TSA: Goons At Work
Let me see if I’ve got this right. The TSA is going to make everyone who flies in the US take their shoes off and have them X-rayed. Except, that it seems that the TSA knows the X-Rays won’t do a goddamn thing to detect explosives. So, the lines at National and BWI and Dulles all just got longer in the name of “safety,” but really it’s only safety theatre?
Gee, thanks TSA. I’m so very glad you’re around to “protect” me from all those mean terrorists by making me take off my shoes so that you can pretend to check them for explosives. That’s really awesome. Now, can we just find someone to weave explosives into cloth so we all have to fly naked, handcuffed and under gunpoint? Because that would really rock.
If only there had been some events or knowledge that this was a problem that they should have found a way to address before now!
I plan on purchasing an amphibious RV so that I can travel without ever taking a plane! I’ll never take my shoes off ever again!
This may be my favorite part of the article:
Among the changes TSA said it is considering:
* Hire more people to take baggage-handling responsibilities from screeners so the screeners can focus on security responsibilities.
Exactly what handling responsibility would that be? When I check baggage at Dulles I am told to walk it over to the little roped-off area where the x-ray is – apparently the conveyor belts are just for show now. The screeners there move the bags what looks to me to be about 19 inches or so. This is too trying?
Maybe they mean where they’re moved after this screening. That might make some sense. After all, they’re scanning the bags and now they’re vetted but still in the middle of the check-in area. Why they’re not scanned down in the baggage handling areas is a mystery, but they DO need to be transported – and potentially tampered with – for a nice long distance now.
It’s understandable they’d want to minimize their duties, however, since there’s currently 171 open screener positions nationwide. If you’re interested in a job with immense pressures, night, weekend and split shifts at a salary notably below what you could get paid to be an administrative assistant for the bureau of prisons, well, I look forward to showing you my shoes.