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Big caveat
The final decision rests with the TSA officer on whether an item is allowed through the checkpoint.
Ah yes, the “rules only apply when I say they do” rule. Much legitimate.
Inconsistent enforcement of “the rules” is the most common form of systematic marginalization.
It’s also easy of centrists to excuse, since it could happen to anyone, even when the statistic show to it is overwhelmingly correlated with some protected trait.
Or just bring an empty bottle through and fill it up at the tap/water fountain?
Some people think tap water tastes bad
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Outside of Continental Europe
Oddly specific when of the 10 countries judged to have the equal best tap water quality, 4 are European islands (UK, Ireland, Iceland, Malta) and many Continental European countries score behind the US:
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/water-quality-by-country
The TSA is something that shouldn’t exist in its current form. They very often fail their audit checks and normalize invading your privacy to an extreme degree like body scanners and pat downs. If water bottles are considered potentially explosive then why dump them on a bin next to a line of people where they can go off? This is low grade security theater that inconveniences passengers at best.
According to the story I heard as to the origin of the “no liquids over X amount” rule, years ago there was a terrorist that tried to smuggle hydrogen peroxide and acetone - which can be used to rather easily synthesize triacetone triperoxide (TATP, a highly sensitive explosive) - onto a plane in plastic toiletry bottles. They got caught and foiled somehow, and then the TSA started restricting liquids on planes. This was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, if I recall correctly.
And I happen to know, from a reliable source, of someone who accidentally made TATP in a rotary evaporator in an academic lab. So it seems plausible.
Not that the rule is actually effective prevention against similar attacks, nor that the TSA even knows what the reason is behind what they do at this point, haha. I just thought it was an interesting story.
hydrogen peroxide and acetone
So there are worse cleaning chemicals to mix than bleach and vinegar
Requires an acid catalyst for the reaction to actually proceed, but yeah, could definitely ruin your day - although a lungful of chlorine gas is nothing to sneeze at either.
