Posts tagged ‘security’

Do you need straight A’s to be a cop?

By AustinJunkie, 25 January, 2010, 2 Comments

Your Shorts&Pants correspondent likes to travel in style, flying first class and sleeping in luxury hotels.

While I pride myself on being S&P’s resident communist, and therefore love our socialist labor heroes, I’m also aware that the American proletariat are often reactionary. And they smell.

Never mind that, as i sat in my first class lounge chair awaiting takeoff to New York City last week, I had to suffer the green-eyed glares and zesty aroma of the working class as they cast envious glances at their social betters. I don’t expect your sympathy.

But with these poor saps, filing toward their tiny corner of our flying sardine can, I shared one thing in common — seething rage at and hatred of the Transportation Security Administration.

Had This Critical Information Been Shared…

By AustinJunkie, 30 December, 2009, 8 Comments

Our responsibility at the Department of Homeland Security is equally clear…we must create new ways to share information and intelligence both vertically, between governments, and horizontally, across agencies and jurisdictions.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge
October 2003

“Our infrastructure to protect aircraft passengers, crews, and cargo from terrorist acts has never been stronger than it is today. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) workforce, comprised of tens of thousands of professional screeners, has been deployed at the 429 commercial airports across the Nation.”

The more than 7,000 new screening devices currently in use ensure that the latest technology is helping to keep dangerous weapons off aircraft. Federal Air Marshals are protecting tens of thousands of air passengers in aircraft cabins each day…Enhanced intelligence and tracking efforts throughout DHS are keeping high-risk passengers off aircraft and out of the country.”

Bringing 22 federal agencies under the DHS umbrella will improve air travel security, they said. Hiring thousands of “professional screeners” will “protect our nation from dangerous people,” they said.

How’s that working out for the brainiacs entrusted with our security when we fly?