I do not much like excessive X-rays myself,so I would be opting for the alternative method, Bur I would much rather the idiots perfect a sniffer setup.
Then, you could put 25 people in a room and sniff it, and if it is OK, they go thru standard security. If the sniffer goes off, Houston has a problem.
The X-ray thing is too invasive. Not so much the hardware being used, but the piggery behind it. The problem is with the 'baseline' pig model.
They need to go back to baseline peace officer, which hasn't been seen in over half a century.
The answer is to get rid of the pigs that declare themselves so honorable, and smart, when it is quite clear that they are not. Their mindset has been off for decades. Stop buying new pig cars every other year and buy some damned sniffer technology!
Hell, put a dog in front of the sampler hose. Do a room full at a time. No smell, no worry.
Back to the metal detector for the rest. Don't fail that.
At least not in the civilised world! The scanners are at microwave or terahertz wavelength and are pretty impressive in terms of seeing small concealed items. They saw my credit card in a pocket with no trouble. The guy running the scanner is in a control room away from the machine and unless he gets off on cylindrical projections of people he isn't really looking at a recognisable nude image. The guy at the gate is connected by earphone to the remote viewer and very accurately asks to see whatever is being concealed. The kit is very expensive.
The main explosive threat has far too low a vapour pressure for this to work. The terrorists are ahead of us on this one - that is why they have closed potential loopholes for carry-on as far as possible.
The what? US airport security has always been staffed by a bunch of ill educated thugs and morons - that was what made 9/11 so easy. You had most of the right gear but didn't bother to train them how to use it. Immediately post 9/11 the contrast between US airport "security" which was all bluff and bluster and competent UK security was very evident.
Part of the theatre in US airport "security" is completely bogus and is just inconvenience without any substantial benefit. But it was done to placate a paranoid public that was running scared and not flying at all post 9/11. TSA is crap, but then so were the myopic drudges working for private contractors that they replaced or supplemented.
Threat objects getting through has increased slightly in the USA even though civility is much worse. And if you think it is bad as a US citizen try travelling there with a foreign passport.
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It is called policing by consent. We still have it in the UK and it works pretty well. Airport security at Heathrow pulls Merkins with rounds of live ammo in their jacket pocket and knives in carryon bags. Our police are polite and the scanners do their job very well. It doesn't even make the news any more. Here's one from a while back:
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Unfortunately that is not true. The terrorists explosive of choice has a very low vapour pressure so you have to do a swab test. And it looks like the toner cartridge bomb was clean room work hermetically sealed - the first test of the UK one did not detect any trace of explosives.
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They are a bit of a joke too. Taking belts off is another bogus requirement most scanners will ignore a few tens of grams of metal.
This is not the case at gold refineries where the scanners and your path through them are designed to measure the weight of mercury amalgam fillings in your teeth to a fraction of a gram going in and coming out.
They most certainly are. There are some microwave scanners out there, but they're rather more expensive/less available and hence aren't nearly as widely deployed as the X-ray-based scanners. (I read the stats a week or so ago... I think it's something like 5-10% microwaves at this point in the U.S....)
I'm also not sure how much sophistication you can expect of people typically making $12.50/hr...
I have two stainless steel screws in my left leg. The only place they have ever been detected was in a Federal Court House on my way back from lunch on a jury duty day. They were not detected in the morning when I went in.
Recently, I went through airport security with a diet coke. I purchase the diet coke from a vending machine within sight of the x- ray machine and the TSA agents. I think they saw me do it. For all I know, they get their own sodas out of this same machine. (?)
However, sure enough, they would not let me take it past the check point. I said "Hey, I just bought this out the machine right over there."
Their response: You can either drink it now, or put it in the trash, but you can't take it to the gate." Do you have soda machine at the gate, I asked? And what's the difference between the soda I purchased right over there, from one I might get at the gate? They're both in the same airport.
Their response: We've screened all the sodas at the gate.
Yeah, right. Total bullshit, as usual.
So I guess the lessons learned here are:
1) Don't try to take liquids through the checkpoint. (Which, actually, I did know already, but wasn't thinking - and was more concerned about the possibility that they might only have Pepsi at the gate, and I'm more of a Diet Coke fan.)
