The TSA just keeps acting more and more asinine.

Somebody wake up the idiots pretending to protect us and tell them, Al Gore and Al Qaeda are not the same thing.

Mother of God, how can officials such as "airport police" say this kind of stuff with a straight face after all this time? Can they *not* hear themselves?? :confused:

::snicker:: :D

Yeah, usually they are reading a paper or magazine in LAX, or just talking to themselves. I have nothing but good things to say about the airport police, however, let's not make them into something they are not. They are there solely as a point of last resort, otherwise the TSA wouldn't have a job, we'd just have a bunch of airport police running around.

Point taken. I forget that their mandate is probably quite proscribed.

So your saying Al Gore shouldnt be subject to the same security everyone else is?
cheers
howie

I'm probably going to regret this, but here it goes.

I wouldn't go so far to call it a breach, but there was a definite security violation. It's a matter of following proper protocols even for a former Vice President.

Certain airline and airport personnel have "back door" access for a multitude of legitimate reasons. With that comes a burden of responsibility of knowing how to correctly escort people in the Security Identification Display Area or SIDA. This one falls clearly on the poor airline representative who simply should have known better. There is no excuse; this is one of the fundamentals covered in security briefings to ALL airport personnel, including TSA employees.

I don't like the public statements made by the TSA spokesperson; it could have certainly been phrased better and more accurately. As for Gore himself, he was just going where he was told to go. Frankly, I'm surprised that this went the way it did. Someone like former Vice President Al Gore, even if without Secret Service protection, is still a high-viz target for bad guys ranging from international terrorists to some schmuck who thinks "An Inconvenient Truth" shouldn't have won the Oscar. I would think that the radio waves would have been busy the entire time he was at the airport to have 100+% accountability of his whereabouts until he finally boarded that plane. I would have thought that the specifics about how to process him through the checkpoint would have been something covered in excruciating detail among airport LEOs, airline representatives, TSA management and probably the city mayor.

Don't you think it's more dangerous to force a former VP and potential presidential candidate to stand in a TSA line and take his shoes off, than to have him escorted around the security line?

Further, if we can't trust Al Gore to maintain proper security in his entourage, we're kidding ourselves if we think the post office flunkies that look for water bottles in our carry-ons are going to keep us safe by patting him down.

The TSA doesn't have anything to do with security and I don't have any problem with our leaders, either party, anytime, circumventing the security theater that the TSA puts on for us.

"Owl" Gore?
 

sorry ... don't get it. try again.

dangerous for HIM or for US or for the TSA?
don't kid yourself. he's making a cushy living giving talks and movies and what not.

I don't know why you'd regret this . . . everything you say here is 100% true. The breakdown is clear: it rests with the AAirline employee.

The LEO was waiting at the checkpoint to give proper processing to the former VP. I don't see any brakdown there.

Maybe the FSD needed to remind the AAirline employee "by the way, remember not to triple-swipe other people into the SIDA area using your SIDA badge" :rolleyes: .

I would still like to know why public transit turnstiles have better safeguards in place than airport security turnstiles, though. I believe that is a municipal department of aviation thing, though, like airport badging-- again, not the TSA.

Setting your personal dislike for Mr. Gore aside, would you ask W to stand in line for 45 minutes waiting to take his shoes off and wander through a metal detector?

Assuming you think that's a good idea, perhaps you could explain to us what you think that would accomplish with regard to our collective safety and security.

Classy.

The truth is often unpalatable. <shrugs>

From the shouting, to the bullying, to the obsession with fluids, there is nothing classy about the TSA.

Its rude. End of story.

I agree. The TSA are rude.