An excellent point on airline security

[unixronin]

A poster on NEDoD just pointed out an obvious-in-retrospect weakness in the TSA airort security screenings:

ObTerroristThreat: If my name were Mohammed and I wanted to send another message to Mr. Bush, I'd get 20 friends, send each one to a different major US airport, and let them blow themselves up while in the crowd of 200 people waiting to get through the TSA security check.  That would a) scare the bejeezus out of the ninnies, and b) really stump the TSA people as to how to check for terrorist before you check for terrorists.

All together now:  "Hmmmm."  Of course, you have to get your 20 terrorists into the country first; but does anyone really believe al-Qaeda, Hamas, or Hezballah (or whatever the currently-fashionable spelling is) can't do that?

Comments

[drdemure.livejournal.com]

Oh, please, anybody who thinks the airlines are any safer now than they were prior to 9/11 is just fooling themselves. Grey and I went to Germany in Feb. of '03. I had 8 paperbacks in my carry-on, and the screener flipped through every page of those books before letting me pass. Grey was right behind me, and he got through with a Leatherman (he's forgotten it was there) in his briefcase.

[drdemure.livejournal.com]

Make that Feb. of '02. IOW, just four months after 9/11.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yup, it's a fiasco, isn't it?

Of course, it doesn't help that whenever anyone points out holes in the system and ways to defeat the screening, instead of being sensible and saying "Oh dear, we overlooked that, would you like to help us fix it?", their vanity steps in, they have a hissy-fit at being shown up by a mere amateur, and throw the book at the poor bastard who was only trying to help.

On the same subject of TSA incompetence, were you aware that of the less-than-1,000 pilots successfully graduated from the TSA's Federal Flight Deck Officer program, around 300 FFDO sidearms have been lost or stolen by TSA baggage screeners because TSA regulations forbid a TSA-certified FFDO from carrying his own sidearm on his person onto his own airplane? Or that many of the best-qualified applicants for the FFDO program, including military veterans and active law-enforcement officers, have been summarily flunked out of the course without explanation, sometimes less than an hour from certification?

[bbullock.livejournal.com]

There was a story in Playboy a while back about a soldier murdered by his "friends" while in-country. Eventually, his father got things investigated (he was being stonewalled for some reason) and the perpetrators were finally caught and his sone declared dead instead of AWOL.
The point is, he was given the flag at the funeral, and of course, in the folds are three rounds for an M-16. The security idiot at the airport informed him he would have to confiscate the bullets.
The father informed him that "this is all I have left of my son. You are not getting it. Right now, you're dishonoring his remains."
The guard let him through.