TSA website stats-huh?
 

From TSA's main webpage (http://www.tsa.gov)
as of midnight ET, 13 Aug 2008: http://www.stkstudios.com/images/tsa-huh.jpg

Does anyone know what a "checkpoint dosure" is? Not even my OED lists that word.

At any rate, does anyone find it disturbing (if not unexpected) that there's more lapses of security (breaches) than there are actual real issues?

Also, what is "artfully concealed"? Throwing my Gerber/Leatherman underneath my laptop in my bag?

And what constitutes a firearm in the TSA's definitions? Does this include the people who legally and properly check their weapons as baggage? I find it very difficult to believe 22 people would accidentally carry a weapon through a screening lane.

It is c-l-o-s-u-r-e (poor kerning I think).

Compare with the "d" in fraudulent and you can tell it is not a "d" in "closure".

A breach isn't necessarily a security lapse. A passenger who takes off running when drugs are found in his bag, for instance, would cause a breach.

No, there would have to be evidence of a deliberate attempt to conceal the item ... for instance, putting it inside the lining of the bag and resealing the seam. Or, for example, when scissors were a prohibited item, a PAX thought she'd found a way to smuggle hers aboard by glueing quaters to them, in an attempt to obscure their outline. (It didn't work.) (Why someone would go through all that trouble for a pair of scissors is beyond me!) (Taping your cigarette lighters to the underside of your baby stroller doesn't work, either, although they're no longer a prohibited item, so you don't have to embarrass yourself this way anymore, folks! LOL)

Umm, a gun?

Of course not.

I don't. It happens fairly often at the airport where I work. (Just had an incident a couple weeks ago.) Muliply that by hundreds of airports across the country, and VOILA!

I too am mystified by the fact so many people can be so boneheaded! Most claim they didn't know the weapon was in their bag. Do most people store their guns in suitcases? Hello?! Another fairly common scenario is the off-duty cop who thinks it's OK to bring his gun through the checkpoint.

I can believe the firearm thing. Google Alvin Crabtree and see how even the TSAers intentionally carry firearms through checkpoints.

Many of us felt the same way. Of course we were talking about the ban.

fwiw, i've been having fun with this very subject since february over here

moderators to merge?