Speedier Screening May Be Coming To an Airport Near You

First time accepted submitter Rickarmstrong writes "The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is pushing for private contractors to create a screening machine with 'screen and walk' capability for use at the nation's 160 international airports and thousands of federal facilities. The agency recently requested information from high-tech companies and other private firms about any new technology that can help speed up the security checkpoints managed by the Transportation Security Administration and the Federal Protective Services."

Comments

More pork?

[Terwin]

It would be nice to think that they are attempting to address an obvious problem, but with the TSA, I suspect this is going to be just another opportunity to line the pockets of politically connected people...

Question: if the lines got shorter, how would they gather an audience for their security theater?

Re:More pork?

[XxtraLarGe]

The obvious problem is with the existence of the TSA to begin with, but bureaucracy doesn't work to eliminate itself, only to grow and consume ever greater amounts of resources.

"The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy!" - Oscar Wilde

That will actually improve security.

[i kan reed]

This is the first tech I've heard of that actually leads me to believe it might cover a real security hole. In this case, the grab a couple semi-automatics and gun down the crowds waiting to get through security hole.

Re:That will actually improve security.

[swb]

The question I have is, why hasn't this happened?

If you accept the argument that terrorists principal goal is to create, well, terror, then you would expect terror attacks with the only real goal of creating chaos and news.

Given the chaos and headlines created at the mall in Kenya or the hotel in India, you would expect something like that to happen in the US. It's not hard to get ahold of guns, there are presumably a fair number of motivated attackers, and there are plenty of targets available.

As an example, coordinated attacks on 3-4 shopping malls simultaneously would be in the news forever and probably have a non-trivial economic impact from people avoiding malls alone, let alone the expected costs of all the security you'd expect to be demanded/added.

Either security is that good or the actual threat just isn't there. I find the former hard to believe.

Re:That will actually improve security.

[swb]

There have been a lot of Americans of Somali descent recruited to return to Somalia and fight for al-Shabab, so I don't think it's unrealistic to think that there are people already here who could be recruited to do this. I don't think you need or would even want to recruit people from overseas to do this.

Domestic mass shootings, despite the political rhetoric surrounding them, are always the work of a single individual suffering from some kind of mental illness. They lack all but the most rudimentary planning and execution, they're only quasi-rational. The net effect is that nobody sees them as part of an ongoing threat or conspiracy. There's not this feeling that they are deliberate attacks by a larger organization or with a larger purpose in mind.

A mass shooting by a terrorist organization I would expect to have superior tactics and organization. I would also expect that if they were identified as being terrorist attacks that the perception of threat would be much greater because the attacks would be seen as the result of rational planning and execution, not apparent one-time actions.

How about 'None'. That would be good.

[RealGene]

Really, putting a locks on cockpit doors was just about the right response.

Re:I know how to make it go faster...

[drinkypoo]

How about just going back to a reasonable quick scan on the way to the plane? The whole premise was that anything you could get through such a scan was worthless. Along the way we found out that you needed locking, reinforced cockpit doors in the bargain, and now we have those. Why not just go back to x-raying luggage, and maybe run the humans past the explosives sniffer? Non-invasive screening of humans seems fairly reasonable. I wouldn't want to let people on my multi-million-dollar aircraft without it, if I had one :p

Re:I know how to make it go faster...

[XxtraLarGe]

How about just going back to a reasonable quick scan on the way to the plane? The whole premise was that anything you could get through such a scan was worthless.

Yeah, but then how would they be able to justify forcing people to throw away their bottles of water, shampoo, etc.? "That might be a bomb, throw it in that trash can over there!"

I went to SF for a conference, and bought a snow globe for my in-laws, as is my habit when I travel. They wouldn't let me take it because it could contain "bomb making materials", which is ludicrous. They told me I could either surrender the package, or go to the post office to mail it. If I went to the post office, I'd miss my flight and it was a $4 snow globe, so I told them I'd surrender it. I was highly frustrated and busy putting my stuff together that they had pulled apart, so I was too distracted to notice that they kept not just the snow globe, but the bag that had all of the other souvenirs I had bought, including t-shirts and Ghirardelli chocolates I got for the rest of my family. The TSA is a pack of thieving, security-theater perverts.

Re:I saw faster screening at Orlando

[jxander]

I think the problem is that we've created artificial supply and demand.

Now if you'll just bend over, I need to insert this probe for national security reasons. Or you could pay me $20 and I'll find someone else.

Re:I know how to make it go faster...

[LynnwoodRooster]

Why not return to the pre-9/11 security?

Because that would eradicate 90% of the TSA bureaucracy.

The inside joke is that the TSA is simply an employment program for the Federal Government. It's about hiring hundreds of people at all the big airports. It's not about security (it may have started with that intent, but no longer) - it's a jobs program, pure and simple.