this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2025
447 points (99.1% liked)
Political Memes
9117 readers
2305 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Regardless, someone did try to blow up a plane with explosives hidden in their shoe. It's a very well documented incident.
After that incident. Security was stepped up globally, we had to start putting shoes to be xrayed, and we never saw a single case of anyone trying to smuggle explosives on board in their shoe ever again.
If it's removed completely, it's because they have other methods that make it obsolete.
Aviation rarely make the same mistake twice (Boeing goes hold my beer).
When I was a kid, I got to step inside the cockpit and say hello to the pilots and look at all the instruments, mid flight. After my grandmother asked if that was ok. Fat chance of that ever happening again after 9-11
Yeah the method was the newer scanners they are using. Most of them are like this:
https://mdtsecurity.cc/solutions-products/l3-security-detection-systems/provision2/
It does a 360 degree scan of you like a CT machine (but using mm waves, instead of X-rays and such)
Automatic Target Detection (ATD)
Quickly screens passengers for a broad variety of aviation targets both metallic and non-metallic: weapons, standard and home-made explosives (sheet and bulk), liquids, gels, plastics, powders, metals, ceramics, and other objects
And unless I keep my legs spread while waiting in line, it nearly always triggers my groin because to much warmth. So they do a nice personal check with their hands just in case feeling the creases (Has happened to me 3 times out of 5) I run hotter than most people though
Yeah I've seen those. I think.... I know I've seen what looks like that. But if the technology inside is updated I can't say I know. Never had a problem with my balls being too warm in them. And I can't recall ever having my shoes on inside. Always had to put them aside. But that could easily just be airport policy at the time.
Anyhow... what irked me was the post acting like scanning shoes was some fake phony security scam. Almost every single airline and airport policy is there for a reason.
E.g. after the Lockerby tragedy. Airlines had to make sure that every single bag has a passenger that is on board the plane. As someone had checked in a bag with explosives, and then never boarded himself.
That's what changed here, is you can wear the shoes into these machines now basically. Because they know the machines are already scanning for w.e, and it is coming up on their screens that they are reviewing, so the only question for them was does an organic foot in the shoe cause any interference, which I presume it did not.
That and if you applied for TSA pre check.. you could skip taking your shoes off. And that started in 2013. So if you could pass a basic background check before you got to the airport, they allowed you to bypass it. Which made people wonder .. well why is anyone doing it
I don't know exactly how TSA works, I have not flown that much within the US. But I agree that's pretty bullshit.