. Everyone, including the bad guys, knows all of this.

It would be great if governments were more explicit about precisely what all of this theater is intended to prevent.

The big thing going from X-ray (2d) to CT (spin an X-ray machine around and take a ton of pictures to recreate a 3d image) did a lot to let security people see inside of a bag, but the hitch is that if you see a blob of gray is that water, shampoo or something else?

The recent advance that is letting this happen is machines who will send multiple wavelengths of X-ray through the material: since different materials absorb light differently, your machine can distinguish between materials, which lets you be more sure that that 2litre is (mostly) water, and then they can discriminate

For added context: Only one flight by a commercial airline a week on Saturday, comes in around 1300, departs around 1500. You miss it, you wait another week.

- The terminal is extremely small, the plane that comes around can probably fit around 180 pax, you could not fit that many people on the check-in lounge, which means a lot of times people have to queue outside, even in the winter.

- Check in is sluggish, with the Airline representatives in the Falklands calling for check in 4 hours in advance when a flight is full.

- After getting your ticket, security will check your bags and you will be asked to wait an undetermined amount of time, to see if a "random" check need to take place, again, the terminal is tiny, people often crowds waiting forever for their name the be shouted by some security person.

- If you manage to get passed this part, you are still not safe, security can still call your name when passing through or after immigration. Even if you are already in the wait lounge. Someone might still show up and shout your name.

- Immigration will scan your passport and charge you £40 for leaving the country.

- Now you are actually commit to the security checkpoint (these are the same guys that scan the bags on check-in). At any given time there is at least 10 in a 5m2 area. You are forced to take your shoes, no liquids are allowed, no toothpaste, take all electronics out of your bag, take jacket off.

- You are randomly tested for drug and explosive traces (GOING OFF THE FALKLAND ISLANDS)

- You may be patted

- All your belongings might be checked at this point as well.

All in all, you could be looking at a 2-hour ordeal from start to finish.

Do yourself a favor. Go to Maldives instead.

So - you couldn’t take large amounts of liquids previously because some liquids in large amounts might be able to be weaponized. If you were caught with too much liquid (in sum total, or in containers that are too large) they’d throw it out and send you on your way.

But now that they have the ability to detect larger containers, they… do what? Declare that it’s safe and send you on your way with it still in your possession?

She was absolutely shocked to find that liquid container limits were enforced in northern Europe. She would just put her makeup bag with cleansers and gels and everything in her carry-on and travel the world.

Anyway, signage required us to empty our refillable water bottles. Odd. Thankfully we eventually found a refill station.

The scanners flagged a still sealed can of ginger ale left over from our incoming flight. It was "fine" but she still swabbed it. Shrug.

But that is just one argument. My real anger at airport screening is that we have found it possible to fund and implement this level of screening, at massive monetary, human and privacy cost, but I can't go to my doctor and for a few pennies (sorry, those don't exist now, how about for a few nickles?) get a body scan that does all the 3d segmentation, recognition, etc etc etc. We could actually save lives if we put effort into this technology for people instead of for a sense of security. But we probably won't. Because fear gets money but solving real problems that actually impact people doesn't.

[1] https://danemcfarlane.com/how-steve-jobs-turned-boot-time-in...

https://www.tsa.gov/travel/security-screening/whatcanibring/...

- despite their famous use as at-scale, remotely controlled explosives devices back in 2024 -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2024_Lebanon_electronic_device...

> - fewer stoppages caused by liquids mistakes

> - fewer tray-handling steps per passenger

> - less variability at peak banks (which is where hubs like LHR get punished)

Didn't know ChatGPT has started to call itself "John Cushma".

I wonder if they'll walk this back? If you put a 2L water bottle in the overhead compartment and hit enough turbulence, it could open and drench the entire compartment and other people's luggage.

https://www.lanl.gov/media/publications/1663/1224-fighting-f...

I had the luck of traveling by plane quite a bit before 2001 and I can tell you it was much more pleasurable. Now, the issues now-a-days are not only due to the security circus, it's true. But it does play a major role.

...what? These already vary in the same airport literally by adjacent lanes...

This used to get people doing EU -> London flights. The EU rules had already been relaxed, but you got bitten by the extra restrictions when you went to fly back.

Like most things, flying is a complete shitshow, but do it often enough and you get used to it and all of the foibles.

Regularly flying hand luggage only is a grind as you're at the mercy of the lowest common denominator in terms of rules on what you can carry. When I had to visit a string of customers with one or two flights a day I had to submit expense claims with various toiletries purchased several times over, it was questioned by the finance department and they asked about whether I should check in a bag next time, but they stopped pushing when I said that adding a checked bag to my tickets would have been about 10 times more expensive than just buying things as and when I needed them.

Hugely wasteful but then so is flying, and most of my trips could have been replaced with a video call if it wasn't for touchy-feely corporate politics.

Water: I use a generic cycling bidon for travel. I empty it before security and they're happy with that. Any sane airport will have places to refill it for free, if they don't I can just buy a bottle of water and refill it. No airport I've traveled through has wanted to confiscate an empty cycling bidon and if they did it's cheap to replace.

1) Bodyscanners: body scanners are a scam 2) They took away my 100ml contain that clearly had less than 1 cm of liquid in it because it wasn't clearly labelled as "100ml". Any idiot could know it was like 10ml full. 3) They used to do actual xray basically on people. 4) You have to re-security to transfer on connections! You already could have blown up the incoming plane, why does this even matter?

I don't go there anymore. Waste of time and all security theatre without common sense.

Yes, after 9/11 airports did introduce 'security theater' methods. That is a fair.

No, worrying about airplane terrorism is not pearl-clutching. The most likely explanation for its decline is that the changes the establishment made were effective.

The establishment successfully dealt with the difficult problem of airplane terrorism, thereby leaving the public free to take it for granted and complain about the establishment.

(PS. Still not going to fly there)

Once the restriction was added, it seemed like "oh no how dare you" but in reality, I'm never carrying enough toothpaste to make this a problem.

Are other people truly struggling with this limitation? Feels more like a perceived issue than a practical one.

I travel a lot - and never take out any liquids. Have nail clippers and scissors in my carry-on.

Once I even had an opinel pocket knife in my laptop bag for a couple of months.

Travelled through Tokyo, Taipei, SFO, DEN, PHX, LAX, BOS, JFK, FRA, AMS, MUC, LHR - nobody noticed.

I seriously had forgotten it was there, so I don't do that now, but still...

Also, no large water bottles or similar. Unless on domestic flights in Japan, where this is totally fine.

IDK - security theater. But if it helps.

Now - I don't think I was ever affected by it in any way, shape or form, though I also rarely use(d) the plane. But to me it seemed more as if it was an attempt to meta-engineer the opinion of people, e. g. to make them fearful of danger xyz. When I look at the current US administration and how the ICE deathsquads operate (two US citizens shot dead already), with that administration instantly defending them without even any trial, then this also seems more a propaganda operation - that one being more reminiscent of the 1930s supposedly, but we had this wave of propaganda before (e. g. both Bush presidents; Noriega capture is somewhat similar to Maduro, though the latter situation seems more as if the other officials in Venezuela purposefully gave him up - watch how the sanctions will be removed in a short while).