November 8th, 2006
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Tags: 2006 election, Republicans, Contract with America, Contress, ethics, scandal, Democrats, negative political ads, election tampering, politics, factcheck.org, DHS, TSA, passports, Hasan Elahi, FBI, mental illness, anxiety, depression
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My Life, Politics & Causes, Friends & Family, In the News, Geekery, Blogging & Other Blogs, Wellness, The World, Featured, 9-11 & Terrorism, Anxiety/Depression, Thursday Thirteen, Memes
November 8th, 2006
I know it’s been a while. I kind of get around to posting things when I feel like it these days. I meant to post right away about my experience flying out of the Portland Jetport in Maine but I didn’t have access to a computer while on my trip and when I got back, I had company and then one thing led to another and then I just never got around to it.
So, today I’m getting around to it. So there.
I kind of felt it was important to report my observations since at the time of my flight in September, everyone was making such a big fuss about how a few of the 9-11 hijackers originated from the Portland Jetport. I thought that maybe with that stigma in mind, the Portland Jetport might be extra careful with security.
Pugly and I arrived at the U.S. Airways counter a good two hours early. (If you recall, I always arrive at least two hours early at every airport due to the fact that no matter where I am going or how well I’ve followed the rules I always end up in some sort of altercation with airport security — I suspect I am considered to be on some list and have been since 9-11 — and that this has resulted in the fact that friends and family will no longer travel with me or even on the same day or airline with me.)
To the clerk at the U.S. Airways counter, I presented my folded up piece of paper from priceline.com indicating that I had purchased a plane ticket online to Cleveland that took me to Philadelphia first. No one ever asked me for any picture identification. I did have to present a credit card to pay for the extra carry-on baggage of a dog in a carrier. (Note: No one measured the carrier or weighed the dog to determine that either fit the requirements for the flight.) Comments were made that Pugly was the cutest dog ever seen.
I handed my check-in luggage to the man at the giant x-ray machine and Pugly and I headed upstairs toward the gates.
If you’ve ever been to the Portland Jetport, then you know. There’s nothing in the Portland Jetport. Before the Security Gates, you have your choice of a concession stand and a magazine stand. Pugly and I sat around for a while eating snacks and letting kiddies pet him. Then we went in the magazine stand and bought a box of Maine salt water taffy for my aunt since we were going to visit her and all.
When we had an hour left, we got in the security line. Now here, they did ask for an ID. Pugly had to come out of his carrier. Women started gushing over him. Again people started insisting that he was the cutest dog they’d ever seen.
Now here’s what I found amusing. This was during the height of the “no liquid” scare. You know, when they were throwing away your lipstick and hand lotion. My lipstick made it through just fine, but that saltwater taffy that I just bought in the magazine stand a few feet away had to go under extreme scrutiny. I guess you never know when terrorists will be sneaking saltwater bomb taffy on board. They actually subjected those taffy to all kinds of electrical and chemical kinds of tests with there big machines that looked like something on Pinky & the Brain or the old campy Batman shows.
Finally, Pugly, the saltwater taffy, and I made it through.
By the way, I never needed my ID again. U.S. Airways never did need to be sure if I was me. I just needed that folded up print-out from priceline.com. I guess I should be comforted that at least TSA was checking, but somehow I’m not.
What you should know about the rest of the trip is this:
- On the first U.S. Airlines trip, the stewardess didn’t care that the pet carrier was too large to fit under the seat and blocked both myself and the passenger sitting next to me from being able to make any kind of exit in case of an exit.
- At the airport in Philadelphia, I was very frustrated by the fact that it is impossible to buy water bottles or other drink bottles in a size appropriate to the amount of time of your time between flights. This was during the time when you still could not take pre-purchased drinks on airplanes after the London scare.
- U.S. Airlines employees were not consistent in ensuring that boarders dispose of bottles of fluids before boarding. The same stewardess would let some board but not others. For example, I had to dispose of my Dysani but the man ahead of my could bring his Diet Coke.
