Ned
09-03-2006, 04:17 PM
It's another damning article of the competence of TSA. The New York Times has published Screen Tools Slow to Arrive in U.S. Airports (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/us/03research.html?hp&ex=1157342400&en=2c1522e427674844&ei=5094&partner=homepage) on this morning's Sunday Times front page. [The NY Times requires free registration to read most of their articles.]
TSA has suspended installation of their airport checkpoint automatic explosive detectors, because they just don't work as advertised, and as members of Congress have said, they plan to test the wrong thing, paper held by passengers moving through the security checkpoints. "The agency conducted tests last year that members of Congress and a former Homeland Security Department official called “disastrous” and “stupid” because the agency had not tested the smaller, cheaper baggage-screening device in the way it was intended to be used," according to the Times article.
So it looks more and more like TSA's ban on liquids and gels is going to be around for a long time, basically because TSA hasn't a clue how to do their job. And with this continuing show of incompetence TSA continues to put the airline industry at security and serious financial risk.
When is the Bush Administration going to admit their mistakes and replace TSA managment with people that have at least a tiny amount of common sense, competence and leadership. Do you think I'm asking for the moon? ... I guess maybe I am. Darn!!! :angry: :angry: :angry:
EGG HARBOR, N.J. — Citing unexpected reliability problems, the Transportation Security Administration is suspending installation of the only airport checkpoint device that automatically screens passengers for hidden explosives.
The rollout of the devices, trace-detection portals, nicknamed puffers because they blow air while searching for residue from explosives, had already been far behind schedule. Now the transportation agency is assessing whether to modify the puffers, upgrade them or wait until better devices are available.
“We are seeing some issues that we did not anticipate,” Randy Null, the agency’s chief technology officer, said last week.
The portal problems are part of a pattern in which the federal government has been unable to move bomb-detection technologies from the laboratory to the airport successfully. While workers at the Homeland Security Department laboratory here busily build bombs to test the cutting-edge equipment, the agency still relies largely on decidedly low-tech measures to confront the threat posed by explosives at airports, particularly at checkpoints.
Members of Congress and former domestic security officials blame poor management for stumbles in research, turf fights, staff turnover and underfinancing...[/b]
TSA has suspended installation of their airport checkpoint automatic explosive detectors, because they just don't work as advertised, and as members of Congress have said, they plan to test the wrong thing, paper held by passengers moving through the security checkpoints. "The agency conducted tests last year that members of Congress and a former Homeland Security Department official called “disastrous” and “stupid” because the agency had not tested the smaller, cheaper baggage-screening device in the way it was intended to be used," according to the Times article.
So it looks more and more like TSA's ban on liquids and gels is going to be around for a long time, basically because TSA hasn't a clue how to do their job. And with this continuing show of incompetence TSA continues to put the airline industry at security and serious financial risk.
When is the Bush Administration going to admit their mistakes and replace TSA managment with people that have at least a tiny amount of common sense, competence and leadership. Do you think I'm asking for the moon? ... I guess maybe I am. Darn!!! :angry: :angry: :angry:
EGG HARBOR, N.J. — Citing unexpected reliability problems, the Transportation Security Administration is suspending installation of the only airport checkpoint device that automatically screens passengers for hidden explosives.
The rollout of the devices, trace-detection portals, nicknamed puffers because they blow air while searching for residue from explosives, had already been far behind schedule. Now the transportation agency is assessing whether to modify the puffers, upgrade them or wait until better devices are available.
“We are seeing some issues that we did not anticipate,” Randy Null, the agency’s chief technology officer, said last week.
The portal problems are part of a pattern in which the federal government has been unable to move bomb-detection technologies from the laboratory to the airport successfully. While workers at the Homeland Security Department laboratory here busily build bombs to test the cutting-edge equipment, the agency still relies largely on decidedly low-tech measures to confront the threat posed by explosives at airports, particularly at checkpoints.
Members of Congress and former domestic security officials blame poor management for stumbles in research, turf fights, staff turnover and underfinancing...[/b]