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Bad News for Aussie Airports: No Body Scan, No Fly

It seems so long ago that American airports began introducing full-body scanners for passengers to be randomly selected before passing into the secure gate area. What also seems from long ago is the issue of privacy the machines posed with the revealing images. Well, after our outright concern, abhorrence, acceptance, and return to the concern, another continent joins the scanner controversy: Australia.

Down Under follows the US and Europe, and will adopt the same "gingerbread man person" technology, which displays an outline of a gender-less person only highlighting areas of risk. Parliament also promises that all images are discarded after each passenger. We have heard this all before.

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So. About That Whole Rand Paul Versus the TSA Thing...

First the raw news, such as it is. Yesterday Senator Rand Paul was flying from BNA to DCA and, while walking through a scanner, triggered the alarm. Per TSA regulations he was put in the waiting area—which at BNA is a glass "cubicle"—until an agent could be found to pat him down. Sen. Paul demanded the right to be allowed to walk through the scanner a second time but, again per TSA protocol, he was told he'd have to submit to get patted down. He refused and instead tried to walk out of the cubicle, and eventually had to be escorted out of the airport.

We want to pause here to emphasize the absolutely explicit explanation that Paul gave for his behavior. He says that he thinks TSA should allow people to walk through scanners twice, so he acted as if TSA does allow people to walk through scanners twice. In other words he acted as if the reality he wishes was true was actually true. We're going to blockquote this so you can tell we're not making this up:

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Wait. The TSA Intercepts How Many Guns Per Day in Airports?

Ideally we'd like to spend this post criticizing TSA for various inadequacies implicit and explicit. There's something not quite right about the agency's new "we'll retest for radiation levels but not really" announcement on full-body scanners, especially given its extensive and well-documented past dissembling on the issue. There are still issues to discuss from last year about the contradictions in pushing for private TSA baggage screeners. We'd like to know why it was necessary to tase a traveler to the point of hospitalization at the Sacramento International Airport. Someone should ask what steps are being taken to prevent a repeat of the $40,000-stealing TSA agent. And isn't there something wrong with airport security when $400,000 worth of coins are getting left at security every year by flustered travelers?

But we can't talk about any of that, because people won't stop trying to bring weapons on airplanes. Especially guns. Lots and lots of guns. So instead of this post being about the many ways TSA makes traveling worse, it's about one very specific way that travelers make traveling worse.

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TSA Expanding Its Trusted Traveler 'PreCheck' Program

Last October we told you about the nascent PreCheck program that TSA was in the process of soft-launching. The airport security pilot program was designed to provide "expedited screening" for some passengers—specifically, those who were willing to provide personal information beforehand—while still ensuring "random and unpredictable security measures" for everyone. The idea was that, on the whole and all things being equal, frequent passengers would be able to get pre-screened and then avail themselves of faster lines at the airport. A little privacy for a lot of convenience.

Now PreCheck is expanding. Originally the program was only available to Delta and American fliers at a limited number of airports, with the eligibility list culled from the rolls of those airlines' frequent fliers. In 2012 you can expect to see the program at more airports—including, finally, LAX and JFK. There will also be new airlines involved, with travelers from US Airways and United joining the program.

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The TSA Shares Their Top 10 'Catches' of 2011

Just one of their finds, a flare gun with flares...

Another year means another gem from the folks at the TSA and their official blog. They’re always quick to point out wacky stuff that travelers attempt to sneak through security, and now they’ve compiled some of the oddest things confiscated and captured at security checkpoints in 2011.

They’re calling the list the “10 Good Catches of 2011,” but since we’re a little cynical when it comes to the TSA we’re still waiting for their list of 10 Good Misses of 2011—hmm, maybe we’ll do that next week on their behalf.

Some of the highlights include birds, turtles, and other critters discovered at airports like LAX and MIA. There were even a couple snakes before boarding—we’ll save you from another snakes-on-a-plane reference. The agency did show a little humility when mentioning the bomb-like-device that was discovered in Nebraska, because, as we pointed out it, was actually just some kid’s science project.

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TSA's VIPR Teams Now Conducting 'Suspicionless Searches' at Train Stations

Since the rest of this post is going to be a mix of straight news and borderline paranoia revolving around the increasing creepiness of TSA VIPR teams, let's start with some balance. Here are the TSA's top 10 good catches of 2011 and here is how they tried to help holiday travelers with medical conditions. Fair's fair. We also want it noted that we decline to create separate posts for each and every negative TSA story that crosses our desk (e.g. this annual holiday nonsense about hostility to pastries or this brutal Vanity Fair article on the uselessness of security theater). That would be obsessive.

Now that that's out of the way, let's proceed with the unpleasantness. Last November we told you about the increased tempo with which TSA has been deploying its so-called VIPR teams, which conduct anti-terror monitoring outside of airports. The program's actual scope is vague and arguably designed to expand, with different government sources and politicians having "differing descriptions of VIPR's exact mission." Critics ranging from mainstream civil liberties groups to batshit crazy conspiracy theorists have specifically picked out VIPR teams—which do their work at highways, ports, bus stations, tunnels, rest areas, etc—for violating the Constitution's Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches.

