Posts tagged as:
Where are our Congressional watchdogs these days? When it comes to counter-terrorism issues, they are all hiding. No one wants to seem to be soft on terror even as our pockets are being picked by misdirected spending and millions of Americans are facing more and more travels hassles.
{ 1 comment }
The Consumer Travel Alliance feels that this effort is a step in the right direction for airport and airline security. Unlike the whole-body scanners that have not been fully tested, that admittedly cannot detect many explosives in powder form or when hidden in body cavities, and that subject Americans to the indignity of a virtual strip search, ETD provides an acceptable layer of security. It is focused on explosives, it has been tested extensively over years of use, and the method is non-invasive, protecting personal dignity.
{ 2 comments }
Though, this was the first time I had heard of studies attempting to unlock the secrets of how dogs smell, these studies have been being conducted for decades at our national labs and in private labs. A canine’s nose functionality is still a mystery for sensory scientists. Dogs have been trained to sniff and search for bodies under rubble, explosives, drugs, banned foods and even the presence of cancer.
{ 8 comments }
What we have here, based on fairly basic research, is an expensive new whole-body scanner technology being deployed nationwide by TSA over the howls of numerous privacy groups, without independent testing, using the manufacturers’ claims, all being lead by the former head of the Department of Homeland Security saying, basically, trust us.
{ 12 comments }
Yesterday, the House Science and Technology Committee, Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation held hearings about airport screening research and development. Chaired by David Wu (D-OR), the subcommittee surprisingly focused on passenger acceptance of the of the new technology rather than on technologies themselves.
{ 4 comments }
The Obama Administration announced their fiscal year 2010 budget proposal today. Under the administration’s proposal for DHS appropriations, the TSA’s annual budget would increase by more than a billion dollars from 2009 to 2011, with most of that going toward the purchase of “up to 1,000″ new virtual strip-search (”Whole Body Imaging” or, in the latest euphemistic language of the budget, “Advanced Imaging Technology”) machines.
{ 9 comments }
It’s one thing when journalists complain about failures in the country’s counter-terrorism activities. It carries greater weight when the Government Accounting Office (GAO) issues a report detailing these failures.
{ 5 comments }
Already this week the TSA was caught in a lie about what it likes to call whole body imaging (virtual strip search) machines, when the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) obtained documents showing that, despite TSA claims that “this state-of-the-art technology cannot store, print, transmit or save the image,” the TSA actually requires all of these capabilities — image storage, printing, and transmission — as part of the contract specifications for the body scanners.
{ 19 comments }
A paragraph in a Wall Street Journal article caught my eye as I was collecting information about the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) frenzy following the Christmas bomber. It seemed to me that the evacuation at Newark, honey found in luggage in Bakersfield, drunks in planes above Colorado Springs and unruly passengers on the way to Hawaii were extraordinary.
{ 3 comments }
I listened attentively to President Obama’s presentation and the discussions with Janet Napolitano, Director of Homeland Security, yesterday and sadly, I heard no different rhetoric. This speech by President Obama could have been delivered by President Bush, however, Bush would have thrown the word “terrorism” into the mix.
Americans have heard the same speeches coupled with the same knee-jerk band-aid responses that won’t make anyone safer, but will complicate travel.
{ 3 comments }