- On the second U.S. Airlines trip, I had to sit in a row by myself so as to not to affect other passengers with my oversized pet carrier in case of emergencies.
- No one asked me to prove I was taking only my own luggage.
I was very glad that we drove back to Maine.
Tags: U.S. Airways, Portland Jetport, TSA, flying, airport security
October 3rd, 2006
On Terror-steria
mass hysteria
n. A socially contagious frenzy of irrational behavior in a group of people as a reaction to an event.
- The Suntan Menace — The Cunning Realist writes about another incident in our friendly skies where an innocent man is assumed by other passengers to be a terrorist because of “suspicious activities” like going to the toilet when he got on the plane and having an iPod. The most damning piece of evidence was the color of his skin, which was tanned due to the vacation the Jewish father of three was returning from. Mr. Stein was physically attacked by another passenger “claiming” to be a NY police officer and put in a head lock an hour into the flight while he was minding his own business reading a book and sipping his ginger ale. He sounds terribly dangerous. He’s suing the airline for failing to protect him since the cabin crew was aware of the passenger’s obsession with him. He should sue the passenger too.
As someone who travels a lot, owns gadgets, is dark-complected, and even uses the restroom, I keep waiting — with anticipation, I must admit — for some overeager vigilante/Charles Bronson-wannabe to try this crap on me.
- Please step to the white courtesy phone [for a brain] — Mac @ peskyapostrophe reports that a man missed his flight after being detained in an airport in Seattle because he was speaking a foreign language into his cell phone. Hmmmmm… That does sound suspicious. Apparently he was discussing sports, which is really suspicious. The language was Tamil, which is a language largely used in India, Sri Lanka and Singapore and the person who called it in was an off-duty airline personnell. The passenger indicated that in the future, he wouldn’t be speaking Tamil into his cell phone in the airport. That’s just a shame.
- The TSA sucks - hey, better detain me — Mac @ peskyapostrophe also has a post about a Wisconsin man who wrote “Kip Hawley is an Idiot” on a plastic bag containing toiletries said he was detained at an airport security checkpoint for about 25 minutes before authorities concluded the statement was not a threat. You know, because Kip Hawley is the head of the Transportation Security Administration. “A TSA spokeswoman acknowledged a man was stopped, but likened the incident to cases in which people inappropriately joke about bombs.” *snort* Talk about going overboard.
On Torture
- Is The U.S. A Rogue State? — Matthew Yglesias (op-ed writer for The American Prospect) @ CBS News wrote a brilliant opinion piece about how in 2003 President George Bush gave a speech indicating that the U.S. was committed to “world-wide elimination of torture” and leading the fight by example. He said it was an inalienable human right to be free of torture. He also said, “The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, ratified by the United States and more than 130 other countries since 1984, forbids governments from deliberately inflicting severe physical or mental pain or suffering on those within their custody or control….Yet torture continues to be practiced around the world by rogue regimes whose cruel methods match their determination to crush the human spirit.” Based on that statement from Bush’s own claims, Yglesias wants to know if the United States is now a rogue state since we now legally torture. Have we now become what we set out to eliminate?
Other countries, of course, practice torture in violation of international law. As has now been clear for a while, we have been in their company for some years. The latest twist, however, is that we now won’t show any shame about it. Rather than simply violating the laws to which we have agreed to adhere, we’re repudiating them, simply denying that the standard by which civilized nations operate apply to us.
The problems here will be widespread. One of the strengths of democracies on the international scene is precisely that it’s much harder for liberal states to violate agreements. Dictatorships can say one thing and do another with ease. Democracies feature free presses, free speech, the rule of law, independent judiciaries, legislative oversight, and other measures to ensure that laws and treaties are followed. This is, to the conservative mind, a weakness. In their view, cheating is a good thing, and America’s historical difficulty in cheating constitutes a problem. They’re dead wrong. Cooperation is a good thing — the best ticket to prosperity, security, and international peace. Democracies can cooperate with other countries — and especially with other democracies — more credibly and effectively, and that’s one of the reasons the world’s democratic block is so much stronger and more prosperous than the rest of the world.
