{"id":872,"date":"2010-01-07T19:12:16","date_gmt":"2010-01-07T17:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.ofcourseimright.com\/?p=872"},"modified":"2010-01-07T19:12:16","modified_gmt":"2010-01-07T17:12:16","slug":"our-nightmare-at-newark-tsa-was-a-threat-to-our-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ofcourseimright.com\/?p=872","title":{"rendered":"Our Nightmare at Newark: TSA was a threat to our security"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"As you may already know, Newark Airport was in chaos <\/a>on January 3rd due to a person walking through the exit of the so-called strerile area<\/em>.\u00a0 The incident occurred around 5:20pm, around the time that we were sitting down for a dinner snack inside.\u00a0 Good thing.\u00a0 We were not to eat on the plane, which was scheduled to leave at 6:50pm.\u00a0 We boarded the plane, the door was closed but we didn’t go anywhere.\u00a0 After a time we were told of the breach.\u00a0 I packed our stuff up.\u00a0 Anyone who read the accidentally released TSA manual<\/a> as I did would have known that this would happen once we learned that someone had gotten through.\u00a0 Sure enough that’s exactly what happened, which led to the scene depicted to the right, because everyone else was doing exactly the same thing.<\/p>\n

This led to thousands of people being crammed into the outside normally insecure areas of Terminal C (I say \u201cnormally\u201d)<\/em> because all passenger areas within the terminal were at this moment insecure), an event for which the airport is unprepared.\u00a0 For one, there aren’t so many bathrooms outside of security.\u00a0 At Terminal C there are no restaurants.\u00a0 Furthermore, it was difficult to move about.\u00a0 Smart and lucky people might have made their way to the AirTrain and perhaps have gotten to Terminal A, where such conveniences could be found.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There were a lot of mistakes made, and many of them have been acknowledged.\u00a0 However, the biggest one has not.\u00a0 By evacuating the terminal in the way that they did, the TSA actually created a huge risk to many thousands of people by concentrating them in a small area.\u00a0 Had a small group of bombers walked into that area, with backpacks, not only could they have killed many people, but they also could have done so and survived.\u00a0 It would be the height of irony if the only portion of that terminal left intact was the secure part, while thousands were injured or worse.<\/p>\n

They might even have been able to get away unscathed. Instead of avoiding the threat, the TSA magnified it by their actions.\u00a0 Doing nothing would have been less risky.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut,\u201d you say, \u201cthey had to reclear everyone, didn’t they?\u201d\u00a0 My answer would be that it’s a seemingly nice idea, but it may not be practical.\u00a0 Here are some things the TSA could have done differently:<\/p>\n