How easy is it to dupe the new TSA strip search scanners?

Apparently very easy.  Jon Corbett sewed a pocket inside of his loose shirt so it hung away from and beside his body.  He then walked through billion dollar, cancer causing boondoggle.  And continued right through to the other side without incident.  Turns out that metal objects show up great if they are outlined against your body, but do not show up at all if they are beside your body where they blend into the dark background.  Oh, and there is no way he could have gotten the object through with the old fashioned screening. Good job, TSA.  Maybe we should be thankful.  The way they are operating, law abiding citizens can also smuggle weapons on board so they can return fire.

The TSA is useless

Don't take my word for it.  Ask Steve Moore, a former head of the FBI's Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force Al Queda squad, a 35 year pilot, and too many more credentials to list:

Frankly, the professional experience I have had with TSA has frightened me. Once, when approaching screening for a flight on official FBI business, I showed my badge as I had done for decades in order to bypass screening. (You can be envious, but remember, I was one less person in line.) I was asked for my form which showed that I was armed. I was unarmed on this flight because my ultimate destination was a foreign country. I was told, "Then you have to be screened." This logic startled me, so I asked, "If I tell you I have a high-powered weapon, you will let me bypass screening, but if I tell you I'm unarmed, then I have to be screened?" The answer? "Yes. Exactly." Another time, I was bypassing screening (again on official FBI business) with my .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a TSA officer noticed the clip of my pocket knife. "You can't bring a knife on board," he said. I looked at him incredulously and asked, "The semi-automatic pistol is okay, but you don't trust me with a knife?" His response was equal parts predictable and frightening, "But knives are not allowed on the planes."...

Sure, TSA, we believe you



After years of pooh-poohing concerns about the new airport scanners giving off dangerous levels of radiation, the LA Times broke the story that the TSA has decided to start testing its employees for exposure:

After years of rebuffing health concerns over airport scanners, the Transportation Security Administration plans to conduct new tests on the potential radiation exposure from the machines at more than 100 airports nationwide.
But the TSA does not plan to retest the machines or passengers. Instead, the agency plans to test its airport security officers to see if they are being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation while working with the scanners.

They go on to quote a TSA spokesman who, when confronted with the accusation that the Agency has decided to implement the radiation testing, said:

"TSA is dedicated to the health and safety of its employees," TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said.

So let me get this straight, you have decided that you better test your employees because the scanners give off unsafe levels of radiation.  But they are safe for the people going through them.  Uh-huh.  Yup, I believe that...

The TSA isn't just for airports anymore.

Imagine this, you just got out of a football game in Charlotte and are racing to catch the train back home to Atlanta. Only you get stopped by three men with automatic weapons and a trained police dog. Then you are grilled about who you are and where you are going.  Or maybe you are about to board a subway home after work.  Or on the gang plank to the cruise ship for your vacation.  Or going into a NASCAR race.  Or even taking a ferry to tht Outer Banks.  Or just about any place else nowadays.  What's more, the TSA admits there is no evidence that any of these activities ever stopped a terrorist act.  Nor did putting portable metal detectors up and testing for explosive residue to "screen" passengers luggage at a greyhound bus terminal. I think that the two reasons why the TSA is engaging in these futile exercises can be found in an article in today's LA Times. First, the TSA just submitted a budget requesting an almost 25% increase in non-aviation personnel. The good Director has seen an opportunity to expand her fiefdom at you expense. The second reason is a little more subtle:

But critics say that without a clear threat, the TSA checkpoints are merely political theater. Privacy advocates worry that the agency is stretching legal limits on the government's right to search U.S. citizens without probable cause — and with no proof that the scattershot checkpoints help prevent attacks.

"It's a great way to make the public think you are doing something," said Fred H. Cate, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, who writes on privacy and security. "It's a little like saying, 'If we start throwing things up in the air, will they hit terrorists?' ''

After admitting that the intrusions had never stopped anything, one TSA official gave as an alternative justification that it helped boost public confidence. Let me translate that for you: it's great for Obama's re-election because the public, at our expense, is reminded of what a great job his administration is doing to protect us while at the same time scaring them which has historically boosted re-election chances.

You'll be happy to know the TSA is doing its job

Since I have been blogging about bake goods, I suppose I should post this article from the Boston Globe:

Mass. woman says TSA confiscated frosted cupcake

Dec 24, 2011 05:29 AM
A woman who just flew back home from Las Vegas says an airport security officer confiscated her frosted cupcake because he thought the icing on it could be a security risk.

Rebecca Hains said the Transportation Security Administration agent at McCarran International Airport took her cupcake Wednesday, telling her its frosting was enough like a gel to violate TSA restrictions on allowing liquids and gels onto flights to prevent them from being used as explosives.

“I just thought this was terrible logic,’’ Hains said Friday.

Hains, who lives in Peabody, just north of Boston, said the agent didn’t seem concerned that the cupcake could actually be explosive, just that it fit some bureaucratic definition about what was prohibited. She said he even offered to let her eat it away from the airport security area.

Hains, a 35-year-old communications professor at Salem State University, said she told the agent she had passed through security at Boston’s Logan International Airport earlier in the week with two cupcakes packaged in jars, gifts from a student. But she said the agent told her that just meant TSA in Boston didn’t do its job.

The TSA, which is entrusted with protecting the nation’s transportation system, was reviewing the incident, agency spokesman Nico Melendez said. Passengers are allowed to take cakes and cupcakes through checkpoints, he said.

Hains ultimately surrendered the cupcake. But she said the encounter highlighted a lack of common sense by the agent and the ludicrousness of TSA policies.

“It’s not really about the cupcake; I can get another cupcake,’’ she said. “It’s about an encroachment on civil liberties. We’re just building up a resistance and tolerance to all these things they’re doing in the name of security, when it’s really theater. It is not keeping us safe.’’

TSA: keeping the world safe from pastry since 2002.