19 November 2009

Report: continuing lax airport security

The problem-plagued Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is a study in bureaucratic ineptitude, says the Washington Times in an editorial, citing the agency’s failure to even identify whether ten new technological system are working.

"Since 2002, TSA has spent more than $795 million on new air-passenger screening technologies. According to a recent investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), there may not be any benefit from any of this any time soon," the report said.

Along with the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, TSA is responsible for researching and deploying new technologies aimed at making air travel safer.

With systems mired in various phases of development, not a single new screening technology has been fully implemented nationwide, the newspaper says.

GAO auditors found that TSA has not applied any risk analysis or cost-benefit analysis to ensure the effectiveness or need of the new technologies. GAO said that TSA doesn't even have "reasonable assurance that technologies will perform as intended."

The findings are hardly surprising.

The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general has documented serious passenger and baggage screening failures and insufficient tracking of airport security passes and uniforms of former employees.

In tests to evaluate airport-screener performance, GAO officials were able to sneak low-yield detonators, explosives and incendiary devices onto planes.

Despite TSA's troubled history, the response from Congress continues to be anemic. One pending House bill would actually give collective-bargaining power to failing airport screeners.

Giving labor more power would undermine the already poor screener-performance record by lowering standards, said the newspaper. More than 50 percent failed the agency's skills test this year, but the screeners' unions maintain that the problem is the test itself.

By David Wilkening

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Air carrier security is a ...

exercise in public relations designed to sooth the worried passenger. The best security is knowing your passenger and the best way to know your passenger is to rely on a real, live, travel agent who has personal knowledge of their customers. Compare the different implementations of effective security in different countries and the U.S. tops the list for high visibility and not necessarily the most effective. HongKong is an example of effective security as my checked baggage having been passed through North American security is often caught for inspection, with me present, as I transit in HKG. Another example is the dreaded one-litre bag. Some airports won't allow anything other than a one-litre bag, blocking both undersized and oversized bags. I seal my carry-ons in a tubular bag so I can easily access one thing and not sort through a collection of 300mL containers. I ensure that has a one-litre capacity but it sure gets TSA checkers pants in a twist as it is not a commercial bag product!

By J Hewson, Tuesday, November 24, 2009