TSA: More gate searches in store for fliers

[RamboLiberal]

Source: USA Today

A new, more aggressive effort by airport screeners aims to halt randomly selected passengers for a security check just before they step onto their departing plane, according to a government memo obtained by USA TODAY.

Scores of passengers have already been pulled aside for searches as they waited in line at airport gates for boarding calls. Each of the passengers had already passed through security checkpoints when a uniformed Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officer asked them to step out of line to check their IDs or search their carry-on bags.

Passengers can be selected at random or for suspicious behavior, according to a TSA memo dated last Thursday. The program primarily targets riskier flights, according to the memo, which doesn't specify how flights are singled out.

The TSA says it has done occasional checks of passengers at airport gates and that the new stepped-up effort has nothing to do with any particular threat. Rather, the effort is focused on the notion that mixing up tactics makes it harder for terrorists to monitor how security works, said TSA spokesman Greg Soule.

"It serves as a random, unpredictable layer," Soule said.



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2009-03-17-airport_N.htm?loc=interstitialskip

[Taverner]

1. Security by Obscurity - easiest code to crack

[Zero T]

2. I feel safer already.

cough, cough.

[Fearless]

3. So I get searched ineptly three times instead of two.

:eyes:

[ixion]

4. the TSA and DHS are BushCo creations, and should be dismantled

because they DO NOTHING to serve democracy and serve only to desensitize people to police state tactics.

Change. Yeah, right.

[liberal N proud]

5. Great, now you can expect to have your bag ripped open at the gate

Just as everyone is getting on the plane, you will get pulled to the side and your bags opened as the plane is boarding. All the other passengers will pass by will you are standing there watch them rifle through your bags dirty underwear and all.

When they are done, you can try and get everything back in your bag so you can still get on the flight. Once you have gotten on the plane you will have to go all the way to the back of the plane to stow your carry on because the overhead bins at the front will be full. of course your seat was near the front of the plane.

At landing you have to sit there until everyone leaves so you can go to the back and hope someone didn't take off with your bag.

Yeah they are keeping us safer.



Edit to add: I have seen this in action, pull the passenger aside throw his dirty underwear on the terminal floor and he was the last to board.

[Diclotican]

6. RamboLiberal

RamboLiberal

This is a safe bet, that many who wanted to visit your amazing country now would decide to stay out, to not be hassled to much. US are an amazing country that is true - but that hold for thousands of other places too in the world.. Who the passengers are not treated THAT bad....

And by the way, even the Eastern Europeans country, before 1989 and all that, was not treating their passengers that bad even that they was for the most part COMMUNIST regimes, with low regard for what foreigner had to think about their actions at the Airport...


Diclotican

[high density]

7. No thanks

The system already has enough insane random unpredictable stuff in it already. I remember them doing ID checks at the gate in the months after 9/11 and it was utterly useless, now they want to paw through bags there? The traveler's ID is already confirmed when checking a bag and then at least two times when going through security, and bags are X-rayed during that process. Sounds like just another plan to make flying even less attractive. The airlines should be enraged over this policy.

[RamboLiberal]

8. They claim that they are worried an airport worker

which we all know isn't screened that well will sneak a weapon or bomb through and give to a passenger after the passenger has gone through screening. And that they are doing this on flights they feel might be targeted.

I think flying is a crap shoot now. I think there will be an airplane bombing(s) again someday. I doubt hijackers will ever again suceed like they did on 9-11 since I'd bet now passengers & crew knowing they are probably going to die anyway will fight back. Unless the highjackers had the weapons or the means to kill or disable all the passengers & crew.

[petronius]

12. It's a valid concern - I've probably seen airport workers push

uninspected carts through security a dozen times or more. However, why not just screen/search the workers and their carts every time they enter the Security Zone? (Oh yeah, that police-state-training thing...)

[bottomtheweaver]

20. We have far more to fear from the TSA than from any airport worker.

Trust me on this.

[high density]

13. What's to say a maintenance worker couldn't put something directly on the plane?

For instance, a cleaning crew or catering person. Or maybe terrorist suicidal flight attendants! We can never protect against everything, and the idea of leaving this extra "security" to a "random, unpredictable" chance shows exactly what a farce it is (as if we didn't know already.)

[bottomtheweaver]

19. What's to say the TSA couldn't plant a "suicide" bomb?

They do it all the time in Iraq. This shit has GOT to stop before they manage to stage another "terra" attack here. Now that the torture shit is hitting the fan, they are desperate to prove how necessary all that sadism and depravity aka "enhanced interrogation" really was.

[Roland99]

9. My favorite part of airport "security"???

Waving a printed boarding pass at a TSA "agent" THREE times within a 20-foot span. Like my boarding pass is going to magically change or disappear? What a fucking joke.

Oh, and it's not like I couldn't print one up at home on a $29.99 inkjet printer.


Glad to see our tax dollars at "work".

[Swede Atlanta]

10. TSA is worthless........

The TSA is a worthless expenditure of tax dollars. I feel no safer now than I did on 10 September 2001. I feel more hassled and frustrated but not safer. I have actually decided against taking quick weekend trips and started driving to avoid the mess at the airport. Trust me, if someone wants to do something bad, no matter what precautions are taken, they will find a way to do it. The only safety protocol I see being productive is the one that the Israelis use.

[UndertheOcean]

14. What do they do ? the Israeli's

[lynnertic]

11. Laughable

planes are being turned around so fast (20 mins) that there's not even enough time to clean them.

TSA will hold up traffic enough so that the airlines/airports will demand this crap be stopped.

[dixiegrrrrl]

15. Anyone have information if flying has decreased because of this crap?

We will never ever fly again, just for that reason.
I know that may not be practical for others, works for us.

[Xithras]

18. I'm taking a 375 mile trip next week.

It's a 45 minute flight, but TSA rules and backups means that I'd spend at least four hours, and probably closer to five, making the trip. I've done it several times in the past and I've always flown.

This time I'll be driving. Airports are just too much hassle nowadays. I can drive it in 5 and a half hours, so I'll just take my own car. It's cheaper anyway.

[truebrit71]

16. Fuck this Gestapo shit...

...is this the land of the free or not?

Make up your fucking minds...

[cobalt1999]

17. It's also easy to avoid.

After 9/11 and they were doing this heavily, I'd just wait until they picked someone to search and THEN get in line while they were busy.

A few other frequent flyers would do the same. You'd see us all jump up and join the line as soon as a person was pulled out.

[damntexdem]

21. And the floggings will continue until morale improves.

Now here's a way to revive the airline industry by getting more of us to fly. ;-)

[The abyss]

22. I feel so protected!

Thank you!

<>

American Security.

[stlsaxman]

23. "fliers"?

is that correct?