But the rule of law is now off the table as far as Bush is concerned. What’s more, insofar as national-security policy is at issue, the United States increasingly doesn’t look like much of a democracy. As the congressional Republicans march in lockstep behind the White House’s torture agenda, they don’t even know what that agenda’s composed of. The Boston Globe reported Saturday that 90 percent of members of Congress don’t know “which interrogation techniques have been used in the past, and none of them know which ones would be permissible under proposed changes to the War Crimes Act.” Which is just to say that, in practice, absolutely everything would be permitted, since the only people capable of overseeing the interrogation program haven’t done it, won’t do it, and have no intention of doing it in the future.
Consequently, the United States now presents itself as what amounts to the globe’s largest and most powerful rogue state — a nuclear-armed superpower capable of projecting military force to the furthest corners of the earth, acting utterly without legal or moral constraint whenever the president proclaims it necessary. The idea that striking such a posture on the world stage will serve our long-term interests is daft. American power has, for decades, rested crucially on the sense that the United States can be trusted and relied upon, on the belief that we use our power primarily to defend the community of liberal states and the liberal rules by which they conduct themselves rather than to undermine them.
An America prepared to casually toss out the most fundamental principles of international humanitarian diplomacy, along with basic human decency and the rule of law as side helpings, is not a country others are going to want to cooperate with.
Hat tip: Sean Aqui.
- How long till they come and take your favorite blogger away? — Punkass Mac @ PunkAssBlog.com expresses concern that the inclusion of the term “leftist terrorist” in the NIE report may eventually lead to serious problems for leftist bloggers once the new torture/detainee legislation passes. Pain-in-the-ass lefty bloggers can be labeled as having “leftist terrorist agendas” and disappear into some CIA black prison or Gitmo.
On Iraq
- Batiste — Gregory @ The Belgravia Dispatch wrote an excellent piece, quoting former Major General John Batiste’s testimony before the Senate Democratic Policy Committee which presented a rather scathing review of Rumsfeld’s competence as a wartime leader. Gregory’s analysis is dead on, suggesting that the Bush-Chenney Administration is all talk but no real muscle to back it up, meaning they haven’t or can’t put the resources in to match their own rhetoric.
That is to say, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika are only pretending to have the sang-froid and will and staying power and Churchillian courage to prevail in Iraq. But they are being dishonest with us. They are empty suits, presiding over a failing strategy, none of them with the energy or intellectual courage to own up and demand either that the nation sacrifice and devote adequate resources to the effort, or failing that pursue a convincing alternative strategy. Of course, it’s not all their fault, as they are bowing to some realities, one suspects. If Bush gave a speech calling for re-institution of the draft, or implemention of a war tax, or even less dramatic moves but nevertheless ones that demanded more sacrifice (sending another 50,000 troops in, with casualty rates inevitably increasing, especially if we adopted less conservative force postures in keeping with best counter-insurgency practice) one presumes the nation would turn on the war all the faster (though if such moves changed the tenor of the war for the better perhaps support would not drop as much as one might suspect, although one would need real leaders at the helm explicating the need persuasively, which we don’t). Worth noting too, Rove would allow none of it, with midterms looming in November.
