Drizzt
April 5, 2003, 12:07 AM
Security so stupid it shocks the senses
Friday, April 4, 2003
By JEFFREY PAGE
STAFF WRITER
This may read like a Henny Youngman one-liner, but it is not.
U.S. Marines deployed to Iraq were about to board a chartered commercial airliner for the flight to the Middle East when they were informed that security precautions barred them from carrying their knives with them. So they disposed of the knives and took their seats - with their M-16 rifles and M-60 machine guns.
Nor is this.
To get into a certain office building in Boston you have to show photo identification, but if you're part of a group, only one member has to show photo ID.
Or this.
A guy drove to Universal Studios, where guards using mirrors examined the undercarriage of his car. Finding no bombs, they insisted on opening his trunk. He opened the trunk. They took a look at the contents but didn't examine them.
It's the Post-Sept. 11 Age of Security, and those three cases of - pardon the expression - overkill are entered in the Stupid Security Contest conducted by the privacy watchdog organization Privacy International, with offices in Washington and London.
Privacy International received 5,000 nominations and will announce the most counter-productive, most annoying, most inexplicable, most intrusive, and most egregious security demands at today's concluding session of the 13th annual Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy at the Hotel New Yorker.
Some of the entries are just goofy in the extreme. For example, security guards at the University of Texas at Austin are very strict when it comes to refusing entry to cars without valid university permits. No permit, no entry. But the guards go off duty at 4 p.m.
Others take your breath away. A woman flying with her 4-month-old baby from Florida to New York was going through airport security. An airport guard inspected her bottle bag and discovered three plastic bottles containing a white liquid.
What could it be?
"Breast milk," the woman replied.
The guard wasn't sure and ordered her to drink the milk, telling her that if she didn't comply there was no way she was flying to New York. She was infuriated, but she drank it.
Another incident that makes your hair stand on end was reported by a man flying from San Francisco to London not long after the arrest of Richard Reid, the man who tried to take down an airliner with a bomb in his shoe.
The man, traveling alone, was asked to remove his shoes. He complied and handed them to the security officer who took them and slammed them on the floor with all his might. "Apparently," the traveler said in his nominating letter, "as they hadn't exploded, they were not dangerous."
The food court of a huge conference center in Washington was nominated for its incomprehensible rule that requires you to show your driver's license to get in for lunch. "This action apparently proves that you're not a terrorist threat and that you can be granted access to a hamburger and fries," read the nominating note.
Another nomination came from a man who discovered that when flying on a budget Irish airline, passengers must produce photo identification. Acceptable is an international student ID card, which anyone can get.
Unacceptable is a United Kingdom armed forces identification card, which is much harder to come by - except for active duty service personnel.
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MzYyMTQy
Friday, April 4, 2003
By JEFFREY PAGE
STAFF WRITER
This may read like a Henny Youngman one-liner, but it is not.
U.S. Marines deployed to Iraq were about to board a chartered commercial airliner for the flight to the Middle East when they were informed that security precautions barred them from carrying their knives with them. So they disposed of the knives and took their seats - with their M-16 rifles and M-60 machine guns.
Nor is this.
To get into a certain office building in Boston you have to show photo identification, but if you're part of a group, only one member has to show photo ID.
Or this.
A guy drove to Universal Studios, where guards using mirrors examined the undercarriage of his car. Finding no bombs, they insisted on opening his trunk. He opened the trunk. They took a look at the contents but didn't examine them.
It's the Post-Sept. 11 Age of Security, and those three cases of - pardon the expression - overkill are entered in the Stupid Security Contest conducted by the privacy watchdog organization Privacy International, with offices in Washington and London.
Privacy International received 5,000 nominations and will announce the most counter-productive, most annoying, most inexplicable, most intrusive, and most egregious security demands at today's concluding session of the 13th annual Conference on Computers, Freedom, and Privacy at the Hotel New Yorker.
Some of the entries are just goofy in the extreme. For example, security guards at the University of Texas at Austin are very strict when it comes to refusing entry to cars without valid university permits. No permit, no entry. But the guards go off duty at 4 p.m.
Others take your breath away. A woman flying with her 4-month-old baby from Florida to New York was going through airport security. An airport guard inspected her bottle bag and discovered three plastic bottles containing a white liquid.
What could it be?
"Breast milk," the woman replied.
The guard wasn't sure and ordered her to drink the milk, telling her that if she didn't comply there was no way she was flying to New York. She was infuriated, but she drank it.
Another incident that makes your hair stand on end was reported by a man flying from San Francisco to London not long after the arrest of Richard Reid, the man who tried to take down an airliner with a bomb in his shoe.
The man, traveling alone, was asked to remove his shoes. He complied and handed them to the security officer who took them and slammed them on the floor with all his might. "Apparently," the traveler said in his nominating letter, "as they hadn't exploded, they were not dangerous."
The food court of a huge conference center in Washington was nominated for its incomprehensible rule that requires you to show your driver's license to get in for lunch. "This action apparently proves that you're not a terrorist threat and that you can be granted access to a hamburger and fries," read the nominating note.
Another nomination came from a man who discovered that when flying on a budget Irish airline, passengers must produce photo identification. Acceptable is an international student ID card, which anyone can get.
Unacceptable is a United Kingdom armed forces identification card, which is much harder to come by - except for active duty service personnel.
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjcxN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXkyJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk2MzYyMTQy