Airport security is a joke
Don’t take nail clippers or Gatorade. But you’ll have no trouble getting dynamite on a plane:
A college student’s checked luggage on a Continental Airlines flight to Houston from Argentina on Friday contained dynamite, and federal authorities are investigating why he had it and what he intended to do with it, an FBI spokeswoman said.
Joe says:
This has to be one the easiest to detect cases. One of the problems with explosives sniffers is that someone can custom make an explosive that isn’t detected by existing detection devices. The problem is similar to the computer anti-virus vendors. They have databases of “virus signatures” they compare suspect attachments and files to. If it matches something they have in their database they flag it as a virus and handle it appropriately. If a new virus shows up they have to update their database with the new signature. Commercially available explosives, such as dynamite, should be within the capabilities of the explosives sniffer.
August 26th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
The guy should have put the dynamite in his carry-on bag. Why? ‘Cause my brother flew from NY to Knoxville and back with an open bottle of water and a bottle of coke in his carry-on and no one noticed. This was 2 days afer the British terrorist capture. Amazing?
Oh, and my brother has dark brown long hair, dark eyebrows, we’re of Italian descent, and wears dark or black clothes. But obviously his engaging smile put them at ease.
We are so doomed.
August 26th, 2006 at 2:38 pm
Well, once a friend (then a fed) went to a TX airport in about 02ish with SigArms 220 (Full size 45). Walked right through the metal detector. He was used to it, you show them the badge and paperwork, they clear it with airport security, and you go on in. It beeped, they waved him on in without a stop and figured it was a glitch ’cause it had been doing that all day. He asked for a supervisor. They came, he flashed his badge and said ‘you should be aware your people just let a man with a 45 into a supposedly secure area’.
I also have a friend who works for a company the TSA pays to try to sneak stuff onto planes. She can tell some frightening stories.
And they took my teeny pocket knife. Feh.