So I'm sitting on an airplane (Port Security here- big time) [View All]

[TomInTib]

This is a repost of a post of mine from February. It is more timely now than it was then.

We were flying from San Francisco to Las Vegas this past summer and I strike up a conversation with this really buttoned-down guy sitting next to me.
He was so 'pub looking I thought I might as well entertain myself.
Turned out to be a pretty nice guy and he asked me what I did for a living so I told him.
I asked him the same.
Turns out he was with a SF/Reno based firm that makes the most kick-butt CT Scanner on the market for cargo containers. These things are so powerful they require their own power grid and can produce a crystal-clear 3-D image of the entire contents of the container. And quick, too.

So I ask him if they can keep up with the demand because of all the attention on Port Security.

He tells me that all of their business is overseas, primarily Middle East and Asia.
Says they cannot give them away in the US.

After I picked my jaw up off the seat-back tray he said that a few weeks earlier they had finally been granted an audience with DHS and figured they were really close to knocking it out of the park.

They went to DC, made their pitch and this is what they were told:

"What you have to understand here is it is not DHS' goal to promote security. The goal is to keep the American people as aware of the Threat as efficiently as possible."

This guy was still pissed off,incredulous.

Life-long Republican, too.

I asked him why he did not go public with it and he said that during all the shouting that followed the DHS' response that he had threatened exactly that.

He was told that he would be arrested if he did.

I wish I still had his card.