Shoeless Joe's checkpoint mood piece
October 23, 2007
Frank@OBOW in Travel News & Regulations

The NYT’s Joe Sharkey has written a TSA security checkpint lament that is not to be missed. Aside from his complaints about the ugly aesthetics and de-humanizing regimen, Sharkey makes the excellent point that the disorder and stress created by the whole screwed up system is creating more risk - not less.

Given bare or stockinged feet, the lack of floor mats is also a chronic problem, Mr. Weinstein said. Matt Blaze, an associate professor of computer science at the University of Pennsylvania and an expert in security cryptology, agreed.

“Somehow we ended up with this cobbled-together mess,” he said. “At the very point in the process at which you have to take your shoes off, that’s where the carpeting ends.”

From a customer service standpoint, it’s “infuriating,” he said. But disorder also raises genuine security concerns.

“There’s no better place to get away with something than a chaotic environment,” he said.

 

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