TSA Terminates Its Contract With Maker of Full-Body Scanner

McGruber writes "The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has ended a contract with Rapiscan, a unit of OSI Systems Inc., manufacturer of about half of all of the controversial full-body scanners used on air passengers. TSA officials claim that Rapiscan failed to deliver software that would protect the privacy of passengers, but the contract termination happened immediately after the TSA finally got around to studying the health effects of the scanners, and Congress had a hearing on TSA's 'Scanner Shuffle'."

Comments

Re:alpha test?

[Zemran]

I think the real irony is that if you want to blow up a plane you need to use the tried and tested methods as they are the only ones that we do not protect against. No one has ever blown up a plane with a bottle of water, it was theoretical, but you cannot take a bottle of water onto a plane. Most planes were blown up with bombs made to look like ordinary objects. The bomb that blew up the plane over Lockerbie was made to look like a radio and the explosives were disguised as batteries, this would still work today as no one stops you from having a radio in your suitcase in the hold.

The security theatre has only served to frighten the people into letting our rulers do as they wish. The lack of real terrorist events is because no one is really trying to kill us. If a group started up today with the brains of the IRA we would be just as screwed today as we were back then. Although most of their success was due to American help which might not be as easy to get today.

Re:alpha test?

[Agent0013]

It's almost to the point where the terrorists don't need to actually pull off an attack. They just release "chatter" about an attack and watch the West scurry around.

It's pretty close to how the U.S. brought down our big enemy during the cold war, U.S.S.R. We made these big plans about Star Wars, and having satellites that would be able to shoot down any missile. Our side was mostly talk. On their side they spend enormous amounts of money trying to keep up with what they thought we were doing. Our president actually hired science fiction writers to come up with some of these fantastic ideas that sounded plausible and expensive. If the terrorists figure this out they can just up the chatter until we spend ourselves into bankruptcy and fall like Rome. Then the terrorists win.