USA - Inspect the Passengers, But not the Food Trucks.

[Renato1]

As I was watching this report on Fox News yesterday, the thought occurred to me that if terrorists didn't know about this hole in security before - they do now.
Cheers,
Renato

 

[suze2000]

OMG her way of speaking makes me rage.

Also that's a startling security loophole. What specially blessed food needs to remain untouched??

 

[harvyk]

That music and shouting has made me feel the appropriate amount of outrage!!!!!!!!

And now back to reality, airlines themselves have a vested interest in not being blown up. They don't just let anyone wander around their catering facilities. So whilst employees are probably not scanned by TSA (aka the department with a failure rate in the high 90% range) on a daily basis, I would be surprised if those workers did not at least have a background check, and internal procedures which they don't discuss with outsiders (including a random TSA officer).

A little over 10 years ago, I was a consultant for a government department which does work at international airports. Whilst most of my work was done in non-airport sites, I did need to spend some time at a couple of them.

My government ID allowed me to walk to and from secure areas without any sort of formal security check. But here is the thing, getting that ID required more than a smile. I can assure you that I had my background checked into before I was issued that pass.

 

[harvyk]

OMG her way of speaking makes me rage.

Also that's a startling security loophole. What specially blessed food needs to remain untouched??

Health and hygiene reasons probably.

 

[Himeno]

meh. It's FOX news. Overhyping nothing.

 

[Happy Trails]

LHR, last year:

Terror suspect with 17 aliases caught working at Heathrow Airport

A terror suspect and career criminal with 17 aliases has been working at Britain’s busiest airport – this week.

In an alarming security breach we can reveal Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamud was able to access the runway at Heathrow despite being on an official terror watchlist.

Mohamud, 31, has an 11-year criminal record.

His crimes include threats to kill, robbery, assault and money laundering.

He took up the job through the SM Global Consultancy Ltd agency on Monday. He arrived at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday and he has been working in airline Qantas’s business and first-class lounge.

 

[burmans]

Humans can be incredibly inventive, just about all systems have potential holes and "bad people" have a vested interest in finding them.

There is a fascinating paper (How Complex Systems Fail by Richard I. Cook) on this, only 4 pages long, see
https://web.mit.edu/2.75/resources/random/How%20Complex%20Systems%20Fail.pdf

The one I particularly love is point 8 "Hindsight biases post-accident assessments of human performance", the TSA is a classic example of this. 9/11 is a known problem, so the simplistic analysis is fix this and we solve the problem. However the odds that people will try the exact same thing as 9/11 are in fact quite low, they will try something else. And I agree with the theory that one of the greatest risks to any organisation may be from someone "within", sure its hard to get in but you do have greater license once you are in.

 

[Hvr]

The most dangerous part of airport security is the TSA!

 

[Renato1]

So whilst employees are probably not scanned by TSA (aka the department with a failure rate in the high 90% range) on a daily basis, I would be surprised if those workers did not at least have a background check, and internal procedures which they don't discuss with outsiders (including a random TSA officer).

And there has never been anyone without a criminal record who went on to commit terrorist acts?
Regards,
Renato

 

[Renato1]

meh. It's FOX news. Overhyping nothing.

Fox News - fair and balanced.
Regards,
Renato

 

[Renato1]

LHR, last year:

Terror suspect with 17 aliases caught working at Heathrow Airport

A terror suspect and career criminal with 17 aliases has been working at Britain’s busiest airport – this week.

In an alarming security breach we can reveal Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamud was able to access the runway at Heathrow despite being on an official terror watchlist.

Mohamud, 31, has an 11-year criminal record.

His crimes include threats to kill, robbery, assault and money laundering.

He took up the job through the SM Global Consultancy Ltd agency on Monday. He arrived at Heathrow Airport on Tuesday and he has been working in airline Qantas’s business and first-class lounge.

That's an A Plus for diversity in the workplace.
Cheers,
Renato

 

[AisleSeat]

This reminded me of the time, many years ago when I worked for the company (forget the name) that warehoused all the duty free in Sydney. After we'd picked and loaded pallets, they'd go through a big x-ray and then get plastic wrapped and security stickered. The man at the x-ray was some kind of airport security, I remember he had a patch on his uniform.

Everyone had their bags searched going out but not coming in.

 

[I love to travel]

The most dangerous part of airport security is the TSA!

Agreed

 

[harvyk]

And there has never been anyone without a criminal record who went on to commit terrorist acts?
Regards,
Renato

I'm sure there had been, just as there have been many cases of people misusing the trust which have been placed in them.

That's why there are often additional checks and balances. If I want to do bad stuff and you put me through a metal detector every day, I'll soon work out how to defeat the metal detector. If I walk into work every morning unaware of half the security measures in place, I am much more likely to get caught well before I've had a chance to do what ever bad stuff I had planned.

 

[juddles]

The dude in that video clearly has an axe to grind - not surprising he was sacked and now seeks to make money selling "inside" info.

IMHO airlines have always been a favorite target of terrorists - of course they are - getting a plane down with a few dozen people gets them far greater coverage than in almost any other field. And also, airlines are a hard thing to police - they involve millions of pax a day, millions of packages ("luggage"), etc. Yet still, despite these facts, terrorists very rarely score here.

Many love to bag the TSA, airline/airport security measures, etc, but the authorities seem to be doing an absolutely stellar job in stopping idiots messing with this form of transport.

I severely doubt a "whistleblower" such as this tosser are exposing anything. If the nasty old Americans are already listening in to every single phone call and internet cough we make, then I doubt a news article gets missed in their sweep

 

[Renato1]

UPDATE:

Tucker Carlson program gets results on Airport Security in USA.
Fair, balanced - and safe.
Cheers,
Renato

 

[opusman]

Just because they tell you they're fair and balanced doesn't mean they are...

 

[dajop]

UPDATE:

Tucker Carlson program gets results on Airport Security in USA.

Of course it gets results. It’s got a pretty powerful #1 viewer.

 

[JessicaTam]

Just because they tell you they're fair and balanced doesn't mean they are...

Was that a 737-Max8 in their stock footage? Good to see they are up with current airline events.

 

[p--and--t]

Surprised there wasn't a tweet storm