Comments on: Airport Security: Is it (Past) Time for a Change?

By: George w. Bush

George w. Bush — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 02:24:45 +0000

Most if not all the TSA grunts are brain dead. They don’t know their ahole from a donut hole. There are no calibrated, consistent, and specific specifications of any criteria they use.
The TSA is nothing but a WPA program. One wonders if some of them even know how to read, write, or speak.
The best thing that could happen is to go 100% automated, and send these folks back to Taco Bell, Mc Donalds, and Walmart.
They can’t see the forest for the trees.
Furthermore their attitudes are horrible. They are so curt. They threatened my wife, if I had been there I would have gotten his name and have him fired.
Keep the faith, nothing lasts forever.

By: Helen Tucker

Helen Tucker — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 01:37:12 +0000

After browsing the comments posted, I felt compelled to speak out as well.
I recently left my part time employment at an airport. The reason: TSA is taking the jobs from employees of private contractors. I know from experience that they WILL not do any better job than the current employees! I never thought that the Federal Government would take my job from me. This has happened and is happening in other airports as well. What purpose does it serve? No one has so much as offered an explaination, the “powers that be” just directed it to take place. One of our employees actually sought employment with TSA and was hired, proving that we must be capable of performing the job!!

By: Y. Levine

Y. Levine — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 19:17:04 +0000

Last year, when returning to the US from Beijing airport with many other families and their newly-adopted babies, we were not permitted through the xray lines with bottles of baby formula. Mothers offered to drink some to prove they were not suspicious, but to no avail. Finally, after 3 “officials” were spoken to, the bottles were allowed on board. These new families are returning to the US and other countries almost every day. Would the airline and other passengers on the 12 hour flight rather have a plane full of screaming babies?

By: cd

cd — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 22:46:37 +0000

Interesting comments about Israel, as someone who has flown through ben gurion the diffs between security there and in the USA are night and day. Security there is professional, in the sense of competence, training, capacity etc. not in the USA sense of “paid-to-do-a-job”. Security there starts on the road to the airport where you can be questioned and continues right through to the gate. We could do that as well if we only had 2 or 3 airports instead of 429. But the biggest diff is that you get the sense that security staff actually know what they’re doing, that their questions have a purpose and things are thought out and not just random. Check out this article on problems with recertification testing for screeners. http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0204/020418c1.htm

By: James Harris

James Harris — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 21:52:13 +0000

Let me see if I get this straight. Smith thinks we need less airline security, not more? Smith thinks because it would be difficult to make explosives on a plane, we should not check for them in carry on luggage? Smith thinks because we cannot have perfect air travel security, we should have little or none? Smith thinks that law enforcement can prevent terrorism so perfectly that annoying security checks before entering a plane are superfluous, even “ludicrous”? Oh, and Smith thinks people who don’t agree with him are sheep-like victims of fear mongering, etc.? Mr. Smith redefines stupid (as any Israeli can tell you). And while he may help people vent their frustration, he merely adds to the problem by encouraging folks to be less rather than more patient with a system that is, after all, only trying to save their lives.

Want to improve airport security? Well duh. Do what common sense demands but what Smith and the New York Times will never accept: profile passengers, singling out for special scrutiny those who fit our constantly updated information, while sending the remainder speedily on their way (with or without liquids, etc.). Then augment this with random spot checks of blocks of passengers without reference to profiles.

Oh, and save the passenger “sit ins” for that large majority of us who are vastly more frustrated over absurd delays and sorry treatment at the hands of the airlines than we are with the people trying, however imperfectly, to keep us safe.

By: Anne

Anne — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 20:05:50 +0000

If anyone went through TSA Security on Christmas Day at the San Jose Airport, you probably encountered the “Plastic Bag” TSA Police. This TSA agent wouldn’t let me go through with a 1 qt. hard clear plastic zippered bag that was “TSA Approved”, but insisted I could only pass with a Plastic Ziploc Bag! No matter that I had passed through security at other airports, she was standing her ground.

I was also chided for not putting my shoes on my laptop…or was that I should put my laptop on my shoes. Who knows…by that time I was so flustered I wasn’t sure what to do.

Did I mention they failed to catch my canister of mace that I inadvertently left in my purse.

I agree that they have a job to do, but this is what happens when the government is in charge. Pure lunacy!

By: Lyngengr

Lyngengr — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 19:40:06 +0000

The biggest problem with airport “security” is that they is looking for things rather than people. As Mr. Smith’s article pointed out, just about anything on an airplane can be used a weapon. So why aren’t we looking for people who may be predisposed to cause problems?

Let me offer a solution - start using artificial intelligence to screen passengers. Not the rule based crap in place now. Certainly there are a number of experts who could create a profiling program that takes in basic data used to purchase an airline ticket, calibrate it against previous terrorist incidents, and use it to put a security hold on suspicious passengers. Initially, it might flag more people than necessary, but those people could be excepted in the future and the false positives entered into the screening algorithm to be more selective. Now that would be security!

By: reggie sorensen

reggie sorensen — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:39:43 +0000

Sadly,our America has become the police state of Amerika!We need to stand up for our rights and take back this country by force if necessary and quit cowtowing like sheep!To screeners,to police,to border patrol who do not respect us and forget they work for us!

By: Romie Bourne

Romie Bourne — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:18:28 +0000

Hey Sonya, lighten up…just because you are a staunch supporter of the U.S of A. doesn’t mean you need to slam Israel. And no need to be so defensive, Gary has a salient point. NOONE has ever hijacked El Al or crashed it or vandalized it. That is a pretty amazing statistic given the civil unrest there and the number of AMERICANS that travel to Israel every year. But for the record Quantas has the same statistics.

By: susan

susan — Fri, 04 Jan 2008 18:00:27 +0000

OMG!I’m just so happy to see others are as fed up with
this “security crap” as I am. My husband thinks I’m
being overly cranky when going thru this shampoo and
condtioner examanation. Please, can we get REAL law
enforcement people to do this job???!!