TSA and Delta employees caught smuggling drugs through Atlanta

by Grant Martin on

I wonder if this is going to make it up on the TSA blog?

CBS Atlanta reports that three employees of the Transportation Security Administration and Delta Airlines were recently charged in relation to conspiring and attempting to transport cocaine through Atlanta‘s airport and into New York. Apparently they had a system worked out where the TSA officer would let the smuggler through security without being checked and the Delta employee would transport the contraband.

Little did they know that the DEA was behind the operation and that they would be busted.

That’s not really the point though– anyone foolish enough to attempt smuggling drugs regularly through an airport is going to get caught eventually. The real problem is that the system can be broken with a couple of bad apples. If the TSA keeps hiring idiots like this to run our nation’s security checkpoints, what do they expect to happen? What if they weren’t smuggling drugs but were smuggling bombs?

We need to start screening our security screeners a little bit better.

Amtrak to screen passengers’ bags

by Iva Skoch on

It always struck me as odd that airlines put so many resources into screening people’s bags, yet you can walk into any train in America with a bag “full of whatever” and be OK. In fact, unlike with the airlines’ “fly with your bag” policy, you can even walk into a train, leave your bag there and walk out. We won’t get into conspiracy theories here, but the security involved in train travel is probably not where it should be.

Amtrak announced that will start randomly screening passengers’ carry-on bags this week in a new security push that includes officers with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling platforms and trains, AP reports.

According to the article, Amtrak is not reacting to any specific threat. They are just taking “the correct steps.” Rail security has been top of mind since the 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid that killed 191 people and the bombings in London, where 52 people were killed in 2005, and in Mumbai, where 200 people were killed in 2006 on commuter trains. Russia also has had several bombings on subway, commuter and long-distance trains.

Breaking news: TSA may be useful for once

by Jerry Guo on

Here’s a brief update to my post about US border control’s recent push in seizing laptops, iPods, and other electronic whatnots. It seems the Transportation Security Administration does remain somewhat in touch with reality: they actually responded to this concern on their handy blog.

Should anyone at a TSA checkpoint attempt to confiscate your laptop or gain your passwords or other information, please ask to see a supervisor or screening manager immediately.

And it seems they fixed another snafu earlier this week about taking all electronics out of your bag at security. Turns out you don’t have to do that.

Anyways, their new blog isn’t all bad–yet.

US border control seizes your laptops, iPods, cellphones

by Jerry Guo on

From the front-page of the Washington Post today comes a scary tale of the legal seizure of electronics at US immigration checkpoints. Many travelers flying into the US have complained about being forced to turn over their iPods, laptops, and cellphones to agents for examination. Often times the data subsequently gets copied–or worse.

It’s probably not surprising that most of the victims are of Muslim or Southeast Asian descent. Because of this policy, several corporations are requiring their business travelers to carry “blank laptops.”

In Canada, one law firm has instructed its lawyers to travel to the United States with “blank laptops” whose hard drives contain no data. “We just access our information through the Internet,” said Lou Brzezinski, a partner at Blaney McMurtry, a major Toronto law firm. That approach also holds risks, but “those are hacking risks as opposed to search risks,” he said.

Update: Turns out the TSA says this shouldn’t be happening. Read their response.

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Turn off your laptop when going through security

by Grant Martin on

As we barrel through the cold, snowy, dry months up here in the great American North, here’s another tip for going through security at the airport: if you’ve been working on your laptop outside of security and just closed the screen real quick to pass through to resume working, you may want to consider turning it all of the way off.

With humidity as low as it is, people generate a lot of static electricity when removing jackets, shoes, scarves and sweaters before going through the metal detector. Doubling that by putting everything back on, we now become supercharged as we dangerously, in slow motion, reach down to our hibernating notebook computers….. until ZAP! we discharge on them.

And it doesn’t take a genius to realize that any electrical discharge onto a live circuit could result in you frying the whole thing.

After shocking myself and my Thinkpad for the 500th time last weekend I said to the woman watching me pack up my stuff, “Dude, you should ground something here so I can discharge myself”

She replied “Dude, you should turn off your laptop”.

Wise words from the TSA. Amazing.