TSA Picking on Bloggers and News Reporters

I apologize for my many posts on the TSA and the current security issues at airports but the situation has deteriorated so quickly that it is hard to keep up.

Over the past couple of days a couple of bloggers and news reporters have been served subpoenas because they published TSA Security Directive SD-1544-09-06. Both Steven Frischling and Chris Elliott were served subpoenas by the DHS to learn the identity of the source who had provided the TSA directive. Mr. Frischling believes that the TSA is taking security seriously and that is why they want the name of the source. I agree with him, but the methods that the DHS and TSA have used seem extreme. Most of the directive is just procedural stuff and would have come out as people flew, so why all the fuss?

The TSA wants to make sure they close as many holes in their organization as possible to insure functional security. If people are leaking things that will eventually become public what is to keep them from leaking confidential information? In that regard I understand the need to know the identity of the leak. However, coming down full force on these reporters is not the way I would go about it.

Hopefully the hassles from the TSA will stop and this administration will realize that making “Top Secret” documents public is not as much of a priority as having safety cover the different methods of travel. Mr. President, fire the TSA.

Full Body Scanners Go International

The New York Daily News is reporting that Amsterdam-Schipol International Airport will start putting full body image scanners in place in the wake of the attempted terrorist attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253. On top of that, the Dutch are pushing for the full body scanners to be deployed in airports across the 27 countries that make up the European Union.

While the average traveler sees these machines as a necessity to prevent terrorism, and yes, in this case they may have worked, I see them as a nuisance. Even more annoying than the machines are the people who want them in place but do not want profiling of any kind to be used at airports. So, it’s alright to look at someone nude on a computer screen but picking people out of a line because they fit a profile is horrible?

Where do we stop though? If a terrorist is able to carry out an attack after passing through the machines, what’s the next step? Does everyone have to have every article of luggage and every part of their body searched before the get on a plane? What about airport workers? At some point, the searches and nuisances will get so bad that people will just stop flying… Then what?