Question on liquids.

The next thing to get banned on planes and public transportation will be gel and/or liquid filled bras. Apparently these are not currently banned under the gel/lquid ban out of the sensitivity to breast cancer.

http://www.azstarnet.com/news/142769.php

Gel-filled bras OK on planes, despite security
By Lisa Hoffman
Scripps Howard News Service
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.19.2006
advertisementWASHINGTON — Don't try to bring a tiny tube of lip-moisturizing gel on board an airliner these days, or wear thin gel inserts to make your shoes more comfortable. And leave your cold and cough gel-caps at home.
But, ladies and cross-dressing gents, no one will check if you wear your gel-filled bras right onto the plane.
Despite the fact that these hugely popular undergarments are owned by millions worldwide and have the capacity to carry enough liquid or gel explosives to make a terrorist smile, the Transportation Security Administration has not included them on the new list of items forbidden from carry-on baggage.
In the travel tips listed on the agency's Web site — www.tsa.gov — mention is made of "gel-filled bras," but mostly in the context of those worn as prosthetics by breast-cancer survivors who have undergone mastectomies.
Such passengers are urged to pack their bras in their checked baggage, but also advised that those with "medical gel" prosthetics will be allowed through security checkpoints. The agency says it is "reaching out" to women's medical associations to spread the word about the policy.
"We recognize it's a sensitive issue," said TSA spokesman Darrin Kayser.
But asked about the tens of millions of women who wear silicone-gel and even plain water sacs in their bras to enhance their curves, Kayser said he was not aware of the wide popularity of that fashion trend.
He said these women should also stow their liquid- and gel-filled bras in their checked luggage. But Kayser said he knew of no efforts to publicize that fact or even include the bras on the banned-items list.
Asked whether — and how — airport screeners would differentiate between women wearing "medical gel" bras or those enhanced for cosmetic purposes, Kayser said women would be neither poked nor questioned about the contents of their undergarments. Instead, security would be ensured by other "levels" of security in airports.
"It's not going to be something we're going to ask about at checkpoints," Kayser said. "We have a lot of different ways to detect" dangerous substances.
While gel bras come in a variety of sizes and styles, it is not uncommon for one to carry 7 ounces or more of silicone or water in the cups — more than 170 times the amount of goop contained in a 0.04-ounce tube of lip gel.
Conceivably, a would-be evildoer could substitute explosive substances to make a "bra bomb" capable of blowing a hole in a plane's fuselage. It would likely take a big box full of lip-gel tubes to do the same.
How serious a threat is this security loophole? Virtually all who have been arrested for conspiring to bomb airplanes have been men. But while the use of women as suicide bombers is rare, it is a growing phenomenon, according to a study released this week by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, in Oklahoma City.
Extremist "Muslim women are increasingly joining the global jihad," Farhana Ali wrote in a study in the 2006 edition of the institute's Terrorism Annual Report. There is even a name for women jihadis — "mujahidaat."
One thing not in doubt is the popularity of gel-enhanced bras, which women — and thousands of cross-dressing men — have embraced to put curves and heft where little naturally exist, lingerie-industry experts say.
Beginning in Asia about a decade ago, the concept has swept across the globe, as women discovered the natural look and feel of what some call "outplants." Unlike surgically inserted breast implants, these carry neither a health risk nor a big price tag. An array of products is available — from small, removable gel pads to full-size ones that can "grow" a breast to DD size, or bigger.
"The last 10 years, the market has been soaring," said Camille Wiart, marketing executive with Lingerie-Americas, a major industry trade show.
Becky Davis, vice president of Lingerie Mart, the largest global wholesaler of brand-name lingerie, agrees.
"There's a very, very huge, huge market, (with) millions and millions sold," Davis said.

Let me satisfy your curiosity. It would blow the fuck out of it.

Exactly. I mean what if people put their liquids in their bags. Oh, but wait, the bags are LOTS bigger than their liquid containers usually. So why bother making explosives that look like a cheeseburger and a drink?

I mean if BART were made secure in the same way that airplanes are made secure than no one would be riding it. Can you imagine going through a metal detector, emptying your pockets, removing your shoes on the pavement by a BART station before you could board?

Or can you imagine BART banning luggage, backpacks, bags and packages? It would make it unusable for those going to the two airports near BART. Banning backpacks, bags, briefcases, purses? They would lose even more riders.

There aren't people screening cars at freeway entrances, either. So what's a stopping another Timothy McVeigh (only on one of the many elevated freeways, interchanges or bridges of the Bay Area).

Bad things could happen on BART or anywhere and honestly it seems like it would be hard for law enforcement to catch and prevent it all. Like it or not, it's the world we live in and no one can guarantee your safety for you. Do the best you can and hope it's good enough.