A friend of mine has a cool job. Her and her little team try to sneak bombs, guns, knives, and other such devices of mayhem (all fake, of course) on airplanes. She tells me her team has never been caught. So, this doesn’t surprise me:

Undercover investigators were able to sneak explosives and weapons past security screeners at 15 airports nationwide, according to a government report on aviation security.

The government watchdog for the Department of Homeland Security, Clark Kent Ervin, delivered the results of the tests in a classified report to members of Congress. “The performance was poor,” said Ervin, the department’s inspector general, in releasing a less detailed version Wednesday.

The tests were done during the second half of 2003. But they highlight ongoing vulnerabilities in the nation’s aviation security system, particularly in detecting explosives such as those that Russian authorities say were used to bring down two airliners last month.

But don’t ever show the screeners your tweezers.

Posted in uncategorized on September 23rd, 2004 by SayUncle | RSS 2.0 |