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Olympic Athletes to Get a 'Fast Pass' Lane at LHR for London 2012

There are 206 days to go until the 2012 Olympics in London, so trust that our U.K.-based sources will be bringing you all the latest as we continue ground coverage leading up to the Games: the touristy swarms clogging up Westminster and the Southbank, the Cultural Olympiad, the general excuse for even more drunken revelry than usual, the works.

To kick off 2012, a word to the wise among summer travelers set to pass through Heathrow around the Games: you might have to face even more unbearable lines at airport immigration owing to a VIP passport lane being established strictly for athletes. The U.K. Border Agency will be taking and checking biometric data (translation: fingerprints) from visiting athletes, with lanes at immigration dedicated solely to the task of checking said data.

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The Jauntys / Jaunted Awards 2011 / Travel Awards 2011 / TSA / Airport Hell / Airport Security / → All Tags

The Wackiest TSA Tale of 2011 Is...

It's that time of the year again, the time when the year just plain ends. Alas, we can't just let 2011 go that easily, especially since travelers spent it both up in the air and up in arms over a crazy range of topics, encompassing everything from nudie scans to tarmac delays. Needless to say, we're ready for 2012, but first we're taking a brief look back at the best of 2011 with the Jaunted Travel Awards,—or as we fondly refer to them—The Jauntys.

We let the TSA off the hook as 2011's Biggest Travel Villain—the agency finished as a runner-up after dominating the category in 2009 and 2010—but obviously they were going to make at least a couple more appearances this year.

TSA's airport security officers are, after all, responsible for the vast majority of airport hell stories (especially when you take out first-world complaints like "the plane was stuck on the tarmac for 25 extra minutes and it was the worst. thing. ever").

But as much as there are genuine concerns about TSA and civil liberties; and TSA and individual privacy; and TSA and private property; and TSA and outright criminal behavior; and TSA and surreal douchebaggery—as much as there are genuine problems in all of those areas, the vast majority of TSA officials and officers and even politicians aren't bad. It's just that so many of them are kind of bumbling and incompetent, and unfortunately they've been put in charge of a task that requires precision and competence.

So when we were choosing 2011's Worst TSA Tale, we looked for something that accurately represented the essence of TSA. Which is to say, borderline-comic incompetence.

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Common Sense Says Don't Travel with Knives in Airports

We've been kind of rough on TSA over the last couple of months. We've raised concerns about how they're expanding outside of airports, especially given that inside airports they may be covering up the health risks of their safety procedures. Meanwhile we've mocked them for searching holiday gifts, for being obnoxiously pedantic about holiday foods, and for wasting $56 billion. Those two posts about gifts and food were kind of tongue-in-cheek, but the $56 billion thing—how do you even do that?

That said, and as we pointed out a few days ago, the agency has been making very tiny and very halting steps in the direction of sanity. So in the spirit of the season—and because security alerts shut down airports, and we're traveling over the next few weeks—we wanted to help them help you not make an easily-avoidable mistake.

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TSA Critics Ring in the Holidays with Their Own Christmas Music Video

As we wind down the year in TSA and airport security, we can't help but notice that the agency has made very tiny steps in the direction of sanity. They've gone from generic terrorism alerts to targeted social media alerts. They've gone from defending the intrusive screening of 6-year-olds to not doing that any more. They've gone from delaying scanner safety studies and potentially covering up cancer risks to seeking public comment over the devices. And they've publicly launched investigations of their "few bad apple" agents, who seem to pop up everywhere from Charlotte to Honolulu.

So it's with a tiny tinge of regret that we post this video from the libertarians at Reason.tv, who hate airport security theater the way we hate inflatable pillows (we really hate inflatable pillows). One problem is that the TSA is really trying. It's just that it'd be nice if they'd try a little harder.

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TSA Agent Leaves Exasperated Note in Rapper's Drug-Filled Luggage

Sometimes (most of the time) TSA agents make a point of being studiously straight-laced. That's more or less how we prefer our airport security officials, and we still reference this very matter-of-fact story from last year. Somebody was ejected from San Diego International Airport for refusing to choose between a full-body scan or a patdown. There's a job to be done; TSA agents intend to do that job; and they get sad and grumpy when you don't let them.

It's also worth noting that when TSA officials decide to show off their freestyle improv skills, things tend to go awry. Last October, a TSA agent searching journalist Jill Filipovic's checked baggage found a vibrator and left Filipovic a note encouraging her to "get her freak on." An angst-filled blogosphere firestorm immediately erupted and the agent was duly punished. We personally weren't really offended because we suspected that the note might be a failed attempt at being sassy.

Now a TSA agent has left another destined-to-go-viral note in another piece of checked luggage. We anticipate that, in contrast to the incident with Filipovic, the Internet will respond with something less than outrage.

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Important Travel Safety Tips About Guns, Booze, and Handcuffs

In today's airline security/airport security post, we recommend against trying to smuggle your loaded gun through an airport and against chewing off restraints that are placed on you mid-flight. Had you asked us a few weeks ago whether such advice would be necessary, we would have expressed the belief that - no - those rules seem self-evident. And yet here we are.

Exhibit A. According to the report he would later give police, Atlanta Hartfield passenger Richard Popkin was originally going to check his loaded .22-caliber Magnum revolver into his baggage. He changed his mind at the last minute because he was concerned that the gun would push his bag over the weight limit. Instead he opted for trying to smuggle the gun through airport security.

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