Security???

Since 9/11 we have now spent billions of dollars on new security systems around the nation. Has it been worth it?

July 28^th three peace activists, including an 82 year old nun, cut through the security fences around the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility — a new windowless, half-billion-dollar building encircled by enormous guard towers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory -- splashed the building with blood and hung banners on it, and were not noticed by the multi-million dollar security network of sensors and cameras and security patrols until they walked up to a police car and voluntarily gave themselves up.

August 10^th Daniel Casillo was on a jet ski in Jamaca Bay, just off of John F. Kennedy airport when it broke down.  He swam ashore, and despite all the security cameras and sensors climbed the airport fence, and walked dripping wet all the way across the airport and the airport runways to the Delta terminal, trying all the way to get noticed and rescued. Yet the multi-million dollar security system didn’t pick him up until he went up to a baggage handler and asked for help.

Government agencies testing the TSA system by trying to smuggle guns or knives past the inspectors report success about 70% of the time at some major airports. In December 2010 Houston businessman Farid Sief accidentally brought his loaded pistol on a flight from Houston’s Bush Intercontinental Airport. The TSA never found it, even though it was in his briefcase and should have shown up clearly in the X-ray examination. In the same month the TSA’s new director admitted that every test gun, bomb part or knife got past screeners at some of the airports tested.

What does this tell us?

It tells us what we have all suspected anyway going through the TSA inspections at airports – much of this money has been spent for show rather than for effective security.