Word: tsa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...airport x-ray machines going to detect more than just concealed weapons? Yes, says the American Civil Liberties Union, which likens the new backscatter technology to a digital strip search. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) will launch the device this month at Phoenix's Sky Harbor Airport as part of an antiterrorism test program. Backscatter penetrates clothes but not skin, exposing the outline of the body along with any objects being carried. The TSA's version is filtered to make faces and intimate parts indistinguishable (see photo above). Initially, it will be used only if travelers fail a primary screening...
Unfortunately, the answer is: not exactly. The only evident change is that last Monday, the TSA decreed that the outright ban was not needed anymore. It gave no notice for what differentiated this Monday from the day before, the subsequent Tuesday, or the previous Monday. No government announcements, portentous comets, or other such celestial auguries...
...liquid explosives for almost two decades, with only one notable success (in 1987, North Korean agents blew up a South Korean airplane). But as Time magazine notes, of the roughly 2,000 bombs planted on U.S. territory every year, almost none are liquid explosives. Six months ago the TSA itself stated, “While random items commonly found under a kitchen sink could conceivably be concocted into an IED [improvised explosive device], there are so many things that could go wrong with this hypothetical scenario that we find it highly implausible...
Thus, step by step, travelers have been subjected to ever more intrusive searches, interrogations, and general hassle. The security ratchet tightens over time and the costs, in terms of individual liberty, convenience, and taxes (over $17 million per day for the TSA alone), only rise. Even though the British didn’t catch the August 10 would-be bombers by confiscating their toothpaste—it took months of old-fashioned gumshoe detective work—the day heralded a new set of irrational security restrictions. Our shoeless security circus, where minimally qualified federal screeners leer at passengers...
...Created in a post-9/11 panic—quick, someone do something!—it took less than a year for the TSA to be branded a “monster” by the chairman of the House Aviation Subcommittee, John Mica (R-Fla.). But until voters and politicians treat the threat of terrorism rationally, accepting certain risks and recognizing that some preventative measures are too costly, the TSA will neither guard our security nor our liberty...