[2muchcoffeeman]

Once at a security checkpoint to a museum in Shanghai, they saw my water bottle, and then told me to take it out and drink from it.

[SapporoChris]

In the 90's USA was sensible. I was flying with a thermos of hot coffee in my carry on. As soon as they took out the thermos and felt the heat radiating from the lid the agent said, "I don't think they would heat it", smiled and passed me thru.

Now when I fly I have to be careful. When they ask purpose of visit I say sightseeing. I used to say tourist, but with my accent that once caused alarm when the agent thought I said terrorist.

[RupertSalt]

Man, all this time I've been playing Nethack, wearing a Hawaiian shirt, snapping my expensive camera, and applying my credit card, without realizing my character class was actually Terrorist.

How come it's considered the weakest ever?

[Reefersleep]

I wonder how many actual terrorists they pick up for saying "I'm here for terrorism"

[jonhohle]

There were no liquids rules in the 90s.

[redleader55]

I am a strong believer in the "low-tech" solutions for this kind of thing. I seriously doubt the terrorist suicide bomber knows if drinking the explosive is going to prevent them from taking the mission to the end (ie. they will die in 5 min, in 30 min or in 24h), so they will start panicking when asked to drink from the bottle.

[biofox]

The US embassy in London do this. You can take liquids in, as long as you drink from them at security.

[James_K]

So if a suicide bomber can drink explosives, they will be fine. As long as it's not poisonous within a few hours, should be no issue.

[xsmasher]

As long as they can drink it without making a face.

[imcritic]

Was it just you? Or do they apply the same policy for every visitor with a bottle of liquid?

[fc417fc802]

Just a guess but at a museum I assume they're looking out for vandals. If it's a water bottle the counterpart would be something like concentrated sodium hydroxide in which case a single sip is sufficient.

Not sure how they would handle dye in a paper coffee cup though.

[qingdao99]

This is/was fairly common, I've experienced it on the Chinese subway a few times and I've seen a few clips of it happening online. No idea if it's official policy or not, though.

[2muchcoffeeman]

I saw them do this to a few others in line.

[tasuki]

That is the way!