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When Bomb-Sniffing Dogs Bite Back

Sigh.This happened two weeks ago, broke earlier this week, and is now winding its way through the usual blogs and forums run by the usual mix of well-meaning libertarians and conspiracy theory nutjobs.

An Italian woman was making her way through Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson airport and was standing in the baggage claim area. The airport's bomb-sniffing dog apparently decided that the woman needed to be bitten, so it bit her.

How hard the dog actually bit her has been a subject of open debate. EMS personnel on the scene said it "looked like a scratch." She says that there was bleeding and the bruise afterward was the size of her hand. You can judge for yourself who's telling the truth by looking at the picture here. Try not to be eating food when you look at it though, because it's actually kind of horrific.

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So a Guy Stripped Totally Naked at a TSA Checkpoint...

This is without a doubt the least sexy naked travel post that we've ever blogged. John Brennan is a Portlander with what appears to be a libertarian streak. Last April he was going through a TSA checkpoint when officers detected nitrates on his clothing. In order to demonstrate that he was not in fact carrying explosives, Brennan got totally naked. Problem? Solution.

He was of course immediately charged with violating local indecency laws, because seriously, he got really naked (NSFW, obviously). Those charges were promptly slapped down by a judge. We have a Constitution in this country, and that Constitution entitles you to protest against the government in all kinds of interesting ways, and those ways apparently include being naked.

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TSA's Request for Comments Goes About How You'd Expect

In 2011 TSA was ordered by a judge to follow the law and solicit public comments on full body scanners. They kind of sort of ignored that order. Since that's not a thing that people are allowed to do with court orders, in 2012 the agency was again ordered to solicit comments. Now it's May 2013, and finally TSA has opened up a webpage to get the public's input. So the next time it takes you an hour to get through an airport security line, you can feel better knowing that it's not just security. They're slow at everything.

Anyway, there have already been 3,000 comments about the scanners. You can add your own. They are... oh, let's go with entertaining.

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TSA Holds Back on Allowing Pocket Knives on Planes, After All

Last March the TSA created a media firestorm by announcing that it was changing its policies and letting passengers carry small knives - along with some sporting equipment - aboard airplanes. The people who routinely scream that TSA should loosen its restrictions became very quiet for some reason. Instead all the people who support stringent TSA restrictions began screaming. And they screamed a lot. We used the entire episode as a case study in why we can't have nice things.

Fast forward to yesterday. TSA declared a take back. They're not going to loosen the restrictions until after they hold some hearings. How long those will take is unknown. And to think: some people actually believe that TSA is incompetently stumbling from one short-sighted policy to another without any sense of overall strategy.

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It Only Took a Few Years, but the TSA Wants to Know How You Feel

In 2011 the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, DC ordered TSA to hold hearings regarding the rollout of their full-body scanners. The judges' ruling was fairly straightforward: federal agencies are supposed to hold hearings on issues like this one, and TSA hadn't held any hearings, so you know?

In July 2012 we reported that TSA had yet to hold the hearings, and was being hauled back into court to explain why. In August we followed up to note that they were indeed in court trying to defend themselves. In September TSA explained that they wouldn't be holding meetings any time soon, because fuck you that's why.

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What to Know as Pocket Knives Return to the Skies This Week

We’ll try not to take a side in this debate, but we did want to chime in to remind you that your pocket knife can go on vacation again, beginning this week. April 25 is the big day in which the TSA loosens up some of their rules, and small pocket knives are no longer a big deal. You're again welcome to carry them onboard the plane with you, rather than stick them in your checked bag. The metal detector may beep, but upon closer examination you’ll be waived right through the security line.

We’ve mentioned this a couple times before, but it sounds like the lifting of the rule is still happening, despite complaints and comments from a number of different groups.

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TSA Causes Traveler to Miss Flight After He Calls Sandwich 'The Bomb'

The Sydney Morning Herald wrote yesterday that "the dreaded [TSA]... has gained a reputation as part authoritarian goon squad and part crime syndicate." We thought was unfair. In the first place, it seems a little bit sweeping to say that "authoritarian goon squad" is part of TSA's official reputation. How many people actually go that far? Like real people.

