Sour Grapes

How to transport dangerous chemicals on airline flights

It's nothing more than a way to exploit stupid airport security. I learned this trick from Ole Jacobsen, Editor and Publisher of Cisco System's The Internet Protocol Journal. He submitted a brief trip report to Dave Farber's IP list, the complete body of which I reproduce here:

Returning from Montreal yesterday my carry-on bag was searched and a
small plastic spray bottle with deodorant was confiscated since it had
no label on it. I've traveled all over the world with this same
bottle for some 10 years so I was rather surprised to learn that it
isn't a legal item. The screeners made no attempt to determine what
was actually in the bottle. Obviously, if you want to take something
more dangerous than deodorant all you have to do is put it in a
container with a label. It's clearly easier to make stupid rules than
to actually try to prevent dangerous material from getting on
aircraft.

This reminded me that when I travel, I put all the daily medications I'm going to need in a small unlabeled pill box. I recently learned from our local chief of police that this is a violation of U.S. drug laws, even when they're just sitting on my dresser in my own home! This is not stupid airport security; however it does bring to mind several maxims:

The more laws and order are made prominent,

the more thieves and robbers there will be. — Lao Tzu

A multitude of laws in a country is like a great number of physicians,

a sign of weakness and malady. — Fran�ois Voltaire

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws. — Publius Cornelius Tacitus

The more laws, the more offenders. — Thomas Fuller

Laws are the spider's webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it,

but large things break through and escape. — Solon

Original post by Hugh at 7/17/2006 10:35:00 PM Eastern time :: 0 comment(s) :: links to this post

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