Report: Most airline cargo isn't checked for explosives

[Roland99]

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/news/2005-11-15-air-cargo-report_x.htm

Nearly all of the cargo in the nation's aviation system goes unchecked for explosives, and policies aimed at thwarting cargo bombs on passenger planes are flawed, according to a government report due out Wednesday.

Terrorists could foil the government's strategy for keeping bombs out of cargo holds by meeting a few basic requirements that would allow them to put an explosives-laden package on a jet, the Government Accountability Office said.

Passenger planes carried 6 billion pounds of cargo last year, and only "a very small percentage" is inspected, the report said. By contrast, all domestic luggage is scanned for bombs.

The GAO, a watchdog arm of Congress, urged the Transportation Security Administration to come up with ways to close cargo security loopholes. A study should be done to track the steps in which cargo goes from shippers to the belly of an airplane, the GAO said.

Good thing we're fighting them "over there" so we don't have to fight them over here.

:sarcasm:


ABC's Good Morning America just did a story on this, too. Rep. Markey of Mass. was behind getting the independent report done.

[ixion]

1. but still it's important that we are all dehumanized when we fly

by taking off our shoes, etc.


See, it's not the terrorists they're after, it us. :-(

[Caretha]

2. I knew that

You think that's bad, cargo entering the US is an even bigger nightmare.

It's impossible to plug all the leaks that would allow a "terrorist" to import a bomb, etc.

The taking off shoes - the over employment of security guards at airports - the very costly equipment that's been installed to check baggage at every airport in the US - It's all what I call the "Sticker System" to insure the clueless Americans that everything is being done to preserve and protect their lives.

Sticker System? Think FDIC stickers on the windows of your bank.

[Roland99]

3. Seems to me it's what Sen. Kerry was talking about during 2004.

Securing our ports and such.

[keopeli]

4. Be afraid, be very afraid! USAToday is so transparent with WH propoganda

[jseankil]

11. I don' think the WH wants this fact to be touted

As they are the ones who had the means to get this but even after 4 years have not done so.

[Roland99]

14. Been too worried about them bin Laden and Zarqawi fellers. Plus...

trying to get that there ownership of Social Security and them non-activist conservative judges on the courts.


You know...the priorities.

[High Plains]

18. How many planes have we lost to unchecked cargo?

Hype the fear.

[Roland99]

21. Let me get out my calculator....this might take a while.

[jseankil]

5. Is Your Holiday Flight Home Safe? (John Kerry warned us)

Nov. 16, 2005 — Post-9/11, billions of dollars have been spent on airport screeners and personnel. Travelers routinely remove their shoes and wait in line to be checked along with their bags, all in the belief that passengers and crew will be protected against an act of terror in the cabin.

................

According to the independent report by the Government Accountability Office, on average about half of the baggage compartment on a passenger plane is filled with commercial cargo — 6 billion pounds of merchandise per year — and nearly all of it passes through without being physically inspected or scanned for explosives.

"My concern is that there is a gaping loophole through which al Qaeda could put cargo on passenger planes that could lead to an explosion unlike anything we have seen since 9/11," said Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., one of the lawmakers who commissioned the report from Congress' investigative and auditing arm.


Wrong Priorities?

The revelation also is a concern in the cockpit. "Pilots are extremely unhappy with the fact that cargo is unscreened," said Gary Boettcher, an American Airlines pilot and president of the Coalition of Airline Pilots Association. "They believe it is a threat to themselves and to passengers."

The report says the Transportation Security Administration does not effectively monitor airport cargo storage areas, that the agency lacks the technology to screen all cargo now; and that it would cost almost $4 billion over 10 years to get it.

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Terrorism/story?id=1316755

[jseankil]

6. $4 billion to fix but Bush spends it on Iraq

Another example that show's us Bushs priorities isn't protecting the American people.

[patrice]

7. Dammit, I hate to fly.

Now he's got me thinking about it again . . . . Maybe I'll just stay home.

