Gentler, kinder security checks at U.S airports

29 December 2014

Thirteen years after the 9/11 attacks, Americans are beginning to adjust to less oppressive security checks at airports. The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has moved from a “one-size-fits-all” to a more efficient risk-based approach when it comes to airport security. Within a year, the agency enrolled more than 740,000 travelers in its Precheckprogram, which, for an $85 fee, allows travelers who have passed a background check to use quicker screening lanes at more than 120 U.S airports. About 50 percent of more than 12.5 million passengers were screened at U.S. airports between 26 November and 2 December. Fifty percent of these passengers experienced expedited screening, according to the TSA. Nationwide, 99.6 percent of passengers waited in line for less than twenty minutes.

Government Executive notes that the shift in TSA screening guidelines coincides with Americans’ view on terrorism. Right after 9/11, 46 percent of Americans believed terrorism was the most important problem facing the country. The figure had been less than .5 percent pre-9/11, and today, only 4 percent, according to a recent Gallup poll....

AL QAEDA CLAIMS NEW BUTT BOMB

25 December 2014

JANA WINTER and SHARON WEINBERGER

Al Qaeda claims to have come up with the perfect recipe for a deadly bomb, it’s just too embarrassed to tell its legions of devoted followers where they are supposed to place it: inside their rectal cavity. It’s a modern dilemma for a would-be retro-caliphate.

Five years after the so-called “underwear bomber” tried to blow up a plane by hiding explosives in his underpants, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP as it’s known, is taking another look at bombs hidden in places of an intimate nature, or what the terrorist group modestly calls the “hidden bomb.” A twenty-two page spread in the latest issue of AQAP’s flagship Inspire magazine gives step-by-step instructions on how to build a bomb designed to be hidden inside or near the rectal cavity — except the writer balks at talking about the last, most critical (and intimate) step: where to actually put the bomb.

Rectal bombs are a touchy subject and Al Qaeda members aren’t the only ones afraid of talking about it. U.S. news organizations also struggled in trying to describe the al-Asiri attack with the New York Times writing that the bomb had been hidden internally (though the newspaper also referred to it later in the article as a “rectal bomb”) and the Associated Press merely says the bomb was inside Al-Asiri’s body (some accounts claimed it was strapped to al-Asiri’s legs.)

The jihadist magazine claims to have been conducting recent experiments to identify easy-to-find materials for its rectal bomb (eggs, vinegar and nail polish are involved), and includes specific techniques for avoiding explosive detection screenings. “An [airport] employee pats most of the parts of the body EXCEPT some parts,” the article says....

Gives a whole new meaning to 'don't touch my junk,' doesn't it? If you've forgotten that from 2010, follow the link to see the video.

Read more on the 'butt-bomb' here. We are left wondering how any colonoscopy could be classed as 'kinder, gentler'.....

Stay tuned.

[Related: TSA: "Eureka, I found it!" NOT!]