Thursday, March 28, AD 2024 8:41pm

Secretary Napolitano Explains it All

Hattip to Instapundit. The video is by Don Surber.  As noted in my post Full Body Stupidity, the wrath of the public is beginning to be roused by the full body scans or intrusive pat downs that airline passengers are being subjected to.  In response the Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, or BIG SIS as some people refer to her, tells us that we have nothing to worry about:

And we ask the American people to play an important part of our layered defense. We ask for cooperation, patience and a commitment to vigilance in the face of a determined enemy.

As part of our layered approach, we have expedited the deployment of new Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) units to help detect concealed metallic and non-metallic threats on passengers. These machines are now in use at airports nationwide, and the vast majority of travelers say they prefer this technology to alternative screening measures.

AIT machines are safe, efficient, and protect passenger privacy. They have been independently evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, who have all affirmed their safety. And the weapons and other dangerous and prohibited items we’ve found during AIT screenings have illustrated their security value time and again.

Rigorous privacy safeguards are also in place to protect the traveling public. All images generated by imaging technology are viewed in a walled-off location not visible to the public. The officer assisting the passenger never sees the image, and the officer viewing the image never interacts with the passenger. The imaging technology that we use cannot store, export, print or transmit images.

If an anomaly is detected during screening with AIT, if an alarm occurs after a passenger goes through a walk-through metal detector, or if a passenger opts out of either of these screening methods, we use pat-downs to help detect hidden and dangerous items like the one we saw in the failed terrorist attack last Christmas Day.

This is all rubbish.  Instead of taking intelligent targeted security measures using profiling, the TSA wastes endless sums of money and causes huge delays for travelers in mindless searching of nuns, wheelchair bound grandmothers, small children, etc, measures of extremely dubious value in stopping all but the most brain dead terrorists.  These are dog and pony shows that have almost nothing to do with real security but merely give a potemkin village appearance of security.

This issue should become white hot next week as vacation travelers discover that they are often being treated with less dignity at the airport than a turkey on Thanksgiving.  Glad I’m not flying!

To add to the comedic element in this farce, it is possible that BIG SIS may decide to exempt Muslim women wearing hijabs:

On the pat downs, CAIR [the Council on American-Islamic Relations] has recommended that Muslim women wearing hijabs refuse to go through the full body pat downs before boarding planes,” CNSNews.com asked Napolitano at a Monday press conference. “Will you insist that they do go through full body pat downs before boarding planes?”

“Look, we have, like I said before, we are doing what we need to do to protect the traveling public and adjustments will be made where they need to be made,” Napolitano responded. “With respect to that particular issue, I think there will be more to come.”

The Obama administration may be good for little else, but I do appreciate the unintentional comedy relief .

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T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, November 17, AD 2010 7:39am

Live free or fly!

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Wednesday, November 17, AD 2010 7:42am

“All hope abandon ye who enter . . . an airport.”

HEY!!!!

Why am I not being moderated?

Big Tex
Big Tex
Wednesday, November 17, AD 2010 9:29am

The Israelis know what they are doing. I would argue they have more or a reason to as well, since there are murderous thugs in their own back yard. If safety is truly our concern, why not borrow their model?

http://online.wsj.com/video/how-israel-screens-for-terrorists/987D025A-145D-42F5-9756-7B43CC7613CE.html

johanna acuna
johanna acuna
Wednesday, November 17, AD 2010 7:09pm

muslim women will be exempted bec of their religion?!!! what about us CATHOLIC women – who also value not being groped or touched by strangers in our private areas also as per our religious beliefs and upbringing and MORAL values!!!!????!!!!!! think of that!!!!!!!!!!!!1

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