Guns, knives, explosive material not recognized by $1 billion dollar fleet of scanners
Infowars.com
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
A TSA screener has lifted to lid to reveal how the federal agency’s $1 billion dollar plus fleet of body scanners is completely useless in that the machines routinely fail to pick up prohibited items such as knives, guns and powder designed to resemble explosive material.
In an interview conducted by Jon Corbett, the engineer who recently exposed how the scanners could be fooled by simply securing an object inside an external pocket sewn on to an item of clothing, “Jennifer,” a TSA screener, also reveals how the federal agency forced people without the necessary training to operate the scanners.
When Jennifer wrote to her Congressman complaining about the problems, the TSA retaliated by removing her from screening duties and began the process to dismiss her altogether.
In the transcript below, Jennifer explains how the body scanners routinely fail to pick up prohibited items, meaning they are nothing less than a complete waste of money and a prime example of “security theater”.
Jon: Were there specific times where this machine didn’t work, for either someone testing it,
or a passenger went through and it was determined that they went through with…
Jennifer: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.
Jon: Metal objects?
Jennifer: Metal, non-metal.
Jon: Big, small?
Jennifer: Both.
Jon: Things like wallets I think you mentioned to me?
Jennifer: Wallets.
Jon: So you’d send someone through the scanner and you’d see a bulge in their pocket, but
the scanner would show nothing?
Jennifer: Mmhmm.
Jon: Things during training?
Jennifer: Absolutely.
Jon: What would you test it with when you were testing the machines?
Jennifer: There were different props: guns, knives, bags of powder that were supposed to
resemble explosive material.
Jon: Sometimes these would just go through completely undetected?
Jennifer: Absolutely.
Jennifer then divulges how the TSA forced screeners who had not received the proper
training to operate the radiation-firing body scanners.
Jon: They tried to send you to the machines, and you said, ‘Hold on, I’m not certified.’
Jennifer: Right.
Jon: And then in December I guess you tried the same thing and they said, ‘Too bad?’
Jennifer: We were forced to work on these machines. So basically, there were so few of us
trained to work on the machines, they basically forced us.
Jon: So they didn’t care if you were certified or not?
Jennifer: No, I actually went to my supervisor — or a supervisor — the first day. I and another
officer had this concern, that, you know, ‘Look, we’ve never worked on this particular
machine, we don’t know what to do’ and his answer was, ‘Sorry, we don’t have enough
staffing, you’re going to have to work on it.’
Jon: Certified or not, just get on the machine and make the best of it?
Jennifer: Yep, ‘just have your co-workers help you.’
In the interview Jennifer also exposes how she has never even seen a copy of the Screening Checkpoint Standard Operating Procedures manual,...
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