Sea-Tac’s security: Are they serious?
[Quote:]
Greg Alderete has more than a passing interest in homeland security. A retired lieutenant colonel in the Army, he has devoted most of his life to it.
So when he realized he had driven a van onto a runway tarmac at Sea-Tac airport — and that no one had asked his name, checked his ID or searched his vehicle — well, he just about lost it.”I was appalled,” Alderete says. “If you go in the airport’s front door, they take away your tube of toothpaste. But the back door? That’s the weakest security of any critical facility I’ve ever seen.”
He’s talking about the corporate jet area, on the airport’s south tip. Business and government bigwigs fly in and out of there.
Alderete and Chris Clodfelter, a former senior master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, arrived there Thursday, May 8, to pick up a two-star general flying in from Portland.
What happened floored them. When they said they were picking up an Army official, the gate opened and they were invited to drive onto the airfield.
“We were sitting there, the engine idling, nobody around, when all of a sudden I realized: We’re out on the goddamn runway,” Alderete recalled. “We’re in a gassed-up, seven-passenger van, and no one really knows who we are. We have an unobstructed path to the main runways, the commercial gates, the whole place. It was unbelievable.”
No one asked their names or screened them or the van. Both were in civilian clothes.
[..]
Both the Port of Seattle and the federal Transportation Safety Administration reviewed the incident, including videotapes, and concluded their security system is sound.
Of course it works as designed - the rabble has to turn in their tooth-paste and bottled water at the front gate, and the elite gets special treatment.
May 22nd, 2008 at 10:04
“and the elite gets special treatment.”
Well, they have a chance to land in sniper fire.
May 22nd, 2008 at 17:17
The “security” system is working as designed: it instills fear in the regular citizens while not causing any inconvenience to those in the ruling class. Unfortunately, the US education system is also doing a great job of creating dumbed down citizens who won’t ask questions about the lies they’re being fed. It is “unpatriotic” to question the government, and they’re all brainwashed daily with a Nazi-style pledge of allegiance, so that they know to never be unpatriotic. Not sure it works? Look at how fast the issue of not wearing a flag pin resulted in a US senator’s patriotism being questioned. Hell, they even called the most unpatriotic law ever written the “Patriot Act” to avoid anybody questioning its content.