Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Flying the Surreal Skies

I was reading a report from KVITV (Boise) on how to have the best, cheapest flying experience possible. The author suggests paying extra for a different security screening:

At some airports, you can pay a yearly fee to go through a special security screening by non-TSA personnel who then escort you quickly through special TSA lines. You must provide a lot of personal information to the TSA, including counterfeit-proof identification such as an eye scan. Ted Krohn, an international consultant in Arlington, Va., said he and his wife find the security experience to be much better with this system.

So essentially, there are people allowed to do security screenings at airports who aren't the TSA. And they seem to be better at it than the TSA, who do 99% of the security screening, because once you pass muster with these guys, you can just go through special lines.

And to the author of this report the most important part of this non-TSA screening is that you have to provide a lot of information to the TSA (who, remember, aren't the ones screening you) and submit to an infallible ID-check.

1) I would be interested to learn what kind of personal information you have to provide to the TSA (and the people who aren't TSA), since it's pretty clear that they already do a very good job of collecting information about us.

2) I certainly understand that verifying passengers' identities can help security catch some of the bad guys. But remember 9-11? The incident that started all this? In spite of Mohammed Atta using a couple of aliases during his life, when the 9-11 hijackers boarded their planes we pretty much already knew who these guys were, eye scan or no eye scan.

1 comment:

edrie said...

I am in total agreement with your Globe review of Wally Lamb's new book - I felt like I was reading 4 novels simultaneously. A healthy amount of editing would have saved it.

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