Halle Berry gets police escort at airport security line

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Who knew that Halle Berry was big in Canada? Well, maybe it was her boyfriend, a Canadian model, who was able to inspire the local police to provide special treatment.

At a Montreal airport last week, Berry, her boyfriend (Gabriel Aubry) and their kid were led to the front of the security line … while other passengers were stuck there for more than an hour. Marieve Paradis, a Quebec journalist, saw the cop make way for Berry and her family, and detailed it on her blog Friday.

According to Police Inspector Jimmy Cacchione, the star-struck officer acted alone, and his actions weren’t supported by the department. He won’t be punished, Cacchione said, but the police unit working the airport will be putting tighter rules in place for the future.

[Photo by dan paluska via Flickr]

Is the body scanner hysteria getting a little out of hand?

by Grant Martin on

With terrorists now hiding bomb components in all corners of their bodies, we now find ourselves at a difficult impasse between more advanced, 3D scanning and passengers’ privacy. Pit the ACLU and the TSA against one another and one is guaranteed a lifetime of bureaucracy, litigation and name calling, nothing of which puts the traveler’s mind at ease.

Inflaming the situation are the mainstream media, left and right howling that these new generations of scanners can see right through you, with great erotic detail — and maybe even into your soul. And that’s when things start to go haywire. It’s true that there are a few different technologies available for 3D scanning, but will anything really show your buck-naked body to a nefarious TSA worker? Drudge Report and bild.de seem to suggest so, showing an attractive woman in full 3D detail on both of their sites.

Further complicating the matter is the buzz on the internet purporting that the negative of the exact same image reveals the person unclothed. The image above on the right was taken from Drudge this morning, while that below is the negative image as processed by Photoshop.

But is the above image real collected data? Not one other picture on the web from an x-ray or microwave scanner yields the same result, and most of them are so muddled and blurry (as a 3D microwave/x-ray scan should be) that it’s impossible to pick out fine details. Gadling’s friend and Photoshop expert proffered this alternative mechanism, suggesting the image is fake:

The girl was backlit, then they take the color out and blur the edges, and then invert the color. Either her top is skintight, or she wasn’t wearing clothes at all, and those were added in a separate layer.

Whether or not the image is manufactured or not, this whole concept of 3D scanning just needs to be accepted. More and more airports are installing the devices, which means at some point in your travel career, some sad TSA worker is probably going to see what’s going on under your sweater. Better start toning up with your Shake Weight now.

Gadlinks for Friday, 1.8.2010

by Katie Hammel on
Happy Friday, faithful Gadling readers! Here are a few more travel tidbits to send you on your way to the weekend.
‘Till Monday, happy travels!

More Gadlinks here.

Video shows the cause of Newark Airport shutdown – a couple in love

by Katie Hammel on
On Sunday, thousands of passengers ended up stuck at Newark airport for several hours, forced to evacuate the terminal, go through security again, and wait for the many flight delays and disruptions that happened as a result.

Some passengers tried to make the best of the situation. Many probably expressed frustration with the TSA employee who allowed a mystery man to walk the wrong way through a security checkpoint. And others may have wondered who the man was who caused them to suffer through the ordeal.

Was he a terrorist checking out the security system? Was he a man who made an Innocent mistake? No, as the just-released video footage of the incident suggests, he was a just a guy in love, looking for a few more minutes with his sweetheart. On the video below, you can see him hanging out by the security desk. He’s asked to move and does so, but when the guard leaves his post just a few seconds later, the guy takes that opportunity to duck under the rope and join his lady friend.

Ah, love. Cute, right? No. Not even a little. As a result of this guy breaking the law, and of the TSA employee’s failure to do his job, thousands of people were needlessly evacuated from the terminal. Time and money were wasted. And a few hundred people probably missed important connections or meetings, or at least had their vacation get off to a really bad start.

This guy wasn’t a terrorist (just an idiot), but the next person who tries and succeeds in getting past security could be. More than just frustrating travelers going through Newark on Sunday, the incident exposed just how insufficient TSA security is. What good are X-ray scanners and full-body pat-downs when a guy can simply breeze past an empty guard desk? It looks like our biggest threat to security may not be underpants bombs, but rather the lax attitudes of some employees within the TSA.

The TSA employee has been placed on administrative leave. The man who slipped past security has not been identified.

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Check out these other stories from the airport checkpoint!

Security breach sticks passengers in NJ for extra six hours

by Tom Johansmeyer on

Imagine the joys of spending an extra six hours in Newark, NJ. So, how pissed would you be at the one guy responsible? Now, multiply that by all the people in Newark Liberty International Airport. That’s a lot of anger.

At 5:30 PM on Sunday, a passenger walked the wrong way through the exit at the security checkpoint in Terminal C. He was stopped while the authorities reviewed surveillance tapes in an attempt to discern his identity.

Meanwhile, passengers were kicked from the secure area of the terminal and required to go through security again. Just imagine the length of those lines! After a thorough search of the terminal, the checkpoints opened at around 11:45 PM

One passenger wasn’t upset about the delay but did express irritation over the lack of organization in the terminal, a fair assessment, really. While I’d be angry at the passenger who bypassed security, I’d also be pretty furious at the security guards for letting the situation happen at all.

The security checkpoints reopened approximately 15 minutes before enhanced security measures took effect.

[Photo by The Consumerist via Flickr]