According to their home page, here’s what TSA did for the period from December 26, 2011 through January 1, 2012:
- 1Â artfully concealed prohibited item found at checkpoints
- 23Â firearms found at checkpoints
- 1Â passenger was arrested after investigation of suspicious behavior or fraudulent travel documents
Don’t you feel safer now?
I do feel safer as imagine what airport security has kept out simply because they do check bags and passengers a lot closer now. Would you really try and put a bomb or weapon on a plane knowing that the odds of being caught are greater now than they used to be? I suppose if there were like 20 bombs found in the same time period you’d feel safer about getting on a plane? I’d be worried that one or two of them might have slipped through somehow. I’m glad that terrorists aren’t like the drug mules of today where hundreds of them are being sent to airports to get that one plane hijacked or blown up.
Israel doesn’t use scanners. Their head of security testified before the Knesset that scanners were useless. They do all the checking before the traveler arrives and have highly-trained college-educated personnel at the gates looking for suspicious / nervous behavior.
Most of what TSA does is what security expert Bruce Schneier refers to as “security theater”.