Do current security plans depend on no guns getting onto the planes? I hope not.

Covert government tests last November showed that screeners were still missing some knives, guns and explosives carried through airport checkpoints, and the reasons involve equipment, training, procedures and management, according to a report by the inspector general of the Homeland Security Department.

From The New York Times. Use BugMeNot if you need a login.

In other “guns on planes” news, John Miller, the head of the LAPD’s counter-terror unit was detained Thursday after forgetting about a gun in his bag.

It’s interesting that Miller got where he is via a PR and reporting background. The obvious charge is security as theater. However, reporters often end up knowing a huge amount about their subjects, and so I don’t want to throw that charge without more research than I can do before dinner.

Virginia Postrel writes about flying without ID:

Coming home today from New York, I was a little more prepared. I still didn’t have “government-issued i.d.,” but at least I knew I was headed for trouble. I got to JFK several hours early. The young security guard wasn’t sure what to do with me and asked a more senior guard. The elder guard sternly insisted that I must have a photo.

“This is a little weird,” I said to the young guard, as I opened my bag and pulled out one of the extra paperbacks I’d snagged from my publisher. “I wrote this book, and here’s my photo in it.” He laughed and let me through. This time, they didn’t even search my bags.

Below, I wrote about discretion for screeners. This is a great example of that discretion being used in a harmless and entertaining way. Of course, since anyone can get a book published, this can’t last.

The New York Times reports that
“The Transportation Security Administration said Tuesday that it planned to require all airlines to turn over records on every passenger carried domestically in June, so the agency could test a new system to match passenger names against lists of known or suspected terrorists.”

The data will vary by airline. It will include each passenger’s name, address and telephone number and the flight number. It may also include such information as the names of traveling companions, meal preference, whether the reservation was changed at any point, the method of ticket payment and any comment by airline employees, like whether a passenger was drunk or belligerent in encounters with airline personnel.

Now, I may have missed it, but it seems that no hijackings took place in the US in June. So what does a successful test look like? What’s more, information about how belligerent a passenger is on the plane is clearly not available before they fly, unless there’s a new database of belligerent passengers that will be maintained. I saw no mention of such in the PIA or Federal Register notice.

The question is partially answered: “What we’re looking for is the people who are actually on that list,” said Lisa Dean, of TSA. Does TSA need a month of real data to see if they can match names, addresses, and phone numbers from a database?

This whole article forces me to ask, does the current system work at all? If there’s a list of people who are a threat to aviation, shouldn’t we have arrested some of them when they tried to fly?

This system isn’t ready for testing, never mind using real data.