From: "Rich Gauszka" 

I'd rather the screening process use a bit of common sense. If  overcaution
is so desirable why do the screeners fail any test of security?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11863165/

21 airports nationwide don't detect bomb-making materials In all 21
airports tested, no machine, no swab, no screener anywhere stopped the bomb
materials from getting through. Even when investigators deliberately
triggered extra screening of bags, no one discovered the materials.


"Ellen K."  wrote in message
news:jd2ts216643rjm1ipqh7eka3n7n24lo7p1{at}4ax.com...
>I recently traveled to Chicago and New Jersey.  The air travel security
> level was raised to orange the day I left.   Leaving O'Hare for Newark I
> was wearing a zip-front top, the screener asked me to remove my
> "jacket".  I explained that it wasn't a jacket but the only piece of
> outerwear on my upper body, so he directed me to another area where a
> female screener would pat me down.  The female screener asked whether I
> had ever been patted down before, I said no, she explained what she was
> going to do and then did it.  I can't say either of them were anything
> but polite and sincere about doing their job.  I would much rather the
> screeners err on the side of overcaution than the opposite.
>
> On Tue, 6 Feb 2007 09:44:32 -0500, "Rich Gauszka"
>  wrote in message
:
>
>>
>>"Don Hills"  wrote in message
>>news:ukEyFtgaXCEH092yn{at}attglobal.net...
>>> In article ,
>>> "Phil Payne"
 wrote:
>>>>http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/05/immigration_search/
>>>>
>>>>Another eye-watering reason not to visit the USA.  Could be
an effective
>>>>was
>>>>to keep terrorists out.
>>>>
>>>>And everybody else.
>>>
>>> In the same vein:
>>>
http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3480/features/7909/search_and_seizure.html
>>>
>>> Like she says, avoid transiting the USA. I know you've long advocated
>>> this.
>>> I've also pointed out that our national airline is buying Boeing's new
>>> dreamliners to expand their new route to London, via Hong Kong.
>>>
>>> --
>>>
>>
>>The airport screeners in this country appear to abuse everyone equally
>>including Congressional Medal of Honor recipients. The screeners are both
>>ill-trained and ill-mannered
>>
>>http://www.snopes.com/military/medal.htm
>>
>> "They just kept passing it around there were eight or nine or
ten of them
>>who handled it before it was over," he said.
>>"They had found it in my pocket at the airport, and they thought it was
>>suspicious. It's shaped like a star, and they were looking at the metal
>>edges of it, like it was a weapon. I asked for it back, but they kept
>>handing it to each other and inspecting it. I was told to move to a
>>separate
>>area.
>>
>>"I told them - just turn it over. The engraving on the back explains
>>everything. But they thought they must have something potentially
>>dangerous
>>here.
>>
>>"I told them exactly what it was - I said, 'That's my
Congressional Medal
>>of
>>Honor.'"
>>
>>The man relating that story was retired Gen. Joe Foss, 86. His experience
>>last month in Arizona at the international airport in Phoenix - may be the
>>ultimate symbol of the out-of-kilter times we are going through. We are so
>>afraid of terrorists in our midst that what happened to Foss is not only
>>believable, but perhaps even inevitable:
>>
>>The Congressional Medal of Honor will be taken from its recipient because
>>it
>>looks vaguely ominous.
>>
>>And now, almost 60 years later, the Medal of Honor was being handed from
>>one
>>skeptical security screener to another in the Phoenix airport, while Foss,
>>at 86, took his boots and belt off as ordered.
>>
>>---------
>>
>>We shouldn't fault airport security officers for not recognizing a Medal
>>of
>>Honor on sight; not many people get to see one in their lives. But a
>>closer
>>examination by security personnel would have shown them what it was, and
>>at
>>that point in the proceedings they fell down on the job. Rather than
>>treating an obviously cooperative passenger courteously and allowing him
>>to
>>explain what the suspect item was, they shuffled the general back and
>>forth
>>and required him to remove his boots, belt, hat, and tie - several times
>>each. The delay they subjected him to almost caused him to miss his
>>flight.
>>That is no way to treat any 86-year-old man, let alone a war hero and
>>former
>>governor.
>>
>

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