Airport shoe scanners holding up the show
By Darren Murph 
posted Jan 21st 2007 6:49AM
posted Jan 21st 2007 6:49AM
Although it shouldn't take you by surprise to get held up a bit while going through airport security these days, a good few travelers are a bit perturbed by the Clear's problems with metal-infused footwear. Passenger's that spend more time cruising the friendly skies than motoring around in their own vehicle have the option to submit to a federal background check and cough up $100 in order to pass through newly-installed biometric scanners at certain airports such as Orlando International and New York's Kennedy Airport. However, even the snazzy scanners can't distinguish between benign and harmful metals, so customers who thought they'd save themselves the inconvenience of kicking off their kicks are still being forced to remove their shoes if even the slightest hint of metal is detected. Although the shoe scanners still won't be "broadly used" until they receive further TSA approval, Verified Identity Pass senior vice president Shawn Dagg simply suggested that "he hopes customers will learn to wear shoes without metal." We're sure that's exactly the answer these disgruntled customers were looking for, Mr. Dagg.
Every new bit of airport security is a farce. It does nothing except waste our time and money. One nut-job puts a bomb in his shoe and now every traveler has to take their shoes off, how stupid is that? If someone makes a bomb out of their shirt will we all have to take our shirts off?
The TSA is so f'ed up they can't even buy a machine that can tell the difference between a steel-toed boot and a gun, so they just blame it on the traveling public.
I think it was Lewis Black who asked that some woman put a bomb in her bra just for this reason...
Soon someone will stick a bomb down/up his mouth/ass to hide it inside the body. Then what are the security gonna do? Make us take a full-body x-ray everytime you board a plane?
During a recent check at Schiphol airport, Amsterdam, they discovered a metal paper knife with a six-inch blade in my briefcase. A few months earlier I had bent the first half inch or so at an angle of about 45 degrees so had put in my bag to take home for repair but forgotten about it. In the meantime, I had traveled, with the bag and knife, through airport security at Schiphol several times (including the same x-ray machine earlier that day), Barcelona, Munich, Vienna twice, Krakow, Warsaw and Hamburg.
The crazy thing was that after a quick discussion they said that it was OK for me to keep the knife because it was bent. I threw it away myself in embarrassment.
Thank goodness terrorists like Osama Bin Laden are poor and won't be able to afford $100 to skip the... Oh, wait.
The whole airport security is a hardly effective and is there to make the public "feel" safer. Past security, there are so many things to make a weapon out of. Like the glass at the bar. One time I was at West Palm beach airport and maintenance was is the mens room past security. He left all his tools unattended in the restroom and anyone could have easily taken the items and used them as weapons. Also, we you buy shoes you can't tell is there is any metal in them or not. They don't put a list of ingredients on the box.
Last two times I flew was to St. John's, NFLD and back from Halifax, NS.
On the way there I had a paid or manicure scissors removed from my carry-on bag, as if their 1 inch blade was going to allow me to hijack a plane. The other things in the very same case that they took the scissors were in included tweezers, a nail file, and some small gouging instrument of undetermined use; all of which would be more harmful if I were to be committing a felony.
On the way back my carry-on bag was fully unpacked, and then repacked, by security for reasons unknown. As far as I can tell the guard was making sure that I packed the two beers in my bag safely so they wouldn't break, as when I got back to Halifax pretty much everything soft in my bag was wrapped around those two bottle.
I understand that Newfoundlanders enjoy their beer, but that seems a little bit obsessive.
Airport security removing dangerous items from passengers seems like it would make hijacking a plane easier if you were able to get something past them, as no one will have anything to fight back with.
Speaking as a former Northwest Employee and a recent traveler from two different airports and three different terminals, I can say that the biggest problem with TSA isn't TSA, but the airport itself. Airports have been retrofitted to house these large TSA scanning stations with their devices. The extensive searches create bottlenecks, which then slow up the entire line. Now, if it were possible to enlarge individual security checkpoints, so that more TSA agents could work simultaneously, that would be a great boon to traveling in the air.
Though, I have to agree about some of the stupidity. All our shoes have to be X-Rayed because Mr. Reed put a bomb in there. Seriously, how likely is it that anyone is going to do that again? The thing that TSA doesn't realize is that the terrorists KNOW that this a one-shot deal, and if they get caught, then we'll be prepared and they won't be able to use that method to transport a bomb on board. Take the liquid explosives for example.
