Don’t know how I missed this one a few days ago. Thankfully, the article has been recently updated and sent to my RSS. Anyway, the report is that the Government Accountability Office has inspected 19 airports, and have found most of them wanting. These officials were able to smuggle bomb parts onto planes, a sure sign that we still don’t have it right when it comes to airport security. I learned this first hand over the summer.

I was traveling with my family from Newark to San Diego, visiting my brother who is in the Marines. All five of us got through airport security with no problems. Yet, we had plenty of restricted items on us. I had various tubes of liquids that were well over the TSA limit. My sister passed through with a lighter. This is a bit suspect at one of the busiest airports in the country — not to mention the place of origin for Flight 93.

On our return flight from San Diego, we were basically given the shake-down. At the security checkpoint, a man stood at a table and insisted that all containers of 2.2 ounces or more be left behind, and that any container near the brink be bagged. I went to San Diego with shaving cream, cologne, and liquid face soap. I returned with none of those.

Now, this isn’t to say that San Diego isn’t a hijacking risk. Surely a group of terrorists could board a plane from San Diego and crash it into L.A. But it strikes me as strange that they are more stringent at San Diego than they are at Newark.

Perhaps it has to do with volume. The security line was at least 250 people deep when we arrived at Newark. In San Diego, we stood behind maybe five people. Because of the volume, then, it becomes easier for San Diego to be strict, while it’s tougher for Newark. People are already advised to show up for their flights two hours early because of security delays. It would be pretty unreasonable to ask people to show up three or four hours prior to takeoff.

That is, unless it represents a real improvement in security.

After all, we don’t need things like this happening:

According to the testimony, a transportation security officer barred one of the investigators from bringing an unlabeled bottle of medicated shampoo through the checkpoint. But the security officer allowed a liquid component of the improvised explosive device to pass through undetected, although that item is prohibited by the TSA.

In another test, the investigator put coins in his pockets to assure he would get a secondary inspection. But the officer, using a hand-wand and a pat-down, failed to detect any of the prohibited items the investigator was carrying.

So what are they going to do about it?

Although it would not discuss the specific nature of its recommendations, the GAO said it recommended establishing special screening lines based on risk and passengers with special needs. The TSA should introduce more “aggressive, visible and unpredictable” measures to detect concealed items and develop new technology for screening at checkpoints.
…
Among the new technology, he said, were whole body imagers, bottled liquids scanners, hand-held explosives scanners and advanced technology X-rays. And, he added, “our pursuit of new technology is not limited to what I described today.”

It’s a good start. But I’m thinking that in order to implement these security measures, we as passengers are going to have to make further sacrifices. Hopefully these will be temporary — for all we know, successful implementation could eventually lead to shorter security lines. But for now, it’s in everyone’s best interest to make whatever airport-related sacrifices are deemed necessary in order to fix these breaches.

And it’s a new record. The US National Debt just crossed the $9,000,000,000,000.00 mark.

That’s Nine Trillion Dollars that we collectively owe. That’s just staggering.