O'Hare airport security...HELLO?

[elehhhhna]

Yesterday at O'Hare's curbside, outdoor Continental checkin area:

Family checks in with several pieces of unmatched luggage. Tags are put on luggage, family's issued boarding passes, they move on into the airport.

The baggage attendants then also went into the airport, leaving the luggage for at least 10 minutes, tagged and unattended, at the curb. ANY IDIOT could have replaced a bag by switching tags.

Feel safe now?

[Mika]

1. As long as they check shoes we're safe.

NOT!

[sui generis]

2. they must not have tipped.

What's up with that anyway?

[yellowjacket]

3. Having worked at an airport...

it doesn't matter since the bags had not been scanned yet.

[elehhhhna]

4. Right. Scanning is very very perfect. Guess what? The guys working

the scanner was such a ding-ding his eyes did not even blink simultaneously. Just saying.

[yellowjacket]

7. Not commenting on security overall...

I understand there are a million ways to get into a terminal without having a ticket. Slate did an article on it a year or so ago.

What I am saying is that the skycaps leaving the bags unattended is irrelevant because they had not been scanned yet. Are you saying that not scanning any bags is better than scanning most of them? At a large airport like O'Hare, I think the vast majority DO get scanned.

[Serial Mom]

5. Cargo on the planes sitll not being checked,

so all this hassle of checking people is for nothing!

My hubby also figured out a way to get onto the concorse with an easily "faked" ticket. Person using it wouldn't be able to get on plane, but so much for all the nonsensical "safety checks"!

[uppityperson]

6. of course, all you need to get thro security is a printed ticket/pass&ID

with the same name on it. Think anyone knows how to print a fake ticket? And how about this story from Houston?
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/4033752.html

...he 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. The officer retorted, "I thought y'all were trained in this stuff," TSA officials reported....

[Sherman A1]

8. And the hits just keep comin'