TSA To Screeners: Beware Of Cheese With Wires
July 25th, 2007 | by Ken Grandlund |A newly distributed security alert from the TSA warns that terrorists may be still performing “dry runs” in their efforts to use airplanes as weapons in future terror attacks.
The unclassified alert memo was distributed on July 20th to air marshals and other law enforcement personnel and warned them to be on the look out for “ordinary itmes that look like improvised explosive device components.” Apparently that included big hunks of cheese.
The report is based on four incidents that have taken place since last September, where airport security officials at various airports around the country have discovered and seized items from luggage including “wires, , pipes or tubes, cell phone components and dense clay-like substances.”
This article gives more details about the seizures that led to this alert. I for one am glad to have the airport security doing its best to detect strange objects, but one has to wonder why the TSA is only now putting out this particular alert, since they have been tracking these suspicious items for nearly a year. It seems awfully reminiscent of the “no more water” alert that came down last summer. The public ban came on the heels of arrests in Britain of a terror plot to use liquids to bring down a planes. Yet shortly thereafter, we learned that evidence of plans to use liquid explosives to take down planes had been long known by our intelligence community. The belated addition of liquids to the TSA security process was seen as a cynical measure then, more theater than security. Is this the case again?
Since this new alert comes on the heels of DHS head Chertoff telling us about his “gut feelings” about new terror attacks at home, ex-Senator Santorum saying things ‘are going to happen between now and November’ that will give Americans a very different view of this war, I can’t wonder if again this is more theater. If the threat were serious, why wait almost a year after the first “cheese event” to have your security teams add it to their list of suspicious items?
And therein lies the quandry- we’ve been lied to so often by this government that we don’t what to believe. I suppose that suits both the terrorists and the warhawks pretty well.
<tag> terrorism, war, deceit, TSA, cheese+warni ng, airport+secu rity </tag>
Tags: General, BIO
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