Tomorrow, the latest TSA shitshow starts, with passengers trying--undoubtedly with varying degrees of success--to run their laptops through x-ray machines while still inside carry-on bags. So how did the agency remind travelers about the new policy today?
James Brown once sang that Papa's Got a Brand New Bag. Well, it may be a different kind of bag than what the Godfather was singing about, but now everybody can feel better than James Brown and keep their laptop in their "checkpoint friendly" bag as long it meets certain criteria.
This is why the TSA has a blog. Yesterday, USA Today revealed that the agency was collecting data on people who came to security checkpoints without ID. In the evening, the TSA posted a public reply to the piece:
An August 13 USA Today article overstated the Transportation Security Administration's interest in passengers who come to airport checkpoints without identification but cooperate in establishing their identity. The story gives the public the impression they might be put on a "list" if they forget their ID. That is false.
Passengers whose identity is confirmed will not be added to any watch list or face additional scrutiny during future checkpoint visits.
Well, not any longer anyway! While this misleading comment from the TSA jives with the newspaper's story, it fails to point out that up until yesterday, Kip Hawley and company *were* collecting data on passengers.
Fortunately the commenters on the TSA blog aren't dumb enough to buy this double talk. It took 57 minutes before "seth" wrote:
Kip says that the names were being collected and that the practice stopped yesterday. You're now saying that the names were never being collected. Which one is it?
The TSA has been collecting records on thousands of people who went to airport security checkpoints without ID this summer and has opened its files to law enforcement, the agency tells USA Today. Since June, the TSA has collected info on 16,500 fliers.
Agency chief Kip Hawley told the newspaper in an interview Tuesday that the info helps track individuals who may be "probing the system." Later that same day, he called back to say that the TSA would revise its policy and expunge the names it has collected so far.
The agency still maintains a database of info on potential passengers, including their Social Security numbers, nationalities and physical features, if they were questioned for any reason at the airport.
Maybe this is why the TSA says people can show up to the checkpoints without ID:
Any government agency could potentially take a seven-word laptop-screening policy ("Take your computer out of its bag") and turn it into a 510-word briefing including two diagrams, a bulleted list, a note and a disclaimer. But only the TSA would have audacity to dub that kind of effort "simplifying laptop bag procedures."
Yep, there are apparently four different styles of new laptop bags that are OK by the TSA, but don't try to sneak an "accordion style" pouch past these logicians! Actually, don't try to sneak anything by them because:
If [an officer] finds that the bag does not present a clear and distinct image of the laptop separate from the rest of the bag, the laptop will have to be screened separately.
The TSA is well aware that the removal of shoes is not our most popular policy.
So goes the latest post on the agency's blog, explaining the testing of some new shoe scanners at LAX. During the trial period, you'll be able to keep your shoes on as you walk through one scanner--but you'll have to remove them when you get to the magnetometer and x-ray machines.
Why? The TSA is collecting data on how effective the new PassPort machines are, which explains the double-screening of your kicks.
A company called L3 Communications, which has been accused of involvement in torture at Abu Ghraib prison, makes the units. The walk-through gizmos use proprietary technology to determine if you're packing a bomb in your shoes. You can read more about 'em on the company's website.
The TSA keeps rolling out new initiatives that we're supposed to be thrilled about. The latest is a new effort to let laptop-carrying passengers keep their computers in their bags at security checkpoints. Great news, right? Wrong.
Only a few types of bags will meet the criteria the TSA has laid out, and from the sound of it they'll be hard to identify. (Mostly because the agency won't let manufacturers use language like "TSA Approved" on their luggage.) That means you won't truly know if your bag will play nice with the X-ray machine until you're at the airport.
We've been through enough checkpoints to know what a shitshow this is going to be. We're picturing people complaining that their bag is exempt even though its not, people confused about whether they need to pull out their laptops, TSA agents baffled by fuzzy rules sent from the home office in DC.
So who do we thank for this? Kip Hawley, a guy who says he wants security checkpoints to be "calm and predictable."
Thank! God! The TSA has finally done the right thing and re-named the agency's HQ. No longer will you be kept safe from four-ounce yogurt containers from the "Operations Center." Nossir, airline passengers in the US will now be under the watchful eye of the "Freedom Center."
Could conditions get any tougher for the airline industry? Possibly, if the US government has its way. Travel industry executives and governments around the world are pushing back against a plan to require airlines and cruise lines to collect fingerprints from all foreign passengers exiting the country.
According to the Washington Post, airline reps complain that the move represents the government's attempt to "outsource" the responsibilities and costs associated with border control, setting a dangerous precedent of personal data being controlled by private companies.
But beyond those noble moral reasons, they fear the move, if approved, would cost them nearly $9 billion more than Department of Homeland Security estimates, creating one more financial drain on an industry battered by high fuel prices and cutthroat competition. For its part, the DHS, under pressure from all sides to tighten porous borders, says it's just following the directives set out by Congress last year to collect the data by July 2009.
We're not sure where we fall on the freedom-security continuum, but we do wonder what crazy marketing scheme might result from Carnival Cruise Lines having our digits in its database.
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by pbb
