Wasn’t there a big deal about the Pedophile’s Guide being sold on Amazon. No need now. The entire guide can be summed up in these words, “Join TSA.” If you haven’t seen the article about TSA body searching a three year old, you can see it here. If you haven’t seen the Taiwanese parody of the TSA searches, you really should see it here.
This situation is absurd, but it may not be as crazy as people might think. Clearly, we need profiling and security dogs at a minimum. However, if indeed PETN can’t be tracked by the dogs, we need scanners as such or else the pat downs may be necessary. I tend to believe at this point that TSA has received intelligence that more Christmas Day bombers with PETN undies are coming. PETN is not detectable by the metal scanners, thus people can just walk through the detectors wearing explosives. Plus, evidently, it isn’t detectable by the general explosives scanners either. It is only detectable by touch or by the newer scanning  machines.
Regarding scanners see this article about scanning all cargo and just how much that would cost, except here we’re talking about using these same scanners for passengers as well as bags and cargo. Almost no airport is equipped to do that and it would cost billions of dollars to install everywhere as well as taking many months just to cover major airports.
My belief is that Homeland Security suggested that TSA enact the screening for PETN because of credible intelligence. The only thing that can be done other than either the advanced scanners (which are highly limited right now) or pat downs is to do Israeli style profiling and questioning which would add at least two hours to every flight and require months, if not years, to initiate here because of training and hiring. If this is an immediate risk issue, and I imagine that it is, they have little choice beyond the pat downs. There may not be reasonable and effective immediate alternatives.
I am assuming that TSA has been told not to inform the public about the need for these checks so as not to cause panic during the travel season. Better they be seen as overly intrusive than absolutely necessary. Imagine the looks that every minority person would face, especially Muslim dressed minority people, the entire time they are in the airport.
Full facial detection software and questioning in front of facial scanners in order to identify those who are lying or are unusually stressed would work too, but again we’re talking cost and time. If we have no time, which is my bet, namely that there is an immediate credible threat, they may have no choice but to pursue this ridiculously obtrusive path. The motto for TSA really should be “Better felt up than blown up.”
Don’t buy it for a minute. Sorry. Most often the threats materialize outside the US. Concentrate our efforts there. We are not criminals and at some point the intrusion becomes part of the landscape. Once our freedoms are gone we are but cattle. (BTW – been to Israel and the security is extensive throughout the country). This is so like the beginnings of total state control that it is sad to see America fading away with hardly a whimper. Indeed, the terrorists have won.
On my first trip to Israel back in 1983, we had a brief layover in Amsterdam. I only went out into the airport, and on my way back to the plane, I had to go through security. At one point, a woman officer who was probably not much older than I was at the time took me to a booth and patted me down. (I don’t remember whether the booth had a curtain at the entrance or not.) She did it quickly and professionally and I didn’t feel compromised or attacked. I understood the necessity, and stood quietly and let her do her job. It was over in seconds and I was free to go. I think that every passenger on the plane was frisked similarly, the men by men officers and the women by women officers.
We need competent profiling and good scanners, not searches. My point is that there may be an IMMEDIATE threat which would mean that something needs to be done NOW. Training and scanners would not be immediate options. Clearly they are vastly superior ones and anyone, including even TSA understands that. This indicates to me that they must be responding to an IMMEDIATE threat rather than a long term concern. The report today of threats against planes in Germany may be indicative of this immediate threat. Remember also that last year, we had the Christmas Day bomber who only failed because he was incompetent and there were capable and aware passengers near him on the plane. We were LUCKY then. Nothing has changed in the interim to prevent another similar attack carried out by a more competent attacker. NOTHING. AND the threat has increased. Using profiling and facial recognition software analyzing responses to a set of questions will be the future, but we aren’t there NOW. NOW is the concern.
An option becomes SOP very quickly and we continue to loose freedoms and rights in the name of safety and security. Besides, there is some indication that the companies have been lobbying for the scanners for quite some time. It is about opportunity not safety.
All the TSA does is do a “show” for the sheep. If a bomber wants explosives on a plane he sticks them up his butt. They can scan him all they want, they can pat him down as well. But neither would do anything to find it. Then on the plane he goes to the bathroom, squats down and dumps it on the floor. Then he does whatever they do with a bomb.
The scanners are just there for show. Every time w beef up security the Muslims go the next step. Honestly, making EVERY Muslim that wants to board a plane eat pork would stop the suicide bombers as then they won’t get their 70 male virgins in heaven…
eh, do i come here to hear about eating p-rk, Mr Rifle?
.. anyhow, hearing about this TSA situation takes us back to a problem America’s celebrated “founding fathers” never foresaw. in short, THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. oh, if we only had some impregnable barrier between *industry* and State. case in point: one of the .. side-effects of the 9/11 attacks was the rapid, rapid growth of the Security Industry, mainly around the DC metro area. and as we Americans have learned, the instant an industry grows large enough, they wind up editing – if not writing – the legislation our elected officials sign off on. so there is one company who came up with these fancy X-ray machines (no doubt as safe as your average artificial sweetener or bovine growth hormones), they made some vast investment in research and manufacture and, by hook or by crook, they are coming to an Airport near you. but not *everyone* will be subjected to this sort of thing. if you fly private, you’ll be passing through an FBO. a person behind a desk will confirm that you have some business there and buzz you through the door. *presto*, you’re on the ramp. an entire class of people – including many politicians – will, quite literally, not be touched ..
meanwhile: http://pics.livejournal.com/springheel_jack/pic/002z1kdy