Free Republic

... [However], there are currently 22 airports -- including San Francisco’s and Kansas City’s -- which have been allowed to participate in what the federal security agency call its “Screening Partnership Program.” In fact, since 2004, all commercial air facilities falling under federal security oversight (they’re known as “federalized airports”) can apply to privatize their security screening services. .... How effective is private security screening versus the screening provided at airports by TSA? The answer is difficult to determine, but several government or government-sponsored studies say that private screeners, when properly supervised, are at least as efficient and possibly less...

Airport screening delays have caused more than 70,000 American Airlines (AAL.O) customers and 40,000 checked bags to miss their flights this year, an executive for the airline told a U.S. congressional subcommittee on Thursday.

Ed mentioned earlier today that Canada will be joining the group of nations instituting travel bans and/or quarantines from Ebola afflicted nations, while the United States will stick with the airport screening route. But don’t worry… I’m sure that will work out just fine. These scientific studies show that airport Ebola screenings are largely ineffectiveThose travelers now have to submit to temperature checks and questioning. But scientific studies published by the National Institutes of Health have shown that similar protocols were largely ineffective during an outbreak of Swine Flu in 2009, as Government Executive pointed out in an article last...

During Thursday’s hearings on Ebola, Congressman Cory Gardner questioned the panel of five witnesses. Some important pieces of information were revealed. Let’s start with the numbers. There are about 150 people a day flying to the United States from countries in West Africa most impacted by Ebola. All incoming flights connect through other countries. Ninety-four percent of these travelers will receive enhanced screening. Curious about the 94% figure, I did some research and learned that enhanced screening will be implemented at the five international airports that “manage more than 94 percent of travelers from Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea….”...

On Monday on HLN, CNN medical reporter Elizabeth Cohen said she was aghast at the lax screening procedures at airports for passengers who might have been exposed to Ebola. She said that even after she told agents she was coming back from Liberia and had been covering the Ebola epidemic, the screening agents did not seem to care and could not even tell her what symptoms were Ebola warning signs. "I expected that they were going to take my temperature, they would ask me lots of questions, but they didn’t," Cohen said on HLN on Monday. "I said, 'I'm a...

Heathrow Airport has been forced to defend its security after a pair of students smuggled two large World War I artillery shells on to a plane and flew to the US. Baggage screeners made the discovery when the teenagers landed in Chicago, sparking a major incident. It is believed they picked up the 75mm munitions as souvenirs while on a school trip to a former artillery range in France. The find prompted the evacuation of O’Hare International Airport by the FBI before officials concluded there was no risk of the shells exploding. It is not clear how the students, aged...

Will TSA agents be replaced by machines? One of the main reasons that Americans hate to fly is the Transporation Security Administration (TSA). Not only is it annoying to have to strip down at security checkpoints, submit to the occasional patdown and stand in long lines to verify our identities, but the entire system is inefficient. So what happens if we take humans off of those jobs and use machines instead? Several European airports are looking to answer that question by installing eye and face scanners, along with fingerprint readers, at security checkpoints. Many airports’ immigration checks have used these...

The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) has completed training for 2,200 Transportation Safety Officers (TSOs) at the Los Angeles International Airport according to a press release found on the MPAC website. The MPAC release notes that the two-month training course informed officers of "the diversity of Muslims around the world from cultural dress to language to tenets. The four trainers taught the TSOs how to properly handle a Quran and discussed the different ways Muslim women and men choose to cover or dress. For example, the TSOs learned if a woman wears hijab and needs a secondary screening she should...

Let the People Suffer by Ari Bussel Elected officials seem to be exempt from what we, commoners, have to endure. They have their own health plan, and will not subjugate themselves or their family members to what they force down our throats. They will not be patted down at airports, for they go via security points unchecked. But you and—more often than not—I have to endure long waits at the airports and unpleasant TSA officials who do not think – the extent of their training is to follow procedures. They are not allowed to profile, i.e. common sense is out....

At a hearing Wednesday on Capitol Hill, TSA chief John Pistole defended the airport screening procedures and said they were necessary in, "the face of a persistent and evolving terrorist threat," according to a report by Joshua Norman of CBS News, but acknowledged the pat-downs were invasive. After submitting to a pat-down himself, he said they were, "more invasive than what I was used to." In an article at the Boston Herald, Michael Graham decribes the ordeal experienced by a mother travelling from Dayton, Ohio to Texas: “The TSA agent felt along my waistline, moved behind me, then proceeded to...

Would a Miami International Airport worker have beaten his coworker to a pulp if his private parts weren't made the butt of jokes because of the new body scanners? A Las Vegas company claims it has the solution for airport scanner-enduced assaults and undergarment embarrassment with "flying pasties," which are basically small plastic coverings passengers can wear that will protect their goodies from being X-rayed by the body scanners. Flyingpasties.com says the thick rubber pasties block private areas from scanners and they even come with a little comic relief for TSA workers wondering why they aren't getting the full Monty....

There I was this morning, watching a Today segment about tougher new airport screening procedures. A clip rolled of Homeland Security honcho Janet Napolitano talking about the program when, suddenly I said to myself: wait a second! Who’s that standing behind Napolitano? Darned if it wasn’t . . . Patrick Kennedy! You remember good old Rep. Kennedy: the fellow who a few years ago . . . shoved a 58-yr. old airport security screener when she tried to stop him from barging through without submitting his oversized bag to x-ray screening . So what was Kennedy doing there? Then it...

Some Worry That Seeing Beneath Clothing, Even Though Faces Are Obscured, Violates Privacy The latest technology for screening passengers at U.S. airports gets a closer look at you than anything that's been used before. It's called a "whole body imager," and it can indeed see your whole body underneath your clothing, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes. San Francisco is one of 19 domestic airports where the scanners are deployed. Forty machines so far across the country, with 250 planned for next year, at $170,000 apiece. Passengers get to choose whether to pass through the body imager or a traditional...

The federal agency in charge of aviation security is considering major changes in how it screens airline passengers, including proposals that, an official said, would lift the ban on carrying razor blades and small knives as well as limit pat-down searches. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will meet later this month to discuss the plan, which is designed to reduce checkpoint hassles for the nation's 2 million passengers. The agency proposed the changes after its new chief, Edmund S. Hawley, called for a broad review in hopes of making airline screening more passenger-friendly. An initial set of staff recommendations drafted...

... The now-defunct ... Capps II sought to make sure that air passengers are flying under their own identity and are not wanted as a terror suspect. It would have asked passengers to provide four pieces of information -- name, address, phone number and birth date -- when they make their reservation. That information would've been run against commercial records, to see if it matches up, then checked against government intelligence files to determine whether a passenger has possible terror connections. Depending on the outcome of those two checks, a passenger could have been screened more closely at the airport.......

Man Arrested With Meat Cleaver at Miami AirportThe Associated PressPublished: Nov 18, 2002 MIAMI (AP) - Police arrested a Sri Lankan national Monday and accused him of carrying a meat cleaver wrapped in newspaper through a security point at the airport. Joseph Jarvens Almeida, 39, was charged with carrying a concealed weapon and with an airport screening point violation. A spokesman at police headquarters said he had immediate information on why the man was carrying the cleaver. He was being held Monday at Miami-Dade County jail on $1,000 bond. Almeida was trying to board a flight from Miami to New...