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December Has Been Quite the Month for the TSA; They Did Frisk Santa, After All

December 22, 2010 at 3:20 PM | by | Comments (0)

Miss TSA Pin-Up Calendars...giving Santa a pat-down... What weird TSA news will we hear next?

The US government will spend over $160 million on full-body scanning over the next two years. On one hand, you have Israeli security experts who say that's a waste of money. On the other hand, you have DC-based scanning machine lobbies who've seen their funding double over the last 5 years, and who think that's a fantastic development. As always we acknowledge that this is a tangled debate with arguments on both sides, though we will note that in sharp contrast to TSA, Israeli airport security doesn't routinely let weapons and explosives slip through checkpoints. We'll also note that TLV doesn't get needlessly evacuated because of holiday gifts and... umm... frozen chicken.

None of which is directly related to the 2011 Miss TSA Pin Up Calendar that we promised you earlier. The TSA is also in the news for frisking an airport Santa who was in an Ohio airport for a seven-hour work day of entertaining travelers. That's actually not a terrible idea, since the long lines created by onerous TSA security theater are staggeringly vulnerable to terrorism. But the optics of taking Santa into the back room for a frisking...not great.

Also be aware that there's a kind of insufferable navel-gazing Washington Post editorial circulating this morning that reads like something an undergrad would submit to a public policy class. The opening two sentences: "We are more naked, as a nation, than we've ever been. We are forever baring our souls, revealing the mundane and the sacred."

Instead of reading that, please enjoy this collage of TSA pin ups. And if you're traveling a bunch through New Years like most of us here at Jaunted, good luck and stay sane!

Related Stories:
· Christmas Travel [Jaunted]
· Airport Security [Jaunted]

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