a crank’s progress

3 Comments

1. Josh wrote:

   I dunno, man. That actually makes me feel slightly better about TSA, to tell you the truth. It sounds like they have a procedure, and this screener was willing to follow it even though his own judgment may have told him to do otherwise. When they start waving through people who set off the alarms because their IDs check out and they don’t look like terrorists, then I’m worried.

   He has the soldiers strip off their uniforms – in front of everyone – down to their tee shirts, pants and socks.

   So… he has them take off their dress jackets and shoes? I’m no fan of the TSA, but I’m just not feeling the outrage here. Unless by “pants” he means “underpants”, in which case… yeah. That’s what the private screening rooms are for.

   Monday, December 3, 2007 at 1:44 AM | Permalink
2. Josh wrote:

   Also, Ken Schram is an idiot. Whenever he happens to say something I agree with, I remind myself that he’s not even a stopped clock that’s right twice a day–he’s a completely random clock, with absolutely no predictability for when he’ll have the right time.

   Monday, December 3, 2007 at 1:46 AM | Permalink
3. paul wrote:

   Agreed on 2 (I think I added a caveat to cover that). As to 1, this just looks like poor judgment. There is a lot of middle ground between stripping a soldier to his undershirt and waving them through.

   It seems like a case of what Schneier calls security theater — “see, no one is exempt, even an honor guard” — rather than adherence to procedure. I’ve been through seatac since 9/11 Changed Everythingâ„¢ and the difference between the security there and small town airports is noticeable. They do have some discretion about what they do and how they do it. This looks like a case where someone made some poor decisions. What next? Make a wheelchair user crawl through the metal detector?

   [edited for spelling and less clear than usual prose]

   Monday, December 3, 2007 at 6:19 AM | Permalink

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