Airport Disaster

[Colin Grabow]

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/45735.htm

I am shocked -- shocked -- that the feds have managed to screw up this bad.

[Colin Grabow]

http://www.drudgereport.com/flash7.htm

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1027634287858696400,00.html?mod=politics%5Fprimary%5Fhs

[Jeff]

How about hiring many if not all of the JFK screeners? Granted I've never flown into there, but you figure where good systems were in place, they'd want to keep the people running them.

[spejic]

And Bush wants to create a 170,000 employee bureaucracy called the Office of Homeland Security.

[GringoTex]

Originally posted by spejic
And Bush wants to create a 170,000 employee bureaucracy called the Office of Homeland Security.

But isn't it only a matter of moving 170,000 positions from other departments, not creating 170,000 positions?

[spejic]

I read the act authorizing the Fatherland Defense, and it is mostly a bunch of tiny divisions. The really large movements are:

Customs Service (was Department of the Treasury) 20000
Immigration and Naturalization Service (was Department of Justice) 14000 (to be expanded by 10000)
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (was Department of Agriculture) 7000
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) 3000
Coast Guard (was Department of Transportation) 43000
Secret Service (was Department of the Treasury) 5000

That makes 100,000. But the other sections, although numerous, are all tiny. I doubt there are more than a few thousand in them combined. There are at least 50000 that are not being transfered from somewhere.

[joseph pakovits]

Originally posted by Colin Grabow
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/45735.htm

I am shocked -- shocked -- that the feds have managed to screw up this bad.

Yeah, they should let Ken Lay or the guys from WorldCom run things while Arthur Andersen monitors how effective they are! Think of how much better run this would be!

[Father Ted]

Come on, does anyone really think government security is really better than private run?

Here is my story on security at JFK:
I flew from JFK to Ireland on Memorial Day weekend. I got to the airport really early, checked in and went through the security screeners to the gate without any problems. No lines and did not set any alarms off. I had two hours to kill so I decided to leave the gate area and go back out and have and grab some food and a newspaper.
About 45 minutes later I head back to the gate again except this time it's busier and go through a different checkpoint. Now I set the buzzer off. I empty my keys etc, still set off the alarm. I take off my watch and I still set it off eventually we narrowed it down to my belt buckle. I did not mind at all but my problem was that I went through 45 minutes earlier without setting anything off. I told this to the security people and they didnt care. I told them I did not set off the other machine and that they should check it out but I got no response.

[Dante]

Originally posted by Father Ted
I told this to the security people and they didnt care. I told them I did not set off the other machine and that they should check it out but I got no response.

That's because they didn't understand you. It's alarming the number of people who work at JFK and speak little English, and I'm not talking about the airline employees.

[Father Ted]

Originally posted by Dante


That's because they didn't understand you. It's alarming the number of people who work at JFK and speak little English, and I'm not talking about the airline employees.

Yeah, I think you're right. They were looking at me like I had two heads when I was talking to them.

[otterulz]

Originally posted by Dante


That's because they didn't understand you. It's alarming the number of people who work at JFK and speak little English, and I'm not talking about the airline employees.

You got that right. Since Queens has so many different ethnic groups, you have tons of workers at JFK and LaGuardia who can barely understand you.

I had an experience in December, I was flying out to LA. I was on the security checkpoint line for about an hour and a half. As I neared the metal detectors, I noticed that everyone had to walk through the detector and be scanned with the hand held device as well. They even had certain individuals take off their shoes since the shoe-bomb incident happened not long ago from then. When it came to my turn, I walked through the detector and that was it. I didn't get scanned by the hand held thing or get asked to take my shoes off. I was looking at the guy who was holding the hand held detector in case he was just waiting for me but didn't do anything. I just walked off to my gate and just wondered why I had to wait an hour and a half for nothing. Kinda disturbing when you think about it.

[Ian McCracken]

Originally posted by joseph pakovits

Yeah, they should let Ken Lay or the guys from WorldCom run things while Arthur Andersen monitors how effective they are! Think of how much better run this would be!

Yeah, because of course there are no crooks in the federal government. :rolleyes:

[Labdarugo]

It IS scary. Here's another one ...

I'm flying out of Newark to Heathrow a couple of months ago. Long line at the metal detectors. I walk through. *Beep* Security guy with the hand-held metal detector says please take your shoes off. I take them off and send them through the x-ray machine. Standing there waiting. People coming, going. Babies in strollers. Old folks.

As I'm putting on my shoes the security guy goes "Did I check you?" I go "Yeah." So he turns away and checks someone else. So of course he missed the shiv I'd tucked into my belt ...

[spejic]

> Yeah, because of course there are no crooks in
> the federal government.

There are crooks everywhere. It is human nature. Being part of the government does not make it better or worse than in large companies.

[spejic]

When I went through the San Diego airport, they had turned up the metal detector sensitivity so high they detected 2 rolls of undeveloped film in my breast pocket.

[Colin Grabow]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110002053

[bmurphyfl]

I carried on a 12-pack of beer bottles onto a flight but they took my tweazers from me. Which do you think I could do more damage with?

Murf

[Colin Grabow]

http://www.cnn.com/2002/TRAVEL/NEWS/07/26/airline.sex.toy.ap/index.html

[SoFla Metro]

Originally posted by Ian McCracken


Yeah, because of course there are no crooks in the federal government. :rolleyes: Well there are now