[apnu]

8. I drive

Not because I'm afraid to fly, (I'm not) but because its so freaking expensive to fly and a major hassle to boot. If the security doesn't screw the airline will find a way.

Besides driving is fun it make the trip more like an event and less like going to the next town over. Plus, in my hybrid, I help save the environment. Which any airline flight will never do.

[tatertop]

9. I love driving

very relaxing

[patrice]

10. Yeah, I much prefer a nice road trip!

I guess I just worry about the weather, 2+ days to Portland, and I'd want to stop and stay for a while along the way, maybe even camp a little. Hell, I might not even come back.

Better fly, I guess.

[tatertop]

15. Road Trip!

I love a road trip.

[patrice]

16. Right, I went to make tea just after I posted that . . . . Didn't look at

it until just now, right before your Reply. Thanks.

[Roland99]

13. If it's more than 6-8hr drive and I'm going solo, I'll fly.

If I have the kids in tow, I'll drive as I can't afford the airfare.

[barb162]

12. A lot of people don't know this. They should. Then they can make

a rational decision as to whether they want to get on a plane.

[Robb]

17. I "thwarted" security inadvertantly myself

...Wasn't until I deplaned at my destination I noticed the Bic in my back pocket. Apparently the things you walk through don't actually pick them up. :eyes:

Fortunately I had no designs on lighting my shoes.

[NYC Liberal]

25. Going to Canada, US security didn't pick up the scissors and

scalpel that I'd accidentally left in my backpack. However, Canadian security caught it going back. (I didn't even know they were in there until Canadian security picked it up and went thru my bag...)

Doesn't that make you feel just so secure?

[DeepModem Mom]

19. kick

[CGrantt57]

20. Way to go, USA Today!!!

Give the terrorists ideas they've never had before.

AND, let them know they can probably get away with it.

Nice job, Fucktards.

Appreciate it.

:spank:

[Caretha]

22. Oh for Pete's sake

You don't think they don't know it? Get real, this isn't a movie where the villians are ignorant, and this is not some big fat secret.

[Turn CO Blue]

23. Airlines DO NOT ACCEPT CARGO from "unknown shippers".

Airlines do not accept cargo from individuals - only from known companies with contracts.

This is not to the OP, I'm just putting this mini-rant out there for anybody wanting to hear the other side of the point in this thread:

So guess what? Nobody is x-raying any of the cargo/payload on the 50 million intra/interstate trucking hauls or 50 thousand train shipments or 10 thousand ship dockings that run in this country every day either! You've got a lot better chance of someone shipping a bomb on that Safeway truck you're driving behind than on a flight you're taking. Nobody is scanning your child's school lunch for poisons either. Nobody is checking all the bridges in your city for bombs each day either.

I assert that the sheer logistics of the precautions against terrorism and bombings that some people expect are simply, effing impossible!

Just so you know, bomb and drug dogs crawl all over the airline cargo shipments -- and at least 10% are randomly run through the CTX machines each day.

This kind of story is nothing but hyped-up scare tactics. And this is really just more crap to pile on an industry that already has more regulations and 50,000 parts to the process flow map for single flight, and just has more plain-ol-bullshit to deal with during each flight than just about any other.

And yes, I work for an airline, so yes I get a little pissy when I read these kinds of news stories. Our industry and employees are going through quite enough hell, without everybody (even libs) falling for the terra! terra! terra! talking points.

on edit: took out an extra word

[Xithras]

24. You worry about bombs? I carried a knife onto a plane last year!

I was flying from LAX to Sacramento on Delta, and I'd inadvertently left a bottle opener in my laptop bag from my previous trip. I didn't realize it was there until the flight was in the air and I pulled my bag down to do some work...I was searching for a pen in the side pouches when I pulled out the bottle opener...with it's 2" knife in the handle.

I only fly when I'm in a hurry, and this is one of the reasons why. I'd rather spend 12 hours driving than 3 hours flying, because at least I know that my security is in my own hands.