Center for Investigative Reporting

From CIR’s homeland security reporter G.W. Schulz.

ageofperil:

This list of recent catches comes courtesy of the TSA’s website.

• Exotic snakes and tortoises stuffed into nylon and concealed in man’s pants
• Double-side 19-inch sword hidden inside of a walking cane
• Thirteen different knives hidden in one carry on bag
• Knife taped to the inside cover of a DVD player
• Several containers of pot hidden inside a jar of peanut butter
• Knife hidden inside the sole of one guy’s shoe
• $55,000 cash stuffed inside one woman’s “undergarments”
• Knife and pepper spray concealed in simple ceramic pot
• Knife tucked under the wooden paneling of a carry on bag

Image: Flickr/cafemama

Source tsa.gov

ageofperil:

It’s the busiest airport in the world. Well, if you’re judging by the ratio of federal security screeners to actual airline travelers. Just one Alaska Airlines flight departs each day from the small Gustavus Airport in Alaska, and that flight, like every other into and out of the United States, must be kept safe from terrorism.

The Transportation Security Administration awarded a $40,000 contract this month for the task of carrying four airport screeners daily to the far-flung Alaska town of Gustavus, population 346. For 77 summer days in a row, the company Wings of Alaska based in Portland, Ore., will fly TSA officers to Gustavus from nearby Juneau, a 25-minute trip. 

Even the most unlikely targets of Al Qaeda have the TSA’s ubiquitous blue uniforms present. So that plan to get away from it all won’t mean escaping every headache of modern civilization. At least the lines will be shorter.    

Image: mcgeez  

ageofperil:

From Reuters with an Austin dateline:

    The Texas House of Representatives late on Thursday approved a bill that would make invasive pat-downs at Texas airports a crime, after a former Miss USA said she felt ‘molested’ at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport last month. … The proposal would classify any airport inspection that ‘touches the anus, sexual organ, buttocks, or breast of another person including through the clothing, or touches the other person in a manner that would be offensive to a reasonable person’ as an official oppression.

Airport security screeners work for the federal government, so there’s no telling how Texas would enforce a law like this. But it sends the message that some are clearly displeased with the state of air travel in the United States.

Image: Mike Licht