Active-duty military may be "trusted travelers"
 

Under a bill currently in the House of Representatives:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011...-Security.html
This good article makes the valid point that exempting military from excessive screening would make the lines faster for everybody else.

Bruce

There are some significant flaws in this approach, but I'm not going to go down this road at the moment. Maybe later.

More divide and conquer if this bill is signed into law. As a NEXUS card holder, I have not had the chance to use the Pre Check program for trusted travelers yet.

This will do not good except maybe a few less complaints from Generals and higher ups in the military, to the detriment of the rest of us. This is one less faction complaining and we need all the complaining possible to get the Congressional weenies off their a$$es.

I agree that servicemen deserve this, but SO DO THE REST OF US!

Besides, they represent an extremely small fraction of travelers, so it will have no impact whatsoever on lines at the airports.

Everyone should go through the same screening to enter the sterile area. Walk through / hand held metal detector, x-ray of belongings and Explosive Trace Portal / Explosive Trace Detection.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Which will work really well for members of the active-duty military, who often deal with Really Dangerous Explosive Stuff on a regular basis ...

Agreed. Coupled with targeted screening by intelligence for RARE threats that are ACTUAL threats, such as a Nigerian radical muslim whose own father has huge concerns enough to contact the American embassy.

??? Has this been a current problem? If so, why would you raise this as a counterpoint?


From the article:
No way, dude. This is simply feel-good legislation "anything for the troops" just like "anything for security." Family members of active duty? Even those who have lost a son / daughter and have access to guns and explosives? The whole thing is ridiculous. Why put a big non-intelligence driven hole in security? (Answer: this has nothing to do with security.)

Has congress forgotten the Fort Hood incident?

Assuming they don't have any RDES with them, and only a trace is alarming, wouldn't it be resolved in same same manner as somthing like glycerin-based skin care products?

In which case, there's little need to actually test their hands for explosives, is there?

If I can explain away the explosive residue on my hands as just the glycerin in my hand lotion, to the satisfaction of TSA, then there's really no way to distinguish between me with my hand lotion, a gunnery sergeant who just came off the firing range, and an Evil Terrorist who just finished mixing up a pipe bomb artfully concealed in his luggage. At that point, there's really no point in performing the hand test in the first place.

It would seem to me a positive ETD would also trigger a secondary of belongings as well.

Would the TSA even be able to recognize members of the military?

My boyfriend flew out of GPT Halloween weekend. There were only two other people in the security line, one of whom was a soldier in full fatigues. There was a name plate on his uniform as well as on his camo bag he put through the x-ray. Unfortunately, the soldier forgot to remove his laptop which caused an "alarm". A TSO grabbed the bag, held it up and asked, "Whose is this?" :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

I'd cut the TSO a break for that. Civilians can carry camo bags; soldiers can carry ordinary luggage.

+1. This is logical, and a reasonable approach IMHO.

Agreed. Let's not focus on little things that screeners do -- it is pretty well established that they are the lowest of low in terms of job seekers, as there is basically zero qualifications needed to be a screener (I posted the usajobs link awhile ago.)

I would be more annoyed actually if he just assumed that the nice leather bag goes with the executive looking guy, camo with the soldier, etc. Much better to just ask.

Only if they present a valid, active duty Common Access Card.

Even though all of my jobs during my entire working career have been in support of the DoD and I thank all those who wear the uniform, there are those in the military that can become quite disenfranchised with their government and may be well trained to do something about it.....with negative consequences.

Equal, appropriate (and non-theatrical) screening for all...

If I'd be Al Kaida, I know what I had to do now.. after all, US Army isn't like very much able to pick who may join them, they'll sign anyone they get a hold off.

So send some of your wanna-be-terrorists to the us army, have them go through security on their first flight "out", and there you got all the stuff needed for a serious plane-hijack (I assume you can just switch it to another wanna-be-terrorist who travelled till the airport toilet as regular traveller, so you can even re-use your army "terrorist".)

No need to put some explosives into shoes or other BS, just have them travel through security with a "trusted traveller". Nice one.. but given the current Republican presidential candidates, I won't be surprised by anything coming from the US of A.