Ping, "False Authority Syndrome"

In a post, by Billy Beck, titled “False Authority Syndrome," we are pointed to this little TSA adventure published at davidgagne.net. You have to read it, to dis-believe it.

I’m wondering, if the TSAers involved in this ridiculous display are the ones who have accepted the $500.00 and $1,000.00 bribes to stay on the job?

Posted by on 11/02 at 04:44 PM

  1. I don’t often surf into .gov territory, but this post and your links inspired me to go get a look at http://www.tsa.gov.  Oh boy.  Hard to say what sort of browser the front page was designed to impress.  Clearly not this standard issue thing I and a gazillion million other people have.  Hard to say also what language the whole site might have been written in originally, before some translator or another rendered it into howlers and head-scratchers like these verbatim snippets:

    “People are our greatest resource, but not all of them are air marshals, and a few are even animals.” (Office of Law Enforcement / Programs)

    “These technological marvels blow puffs of air on a traveler, which it then analyzes for trace amounts explosives.” (Our Approach / Innovation & Technology / Puffers)

    And regarding stuff like this (of which the entire site is constituted):

    “In December 2005, we made a risk-based choice to change our operations to better meet this threat [of explosives].  Before the change, our screening workforce was spending a lot of time searching for items that no longer posed a significant risk – items that would no longer be useful to terrorists intent on taking control of an aircraft.  Based on analysis of threats, vulnerabilities and consequences, we removed the most innocuous of these from our list of items that are prohibited beyond the checkpoint.”

    In the real world, how would the advent of explosives as a threat make the items earlier deemed threatening somehow not “useful to terrorists” any longer?  And why remove only “the most innocuous of these” from the list of banned items?  Do travelers have to discard innocuous items that are still appear on “our list” because they less innocuous than permitted items?

    Wish I could say I was surprised by some of this slovenly nonsense and stupidity but, honestly, I’m not.  Just creeped out, trying to be amused.

    Posted by  on  11/03  at  10:35 AM

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