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| Security Cutbacks Worry Airport Officials |
| 2003-05-22 |
| Big article at the (sometimes believable) NYT, registration required. Just the highlights here. The odds of breezing through McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas could soon become worse than those of hitting the jackpot at the Bellagio, if airport officials are to be believed. With 983 federal security screeners assigned to the airport, travelers still have to wait at checkpoints for up to an hour during crunch times. So things can only get worse, airport officials argue, when the Transportation Security Administration, under budgetary pressure, carries out its plans starting this month to cut 15 percent of the screening work force. As the summer travel season approaches, the Transportation Security Administration is planning to cut 6,000 of the 55,600 full-time screeners. The agency, created by Congress after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, intends to make half its cuts by the end of this month and the rest by the end of September, said Brian Turmail, an agency spokesman. Some smaller airports, meanwhile, will get extra screeners as jobs are shifted from city to city. The agency said it was winnowing its work force to meet a hiring cap set by Congress. Some lawmakers and security experts support the move, arguing that taxpayer money could be better spent protecting other potential targets. The fact that terrorists hijacked planes on Sept. 11, the critics say, does not mean that that is now the most likely avenue of attack. You can read the rest; the usual pious moaning from various "experts" and all. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 The answer to this is the dreaded P-word: Profiling. Focus efforts on those most likely to commit a terrorist act, namely, Middle Eastern males. Conduct a thorough interview using known criteria, which Israel would probably be very willing to supply, as they have to deal with this sort of crap on a daily basis and are known to be very good at it. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-05-22 20:59:49 |
| #2 We have to work smarter, especially when it comes to developing and implimenting security systems and proceedures. We have to get inside the terrorists heads (that is a scary thought!) in order to be at least several steps ahead of them. We have to think like them. Throwing money at the problem will not solve it. They are like scurrying cockroaches, so we had better be fast and flexible. |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2003-05-22 18:29:56 |
| #1 If only we had MORE money... No, not really. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-05-22 15:09:33 |