Posted on 01/03/2007 4:56:19 AM PST by theothercheek
Testing of a new X-ray security scanner at Terminal 4 of Phoenix Sky Harbor Airport has been delayed indefinitely because of technical glitches involving the airport's wireless connections. A Transportation Security Administration spokesperson told Associated Press, “The last thing we wanted to do was start this during one of the busiest travel times of the year.”
With the holiday crush of international travelers passing through Terminal 4 from countries known to shelter or sponsor terrorists and harried airport security screeners more likely than ever to overlook a weapon or other contraband, The Stiletto can’t understand why the last thing the TSA wants to do is to improve aviation security. It’s debatable how serious the agency is about preventing another 9/11, else the backscatter X-ray machine would have been installed and run through its paces months ago so as to be online when needed most.
Meanwhile, the ACLU has taken to calling the X-ray, which can see beneath a person’s clothing down to the bare skin, “a virtual strip search.” The first iteration of the machine produced high-def images of male genitalia and female breasts that bordered on pornographic. In response to a drumbeat of protests by the ACLU and privacy advocates – the likely reason for the deployment delay at Sky Harbor – TSA ordered the manufacturer of the screening device to tweak the images so that they are now so low-def that they look like the chalk outline that police draw around a dead body.
The modified X-ray screener can still detect a gun or box cutter taped to someone’s leg - as would a conventional pat-down - but a thin, even coat of plastic explosives “spackled” onto a terrorist’s upper thigh would be invisible to the machine, according to one security expert.
NOTE: Original source includes links to relevant articles and Web sites.
TSA = Smoke 'n mirrors over substance
When the head of the agency--Minetta--is a jerk, what can you expect?
And yet, they've named an airport after him (San Jose, CA). How ironic.
Indeed, failure will bring more funding as Anthony Gregory points out in:
Law Enforcement Socialism.
Actaully, Kip Hawley heads up the TSA.
The ICE/BP bureaucracy fails? Throw more money at it. Make it a BIG GOVERNMENT (symbolic) solution to an imagined problem.
Public School teachers aren't teaching Johnny to read? Let's throw more money at them.
Sex education is a failure? Throw more mney at it.
The UN is a failure? Throw more money at it.
Does any American, not in government, seriously believe that the TSA is doing anything to make us safer? Most of us would rate it right up there with CAIR.
They need to start screening cargo ,, as I've pointed out before cargo is not screened at all... why even bother to screen passengers when you leave a hole that big in the security net? ... BTW nice of the article to give hints on how to get plastic explosives through security...
Two yrs. ago I had the experience of flying out of DIA. You know, the airport that looks like a sow laying on her back.
A poor lady about 80+ yrs. old with glasses as thick as Coke bottles made the heinous error of starting down the wrong roped off line.
She realized her error and turned around to find the correct one, but NOOOOO, the TSA agents had a fit. They required she continue through the wrong line, then did everything but strip search her.
Later in this ordeal we all had to go through another line that checked our photo ID, usually a driver's license.
The agent looked down the entire time, looking at the ID but never looking up at the person presenting it.
It was a sham.
I wanted to report the guy, but thought better of it. They probably would have had me arrested for some trumped up charge.
TSA..aka...Thousands Standing Around
I'll be glad when the hysteria is over (yes, I know, it will take the elimination of 90% of the world's muzzies), and the TSA jackboots can find honest jobs. I'm still hoping for that within my lifetime.
There's nothing in there the terrorists don't already know. The real problem is that TSA took a potentially useful technogy and rendered it useless. I think that all Air Marshalls should be teamed up with a trained police dog that spends the entire trip walking up and down the aisle of the plane. Maybe Muslims who are prone to jihad - Arabs, Asians, white converts, it doesn't matter - will find the thought of being confined in a plane with a dog so distastful, they'll start driving or taking the train. Then we can do away with most of the crap we have to go through to get on a plane.
Good one!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.