How unsecure is TSA security ?
 

The message the general public is getting is that it's a minor reduction in privacy (the NoS) for much improved security. What they are not hearing is that it is for virtually no improvement in security at all. How easy for terrorists to get something by TSA with one or a combination of these or other ways?

- Enter the system at airports with less stringent security.

- Stuff it up your anus (neither NoS, nor EPD, nor the gloom of nappy will detect it).

- Take in as much as you want in powder form (difficult to detect with NoS). How easy to mix with 3oz bottles of liquid in airport airside (or on plane) to make a successful device?

- Several accomplices each carry small pieces of gun/explosive/whatever in to system and meet up to assemble.

- Carry in small elements of gun/explosive/whatever over several trips over some period of time. Store with accomplice who owns/runs newstand/cafe until ready to assemble.

- Ship pre-mixed PETN in as pizza dough to your accomplice who owns/runs airside pizza place.

- Skip all of this and take nappy's suggestion for alternative xportation. Blowing up a train is more romantic anyway.

Other ways in which Janet's Nude-o-Scopes and gropes are useless?

There are many who will be able to write this better than I can, but in short:

Terrorism is usually a solitary crime or at most a small group of people. In the end there are very few people who are willing to die for their cause, so simply "getting tougher" doesn't make the TSA anymore likely to find anything/anyone - there just aren't that many (or manybe not ANY) terrorists out there to begin with!

Additionally, terrorism is also a crime of opportunity. There are MILLIONS of targets in the US that could be ripe for even a lone gunman willing to die. Churches, Wal-Marts, sporting events, tens of thousands of little yellow school buses full of children each morning...

Why spend 6 billion a year and stripe search everyone when locked cockpit doors and pax that are more aware will prevent hijackings & turning planes into airborne missiles again?

Create a weapon from items available past the checkpoint or on the plane, such as a Molotov cocktail using a liquor bottle purchased at the duty free store or a bunch of smaller bottles from on the plane.

Exactly. Are the new TSA antics really doing anything at all to improve security? As security folks in NL & UK have recently said - we need to put a lot more focus on intelligence.

With what TSA are currently doing it seems like we've taken a 6 foot sifter and keep putting thicker and thicker tape on the same square inch hoping to stop the sand from running through it.

After the undewear bomber I read over and over (and over) again online how security outside the US is so 'lax' compared to TSA. Even when several of us listed what many of here in TS&S know, we were told that because other countries don't play the shoe carnival etc that security was a failure. That same crowd didn't want to hear about intelligence failures.

Unfortunately, not much has changed it would appear. They are listening to the official line and seem to really believe that the US does have the best airport security in the world, and that other countries need to step up and start using WBI and playing the shoe carnival.

On the other hand, these are also the same people who fly once or twice a year if at all, and who don't understand the current backlash against TSA.