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This past weekend I went on my annual family vacation. We went to Florida again and I got to connect with a friend I hadn't seen in awhile. But that is not what I wanted to talk about. The fastest way to get anywhere today is to fly there. However, since September 11, 2001, air travel in the USA has been radically changed in the name of security. Now I don't mind the increased delays so much, so long as there is a point to it. But recently it seems the point has been just to annoy passengers and cause unnecessary delays.
In the last month, two airports had terminals closed down for several hours to re-screen all passengers because someone had managed to sneak by the security checkpoints. In both cases the offending person was eventually found. And their reasons for bypassing checkpoints were not a threat to anyone. Now I can understand why the terminals were closed to find the person. However, with all the money that has been sunk into the added security, I find it rather disturbing that it has obviously not been spent wisely.
It is no secret that in many Las Vegas casinos they have camera's everywhere, and monitor "every" detail of just about everything that happens on the game floors. In most cases airports do/should have the same thing. In addition to this, casinos also employ face recognition software that allows them to know instantly when a known gambling cheater enters their building. From their they can pretty much track where that person goes, what they do, so they can eventually escort them out. Now this isn't any new technology, it works very well and they've had it for over a decade and more. In other words meaning this tech has been around long enough to be well tested and prices dropped a lot.
With all that being said, can the TSA honestly give one good reason why they have not done this in at least the major airports? I know this has not been done, because if it had, in the recent two airport terminal closings they could have easily tracked where the person who got through security checkpoints went. Thus allowing agents to find this person without having to re-screen all the passengers and avoiding lengthy delays.
Furthermore, in the last few years of air travel I have done, I have witnessed some rather disturbing incidents that only further prove my point of the TSA's gross oversight of "additional security" in airports. The most recent of which happening on my last flights.
On my last trip to Florida, I of course flew down there. Anyone who has flown in the last few years knows about the increased "changes" in what is allowed on carry on bags as well as the annoying new procedures that must be done while they "screen" you. One of the more annoying ones is not allowing any more then 3oz of any liquids and having to place all of them in a separate clear ziplock bag that must be removed from your luggage and go through screening separately. The thing about this is I kinda forgot to do this on my last trip, yet I was not caught for it.
Now why is that such a big deal you ask? Well the thing is I have been "caught" for carrying things in my luggage before that I was un-aware were not allowed or even there. And I have been delayed while my luggage was searched for said items. Yet I had traveled through other airports, and even the same one, with the item and not been stopped before. I am almost certain the reasons I did not get stopped before is simply because the agents that were "supposed" to be watching the luggage x-ray screens, were not. My reasons for thinking this are that on my last trip, while exiting the terminals past the screening checkpoints, I was clearly able to see the screens and agents for one of these stations. I stopped there for a moment because I noticed the agent was talking to a co-worker and not looking at the screen. I continued to watch as I took note that the agent never looked at the screen to see certain bags go by. Thus meaning someone "could" have had something meant to harm someone in their luggage, and this agent just let it go by because they never bothered to look.
The point I'm making here is that it's obvious these new restrictions do nothing more then unnecessarily delay passengers. They obviously don't catch restricted items all the time. And many times the restrictions are made "after" someone does something with an item that was not previously being checked.
Ultimately this all shows that the TSA is only being re-active, and only doing things to make the public "think" they are doing a good job, when in reality they aren't. Now I'm not saying that we should just do away with the TSA and let people take what ever they want on airplanes. What I am going to say is that I think the TSA is not doing the right things and that there are many things they could be doing that would increase security without causing delays. Such as taking a tip from casino's at how to monitor what is going on in the airport, rather then just focusing on what people bring in. Doing that would not only have prevented the recent closings of terminals, but also catch TSA agents that aren't doing their job properly.
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I am a leaf on the wind, watch me soar!
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love the name u gave them.