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Tech

Terminal Insecurity: Burning a Hole in the TSA Security Blanket

The self-styled security researcher shows VICE's Tim Pool how easy it is to make a deadly weapon on the "safe" side of airport security.

Anyone that's flown in the past 10 years knows what a clownshow the Transportation Security Administration is: a fleet of rent-a-cops with expensive equipment trained to weed out an arbitrary list of not really dangerous items and not really dangerous people. Personally, I've lost a bicycle cone wrench, several half-full Diet Cokes, and probably some junk I'm forgetting. Meanwhile, I've accidentally passed my semi-formidable pocketknife through security in a carry-on bag twice, without the hawklike eyes of the TSA catching it.

For the video above, VICE's Tim Pool met up with Evan Booth, a computer programmer and self-styled security researcher that has crafted a wide range of explosive, incendiary, and projectile-launching devices made from regular junk that you can buy in an airport on the "safe" side of security checkpoints. If you've noted that the TSA is really just an expensive security blanket before, well, it gets way worse.