More importantly, the SMH forgot to include how any description of TSA's actual reputation involves being really, really stupid.

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How to Hack an Airplane? There's an (Android) App for That

We were going to use this post to turn today's US Airways meltdown at PHL—luggage left in the rain, flights boarding at random times, etc—into a Teachable Moment about travel social media. Telling people to work with your on-the-ground reps is pretty much the definition of using Twitter wrong. But we're so blindingly furious at the airline right now that it's probably better for everyone to count to 10.

Maybe next week, after our blood pressure has returned to sub-heart attack levels, we'll have a group discussion about why telling people that they should know better than to wait in your airline's airline lounge isn't a great idea.

Anyway, this story—about how Android phones might be able to hack airplanes—is, first, real news, and second, interesting. So we're going to put aside our theory that US Airways reps are sadistic travel trolls determined to ruin our lives. Instead, how about how an Android app may or may not be able to "modify approximately everything related to the navigation of the plane"? Added the hacker who wrote the software: "that includes a lot of nasty things."

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Texas Lawmakers Again Move to Criminalize TSA Patdowns

As they'll be more than glad to tell you (at length) Texans are a freedom loving people. However sometimes however ardor for personal liberty goes a little farther than what good sense, or political reality, or federal law might advise. This is one of those times.

You'll recall that in March 2011 we openly ridiculed Texas lawmakers for introducing a series of bills that would have criminalized various TSA measures, from invasive pat-downs to full-body scans. We called the entire spectacle a "publicity stunt" and predicted that it would quickly die. Within a few weeks, and for a wide range of reasons, it had indeed died. Then a year later Rep. David Simpson of Longview introduced a bill that would have merely criminalized "inappropriate touching" by TSA. It too, predictably, failed to become a real thing.

Apparently now it's back. Rep. Simpson seems to believe that travel politics bloggers don't have enough easy content, and he's eager to help. God bless Rep. Simpson. The rest of you should be following his example and hooking us up, rather than scoffing and rolling your eyes like you're obviously doing right now.

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TSA Manager Fired for Negligence is Rehired. Again.

Remember a few years ago when TSA officials moved to unionize their workers, and then we expressed concerns to the effect that unions might protect deadbeat screeners, then TSA said of course that wouldn't be allowed to happen, then we debunked their logic, then TSA unionized anyway? And then remember that other time a little later, when 36 TSA workers got fired from Honolulu International Airport because they failed to scan bags for explosives, and then unions rushed in to protect them?

You'll be happy to know that one of those employees - a manager named Raymond Ware - was reinstated after a lengthy challenge. He's getting his job back plus back pay.

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Well, This is One Way to Get a Sword Through Airport Security

Lots of TSA news floating around today. There's a sequester impact story from Miami that someone successfully pitched to a local reporter. More lawmakers have piled on in criticizing the agency for lifting its ban on pocketknives. And of course, there's the Marine humiliated in a wheelchair story that everyone's talking about, because outraged outrage is fun to talk about.

But those stories (a) suck and (b) are ones we've discussed to death (for real: recent examples here and here and here). So instead let's talk about how this woman tried to smuggle a sword through Dulles airport security in her cane. The Associated Press says that it's just like a James Bond film, because the Associated Press doesn't know the difference between cane guns and cane swords. But still, it's a sword stashed in a cane that someone tried to get through security in the nation's capital. We're going with it.

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Politicians and Airline Execs Now Going After TSA for Lifting Knife Ban

Week 2 of this nonsense. Now lawmakers—who usually grandstand by attacking TSA for having too many restrictions—are going after the agency for dropping some of them. It's not quite enough to make us wish for more sequester travel news—because, you know—but we're getting to a place where investigating travel pillows seems like a good idea.

By way of review: in the face of endless demands that the agency use common sense, TSA last week announced new rules under which passengers would be allowed to carry sporting goods and small knives on board airplanes. Everybody promptly lost their shit, and here we all find ourselves.

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