> The liquid bomb threat really is the thing that conspiracy theorists would love: it's a totally made up possible threat by the Big State that hasn't been seen in the wild

Incorrect. Betwee 2006 and 2010, seven people were convicted in the uk for conspiring to attack passenger airplanes with liquid explosives (acetone peroxide according to wikipedia).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2006_transatlantic_aircraft_pl...

Still not "in the wild"; they were arrested in the planning stages, and there is no evidence that at any point they successfully produced TATP let alone getting any of their components through security or whether it would have worked on a plane.

That was one group, thirteen years ago, and since then everyone is limited to 100ml? Forever?

Anyway, you’re allowed 10 times 100mL, in separate containers. You can easily blow up an airplane with a liter of the right liquid…

> You can easily blow up an airplane with a liter of the right liquid

Yeah... The thing is that you can't. Not easily.

You can't do much with a liter of some liquid that won't happen by chance on the way to the airport. And you can't change the liquid a lot while on the plane. You can barely fit seated there.

My understanding is that there is some form of reasoning behind the 100mL limitation. Sufficiently easy to procure liquids can blow up a plan when they are in a container bigger than 100mL (300mL, 1L, I don’t know what the findings were).

Now, what I do know is that pouring liquids together in a largers plastic bag is very easy, you can do that inside a backpack. I had to do this multiple times due to leaky milk bottles, leaky shampoo bottles, etc. The plastic bag simply has to be strong enough to stay in form while filling up.

Hence my point that this 100mL limitation is useless (from a volume limitation point of view), and I assume (not an expert on explosives) that if there was a limitation at 100mL, there must be something dangerous enough above this volume. Hence the overall regulation is useless.

Hope it clarifies my reasoning.

Where does the popular idea that you can simply mix things into explosives come from?

You can't make a strong explosive in a portable plastic bag. If you get the chemistry right, you will just burn yourself and maybe your neighbor. You won't even lose fingers, that requires better conditions. AFAIK, that's exactly what happened to the original liquid bomber, that was caught after he burned himself mixing things on the bathroom. In much more stable conditions than a bag, but still not nearly stable enough.

The guy that tried to carry solid explosives on his underwear was also caught only after he burned himself, because that's also not a practical way to carry them. As did the guy that tried to carry them on his shoes.

There are some very robust reasons why all those plots are doomed to failure, but those are the ones the US focus on (and basically impose on the rest of the world), while there are many perfectly viable vulnerabilities to exploit that nobody wants to close because they would impose more restrictions on the passengers. And that nobody is exploiting because it requires knowing what to do, and people that know what to do aren't normally prone to killing random strangers.

Are you saying that even with 1L it’s not possible?

Well, then the rule is even more stupid than I thought =)

The phase of matter doesn't strike me as an appropriate level of granularity.

“We can't breathe in business class. Somebody's got mace or something.”

“Nobody knows who stabbed who, and we can't even get up to business class right now 'cause nobody can breathe.” - Betty Ong, Flight 11

Not necessarily explosive, but tactical chemical attacks have been a known capability for a while, and part of anti-terrorist training long before 2001. Something truly sophisticated from a superpower state would likely escape detection, (and therefore likely implicate such a state,) but the Tokyo Sarin attack by a cult in 1995 involved big bags of liquid.

>"We can't breathe in business class. Somebody's got mace or something.”

100ml of mace would be enough though, right? So why the limit?

Also why is liquid a special category? That doesn't make sense either.

I once lost a 3/4 full normal-size tube of toothpaste because of one of these limits.

Made me wonder how paste-like something has to not count as a liquid to them. Playdough?

How closely do they look at deodorant? Some stick-form ones are more liquid than toothpaste is.

Thanks to the TSA holding the power, at the very least in the "Well if you have a dispute with my ruling just step to the side and I'll get my manager, hope they wander over before your flight leaves..." way, I have in fact had TSA agents take away my stick deodorant before.

I had never really thought of that, but the ability to make you miss a flight is an amazingly strong coercive power relative to the stakes.

The x-ray scanners usually have bold signs on them instructing you how to opt out. But if you do, they act as slowly as possible to ensure you never do it again.

I opt out every time - I've never used the scanners - and the delay has never been long enough to make me miss a flight.

There are non-liquid chemical attacks that could be facilitated from something like anthrax to powdered pepper spray. Disallowing liquids does nothing to stop those

they can harass you for non-liquids too. I honestly don't even know anymore I've had so many random things confiscated. My favorite was a wine bottle opener which got me into trouble after many years of flying in my bag... in France facepalm