Saturday, August 01, 2009

Overreaction to Nut With Bag of Wires Jams Up LaGuardia

I don’t know how secure we should feel whenever we watch the spectacle of the TSA and the local airport cops getting hysterical over a common lunatic, as appears to be the case at LaGuardia today when some nut (drunk and “spaced out” as a vigilant clinician/ticket agent said) showed up with a bag of wires.

Immediate hysteria ensued by the TSA and the Port Authority police (not to be confused with the actual New York City Police Department, which knows how to handle crazy incidents without in the process making them far worse). Here’s the New York Daily News report. Some planes were even called back off the runway and passengers were required to get off.

The TSA we know all about. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police used to be mainly in charge law enforcement of bridges and tunnels, but they’re the main police presence at airports too.

In a real terrorist plot, mass confusion and hysteria — obviously pretty easy to create; I mean how hard is it to find a pliant idiot and hysterical authorities these days? –might be employed as a diversion while the actual plot slips through. The actual plot would be something we weren’t expecting, carried out in the chaos while the authorities ran around barking orders (uncoordinated and conflicting, would be my guess) and scaring everyone to death.

By the way, the post of director of the TSA has been vacant since January. I’ll repeat that. No one is in charge at the TSA.

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