Slashdot Mirror
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."
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?
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.
Really, putting a locks on cockpit doors was just about the right response.
Mission: To provide products that consume time and energy as entertainingly as permitted by the laws of thermodynamics.
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
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"