More idiotic crap from the TSA...

Started by TehBorken, May 18 06 04:31

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TehBorken

  Make sure you read the last paragraph. What a bunch of idiots.

[hr style="width: 100%; height: 2px;"][img]http://img.timeinc.net/time/daily/2006/0605/profile0517.jpg" alt="" id="photoBord" border="0" height="250" width="374"]  [div style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; font-size: 0.9em; lineh-eight: 1.2em; color: rgb(204, 204, 204); text-align: right; width: 376px;"]JEFF TOPPING / GETTY[/div] [div style="margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt; font-size: 1em; lineh-eight: 1em; width: 376px;"][font size="1"]A Transportation Security Administration agent performs a pat-down check on an airline passenger at a security checkpoint in terminal four at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.[/font][/div]     [h1]A New Tack for Airport Screening: Behave Yourself[/h1]Exclusive: Airport screeners plan to shift tactics, focusing less on scissors and more on passenger behavior By               [a href="jvascript:void%280%29" onclick="jvascript:window.DOH!('/time/letters/email_letter.html','letter','width=400,height=420,status=no,scrollbars=yes')" class="red"]SALLY B. DONNELLY/WASHINGTON[/a]       
[span class="smallRedtext"]Posted Wednesday, May. 17, 2006[/span]
      [!--[if IE 5]] Vignette StoryServer 5.0 Thu May 18 18:51:42 2006 [![endif]--] In the four years since it was created, the Transportation Security Administration has been trying — and often failing — to find dangerous things that passengers might bring onto an aircraft. Now the TSA is aiming to become less obsessed with scissors and cigarette lighters and focusing more on passenger behavior. Government sources tell TIME that the agency will announce in the next few weeks that it will introduce a race-neutral profiling program at the country's busiest airports, among them New York's John F. Kennedy, Los Angeles International and Chicago's O'Hare. The program has an awkward title, Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques, but a clever acronym, SPOT. It has been tested over the last three years at several airports in the northeast, including Boston's Logan Airport, where two of the 9/11 hijacking teams launched their operations. [/p] Unlike the TSA's troubled and controversial use of computer databases to scan for individuals whose names occur on passenger "watch lists," SPOT is based on observing passenger behavior. George Naccara, the TSA's Federal Security Director who has been overseeing the SPOT program in Boston, is a big booster. "This system is conducted by trained personnel and closely monitored by supervisors," he says. "It provides another significant layer of security." [/p] Here's how it works: Select TSA employees will be trained to identify suspicious individuals who raise red flags by exhibiting unusual or anxious behavior, which can be as simple as changes in mannerisms, excessive sweating on a cool day, or changes in the pitch of a person's voice. Racial or ethnic factors are not a criterion for singling out people, TSA officials say. Those who are identified as suspicious will be examined more thoroughly; for some, the agency will bring in local police to conduct face-to-face interviews and perhaps run the person's name against national criminal databases and determine whether any threat exists. If such inquiries turn up other issues countries with terrorist connections, police officers can pursue the questioning or alert Federal counterterrorism agents. And of course the full retinue of baggage x-rays, magnatometers and other checks for weapons will continue. [/p] So far, the results for SPOT have been encouraging. According to Naccara, the SPOT program has resulted in the arrest of more than 50 people for having fake IDs, entering the country illegally or drug possession. It also has caught one of its own: several months ago a representative from the Department of Homeland Security tested the system by trying to get a fake weapon through the screening checkpoint; he was successfully stopped by a STOP screener. The TSA will also consider deploying SPOT teams to other transportation systems like train and bus stations. [/p] The SPOT program comes none too soon, since the current TSA system of screening for threats on airplanes has been, well, spotty. Earlier this month TSA screeners not trained in the SPOT program pulled over three Marines in dress uniform for special screening. After being patted down and scrutinized closely, the Marines were finally let go and allowed to continue their duties — escorting the body of one of their colleagues killed in Iraq.    
The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.

kitten

That's disgusting.  What is the matter with those idiots?
Thousands of years ago cats were worshipped.  They have not forgotten.

TehBorken

several months ago a representative from the Department of Homeland Security tested the system by trying to get a fake weapon through the screening checkpoint; he was successfully stopped by a STOP screener.

Oooh, let's give the screener a medal or something.
The real trouble with reality is that there's no background music.

Sportsdude

When I was at SeaTac (which is a great airport by the way) those TSA guys were sleeping on the job in my opinion. Those carts that everyone has to put there stuff in ran out and the guy who is suppose to hand them to people was talking to some other dude so after about a 5min wait of just standing there waiting I took action and started passing out all the carts to people.  About 5 mins later a guy in a hawaiian t-shirt comes up and says 'hey you want a job' I look up and its a TSA guy.
"We can't stop here. This is bat country."