U.S. Bans Large Printer Ink, Toner Cartridges on Inbound Flights

9/11 - ban all sharp edges, nailcutters and knitting needles included.

Richard Reid - make everyone take off their shoes.

The bipartite liquid bomb plot - strict controls on amount of liquid, except for contact lens solution (!?!)

The Underwear Bomber (a.k.a. Mr Fizzypants) - intrusive pat down searches ("encounter resistance") or nudie X-rays.

Yemeni printer cartidge shipping plot - ban printer ink and toner.

Geez, you'd think that the TSA would learn since they've been burned 5 times, or that whatever terror organizations exist would start doing stuff just to see how far they could push the TSA.

Or maybe that the rest of us would learn that the TSA is making it up as they go along and not actually preventing anything, just inconveniencing everyone with nonsensical civil liberties violations.

Sigh...I know people in authority have to be seen to be doing something (or they'll be accused of doing nothing, no matter how assiduously they work behind the scenes), but these robotically specific prohibitions verge upon the farcical. Apparently this dangerous shipment was uncovered by good old-fashioned intelligence work in the form of a tip-off, which is the message that we ought to be sending - 'we have spies everywhere, fanatics can easily be deceived or corrupted.'

Personally, I don't think there was actually any intent to blow up an airplane. It's a possibility, of course, but an explosion in cargo airliner doesn't upset people en masse beyond sympathy for the families of the crew. And if it were a dry run, then the fake printer consumables would have been addressed to a dead address or a collaborator. That they were sent to a Jewish organization, and given that such devices have onboard electronics activated by current, it's a much more reasonably supposition that they hoped to blow up someone leaning over a printer.

The fact is that there are any number of electronic devices which could conceivably be packed with explosives and fitted with a detonator designed to go off when current is applied. I'm typing on such a device right now; I've never opened up this keyboard and for all I know it could go off at any moment. I count 13 similar devices on or underneath my desk right now, and some would be very difficult to detect even on close inspection. High-quality speakers, for example, are heavy, draw electrical power, and have big magnets in them by necessity, which would probably throw off many kinds of electrostatic detectors. Millions of them are shipped every day; we simply cannot inspect every last package shipped.

It seems quite reasonably to temporarily block all shipments from failed states like Somalia or Yemen. But adding each new bomb format to an ever-growing list of prohibited items is an exercise in futility. At some point one of these fanatics with a little more media savvy and imagination is going to hit on the idea of exploiting this reactive behavior and start sending out lots of dud bombs encased in popular or ubiquitous formats purely to provoke bans and cause economic injury - digital music players, handheld videogames, laptops all seem likely candidates. I avoided mentioning any popular brands but I think we can all imagine the the consequences if a few well-engineered explosive versions were 'accidentally' discovered by security professionals.

For that matter, with the holiday season coming it would be easy to throw a wrench into Santa's supply chain that would lead to grim-faced security workers impounding everything from Barbies to blankies. Let's hope nobody in Al Qaeda has read the Grinch That Stole Christmas.

Interesting times people.

They just ban things, to make it look like they are in control, I think this is a sign of weakness.