Helena Airport Manager Blocks TSA From Taking Full-Body Scanner

OverTheGeicoE writes "TSA recently announced that it would remove all of Rapiscan's X-ray body scanners from airports by June. As part of this effort, it is trying to move a millimeter-wave body scanner from the Helena, Montana airport to replace an X-ray unit at a busier airport. Strangely enough, they have encountered resistance from the Helena's Airport Manager, Ron Mercer. Last Thursday, workers came to remove the machine, but were prevented from doing so by airport officials. Why? Perhaps Mercer agrees with Cindi Martin, airport director at Montana's Glacier Park International Airport airport, who called the scheduled removal of her airport's scanner 'a great disservice to the flying public' in part because it 'removed the need for the enhanced pat-down.'"

Comments

Bad editing

[Anonymous Coward]

Read the article, he doesn't want to remove it because they don't need to do enhanced patdowns while they have the machine. If they remove the machine, they will have to do the pat downs again.

Re:Think you may want to look at his logs

[jmrieger]

Think you misread the statement. They liked the machine because having it installed meant that TSA officers *didn't* have to do the enhanced pat-downs.

Misleading Headline

[pdbogen]

Wow. Misleading headline is horribly misleading. Quote from one of TFAs:

“We’re really disappointed that the TSA is removing them from our airport,” Martin said. “It is a great disservice to the flying public.
“People had become comfortable with the scanner. It certainly did speed the process and removed the need for the enhanced pat-down.”

i.e., it's not the "removal of the scanner" that "removed the nead for the enhanced pat-down," as the headline deceptively implies. Rather, the scanner itself removed the need. However, as a seasoned frequent flier, I'm quite acquainted with the fact that security checkpoints that do not have body scanners are not subject to an "enhanced pat-down," as Martin implies in the article.

DEFUND THE TSA

[pecosdave]

The Iron Triangle must be broken.

I can think of no government agency more deserving of being defunded, though many others should follow.

Re:So we are at that point now.

[OzPeter]

Anybody who's really determined can get a bomb on a 'plane using this method and nothing the TSA does will prevent it. I know it, you know it, Al Qaeda knows it, even the TSA knows it.

Anyone who is really interested in disrupting air travel won't even try to smuggle a bomb on a plane. All you need to do is set off a bomb (*) in the middle of the security theatre at a major airport (or for fun synchronized at 2 or 3 airports) and that will scare the US public shitless.

* Or you could even do what the IRA did in 1994 when they fired mortars at Heathrow airport.

Re:You know what else...

[Hotawa Hawk-eye]

"'removes the need for the enhanced pat-down?"

Telling the TSA to get the fuck out of your airport and re-installing private security with more common sense than your average peanut shell.

The only reason TSA is pervasive is because it is a government handout, replacing the measures they had in place before 9/11. IIRC, there is absolutely nothing preventing airports from replacing TSA with their own security.

When Texas threatened to make "invasive screening" a misdemeanor the TSA threatened to shut down all traffic out of Texas airports. I have no doubt that if an airport tried to expel the TSA and install private security that they'd do the same to that airport.

Re:Think you may want to look at his logs

[Drakonblayde]

Wrong scanner. This is the milimeter wave scanner that they're not wanting to be removed. The porn scanners are the ones being permanently removed, and they're pulling the milimeter wave scanners out of the smaller airports to replace the porn scanners they're yanking from the bigger airports.

this is not the peepshow scanner they have

[swschrad]

the millimeter wave (aka microwave, aka popcorn button) scanner in Helena is newer equipment that does not provide the peepshow images, folks. as such, TSA must deem it too nice to have in Helena. maybe they should do their grope act in New York and Phoenix and other large, visible places instead of out in the hinterlands. show their nonsense act for what it is.

Re:Think you may want to look at his logs

[dcollins]

"He says the scanner provides an excuse for them to do 'enhanced patdowns'."

I'm not going to blast you like some other commenters did, because it's the summary that's bungled, and does in fact literally say what you thought here. But nonetheless, here's what the manager actually said in TFA: "People had become comfortable with the scanner. It certainly did speed the process and removed the need for the enhanced pat-down.”