Newsstand - Gingrich blasts TSA, e-bureaucracy

"Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who launched his own electronic revolution in the 1990s, said today that the Transportation Security Administration has developed a "stunningly inefficient system" to screen passengers."

Wow, I agree with Newt on something. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/eek.gif

"Gingrich said most passengers would welcome a faster way to get through security and would be willing to provide biometric indicators to pave the way."

But I don't agree with this one. There is absolutely no reason for such an invasion of privacy. Passengers should be sped through security anytime they do not alarm the magnetometer and when there's nothing untold on the x-ray.

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"Give me Liberty or give me Death." - Patrick Henry

I've been getting the "You didn't set the magnometer off, but it did spike a little, can we give you a random search".... What a load of BS.

I have NO metal on me, NOTHING (no rivets on Jeans, no metal buttons, no watch, no belt...etc), the wanding comes up with nothing.

I don't necessarily agree with you on this, Spiff.

If you do not set off the magnetometer or x-ray, fine. There is no point in wanding people that I can see, which is what the secondary searches today are comprised of.

But I do see some merit in searching people's bags at random, but ONLY if there is absolutely NO attention paid legally or otherwise to the contents except those that could be a true threat, e.g. a gun or a bomb.

Then I can see it being a constitutionally okay search, and the random element is the only one that really is an effective deterrent.

Someone serious about bringing a bomb on a plane is making a big investment in doing that, and doesn't want to be caught. Random searches would deter that behavior sufficiently.

The current searches are a big joke, as we all know, because they give the appearance of security but not the reality of it.

When they were doing "random" secondary searches (and I guess still are in a few places), the selection process was anything but random. At some airports, they looked for pretty young women (FLL, for instance, in my experience posted here). At others, gate agents were doing the choosing and always took the first person in line, or the second or whatever. Sometimes they tried to choose people who didn't have large carry-on bags, which would slow down the process.

Anyway, any real terrorist could study the procedures followed at a target airport and become very confident about avoiding searches. I became pretty good at it myself, without the incentives that would apply to terrorists!

Bruce

Before 9-11, I used to get pulled aside everytime I carried my canvas briefcase with me. They always wanted to swab it. It wasn't a big deal and I never felt inconvenienced. It's funny now, with our supposedly increased security, this has not happened once.

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"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben Franklin