Regardless, what we have now is not quite ’stay the course’, or the comically desperate sounding ‘adapting to win’, or some such soundbite. What we are doing, really, is half-assing along as best we can without truly summoning all the national reservoirs of power (military, economic, diplomatic, humanitarian) to really have a real go at prevailing, assuming one believes there is still a shot at eking out a victory, an issue where intelligent people (as the previous thread indicated) can disagree. At some point, we either step up, talk to the Iranians and Syrians so as to get more intelligent about pursuing a regional strategy, make clear and signal to Iraqis we’re there to truly prevail by sending in more forces, and otherwise get more serious (more robust force posture to truly “clear”, not via endless rounds of whack-a-mole, but with a convincing footprint and level of sustained effort through entire areas of concern simultaneously, more funds for reconstruction and infrastructure to effectively “build”, increasing American embeds operating with both Iraqi Army and even Police units so as to help develop more of an indigenuous “hold” function, and so on)–or we need to think much more about pursuing an intelligent withdrawal strategy–if perhaps we don’t think the additional effort is worth it (perhaps presiding over a confederation, but holding out the prospects of a unitary state in the future, a la Dayton, is worthy of more thought). Either way, the rough status quo, with a couple soldiers dying a day, dishonors their sacrifice, because it is a sacrifice made in vain. And our leaders are not honest enough to come clean with us about this, or if they think they are being honest with us, it is only because they are living in a deluded fantasy land where fundamentalist-style verities reign, rather than the grim realities presented by the empirical evidence around them.
Hat tip: John Cole.
Have an opinion on these topics to share or found a post you want to add? Add your opinion or the post link to the comments section. My inquiring mind wants to know!
Tags: John Batiste, Senate Democratic Policy Committee, George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Iraq, War, stay the course, adapting to win, propaganda, American soldiers, Middle East, Seth Stein, American Airlines, mass hysteria, terrorism, rogue state, The American Prospect, CBS News, torture, War Crimes Act, Geneva Convention, Congress, Seattle, Tamil, TSA, Kip Hawley, leftist terrorist agenda, NIE report, Guantanamo Bay
August 22nd, 2006
Last Wednesday, in Malaga, Spain, some of the passengers of Monarch Airlines Airbus A320 succummed to irrational terror and forced Monach Airlines to eject two other passengers from the flight based on their own version of racial profiling, even though they had all at that point passed security checks. The problem with the two passengers was that they were both in their early 20s, appeared to be Middle Eastern, and were speaking in a foreign language which the other passengers assumed was Arabic; the passengers noted that despite the heat of Malaga, the two men were wearing leather jackets and thick jumpers and seemed to be checking their watches rather regularly — I don’t know why that part was alarming to anyone as I find everyone in airport is always anxious to get on the plane and watch checking seems to be a regular airport activity.
Initially, six passengers refused to board the flight. On board the aircraft, word reached one family. To the astonishment of cabin crew, they stood up and walked off, followed quickly by others.
The Monarch pilot - a highly experienced captain - accompanied by armed Civil Guard police and airport security staff, approached the two men and took their passports.
Half an hour later, police returned and escorted the two Asian passengers off the jet.
[…]
Soon afterwards, the aircraft was cleared while police did a thorough security sweep. Nothing was found and the plane took off - three hours late and without the two men on board.
Monarch arranged for them to spend the rest of the night in an airport hotel and flew them back to Manchester later on Wednesday.
College lecturer Jo Schofield, her husband Heath and daughters Emily, 15, and Isabel, 12, were caught up in the passenger mutiny.
Mrs Schofield, 38, said: “The plane was not yet full and it became apparent that people were refusing to board. In the gate waiting area, people had been talking about these two, who looked really suspicious with their heavy clothing, scruffy, rough, appearance and long hair.
“Some of the older children, who had seen the terror alert on television, were starting to mutter things like, ‘Those two look like they’re bombers.’
“Then a family stood up and walked off the aircraft. They were joined by others, about eight in all. We learned later that six or seven people had refused to get on the plane.
“There was no fuss or panic. People just calmly and quietly got off the plane. There were no racist taunts or any remarks directed at the men.
“It was an eerie scene, very quiet. The children were starting to ask what was going on. We tried to play it down.”
Mr Schofield, 40, an area sales manager, said: “When the men were taken off they didn’t argue or say a word. They just picked up their coats and obeyed the police. They seemed resigned to the fact they were under suspicion.
