TSA’s Liquid Ban - Too Little, Too Late

I know, I know; the TSA’s ban on (largeish amounts of) liquids on airline flights is so yesterday’s news. But bear with me, here…

Doing some reading, I stumbled across what is, in retrospect, the amazingly obvious reasoning behind the ban on carry-on liquids on airliners in this country - a reason which seems not to get mentioned often in discussions of the “inexplicable” and “arbitrary” ban. The problem is, the “answer” raises more questions than it solves…

It’s all due to a guy named (among others) Ramzi Yousef, and his 1995 Bojinka plot to destroy airliners. Yousef - who built the 1993 World Trade Center bomb - developed the “undetectable” airline bomb, using a wristwatch for a timer. The explosive was two parts - nitrocellulose or “guncotton”, which is basically indistinguishable from regular cotton wool (Yousef used cotton balls), and a dilute formulation of nitroglycerin, which looked just like water. The bombs were quite effective, as the single one that was used demonstrated.

The great thing, so to speak, about Yousef’s bomb was that all it needed as an ignition source was a flame, or even a spark - no suspicious-looking blasting cap or detonator was required.

For a short time, in the wake of the discovery of the Bojinka plot, all liquids of any volume were banned on airlines, though from what I can tell that ban was made by the airlines on the basis of FAA advisories.

Ramzi Yousef is in jail, and today’s airport security screening is a hundred times more vigorous than that of 1995. So, why was it that the Transportation Security Administration waited until August, 2006 - ten years and seven months after Bojinka - to once again ban liquids? And why, in light of the Flight 434 bombing - which used a comparatively tiny amount of liquid - by some accounts, less than two ounces - was the arbitrary “three ounce” rule put in place?

The apparent answer is the highly dubious 2006 aircraft plot, whose supposed perpetrators were allegedly intent on re-creating the failed Bojikna plot, albeit with very small amounts of liquid explosives that many experts argue would not have worked as evidently intended.

The TATP plot probably wouldn’t have worked - but as far as the TSA’s actions go, it’s a moot point. A nitroglycerin-and-nitrocellulose bomb like Ramzi Yousef made in 1995 could have been brought onboard a plane any time between, say, February 1995 and August, 2006. In fact, a nitroglycerin-and-nitrocellulose bomb can still be brought onto an airliner, today, so long as you put the nitroglycerin into containers of no more than three ounces each.

That is, to use a Bruce Schneier term, security theater. Travelers are not one whit safer today than they were in July 2006 - or in August 2001, or in February 1995. Are the TSA’s restrictions effective? Not at all. What’s worse, though, is that - even if they were - they came a decade after they should have. It may be security theater, but if so, it’s definitely a farce…

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