Flying With Fruit Now a Terror Hazard

Sounds like an SNL skit. Isn't.

At Dulles International Airport near Washington today, one traveler reported that screeners were also making passengers remove all food items from their carry-on baggage for inspection, and one passenger was told to peel her banana.

Comments

[Dave]

I gotta defend the TSA here. Plastic explosives can be disguised to look like anything. A banana or orange sized block with a skin glued to it could probably bring down an airliner if detonated in the overhead or in a window seat. Better to be aggravated than dead. If I were running screening I would be pretty damn hardnosed about what's allowed and what's not. Some of their policies are so stupid it makes you wonder who makes the rules but this one makes sense.

[Martin Owens]

This passive approach is doomed in the end.

A human being all by himself can constitute a weapon. If a jihadi campaign can find kids who don't mind blowing themselves to bloody chunks, then sooner or later they'll hit on one who doesn't mind riding on a plane while infected with- you name it.

I'm not saying that to scare anyone, just to point out that we cannot make ourselves safe by taking legitimate liberites and comforts away from innocent people, because there is no limit to what our enemies will do, and no end to their patience. They see themselves as involved in a struggle of millennia, with eternity for the prize. They can- and do- wait us out for the chance to strike again.

There is no such thing as changing their minds by making them more prosperous. ( the price of oil has never been higher). There is only one thing left. We have to wipe them out, or they will wipe us out. We should do it now, while we have the upper hand.

[K. Dale Boley]

Martin, again you offer clarity in a muddy situation. I'll even take your idea farther and say that increased security on planes is exactly why they are so vulnerable. Let's say for the sake of argument that we make everyone walk onto planes in nothing but their undies. Would we then be safe? No. We would not be. Just put 3-5 avergage men with no fear of death and bent on dealing death to others and there is nothing that could be done. A man can kill with bare hands if he is determined to do it.
Look at it another way also, try walking with 5 friends into a bowling alley and taking over the place with box cutter knives. It will not work because someone will have a bigger weapon. But on a plane the passengers are all disarmed and the bad guys know this.

[K. Dale Boley]

More... After re-reading your comment Dave another thing occured to me. "Plastic explosives can be disguised to look like anything" Let's think about this. Does that mean that nothing could be brought onto a plane? Prisoners sneak drugs in their asses into prison. The most tightly controlled environment on Earth cannot be kept free from contraband.

[Vache Folle]

I would shout "Allahu Akbar" as I peeled my banana.

Martin above suggests "wiping them out" but it is unclear whom "they" are in his estimation.

[Dave]

We'll never be able to make it 100 percent safe but we can make'em work a little harder. I am not in favor of removing anyone's liberties at all but we're talking about a little inconvienence here. I don't think we have any constitutional right to carry whatever we deem appropriate on an airplane that is carrying other people--they have rights to.

If the airlines offered twin flights from LA to New York where one was wide open and the other one forced security I'll take the security flight. I'm as libertarian as the next guy but don't believe my rights are violated because I agree to submit to a search of my person or carry on baggage to board a plane that's carring a lot of other people as well. If I had anything to hide I would either be using another mode of transportation or ship my stuff some other way.

My main complaint with the TSA is that they are poorly trained and so poorly paid that they attract the sort of person that needs a little power trip to feel good about themselves. The idea is sound I think but our implemtation leaves a lot to be desired.