“The captain and crew were very apologetic when we were asked to evacuate the plane for the security search. But there was no dissent.
“While we were waiting, everyone agreed the men looked dodgy. Some passengers were very panicky and in tears. There was a lot of talking about terrorists.”
Patrick Mercer, the Tory Homeland Security spokesman, said last night: “This is a victory for terrorists. These people on the flight have been terrorised into behaving irrationally.
“For those unfortunate two men to be victimised because of the colour of their skin is just nonsense.”
Monarch said last night: “The captain was concerned about the security surrounding the two gentlemen on the aircraft and the decision was taken to remove them from the flight for further security checks.
“The two passengers offloaded from the flight were later cleared by airport security and rebooked to travel back to Manchester on a later flight.” [”Mutiny as passengers refuse to fly until Asians are removed”(Daily Mail)]
Mercer is right. However, it’s not the terrorists who created the victory; it’s the fear-mongerers who created it. If we had more assurances from the British and American governments and airport securities that we really are safer now than we were and if our President wasn’t on the television basically saying “Muslims are bad! You should fear Muslims Only I can protect you from the scary Muslims!” Maybe this sort of thing wouldn’t be starting to happen.
Oh, but you say, that didn’t happen here in America? It wouldn’t happen here in America?
Well, I’m glad you brought that up, because last Tuesday Dr. Ahmed Farooq of Winnipeg was escorted off a United Airlines plane in Denver after a drunk passenger made allegations of suspicious behaviour when he was reciting his evening prayers.
When flight personnel were alerted, the 27-year-old radiology resident and two colleagues — a man and a woman — were taken off their flight. They had been returning from a conference in San Francisco.
Farooq said that even officials from the Transportation Security Administration soon realized the flight crew had overreacted, but by the time that conclusion had been reached the trio were forced to stay in Denver for the night and catch a flight the next day — at their own expense. “There’s no recourse,” Farooq said. “There’s no way to really be able to talk to anybody to really be able to reason it out. The police officers who talked to me afterwards and subsequent officials within the first three to five minutes, they were like, ‘You know what? The crew made a mistake. We apologize that they took you off. They overreacted.’”
Brandon Borrman of United Airlines told the Winnipeg Free Press this week that the airline is obliged to take any allegations threatening passenger safety seriously, particularly in the wake of last week’s arrests in the alleged bomb plot on flights from Britain to the U.S.
“Whenever these types of claims are made we have a duty to investigate,” Borrman said. “Our flight crews are trained to make safety the No. 1 priority.” [”Muslim doctor wants apology from U.S. airline” (CBS News)]
Dr. Ahmed Farooq is demanding an official appology and compensation from United Airlines.
You should at least note that the British airline had the decency to not only admit they were overreacting at the time and compensate the passengers for the that they had to get off the flight, stay the night and get another flight the next day.
These people are people. They’re just trying to get from A to B like you and me. They’re on business trips, visiting family, on vacation, etc. They’re just as worried, scared, annoyed as you. Only now they have the added worry that you’re going to come after them as a lynch mob just because of the color of their skin or the language they speak or the religion they choose.
Aren’t we above that yet? Or are we ready to turn our country over to the KKK and other haters and let them have control until only the “right” kind of people are left so we know who to trust?
But wait! There’s more!
Raed Jarrar, the Iraqi Project Director for the human rights group Global Exchange, was stopped at JFK airport wearing a t-shirt with the words in Arabic and English, “We Will Not Be Silent.” (The man in the picture is not Raed Jarrar, but this is the shirt he was wearing.) He was told by agents at the airport he would not be permitted to board the plane wearing that t-shirt because of its message. Jarrar’s story, from his blog Raed in the Middle:
At around 8:30, two men approached me while I was checking my phone. One of them asked me if I had a minute and he showed me his badge, I said: “sure”. We walked some few steps and stood in front of the boarding counter where I found out that they were accompanied by another person, a woman from Jet Blue.
