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rulemylife -> RE: TSA scanning or patting down (2/18/2009 10:10:31 AM)
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It's just another "feel good" measure.
Passengers are subjected to intrusive searches to provide the illusion of safety.
Yet, while all passengers airlines carry cargo, cargo exclusive of passenger baggage, none of that cargo has been subject to screening until recently.
Which begs the question, If you want to blow up an airplane would you be trying to smuggle explosives on board or would you just put them in a box and ship them as freight on that airplane?
Even now, the new rules only allow for screening of 50% of cargo with 100 % scheduled for August 2010. Nine years after 9/11.
The reason? The bottom line of profit, as always. Business groups have lobbied long and hard against these new rules.
And even now businesses are bemoaning the impending regulations:
New air cargo screening rules looming, shippers brace for impactAug 28, 2008 ... Passenger airlines fear the impact new regulations for screening cargo will have on their bottom lines. Transporting cargo accounts for ...
news.medill.northwestern.edu/chicago/news.aspx?id=98411 - 26k
The plan, which is expected to cost the cargo industry between $3 billion and $4 billion over the next 10 years, essentially leaves shippers such as Flynn with two options: purchase costly screening equipment, or hope for the best.
“It’s absolutely tragic,” Flynn said. “It will destroy the industry and put thousands of people out of work.”
The new guidelines, which were signed into law last August following the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, will require the screening of 50 percent of all cargo transported on passenger aircraft by February 2009. By August of 2010, 100 percent of the 6 billion pounds worth of cargo transported on passenger planes will have to be screened.
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