The TSA, an agency that will begin to have to justify their existance sooner than later, I suspect is already out in front of the Great Exploding Hair Gel Alert. It might have happened, you see.
Transportation Security Administration officials said they had not decided when they would end the increased screening procedures enacted after British authorities last week said they had unraveled a plot to blow up commercial jets with liquid explosives. The TSA banned all liquids and gels, including bottled water and toothpaste, from aircraft passenger cabins.
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Over the weekend, TSA officials revised some security measures and began requiring passengers to remove their shoes for examination at X-ray machines.
TSA officials said the rule requiring shoe removal was not motivated by any specific intelligence about a potential attack using shoe bombs. In late 2001, Richard Reid tried to use such a device to blow up an airliner on a transatlantic flight.
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"TSA always seems to be at least two steps behind every threat we face," said Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.). "I have spent the last four years trying to get TSA to acknowledge the threat of shoulder-fired missiles, which are one of our biggest vulnerabilities, and they have responded with denials at first, then with begrudging acceptance, then one study after another."
Get it? The TSA will make you dump your water, take off your shoes and drink breast milk at security, but pay attention to anything meaningful? Nah. Too much like work. They'd have to rouse themselves from nap time in their taxpayer subsidized break rooms filled with Sub-Zero refrigerators.
The answers to ensuring airport security have to be somewhere between the minimum-wage screeners who didn't give a shit before 9/11 and the hyper-political, overly paranoid and pretty much incompetant TSA that is in place now. Before the most recent round of trying to make airline travel incredibly inconvenient for everyone, I was in LAX waiting to go through screening. The TSA folks (there must have been at least 20) were not screening anyone, because they were waiting to end their shift. Sitting on their asses at the "checkpoint" waiting for their reliefs to arrive. The line in the terminal got longer and longer, as people were getting impatient about getting to their gates and flights. Finally brave guy in a suit spoke to (I assume) supervisor who curtly told him to mind his own business, and get back in line, he'd get through when he got through. He finally did, and they did everything but body-cavity search the poor guy.
The TSA is the answer to nothing. They are just another, highly visible part of the failure that is the Department of Homeland Security. Perhaps a new congress might bring some fresh insights into the methodologies and means for the complex tasks of airline and other transportation security, because they're not beholden to the same set of corporate interests that benefit from DHS and the 1600 Crew, but I'm not holding my breath for a fix anytime soon.
posted by Jo Fish on 08.16.06 at 05:47 PM
Comments:
There is the political approach to airline safety that ought to be part of this discussion as well. We cannot ignore the the law of causality, how this preznit, through his action and inaction, has made hating this country and wanting revenge a weapon of choice in many parts of the world. This preznit has used our military as a weapon of subjugation at great cost to our brothers and sisters in arms and to civilians, this preznit has manipulated the political structure in more than one country for his own selfish purposes and this preznit has turned fear into a business ploy. Now people stand in line docilely to be prodded, poked and stripped of their belongings as if they were being booked for a crime instead of voluntarily shelling out some big bucks for choosing to travel in the Chimp's America.
