Man with potential bomb components allowed past airport checkpoint!

[Roland99]

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4033752.html

The report states that a man with a Middle Eastern name and a ticket for a Delta Airlines flight to Atlanta shook his head when screeners asked if he had a laptop computer in his baggage, but an X-ray machine operator detected a laptop.

A search of the man's baggage revealed a clock with a 9-volt battery taped to it and a copy of the Quran, the report said. A screener examined the man's shoes and determined that the "entire soles of both shoes were gutted out."

No explosive material was detected, the report states. A police officer was summoned and questioned the man, examined his identification, shoes and the clock, then cleared him for travel, according to the report.

A TSA screener disagreed with the officer, saying "the shoes had been tampered with and there were all the components of (a bomb) except the explosive itself," the report says.

:wtf:

[Kutjara]

1. Because there's no way the guy would have...

...an accomplice who was carrying the explosives. Everyone knows terrorists always work alone.

I'll remember to mention this next time the airport security Stasi are tearing my walking stick to pieces and making me take my belt off.

[Richard Steele]

2. Anybody feeling SAFER yet?

At least the moron Cop is riding a desk now...
but for how long?
Once this blows over, you wanna bet
he'll be right back on the street "serving and protecting"?

[Freedom_Aflaim]

3. Proably a test run

Terrorist frequently make test runs through security with all but the incriminating evidence.

Getting the actual explosive through is easy (not detected by metal detectors). The hard part is the associated hardware.

In this case they now know that they can bring an entire bomb on board, just gotta use 2 people to do it (and person #2 can enter at any point in the airline system, not just the airport that #1 does)

Of course TSA is for show anyway. It does virtually nothing to make us safer. TSA is simply there to make us FEEL safer.

[Roland99]

4. Showing your boarding pass 4 times in a 20' span is a real deterrent!!

[Darkhawk32]

5. I know it. Don't you just fear that?

[Freedom_Aflaim]

11. lol. Silly isn't it

But I guess it makes TSA's test audience feel good.

[Corgigal]

6. my teenaged daughter just took delta to atlanta

last week. Good God people, do your flipping jobs.

[ProdigalJunkMail]

7. the TSA's job is to harass little old ladies with canes

or walkers and to make frequent travelers jump through ridiculous hoops for the entertainment of those who THINK this makes us all safer when we fly. It is purely a facade and little more than a joke...anyone who flies with any frequency gets that...

sP

[brmdp3123]

8. If he had been detained the ACLU would have been all over it.

[High Plains]

9. Cleared by the FBI...looks like a non-story

From the article:

FBI Special Agent Stephen Emmett in Atlanta said agents there investigated the passenger.

"It was looked at and deemed a non-event," Emmett said, declining to give further details.

Meanwhile the officer involved in the dispute, J.O. Reece, has been transferred to a desk job, "the same place they send officers who are relieved of duty," said Chad Hoffman, attorney for the Houston Police Officers Union.

Hoffman said Reece doesn't understand why he was transferred "when it seems clear from the onset of the investigation that he didn't have probable cause to detain anybody and that his actions were consistent with the law and HPD policy."

[knitter4democracy]

10. I'm flying this week.

Watch--they'll get all pissy about my knitting needles but let that kind of thing through. :eyes: