I don't know whether to laugh or cry ...

[unixronin]

Your tax dollars doing crystal meth in the bathroom:  The Department of Homeland Security's Red Cell teams have determined, at great expense, that pressure cookers are a threat to national security.  (Sorry for the PDF.)

Yeah, you heard me right.  PRESSURE COOKERS.  Because you can put explosives in them.

What inane silliness will they come up with next?

OH MY GOD!!!!!!   CLOTHES ARE A DEADLY THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY!!!!11!   EVERY KNOWN SUICIDE BOMBER HAS BEEN WEARING CLOTHES!!!!   THE 9/11 HIJACKERS WORE CLOTHES!!!!!   SQUEAKY FROMME HAD CLOTHES ON!!!!!   FIDEL CASTRO WEARS CLOTHES!!!!!   HUGO CHAVEZ WEARS CLOTHES, THAT PROVES HE'S A TERRAHIST!!!1!1!1!

...

OK, that's quite enough.  This nonsense can stop now.  The Department of Homeland Security calls this "imagination" and "thinking out of the box."  I call it "paranoid ravings at taxpayer expense" and "complete idiocy."  And the 2005 DHS Appropriations bill contains almost $19 million for this nonsense.

---

(Crossposted to neph_politics)

Comments

[nephthys510.livejournal.com]

damnit

now I am officially a terrorist

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yup, me too.

"KEEP BACK!!! I have a pressure cooker, and I'm NOT AFRAID TO USE IT!!!"

[mazianni.livejournal.com]

In the second Tim Burton Batman movie, I saw Catwoman put aerosol cans in a microwave and blow up an entire building. Obviously microwaves are terrorist weapons. Just as obviously this line of reasoning qualifies me to be a threat analyst for the Department of Homeland Security. Where's my cut of the $19 million?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Hey, get in line! :)

[tww1fa]

And in an unprecedented strike for Freedom and Democracy, agents from Homeland Security raided and shut down The Food Network. Taken into custody were, among others, the terrorist mastermind Emeril Lagasse, who's "Bam!" catchphrase was obviously a coded message to inspire suicide bombers.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

"Iron Chef" is a codename for a military operation if I ever heard one..... ;)

[cymrullewes.livejournal.com]

Schlock Merecenary. The once upon a diplomat who we haven't seen in quite awhile.

[midiamin.livejournal.com]

Are you saying that pressure cookers are not readily available vessels built to contain high amounts of pressure, have not been known to fail in a bomb-like fashion when pressures greatly exceed spec, have not already been used in a handful of terrorist attacks and should not be treated with as much suspicion and caution as a short length of pipe with two end caps when found someplace it shouldn't be?

I hope it's obvious that I don't think anyone with a pressure cooker should be considered a terrorist. I'd sure be pissed if California or the feds required me to license mine, and I'd be scared if BBBY implemented a mandatory background check and waiting period for any purchase of more than one pressure cooker.

But do you really mean to ridicule someone for telling the LEOs, "Pssst! If you find one of these lying about a convention center, you might want to proceed with caution"?

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think if they find something suspicious lying around a convention center, they should probably treat it just like they'd treat any other suspicious object, and take all appropriate precautions, sure. I don't think they need to call out the bomb squad every time they find someone driving to Mother's for Thanksgiving with a pressure cooker in the trunk, and I think that if they're releasing separate advisories for "pressure cookers may be used as bombs" instead of just "any pressure vessel where it doesn't belong might possibly be a bomb", then maybe they're being paid too much to get too excited about too little.

[midiamin.livejournal.com]

I don't think they need to call out the bomb squad every time they find someone driving to Mother's for Thanksgiving with a pressure cooker in the trunk

Which is not what they're saying in that doc.

I think that if they're releasing separate advisories for "pressure cookers may be used as bombs" instead of just "any pressure vessel where it doesn't belong might possibly be a bomb"

Sure, but what does "any pressure vessel" look like? Also consider that the cookware manufacturers have spent a good deal of effort assuring consumers that pressure cookers are perfectly safe when used properly. I think this doc is simply pointing out yet another commonly available consumer device that that one might not normally think twice about can be turned into something very dangerous, and noting cases in which it has been.

And as far as working pressures go, the device still has to be built to exceed working pressure by a pretty good margin for sake of safety. It doesn't have to hold 200atm to be dangerous, and it doesn't have to hold any kind of pressure for very long. It just has to be a glorified pipe bomb. Yes, if all 4-5 safeties (including blowing the main seal across the room) on my $60 cooker fail, the stamped aluminum flanges will probably deform long before pressure builds to a point where the explosion blows a wall out of my kitchen. But one can still find and easily acquire other more solid models that should yield a much bigger boom with a few trivial mods, assuming that's even necessary.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I think this doc is simply pointing out yet another commonly available consumer device that that one might not normally think twice about can be turned into something very dangerous, and noting cases in which it has been.

Mmmmm...... You have a point. Part of my reaction was just that, hell, it sounds so damn LUDICROUS on the face of it.

Personally, though, I'd be a hell of a lot more concerned about a bomb built in a backyard barbecue propane tank than in most pressure cookers, and more concerned still about a comparable-sized bomb built in a piece of iron sewer pipe.

I started to type that my Innova stainless-steel 'cooker would be a lot more dangerous, but then I thought about it a bit more, and had second thoughts. Any drawn aluminum cooker is going to make a lousy bomb casing, because drawn aluminum is so ductile. It wouldn't hold any significant pressure before bursting; you'd get lousy tamping. My stainless 'cooker would hold a lot more pressure, but the design is such that under normal circumstances, any gross excess pressure would just blow the seal out through the vent port in the rim. However, these aren't normal circumstances. In the case of a bomb, we're talking about an almost instantaneous pressure spike of thousands of PSI. Basically none of the safety devices on a pressure cooker are going to react that fast, and it's going to come down to materials.

My guess is that a stainless 'cooker is tough enough that it'd remain mostly in two or three large pieces, and not really fragment much. A drawn aluminum 'cooker, I'd expect the sides to blow off the bottom in probably four to six largeish "petals" and the lid to remain mostly intact. That leaves the old-style heavy cast aluminum clamp-down 'cookers, which seemed to be most ly what the article illustrated, and which -- honestly -- I've only ever seen in the US. And I don't know whether those would chunk, or just powder -- I'd expect those castings to be fairly brittle, and to fragment fairly easily into chunks, but I don't know whether we'd be talking several-inches chunks, thumb-size chunks, or gravel. Any of the three would be fairly nasty.

I still tend to think, though, that a bomb case made from iron sewer pipe would be a lot nastier, and quite likely easier to obtain than one of those ancient clamp-top cookers.

[midiamin.livejournal.com]

Part of my reaction was just that, hell, it sounds so damn LUDICROUS on the face of it.

Sure it does. But sometimes we have to look past the surface before deciding whether something is worthy of mockery.

I still tend to think, though, that a bomb case made from iron sewer pipe would be a lot nastier

Perhaps, but being less dangerous than a pipe bomb doesn't mean it's not dangerous, as you elaborate.

and quite likely easier to obtain than one of those ancient clamp-top cookers.

Depends on where you are, what's handy, your goals, yadda yadda yadda... The point is that it's an option, it's out there and folks in the field should be aware of it in case they run across it.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

and this gives terrorists info on what not to use!

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and frankly, they're not even built to stand that much pressure. They're built for working pressures around 2 atmospheres, not like, say, the 200 atmospheres or so of a welding oxygen bottle.

[olafthunderfoot.livejournal.com]

lay that welding bottle on it's side, smack the valve with a BFH and watch it go!