Airport security must be some kind of joke. How else do you explain two recent embarrassing security breaches at America’s post-9/11 airports?
In Milwaukee, an elderly woman managed to drive through a security fence toward an active runway before being intercepted by sheriff’s deputies.
Imagine if the breach had been intentional. Do you think the terrorists would have been able to get to the runway?
Yeah, me too.
Last month, an eight-year-old boy with a prior record of breaking through airport security did it again.
Surveillance video shows Semaj Booker passing through the central checkpoint security area without any problems before being apprehended by TSA agents. It is unclear how he managed to do it without a boarding pass. After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, it became a requirement to have a ticket when passing through security.
Is anyone paying attention — if not laughing — at the porous airport security where grannies and kids can make it through? Well, no.
No one gave airport security a second thought back in 2000, when a government report concluded that anyone could board a flight with a weapon. Two agents managed to board a plane without so much as being questioned.
[They] obtained boarding passes and foreign permits to carry weapons aboard flights for which they had purchased tickets … They carried briefcases that were never x-rayed. They walked right up to the door that led down the gangway to the airplane. Nothing stood between them and the aircraft. They had fooled everyone.
And everyone knows what happened next.
Is history about to repeat itself? If it does, it won’t be a laughing matter.
