Op-Ed. . .
T&A at the TSA
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Consider TSA's recent $440 million stimulus-funded rush to deploy so-called advanced imaging technology (AIT) scanners at airports throughout the country. These X-rated x-ray machines enable TSA employees to peer beneath the clothing of passengers - including women and children - ostensibly looking for bombs. Those refusing this indignity will be subjected to the humiliation of a public groping session at the hands of a government employee. The overreach may well prove to be the agency's undoing.
Airline pilots and flight attendants, who pass through this screening on a daily basis, are beginning to push back. "There's a level of anger out there right now amongst the pilots in response to this that I haven't seen since I've been doing this job," American Airlines pilot Sam Mayer, spokesman for the Allied Pilots Association, told The Washington Times. "This is the straw that broke the camel's back. We've taken a lot, and this seems to be the one that's pushed some guys over the edge."
Note to TSA: If a pilot wants to take down an airplane, he doesn't need a bomb. He can just push forward on the controls. Yet TSA tells us that whole-body imaging is essential in the wake of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's failed underwear bombing attempt in December 2009. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported in March that it was "unclear" whether the new machines would have thwarted Mr. Abdulmutallab. Three months before the Christmas Day incident, a GAO report chided TSA for rushing the devices into service without sufficient operational testing. TSA's pattern clearly has been to act first and ask questions later.
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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/nov/11/ta-at-the-tsa/
