The Problem with Airport Security

Traveling by air reminds one about the absurdities encountered in "airport security." I took my Ma to the airport when she was leaving for Philadelphia. She's got an artificial hip, and so carries with her an ID card that's supposed to let the TSA people know before she goes through the machine that it's there. What the card really is, however, is a one-way ticket to the secondary pat down. After they put her through the ringer, I asked her, "Do they do that every time?" "Every time," she replied.

My flight was later that day, also out of tiny little San Luis Obispo airport. I noticed there was an older fella going through secondary. Sure enough, the wand was beeping every time it passed over his hip replacement. Later, in the Philly airport on the way home, Ma got sent over to secondary again, where she had to wait until they finished patting down and wanding an older guy who had, you guessed it...a hip replacement. "Every time." This process is, I presume, supposed to help prevent terrorism.

Old-fashioned Weaponry

On the flight home from Scottsdale last night there was a woman whose husband got stopped at security because he was trying to carry on a slingshot. A slingshot! She said it wasn’t so much the weapon itself but that he also had the ammo necessary to use it. The ammo! So they stopped a 70-year-old man with a slingshot and held up the plane while he went back and stowed it in his checked baggage. I guess we should just be thankful the thing didn't blow up in the cargo hold.

Nice job TSA.

Airport Security

Oxymoron. Emphasis on the "moron."

As we stood at an airport Starbucks, Schnei­er spread before me a batch of fabricated boarding passes for Northwest Airlines flight 1714, scheduled to depart at 2:20 p.m. and arrive at Reagan National at 5:47 p.m. He had taken the liberty of upgrading us to first class, and had even granted me “Platinum/Elite Plus” status, which was gracious of him. This status would allow us to skip the ranks of hoi-polloi flyers and join the expedited line, which is my preference, because those knotty, teeming security lines are the most dangerous places in airports: terrorists could paralyze U.S. aviation merely by detonating a bomb at any security checkpoint, all of which are, of course, entirely unsecured.

It gets better worse from there.

[h/t Baughb]

State of Fear

It's beginning to look like the story of the cheese smuggling terrorist airplane bombers was a bunch of baloney. Probably just one more trick up the Bush administration's sleeve as a means of keeping Americans frightened and in compliance.

...Four [TSA] seizures were described this way:
San Diego, July 7. A
U.S. person either a citizen or a foreigner legally here checked baggage
containing two ice packs covered in duct tape. The ice packs had clay inside
them rather than the normal blue gel.


Milwaukee, June 4. A U.S. person's carry-on baggage contained wire coil
wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three
tubes and two blocks of cheese. The bulletin said block cheese has a consistency
similar to some explosives.


Houston, Nov. 8, 2006. A U.S. person's checked baggage contained a plastic
bag with a 9-volt battery, wires, a block of brown clay-like minerals and
pipes.


Baltimore, Sept. 16, 2006. A couple's checked baggage contained a plastic
bag with a block of processed cheese taped to another plastic bag holding a
cellular phone charger.

CNN followed up with a report indicating none of the allegations held water:

The Transportation Security Agency's national security bulletin issued was
based on bogus examples that were combined to give the impression of ominous
terrorist plotting, CNN reports.


"That bulletin for law enforcement eyes only told of suspicious items
recently found in passenger's bags at airport checkpoints, warned that they may
signify dry runs for terrorist attacks," CNN's Brian Todd reported Friday
afternoon. "Well it turns out none of that is true."


Todd highlights the case of Sara Weiss, who was detained in San Diego after
two ice packs covered in tape were found in her baggage. Weiss, who works for a
faith-based organization, also was carrying a survey about Muslim Americans,
which CNN says also raised law enforcement provisions.


"The FBI now says there were valid explanations for all four incidents in
that bulletin, and a US government official says no charges will be brought in
any of these cases," Todd reported.
Weiss says she was held for three hours
and questioned by San Diego Harbor Police and two other men who did not identify
themselves. She told CNN one of the men asked her if she knew Osama bin
Laden, which she described as "a ridiculous question."

The federal Transportation Security Administration; protecting you in ways you never thought possible -- or necessary.