Interesting events around El Al and the TSA

[unixronin]

As schneier reports, El Al has already been doing their own baggage screening at four US airports -- JFK, LAX, Miami International, and O'Hare -- and now they want to add Newark to that list.

I wonder if this is possibly what spurred the TSA to start a pilot program to do passenger screening the Israeli way, which is to say, looking for -- dare I say it -- terrorists instead of for overlooked toenail clippers?

Comments

[fruitylips.livejournal.com]

The biggest thing about Israeli security (not El Al specifically, but airport security in Israel) is that they don't care if you make your flight. For that matter, they don't care if the flight is late either. They're going to get through the security check list, no matter how long it takes. I don't see people putting up with getting to the airport 3 hours early just to get through security.

El Al security outside of Israel was more subtle, but incredibly intrusive. Twice I was pulled out of line and taken to a room where my checked luggage was waiting for me. They hand checked it while asking me about everything in my suitcase. While the security staff was always friendly and chatty, they were incredibly thorough. I don't see the TSA being able to pull off this level of professionalism on the scale of the entire US airport security system.

Having said that, the last time I entered the US was through the border check point at Mexicali. The border patrol officer had that same chatty, casual attitude while simultaneously processing everything that was said or done and noticing all. He ended up chatting with my step-father about a golf tournament in Houston for 2-3 minutes until he was satisfied that we were exactly who we said we were. It very much reminded me of the El Al security staff. My mom's comment after we got across the border was that he should've been less chatty and looking for illegal stuff more. I pointed out that he'd checked us out pretty well while not actually strip searching everyone and that I'd thought he'd done a pretty decent job of making it less arduous since she didn't even notice.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I hear you. The guys who've been doing this professionally for a long time are ... oddly enough ... professional about it. Unfortunately that doesn't apply to the majority of TSA screeners.