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What's happening in the federal IT community
By Tuesday, March 4, 2008 | 3:40 PM
If you've ever gone through airport security with a laptop (and one-quarter of the flying public does), you'll know just how stressful it is trying to juggle your overcoat, briefcase and shoes while trying to pull your laptop out of its carrying case to place it in one of those gray plastic bins. It seems the Transportation Security Administration feels our pain. The agency has issued a request for information asking industry to come up with its best ideas for laptop cases that would allow TSA to scan the guts of the laptop while still in its carrying bag, according to an article posted by Government Security News. TSA's reasoning for the new bag:
If TSA was able to eliminate this requirement, it could lower passenger stress levels, increase checkpoint throughput, and reduce the number of claims TSA receives for laptops that have been damaged during screening.
It's not as easy as it sounds. TSA will not allow any zippers, pockets, clips, pens, cell phones or other paraphernalia we all stuff into laptop bag pockets to block the X-rays from viewing the inside of the laptop.
Industry has until April 17 to respond.
Comments
TSA is a joke! What next, have everyone remove their underwear? Perhaps, there should be a separate line for business travelers with computers and another line for every vacationers. I travel a lot and I am amaze travelers are still trying to bring liquids through security!!! Give me a break.
Cal | Friday, March 7, 2008 | 8:37 AMThe TSA could lower stress levels even further if it just disappeared. Look, we allow guns, and therefore tolerate the occasional loony who shoots up a mall or a school. Sad, but part to the cost of doing business. We tolerate state supported terrorism in Afghanistan when we were the state, and the Soviets were the enemy. A reversal of roles is just part of the cost of business. Besides, all those people standing around watching us undress and unpack could be working making cars, refrigerators and other goods to help the economy. Right now they are a tax burden, totally out of proportion with the risk reduction they provide (just check the frequency with which they fail their own self tests)
M Onger | Thursday, March 6, 2008 | 8:28 AMFor some strange reason we seem to have lost vision as to why TSA was created in the first place. IT WAS TO PREVENT TERRORISTS FROM COMMANDERING A PLANE AND TURNING IT INTO A FLYING, GUIDED BOMB. We have had bombs snuggled onto aircraft since Lockerbee. We have had terrorists commandering airliners since Lebanon. We now have taken two significant steps to perclude commandering an airliner. First, strengthening cockpit doors. Second, adapting a policy that the cockpit doot will not be opened regardless of what threat is made by a terrorist against a flight attendant, passanger, etc. TSA has become a lumbering giant, searching for anything that might turn into a threat to an airliner. Shoes, darning needles, lighters, liquids, etc. PLEASE, SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT THE MISSION OF TSA REALLY IS.
RJATAXMAN | Wednesday, March 5, 2008 | 8:23 PMSpeaking as a TSA screener, an easier way to do this would be to have a TSA memeber at the entrance to the X-ray to help passengers get their items into the x-ray. But with the chronic shortages in TSA, we don't have enough manpower to do this.
TSO-Joe | Wednesday, March 5, 2008 | 10:05 AMSeveral possibilities:
1. Pure politics.
2. The advent of bargaining with the screeners.
I recently had the experience of traveling through a major western European airport. Although I had to go thru screening again, after arriving from the US, to enter the departure terminal, there were plenty of lines and attendants, who actually helped passengers with their stuff. It made the experience much less stressful. Then again, de-stressing tends to lessen the "humiliation" effect.
Joe | Wednesday, March 5, 2008 | 10:04 AMDoes anyone look at this as a naive attempt by TSA. Maybe they should send a bunch of their people including top officials via coach with laptops. Are the airlines, who are now charging for extra bags, actually going to go for a laptop case that will require the traveler to hand carry an extra bag? Maybe the real answer is to put a handle on the laptop and redesign the case to hold the mini mouse, AC power cord etc. They also might look at cellphones and make a special "X-Ray machine" for it since terrorist seem to like them.
Jimmie | Wednesday, March 5, 2008 | 7:24 AMGood idea, why did it take so long to consider it? You'd think that with all the technogeeks out there, someone in private industry would have talked to the TSA in the last five years or so since its' inception! Despite occasional complaints,(IMO), the TSA is a far, far better answer to airport security than the highschool dropout "square badges" hired by the airlines. But there's nothing wrong with making their job, and our travel easier, is there?
ChristmasTree | Wednesday, March 5, 2008 | 7:02 AM