This creates two problems. First: now every previous method of sneaking explosives, etc. onto a plane has to be examined. This ranged from me taking out my laptop (thus becoming a target for theft, which of course neither the TSA nor the airport is liable for) because it's possible it could be used to aid with killing people, to having the TSA look through my bag because the metal detectors went off.
The second problem is that we are no longer allowed to bring food or drink through the airport. Having not traveled much before 9/11, I'm not sure if people really were free to do that before. Now, unless you always travel out of PHL (Philadelphia International Airport), where they have mandates that in-airport prices can't be higher than non-airport prices for goods, you're going to get reamed. MSP (Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport) does not have such a mandate, and in turn, prices are higher in most locations. A 99¢ Whopper Jr. at Burger King costs $1.49. A $1.99 can of Monster runs $3.50. The only places with decent rates in the airport is the Caribou coffee, which runs (as far as I'm aware) the same prices in and out of the airport.
This can be solved in three ways. First, we need to make more room for the security checkpoints, and more employees. More scanners will add to bulk, and choke progress. More people doing the scanning should increase the pace of security checking, and with more room, you can add more scanning stations. Second, we need better scanning devices. Perhaps something that can tell explosive from non-explosive. I don't know, perhaps some sort of radio ray we can fire at an object (and things inside the object), and when they bounce back they can tell us something about the characteristic of the things it bounced off of. It doesn't have to scream explosive, but just have some sort of signature. Then, TSA runs a bunch of explosives and ingredients for explosives through this machine so they have a set of signatures to compare.
Third, the machines need to be slightly less anal. I recently passed through the Lindbergh Terminal of MSP, and set off a metal detector. The only metal I had on me was the zipper and button in my pants and my ring. Now, I'm not morbidly obese, but I am build rather wide, and the TSA agent said that what probably set off the metal detector was me brushing up against it. So, either my ring set it off, or TOUCHING it set it off. Somehow, that doesn't seem quite right for a metal detector.
Actually I can site at least one company that sells a non-metallic, airport-friendly mens casual shoe and advertises it on their boxes: Nun Bush
One can also do searches on this internet thing and find tons of shoe companies that feature non-metallic shoes.
Besides, have you seen the ports and borders?
Don't kid yourselves.
I was flying out of PHL recently and had one of the worst TSA experiences yet. I dropped my Blackberry so that the back broke off. In order to keep it on, I had to duct tape the back. There's nothing that duct tape can't fix, right? BIG MISTAKE.
I guess to the barely educated TSA worker at PHL, my Blackberry + Duct tape looked liked some sort of homemade bomb or, at least, detonation device. So, I was pulled aside were my carry on luggage was inspected... clothes, documents, etc. throw everywhere. I had to take apart my blackberry, put it back together and then make a call. Finally, the TSA worker asked me why I had put duct tape on it and when I told him why, he said "Oh, that makes sense." That wasted about 20 minutes.
im sorry but i would rather be checked numerous times than get hijacked or blown up with my family.
Tape on electronics is an immediate cause for further investigation. I've got an old Rocket eBook reader that has a crack in the case that I had taped up. EVERY time the screener catches sight that its taped they need to handle it, turn it on, run it through the sniffer and often search the rest of my bag. I took it apart and superglued it and haven't had the problem since. (And its a better fix, go figure)
I have an idea for all of the passengers who don't want to have to take their shoes off at the airport. (Just designate pecial planes with no security screening required to board) However, we just pack them full of enough explosives to incinerate the plane at the first sign of trouble. No danger to anybody on the ground and all the people who are too important to wait can get right on with minimal inconvenience.
I am determined this entire Clear is another way to obtain info on us (eye scans/fingerprints etc.) I ordered mine in October and have yet to see the Clear. I only receive emails saying we are working on a "better" system and sorry for the delay.
Yes the $100 fee is quite steep, I think it will deter the terrorists. Check out this video I just found on Clear and other airport security issues: http://travelistic.com/video/show/2036.
These advertisements on the bins are ridiculous.
Wow! A $100 service for Terrorists. Just think, pay $100 to find out if your name is already on a No-fly/terrorist watch list. If you pass the screening, you're good to blow up a plain. If you don't pass, I guess they already know about you!