One of the two men who approached me first, Inspector Harris, asked for my id card and boarding pass. I gave him my boarding pass and driver’s license. He said “people are feeling offended because of your t-shirt”. I looked at my t-shirt: I was wearing my shirt which states in both Arabic and English “we will not be silent”…. I said “I am very sorry if I offended anyone, I didnt know that this t-shirt will be offensive”. He asked me if I had any other T-shirts to put on, and I told him that I had checked in all of my bags and I asked him “why do you want me to take off my t-shirt? Isn’t it my constitutional right to express myself in this way?” The second man in a greenish suit interfered and said “people here in the US don’t understand these things about constitutional rights”. So I answered him “I live in the US, and I understand it is my right to wear this t-shirt.”
Then I once again asked the three of them : “How come you are asking me to change my t-shirt? Isn’t this my constitutional right to wear it? I am ready to change it if you tell me why I should. Do you have an order against Arabic t-shirts? Is there such a law against Arabic script?” so inspector Harris answered “you can’t wear a t-shirt with Arabic script and come to an airport. It is like wearing a t-shirt that reads “I am a robber” and going to a bank”. I said “but the message on my t-shirt is not offensive, it just says “we will not be silent”…. Inspector Harris said: “We cant make sure that your t-shirt means we will not be silent, we don’t have a translator. Maybe it means something else”. I said: “But as you can see, the statement is in both Arabic and English”. He said “maybe it is not the same message”. So based on the fact that Jet Blue doesn’t have a translator, anything in Arabic is suspicious because maybe it’ll mean something bad!…
inspector Harris said: “You don’t have to take of your t-shirt, just put it on inside-out”. I refused to put on my shirt inside-out. So the woman interfered and said “let’s reach a compromise. I will buy you a new t-shirt and you can put it on on top of this one”. I said “I want to keep this t-shirt on”. Both inspector Harris and Mr. Harmon said “No, we can’t let you get on that airplane with your t-shirt”. I said “I am ready to put on another t-shirt if you tell me what is the law that requires such a thing. I want to talk to your supervisor”. Inspector Harris said “You don’t have to talk to anyone. Many people called and complained about your t-shirt. Jetblue customers were calling before you reached the checkpoint, and costumers called when you were waiting here in the boarding area”.
it was then that I realized that my t-shirt was the reason why I had been taken to the secondary checking.
I asked the four people again to let me talk to any supervisor, and they refused.
The Jet Blue woman was asking me again to end this problem by just putting on a new t-shirt, and I felt threatened by Mr. Harmon’s remarks as in “Let’s end this the nice way”. Taking in consideration what happens to other Arabs and Muslims in US airports, and realizing that I will miss my flight unless I covered the Arabic script on my t-shirt as I was told by the four agents, I asked the Jet Blue woman to buy me a t-shirt and I said “I don’t want to miss my flight.”
She asked, what kind of t-shirts do you like. Should I get you an “I heart new york t-shirt?”. So Mr. Harmon said “No, we shouldn’t ask him to go from one extreme to another”. I asked mr. harmon why does he assume I hate new york if I had some Arabic script on my t-shirt, but he didn’t answer.
The woman went away for 3 minutes, and she came back with a gray t-shirt reading “new york”. I put the t-shirt on and removed the price tag. I told the four people who were involved in the conversation: “I feel very sad that my personal freedom was taken away like this. I grew up under authoritarian governments in the Middle East, and one of the reasons I chose to move to the US was that I don’t want an officer to make me change my t-shirt. I will pursue this incident today through a Constitutional rights organization, and I am sure we will meet soon”. Everyone said okay and left, and I went back to my seat.
This is what they’re trying with someone who knows his constitutional rights under the First Amendment. What will they try with someone else?
