Posted on 01/05/2010 10:14:55 PM PST by george76
Sources Tell CBS 2 That TSA Surveillance Cameras Were Inoperable At Time Of Terminal C Security Breach.
TSA Apparently Didn't Know Number For Continental To Get Other Footage.
It's a tale of shocking ineptitude: CBS 2 has learned a series of missteps unnecessarily added to the mayhem at Newark Liberty International Airport on Sunday. The six-hour delay stranded thousands of people, creating extreme crowding and chaos.
The mistakes made at the airport give new meaning to the term "domino effect." It was a cascading series of missteps that cry out for action.
The sign at the Transportation Security Administration screening post at Newark read: "Premises Under Constant Video Surveillance."
What is should add is: "If We're Lucky."
That's because CBS 2 has learned that when an unidentified man breached a secure area at Newark on Sunday night, delaying thousands of passengers for hours, the TSA cameras weren't working.
That's right – they weren't even recording, sources said, and needed a reboot, which the agency apparently didn't ask for. That set off a chain reaction of even more missteps that caused needless chaos and inconvenience for several thousand hapless passengers.
The family was left to wait for hours and hours with no water, no food, no information about whether their plane would take off, and no hotel. So what did they get from Continental?
"They gave us one of these packages with a toothpaste, and a toothbrush, and hairspray in it. And deodorant,"
(Excerpt) Read more at wcbstv.com ...
“…TSA cameras weren’t working…” does anyone really believe this?
If so, are these the same people which also believe the government can run healthcare any better than they run the rest of their operations. My god they can’t even keep their mouths shut on where CIA operations are taking place or controlling critical data of a website…unless they what it to happen that way:
One of three things happened;
1. complete Keystone Cops routine
2. CYA cover-up
3. deliverately done…for a number of reasons
Well any decent Digital Video Recorder has a watchdog automatic reboot..and should have had an alarm go off if it didn’t....who was the contractor?
I actually heard an airport representative say they couldn’t advise the passengers of the security breach because they don’t have a public address system.
There are no words to describe what has happened to America.
This was not Continental’s fault anymore than the Christmas Day bomber was the fault of Delta.
Just love the passing the blame to everyone else mode we’re in these days.
Thank President Obama for this new modus operandi.
My question is, why has it has taken until now for the TSA officials running the show at Newark to realize that security cameras that don't record regularly and not having a public address system in place might be detriments to having a truly SECURE airport?
“When they finally got the footage, they couldn’t find the intruder, discovering later that he had slipped out another entrance 20 minutes after he arrived. “
Wasn’t someone floating the balloon that it was a woman texting who wasnt looking where she was going?
So what did this man do while he was there???
I want to know if this was a trial run. Slip in, plant your bomb, and someone else picks it up.
Just like the stupidity of the police officer in NYC to figure the van without license plates and the windows covered with plastic garbage bags was nothing to worry about. After all, it did have a placard in the window indicating it was police business.
Makes me wonder where all the hundreds of millions of dollars for homeland security went. I guess I know. Into the pockets of certain ‘groups’.
There is no accountability at all. No word about any firings. Just excuses and blame game.
Yes, I do. It makes complete sense in context of the gross inefficiencies of govt bureaucracy. And it makes complete sense that they'd be exploited by terrorists.
Note that the cameras had not been working for 6 days. It wasn't that no one knew they weren't working, it was that, in classic bureaucratic fashion, no one did anything about it because responsibility for it was being batted back and forth. Plenty of time for word of that vulnerability to make its way to bad actors.
Just as in Israel the TSA should be privatized ... then you can fire the contractor for nonperformance
If most Government work was privatized there would be the hope of accountability but government workers have no incentive to perform - they just put in time
.
Agreed. In fact, Continental was the only one who acted with any efficiency at all. It was only because THEIR cameras were working that there was any confirmation of the mystery man's breach. When TSA was initially alerted to the man by the passenger, they stood around twitching for well over an hour until finally they got around to asking Continental for its camera footage...and only after running around in circles with trying to figure out HOW to contact them because they had the wrong phone number. The ineptitude is breathtaking.
Last year I flew 125,000 miles, through the US, England, Spain, South Africa, Swaziland, Germany and Luxembourg, Italy)
Frankly, airline security sucks everywhere. But if I had to rate the above, from least sucky to the worst, it would be:
1. London (Heathrow and Gatwick)
2. Germany (Frankfurt)
3. Luxembourg
4. Spain (Madrid)
5. US (Boston, Los Angeles, Dallas, Chicago, San Diego, Charlotte, Columbia (SC), Las Vegas)
6. Italy (Venice)
7. South Africa (Johannesburg) What a joke.
7. Swaziland (tied with Johannesburg)
Security is all window dressing.
Exactly. Airport security is designed to create the illusion of security -- to demonstrate that governments are "doing something".
As a consequence, they aren't worth anything near what we're paying for them -- in terms of expense and inconvenience.
Imagine how much more it’s gonna suck with TSA union work rules.
had they been unionized cameras...they would have worked!
(sarc)
Thank you, you just made my point.
"But the plane is on fire," I exclaimed, "it is burning up!"
"Those are the rules." says the flight-attendant.
Following a storm and a diverted flight that ended in Albany instead of Newark Liberty I can tell you that the system is SNAFU.
We were a domestic flight and allowed to deplane after about 4 hrs. on board. There was a flight from Canada that was on the tarmac for nearly 12 hrs. They would not allow the passengers off that plane because there was no customs officer in Albany. After nine hours we were given take off permission. The pilot asked if we wouldn’t mind waiting a little longer so those poor passengers on the Canadian flight could take off first. Of course we all said yes, but SOMETHING HAS TO BE DONE. IT’S INSANITY.
We landed in Hartford, I think, at 1 or 2 am. After hanging out at the terminal for a few hours, the airline decided to bus us to Logan Airport. A bus or two were secured and we boarded one. (Curiously, the bus was more cramped than the aircraft seating, even though the bus was a double decker.) A few hours later we were pulling into Logan airport, but about 100 yards from the terminal we were to be delivered to, the bus struck one of the low clearance pedestrian bridges leading from the terminal to the parking area. It was well struck, and the bus quite stuck - we had to secure our luggage and hoof it for the last 100 yards to get to the terminal.
My air flight from hell wound up in a bus crash...
My cohort and I traded in our return air tickets and rented a car to drive back to Philadelphia.
You win!!!!
But then I remember that Valentine’s Day in the NY Metro area. Sudden ice. Many planes stuck to the tarmac.
They couldn’t let anyone off due to the thick ice. Hours and hours went by.
Don’t ask.
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