Security Bullet In
Communiques from the security front, sir
Tuesday 25 November 2008, 5:32 PM
Police seize phone-gun
The phone can hold four bullets, and is powerful enough to kill somebody.
Gizmodo made the rather good point that it makes the restrictions on taking a bottle of water through security even more ridiculous, if you can put a disguised gun in a basket and avoid the metal detectors. The phone-gun does look at little retro to me, though, and it obviously rang alarm bells with the Italians...
PreviousComments on this post
That's not a rather good point at all as anything that doesn't go through the metal detectors gets x-rayed.
So provided the security person notices that this mobile phone has a supply of bullets inside it...
Hmmm, ok, are you sure that's applied consistently internationally? Yes, it's normal practice at UK airports to do that, but is that the case at all airports? I went to a Swiss airport last month where they x-rayed my laptop, but had me put my phone and keys in a wooden box that they then inspected by eye.
I think the main thrust of the argument is to highlight how ridiculous the restrictions on water at airports are, due to the arbitrary nature of the tests. It's always struck me that you are not allowed to take nail scissors on hand luggage onto a plane, but you can buy bottles in duty free that it would be easy to knock the bottom off to make a weapon with. Having us pour away water is just security theatre, to use Bruce Schneier's phrase.
As for Heathrow, whilst the bags went through the metal detector we pushed along our own boxes of "content". Mine had a phone, and camera in it. No X-ray happened and this was on the way Australia ! Just how you described the Swiss airport.