2) If you're a dedicated terrorist, the coke machines nearest to the x-ray scanners, but still on the terminal side of the building, are apparently ideal places to pack high explosives since the TSA apparently only checks cokes at the gate.
3) How many times has my situation happened, and yet they don't move the damn vending machine?, or at least post a small reminder notice on it? Why entice folks by putting it right next to the security lines? I guess TSA agents got to get their jollys somehow?
4) Lesson #4: The focus in on air transportation because those in charge of our security have no imagination. It would be extermely easy to disrupt the whole system; even easier if one used their own paranoia against them (I won't get into details, as I am not fond of prisons.) It's a warm-and-fuzzy at best. Security for the sheep. Planes might actually be safer if everyone could bring a gun on board. At least there would be more on-time arrivals? :)
It wasn't a question of training, it was that boxcutters were allowed. They had boxcutters.
Now, with training, and professional Touchers of Sensitive Areas, we ban nail-files and nail clippers. Without nail clippers, hijackings are impossible.
lly
About the same level of sophistication as if you triple their pay and benefits and make them lifetime federal employees, it turns out.
Well, we've got the MythBusters guys and their 12-inch razor blades, for example:
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Fortunately, their nail-clippers were intercepted and destroyed, before they could pose any threat.
rove
That would be the federal government, and, specifically the body- viewing czar Janet Napolitano. Running out of money's not a problem for them, they just print more.
No you didn't and for once I agree with the security guys.
The stuff that is airside is subject to additional checks. They only have your word for it that the can you present is the one you just got from the machine and not a swap for one full of liquid explosive.
Which is fair enough. Australia do the same thing for fruit too.
For once they are or at least should be telling the truth. Everything that goes airside now is meant to be security cleared or trusted source.
You learn very slowly. This has been the rule for nearly 4 years now.
Idiot. You do a switch between obviously buying the thing and going through the gate. This is a classic sleight of hand switch deception. If I wanted to breach airside security I would do something else but that is another matter and I don't want to help the terrorists.
The lines can be long at times and you can easily drink one in the time you spend waiting in line. A notice on the machine to remind people with zero attention span about the rules might be a good idea though.
Actually I think they are on the money on this one. Either you open it and drink it there or you junk it. Your mistake! The rules on liquids being taken airside are *VERY* clear and have been for over 4 years.
I stand corrected. I wasn't aware of that system deployed in the US. However, it is back scatter Xray imaging and the dose is negligible compared to the cosmic rays from an hours flight. If the manufacturers spec is right the dose for an Xray backscatter image scan at 0.05uSv is roughly the same as an extra minute of high altitude flight.
What is surprising is that it is presented as an image like that. The scanners I have seen measure a cylindrical projection of the body.
High end far infrared imagers were able to do it a long time ago.
You know (not sure how old you are?), but they used to put people's feet in these little X-ray machines at shoe stores so the salesperson (supposedly) could recommend a perfect fitting set of shoes. These machines were deemed "safe" to, at the time. But many cancers later, we all learned otherwise.
Doctors used to advertise cigarettes, too.
I guess the point is: Don't be too quick to declare backscatter systems safe. They may be. I don't really know. But I see them as pointless anyway.
I think what really annoys me about this whole airport security thing is: It's never going to work. But let's say it does work 100%. What then?
Well, I say it strongly encourages evil-doers to select other targets. And dare I say, other targets exist that can inflict far more grief.
You're an idiot. The items are checked out at the dock, before they get
*hand trucked* into an area, where the vending machine stuffing gets monitored. Any time a cavity like that is opened that is normally locked, the tasks being done get monitored. So, it all depends of the hierarchy in place in a given city as to whether the airport runs the vending machines, or an outside vendor/distributor agreement is in place. But the procedure changes very little.
So, the machine loading and the cash pan recovery are all tasks that would be "with escort" tasks and the actual task itself would be monitored, regardless of who owns or runs the machines.
So, your mentality is what has you drawing incorrect conclusions about what they do or do not do "airside".
Shop owners get put through security, just like anyone else, except that eventually, they are in a TSA agent's "known personnel" memory cache. Their store stock gets put through a security screening at the incoming loading dock for the airport, and the stores are all subject to search at any time.
You apparently do not know anything about how secured areas get operated, with or without a staff of uniformed personnel on hand to facilitate certain tasks.
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