Mr. Jarrar has filed a complaint through the ACLU against JetBlue. He would like to file a complaint against the government agents involved, but was unable to ascertain from which agency they hailed. Jarrar is asking that people call JetBlue at 1-800-JETBLUE (538-2583), or leave a complaint via an online form. My complaint via the form:
I am dismayed by the case of Raed Jarrar. What is jetBlue doing keeping people off flights for wearing t-shirts that state “We Will Not Be Silenced?” A t-shirt is not a weapon of mass destruction. Please apologize to Mr. Jarrar and consult your United States Constitution. See especially Amendment #1.
A message on a t-shirt is not a weapon of mass destruction. Freedom begins to die when the authorities pull this shit and nobody complains. So thank you, Raed Jarrar, for speaking out and making a fuss about it. Those of us who are more comfortably situated than he would do well to raise a fuss as well. [“T-shirt of Mass Destruction?” (Irregular Times)]
Is this really what we want? To live in fear? To live as racists? To condemn each other based on race and religion? Such stupid wars were fought over religion and race and what came of it in the past? In the end, we are all flesh and blood. We live; we die; we breath; we feel.
Recommended Reading:
Tags: hatred, racism, airport security, Monarch Airlines, United Airlines, Peter Mercer, Dr. Ahmed Farooq, TSA, Raed Jarrar, Global Exhange, JFK airport, We Will Not Be Silent
August 18th, 2006
The Boston Globe reports that the technology to detect liquid explosives is already available and, in fact, the White House and the Supreme Court are already using such equipment known as SmartCheck, a low-intensity X-ray scanner made by AS&E that “can spot a bottle of organic compounds in a passenger’s pocket.” That’s pretty impressive actually considering all the people who end up on airplanes with all sorts of things they aren’t supposed to. However,
The TSA has not outfitted airports with the devices, in part, because officials have to prioritize where they spend limited dollars, according to Frank Cilluffo, former special assistant to President Bush for homeland security and now director of George Washington University’s Homeland Security Policy Institute.
Meanwhile, while Bush and his staff were sure of their safety, this year the Bush administration was secretly seeking permission from Congress to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent developing new homeland explosives detection technology — technology that would protect the rest of America from those terrorists President Bush is always warning us to be afraid of.
What I really don’t understand is why we aren’t focusing on the technology we do have and distributing it to the airports we have where terrorists might think to try sneaking bombs and weapons and liquid and non-liquid explosives in. I mean SmartCheck has been around since some time in the 1990s. Just think about if something like that had been in place on September 11, 2001.
The Transportation Security Administration, the federal agency in charge of airport security, is testing products from American Science and Engineering Inc. of Billerica; Ahura Corp. of Wilmington; and General Dielectric Inc. of Acton.
AS&E’s SmartCheck system uses low-powered X-rays to scan passengers for hidden items like bottles of liquid, while Ahura and General Dielectric use lasers or microwaves respectively, to identify the contents of a sealed bottle. The TSA is also testing seven other devices made by companies in the United States, the United Kingdom , and Japan. But TSA spokeswoman Amy Kudwa says that none are ready to be deployed because of reliability and feasibility issues.
But after this month’s foiled terrorist plot to smuggle liquid explosives aboard jumbo jets, the government may not have the luxury to wait. Charles Slepian , founder of the Foreseeable Risk Analysis Center, a transportation security firm in New York, said that technology for detecting explosives in carry-on bags is well understood and readily available, but the US Department of Homeland Security is reluctant to spend the large sums needed to deploy it at hundreds of airports.
So, which is it? Is the equipment unreliable? Or does it have to do with how much money they’d have to spend? Let’s think about it.
It’s reliable enough to use at The White House. They wouldn’t risk the President’s life, would they?
So it must be all that money they’d have to spend. That’s money they could use funding the war in Iraq. After all, it’s hard to fund things when you keep insisting on cutting back on taxes. You can’t pay for the important things like protecting the country if you don’t have any money coming in.
Tags: George W. Bush, politics, terrorism, Homeland Security, Boston Globe, airport security, AS&E, SmartCheck, TSA
