Last week it was Don’t try nuclear energy experiments at home. This week it’s Altoid tins with dangerous electronics and alligator clips.
From Oregon Live: Science project closes Omaha airport terminal
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An Oregon college student’s science project forced the evacuation and shutdown of a terminal at Eppley Airfield in Omaha on Wednesday. The student had been participating in a science fair at Creighton University in Omaha, FBI spokeswoman Sandra Breault said.
“The device had a legitimate purpose and was harmless but had a suspicious appearance, which triggered an appropriate response by TSA and law enforcement,” Breault said.
…
So what was in it? An entry in the AAPT (American Association of Physics Tecahers) apparatus competition. Have a look at the gadget as reported in the TSA blog:
Weird Science: Traveling With Homemade Gadgets
Device Found At Omaha Checkpoint
You may have heard in the news recently about how a college student unintentionally closed down a TSA checkpoint with his science project. He had shipped it to Omaha, but decided to travel with it on his departure. Let’s be clear, it was completely innocent. He had no way of knowing his improvised mint tin would look like an improvised explosive device (IED) on our X-ray monitor. Most people wouldn’t realize it and the purpose of this post is to inform folks that homemade gadgets (however cool they may be) can look like improvised explosive devices to our officers on the X-ray monitors. You may remember a blog post from Nico about homemade gadgets from back in 2009. The devices we’re looking for don’t look like the Wile E. Coyote Acme bomb, they are smaller these days and much harder to find.
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I can understand a metal box with battery and wires, etc, looking suspicious, but THAT IS QUITE DIFFERENT FROM BOOBS AND JUNK, so far as I know!
And these are the people meant to be protecting us!
The TSA’s training video is an episode of the A-team where they dismantle a bomb that looks just like that! If they were in any way competent they would just 1) Ask the guy about it 2) Get a dog to sniff it and 3) put it through a scanner. Take five minutes. But noo, this is the TSA. They have to flex their power just for the sake of it in ways that are totally useless for actually fighting terror.
One more reason to decentralise transport security, get rid of the TSA, and let firms compete on the basis of competence. Competition will outperform government run monopolies every time.
What is it?
Don’t wrap your alarm clock cord around several sticks of Sculpey, either.
Note to TSA:
Look for the explosive, not the electronics.
Also try talking to the kid before panicking.
Thanks
JK
So get the monkey on the X-ray machine to call someone with two functioning neurones to take the passenger aside, get the device out, look at it, see it’s OK and resume activities.
Like all airport “security” it has far more to do with establishing the dominance of “The Authorities” over the peons than actually preventing an outrage. I suspect the UK government is about to learn the lesson about p*ssing-off the ordinary people.
Improvised CFL lamp…
I’m sorry, I think the TSA response was is appropriate. After seening the picture above I personally would have gone ballistic knowing it was travelling on a plane with me until I had examined it in detail. If this sort of “innocent” activity is permitted others will take advantage.
It’d be nice to know just what this gadget is supposed to do (apart from giving our Heimatsicherheitsdienst clowns cause to fibrillate and freak out).
Should of stuffed it down his under pants.
I give the TSA a pass and a star for this one.
As much as I resent the theatrical but ineffectual shows of airport security that regularly inconvenience me for no actual benefit, that is one suspicious-looking object that deserved to set off the alarms. If something like that didn’t cause the building to be evacuated you’d have to wonder what it would take. The only story here is a non-story: college students can be really stupid. Well, duh?!
New terrorist approach: cause massive flight delays with your homemade wire knots.
That’s great… did not one of the reporters covering this bother to ask what the device actually is?
Simple question, what is it?
I hate travelling by plane because of the often OTT offensive and illogical security but even I would have hit the panic button on seeing that!
I’m reminded of the local amateur radio club meetings I used to attend many years ago. One evening a regular (who specialised in low power QRP working) turned up with a complete station in his jacket pockets. Two tobacco tins housed the transmitter & matching unit, some wire, a Morse key and 9 volt dry battery completed the setup. Within a few minutes he had “loaded up” the heating system and was working several contacts on 80 metres. I wonder how he would get on trying to travel anywhere these days….
I visited Australia twice in the 80’s and, since shortwave listening was part of the reason, I carried a Sony portable along with a small cassette recorder and selection of batteries, power supply, charger and a few basic tools. Amazingly I was never stopped or questioned once!
Years ago I traveled with chunks of lead chloride (100% radio-opaque) in my carry-on. I used to design batteries…green batteries too BTW. I always got pulled aside and interrogated. I suppose nowadays it is much worse.
Now I travel with custom medical devices with lotza of electronics and batteries and pistol shapes. Heck I get searched even when I check my luggage!
The answer is to DRIVE your own car, skype, fed ex. I have other theories of how to prevent terrorism on planes but that is outside the scope of this blog.
BTW… it used to be that I would design systems with Lithium batteries for use on military aircraft. Anything with Lithium batteries would get rejected by pilots for fear that that the battery would short and become a flare.
I remind all of you that every cell phone has a lithium battery pack, which has tremendous energy density.
I had to bring a dozen accelerometers with me to the US (from Australia) for testing a locomotive bogie (truck) in Erie, PA. The accelerometers had magnetic bases so I mounted them on a steel rule; each the approximate size and shape of a very large bullet – or perhaps a 20 mm cannon shell – all lined up on the steel rule in a neat row and packed away in the check through bag. I could imagine what it looked like in the X-ray image.
When the bag came out of the shute in LAX I noticed it had a plain, light blue tag attached to the handle. A nice friendly, innocent light blue. Not orange. Not red. I looked around; none of the other bags had a light blue tag. So I bent down, discreetly took it off and put it in my pocket.,, and sailed through the customs check unmolested.
What’s wrong with kids these days? They should know that bringing an alligator on an airplane is just asking for trouble.
__________
OTOH, shouldn’t the organizers of the AAPT (American Association of Physics Tecahers [sic]) apparatus competition include a notice to entrants that reads something like “Don’t even think of getting your apparatus past airport security!”
Well isn’t that just precious.
“The device had a legitimate purpose and was harmless but had a suspicious appearance, which triggered an appropriate response by TSA and law enforcement,” Breault said.
Hmm, shouldn’t that have been, “… which triggered the usual inappropriate response by TSA and law enforcement”?
Huh? It’s common sense to any but the most clueless to think it would look suspicious. If TSA is making you throw away water bottles and containers of shampoo before boarding a plane, isn’t it obvious they would baulk at a metal tin with wires and a battery?
Sooooo…. what does it actually do, aside from terrifying TSA agents?
GPlant