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.

I'm back

Apologies to all five (or is it three?) of N&C's devoted readers for my month-long hiatus. One of my New Year's resolutions is to blog more often. So without further ado, the latest news of 2009 from those devoted public servants who keep us safe.

First off: well, let's just say it was inevitable. There's a new reality TV show about--yes, you guessed it--the Transportation Security Administration.* You can watch a few of the gag-inducing ads here, as well as a clip showing a TSA screener doing his duty--protecting an innocent nation from belly dancers.

I've never blogged about my own experiences with the intrepid protectors of the American public. They've generally been uneventful (if annoying), but I do think they're falling down on the job. At least in Jackson, Mississippi: I was actually allowed to check in without showing ID. Seems reckless to me: after all, considering the plane was a US Airways puddle jumper, it had enough fuel to do some serious damage. You think destroying the World Trade Center was a blow to the American psyche? I could have hijacked that puppy, flown straight north and taken out Graceland--or maybe headed East and destroyed the Coca-Cola Museum in Atlanta.

Either one would have been striking directly at the nation's soul.

But fear not: if Euro-looking guys can still board planes in the Bible Belt without so much a cursory show of ID, it appears flying while brown (or at least brown and head-scarved) still makes the TSA sit up and take notice.

On January 2, Atir Irfan and his family (including females wearing hijabs) boarded a TransAir flight at Reagan National. Inayet Sahin, Irfan's sister-in-law, began wondering aloud which seats on the plane were safest in conversation with another family member. They were put off the plane, questioned by the TSA and denied the chance to re-book. For good measure, another passenger seen talking to Irfan's family was thrown off the flight as well.

A family group wondering out loud about the safest place to sit on a plane? Yeah. Hijackers. Gotta be.

But I have to give the TSA some slack: it's probably been a little harder for them to think clearly in recent weeks: their new uniforms give them skin rashes and bloody noses.



*I spelled it out to avoid confusion with that other TSA, the Textile Services Administration.

For Recovering Election Obsessives (and Philosophy Geeks)

Nearly three weeks after the election, those of us who spent the previous six months obsessing over polls, voter registration drives and Electoral Colllege projections realize we now have no idea what to do with our time.

To comfort my fellow wanderers in this existential void--and as a belated tip of the hat to World Philosophy Day--here are a couple of campaign ads to while away a few minutes in our now empty, endless days:

Put Yourself in Their Shoes

As a new administration prepares to take over, it's important to maintain some perspective. The people of the U.S. (and the world) have a lot of expectations that Obama and his team cannot possibly live up to. Indeed Barak & Co. have already begun to disappoint: the Financial Times thinks his economic team is too old.

This will go much easier for all of us if we do something we're not used to: empathizing with Washington. The people who run the country are human beings, and like us, they make mistakes.

Try this little thought experiment and you'll how much you have in common with the U.S. civil and military establishment:

We've all told lies. Maybe we've embellished a story to make it more amusing, exaggerated how far along we were with a project at work, told a white lie to avoid some trouble. Well, like us, people working for the government sometimes lie to get what they want.

Sometimes we don't manage our money all that well. Maybe a shopping spree adds up to a bigger credit balance than we expected. Some necessary car repairs add up to a surprisingly huge bill. It's a feeling the federal government knows all too well.

We all lose things. I lose my gym ID all the time. The other day I couldn't find my car keys. Well guess what, the military loses things. Sometimes for a really long time.

See? Those guys in the CIA, the cabinet, the Pentagon. They're just like us. People we can sit down and have a beer with.

Looking for New Investments?

So we've got a burst housing bubble in the West. So the stock market's um, well, volatile. There are still places to invest. And it's still time to get in on the ground floor.

Yes, I'm talking Baghdad real estate.

But to pick a good property, you have to think outside the box. No McMansions. Don't worry about yard space or riverfront views.

Think barred windows.

Think concrete blast-protection walls.

And above all, think religious segregation. Let's be fair. Sunnis don't bring down property prices. Shias don't either.

But the combination? That can be a problem.

Looks Like We Need A New TSA....

...to police the old TSA:

Over the past year, an enterprising baggage screener in Newark made off with over 100 items from passenger luggage: a cell phone here, a $50,000 camera belonging to an HBO film crew there......

It's unsurprising that the TSA has trouble securing passenger luggage, since they can't even secure their own uniforms and badges:

A government watchdog group's report found dozens of examples of former employees keeping their uniforms and security badges long after they've left the job.

One officer had an active pass to secure areas 827 days after leaving the TSA. In 73 cases, offices that monitor security passes weren't notified when an employee quit. And the agency lost track of former security officers' uniforms 82 times.

To be fair, since a lot of TSA employees are part time and make around $14.00 an hour, they probably can't afford to buy new clothes. They may steal those uniforms just to have something to wear. Or maybe they sell them on eBay to raise a few bucks.

Since We've Solved All Our Other Problems....

We can finally deal with pressing issues that have been on the back burner, such as the Canadian Menace.

From Helenair.com:

Montana’s U.S. Senators Max Baucus and Jon Tester today announced that Montana and 11 Montana counties will receive $8.2 million to help address critical homeland security needs.

Last year, Congress directed the Department of Homeland Security to allow northern border counties to apply for funding through Operation Stonegarden. The program was previously only for security on America’s southern border.

And as we enter the last weeks of the presidential campaign, people are finally taking notice of the most critical differences between the two tickets--such as how they pronounce the names of Asian countries.

As one reader of National Review fumed, "No one in flyover country says Pockistan. It's annoying."

I wish I could be equally confident that no one in the Pentagon said newkular.