TSA Checkpoint Screeners Concerned About High Cancer Rates

Well, I won’t say, “I told you so, but…” The New York Times is reporting on email exchanges between TSA employee representatives and Department of Homeland Security officals about concerns over increased cancer rates. According to the article, airport screeners in Boston and Atlanta were concerned about growing numbers of co-workers ‘falling victim to various forms of cancer,’ which they suspected might be caused by radiation exposure from the machines. “

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How to Shorten Your TSA Rub Down

Finally people seem to be waking to the ridiculousness of the TSA’s “security theater” at the airport gates, just not before Micheal Chertoff, former head of Homeland Security, got to sock away a nice retirement package from selling us taxpayers the bogus x-ray machines. Don’t want to go through those, then get yourself a rub down from a TSA agent, but I’ve found a way to get through the rub down pretty fast.

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Porno Pete Wants A TSA Pat Down

As I picked up my rental car here at Dulles Airport Monday morning, Janet Napolitano, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, was on C-Span Radio trying to defend TSA’s ridiculous and overly intrusive pat downs and use of the prono-x-ray machines. I noticed she kept talking about people who opt out of the backscatter machines can get a “same-gender” pat down. She kept saying “same-gender” over and over.

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News Round-up – February 1, 2008

This is a round-up of minor and fun news items for the week ending Friday, February 1, 2008. We have a guy at the airport with 99 fake IDs, and speaking of the airport, CNN shows how a TSA inspector got a bomb past security there. We’ve got a story in a brain vaccum (I think the prototype might have been tested on George Bush), and the price of chocolate is going up.

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Fake News, So Why Not a Fake News Conference

Well, by now most of you have heard the story of the fake FEMA press conference. Apparently, a couple of weeks ago during the height of the California wildfires, Deputy Secretary, Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, was asked questions by other FEMA employees posing as reporters. Real reporters were notified of the conference only 15 minutes before it started, and were only allowed to listen via a listen-only conference line.

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Feel Secure Yet? 750,000 on the Terrorist Watchlist

According to a report in the USAToday, the Terrorist Watchlist now contains 755,000 names. Approximately 200,000 names have been added each year since 2004. Obviously this raises a ton of concerns by those interested in civil liberties. The list is quickly headed to a million, and it’s shear size makes it impossible to use it effectively.

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Your Papers Please.

The Department of Homeland Security will move forward with plans to implement the REAL ID Act despite widespread opposition from citizens and state legislatures. But DHS spokesman Russ Knocke said Tuesday that even the states which have already passed laws or resolutions against the act would eventually come around and implement the national identification standards, because the citizens who now oppose it would start demanding it.

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