Water-filled bras OK on planes despite security

Don't try to bring a tiny tube of lip-moisturizing gel on board an airliner these days, or wear thin gel inserts to make your shoes more comfortable. And leave your cold and cough gel-caps at home. But, ladies and cross-dressing gents, no one will check if you wear your gel-filled bras right onto the plane.

Despite the fact that these hugely popular undergarments are owned by millions worldwide and have the capacity to carry enough liquid or gel explosives to make a terrorist smile, the Transportation Security Administration has not included them on the new list of items forbidden from carry-on baggage.

In the travel tips listed on the agency's Web site — www.tsa.gov — mention is made of "gel-filled bras," but mostly in the context of those worn as prosthetics by breast-cancer survivors who have undergone mastectomies.

"We recognize it's a sensitive issue," said TSA spokesman Darrin Kayser. But asked about the tens of millions of women who wear silicone-gel and even plain water sacs in their bras to enhance their curves, Kayser said he was not aware of the wide popularity of that fashion trend. He said these women should also stow their liquid- and gel-filled bras in their checked luggage. But Kayser said he knew of no efforts to publicize that fact or even include the bras on the banned-items list.

Asked whether — and how — airport screeners would differentiate between women wearing "medical gel" bras or those enhanced for cosmetic purposes, Kayser said women would be neither poked nor questioned about the contents of their undergarments. Instead, security would be ensured by other "levels" of security in airports.

While gel bras come in a variety of sizes and styles, it is not uncommon for one to carry 7 ounces or more of silicone or water in the cups — more than 170 times the amount of goop contained in a 0.04-ounce tube of lip gel. Conceivably, a would-be evildoer could substitute explosive substances to make a "bra bomb" capable of blowing a hole in a plane's fuselage. It would likely take a big box full of lip-gel tubes to do the same.

How serious a threat is this security loophole? Virtually all who have been arrested for conspiring to bomb airplanes have been men. But while the use of women as suicide bombers is rare, it is a growing phenomenon, according to a study released this week by the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, in Oklahoma City. Article here.