Performing a barefoot strip tease at security checkpoints may become a thing of the past as federal authorities prepare for summertime tests at Los Angeles International Airport on a pair of new machines that scan shoes for explosives.
The PassPort scanners, manufactured by government contractor L-3 Communications, will determine whether travelers are hiding bombs in their footwear. Data collected from the tests at LAX will be used to evaluate whether the technology could be used at airports across the country.
“The required removal of shoes at the security checkpoint is one of the biggest complaints we get from passengers, so we are trying something new that will allow us to maintain a high level of security while accommodating travelers,” Baird said.
Here’s an example of thoughtful design:
The scanners run on a power source that’s unavailable at LAX, so airport officials are trying to determine which terminal should undergo the necessary adjustments.
“It’s in the works,” Larry Fetters, TSA security director, said. “The scanners are here, but we’re just waiting for the airport to change the electrical connections to accommodate the machines.”
Personally, there are about a thousand better ways to spend the money wasted on the TSA and their Rube Goldberg machines – that might better secure the public from the sum total of danger from terrorism.
L3 Communications are a primo example of military-industrial moneypits chartered to consume mass quantities of taxpayer dollars.
These products don’t have to meet any significant standards for usefulness or purpose other than to satisfy this week’s security hustle – whether it comes from the Pentagon, TSA or Ted Steven’s outhouse.
But what if I hide the explosives in my tightie-whities, rather than my footwear? Can we get a new crotch-sniffing machine from L-3?
[There’s one available here. – ed.]
My biggest complaint was when they went through the “feeling up women’s breasts” phase – when they did it to my wife.
LAX is a national embarrassment of an airport. That being the first impression of the US for visitors from Asia/Pacific, I’m surprised half don’t turn around and refused to get off the plane.
The international terminal doesn’t even have shower facilities. People have to fly 19 hours across the Pacific, often to catch another flight at LAX for a few more hours, and they can’t even get scrubbed up. Even Heathrow Airport, that mess in the UK, has a shower.
There is no Starbucks or decent food/coffee in the International Terminal. The security check lines snake into the checkin lines. They make you check your bags in a separate long line (that’s 3 lines for you! one to get your boarding pass, 1 to check your bags, and one to go through screening).
The post is right. There are more important things to spend money on at LAX than crap like this.
“The scanners run on a power source that’s unavailable at LAX”
I assume they use electricity at LAX – so what magical power source do these machines use? If they could harness the power of my contempt for the TSA we could stop importing oil.
Typical bureaucrat response to the problem: instead of telling the manufacturer to change the machine to use a normal power supply, they’re going to change the airport (all of them?) to fit the machine.
#5 – “I assume they use electricity at LAX – so what magical power source do these machines use?”
Well, since we’re under the Bush Admin, it must be some form of cocaine, probably in a liquid suspension. 😉
#6 – “it must be some form of cocaine”
Well there’s shitloads of cocaine at LAX – what’s the problem?
All this new technology. We had Fluoroscopes in shoe stores back in the first half of the 20th century. Not really much more dangerous than flying from where I sit.
I’m sorry but I have to draw the line at bicycle seats.
Fluoroscopes were used in shoe stores for some time until somebody asked “hey, isn’t that actually a x-ray machine being operated by somebody not qualified to use one?”
X-raying feet is one of those great ideas of our invention-crazed society, like radioactive drinking water, glow in the dark radium watch hands, and a prostate warmer that you plugged into a 115V outlet…assuming you were that brave.
Why don’t they be honest and call those scanners “Naked-Scanner” or “Striptease Scanner”? They provide images of naked people if people are scanned!