The Civilized Explorer aggregation

A passenger was not allowed to board her plane because of her attitude. She asks if the TSA employee’s behavior is retaliatory because of her attitude, and he says yes.

BOING BOING points out this blog by the person who was flight director for the Columbia when it disintegrated over Texas in early 2003.

Mr. Hale is writing of his experiences before and after the days of that mission. It’s a sad time as he approaches the 10th Anniversary of the deaths of all on board, and Mr. Hale asks himself yet again what could he have done to prevent those deaths.

Again, who will guard the guards?

This article from Techdirt points out several articles in a nice summary of the situation at Boston’s Logan Airport.

The TSA has promoted “behavioral profiling” as a way to catch terrorist. Bruce Schneier said it wasn’t good at finding terrorist (number of terrorist caught by behavioral profiling? Zero), but that it was good at catching crooks. 

The New York Times recently pointed out that managers at Boston wanted a body count to prove the TSA was doing its job. As a result, the TSA employees started targeting minorities under the suspicion that those people were more likely to have drugs and outstanding arrest warrants or to be illegal aliens.

These stops were reported to Washington to prove that behavioral profiling works. The problem, of course, is that this is not behavioral profiling, it’s racism. So the focus is on catching “crooks” to prove we’re capable of finding terrorists.

Now here’s the zinger from Techdirt: Our federal courts have allowed searches at airports in violation of normal Constitutional and federal guarantees because the searches are “administrative,” rather than criminal because the searches are aimed at preventing people from carrying weapons and explosives on board an aircraft. The searches must be “confined in good faith to that purpose.” U.S. vs. Davis, 482 F2d 893, as quoted in Techdirt.

Boston’s TSA people are not doing the searches in good faith for the purpose of preventing weapons and explosives from getting on a plane.

Very good analysis by Mike Masnick.

I’ve mentioned before that airline travel is becoming bifurcated: one level for the wealthy and one for the rest of us. The wealthy already use baggage delivery services so they can have their clothes ready when they arrive without fear of loss. Now American Airlines wants a piece of that action.

American is teaming up with an outside contractor to deliver your bags to select airports and then to your rooms if they’re within 40 miles of the airport. You still bring your own bags to the airport and drop them off, but you don’t have to wait at the carousel upon arrival, and you don’t have to lug them to your lodging.

The question is, do you trust your airline to get your bags to the right destination?

TSA agents actually prevent a crime! Who knew?

However, the big news on everyone’s news channel was the hearing in Washington [about TSA employee crime](http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/misconduct-of-airport-screeners-probed-as-other-issues-lurk/2012/08/01/gJQAI4bOQX_story.html): stealing from checked bags, being bribed, drinking on duty.

No more carry-ons. 

I’ve been using a photographer’s vest for years to carry more stuff onto the plane than the law allows (quantity, not — er, prohibited items). It works well for me, giving me handy access to all the gear that would be stowed under the seat or — heavens forfend — in the overhead bin.

So here’s a vest called a “Stuffa” that’s purpose-made to avoid the carry-on bag altogether. They call it a jacket, but it has no sleeves, so I’m sticking with vest, and you can fill its manifold pockets with all your clean clothes. How you get them home after you’ve gotten them all dirty is another question.

An interesting interview with a veteran photographer who’s doing the Olympics for the umpteenth time. It’s down to a routine for him, so there are few missteps. He uses 8GB memory cards, by the way. He shoots for Getty, and they’ve got a network hardwired into the venues, so he uploads his photos frequently enough that 8GB is enough (some exceptions, though — read the article0).

The employees of the TSA just don’t get implants.

The head of the TSA keeps saying they’re training their agents to better handle people with implants, but the training appears to be failing. Here’s another story of another traveler with an implanted tube being mishandled by the TSA screeners. 

Some time ago John Brennan removed his clothes at a Portland airport in order to speed along the process of his extended pat-down. He was arrested for several violations, but the charges he’s going to trial for are disorderly conduct and possible interfering with the screening process.

The prosecutor has chosen to prosecute the charge as a “violation,” which is not a crime. As a result, Mr. Brennan is not entitled to a jury trial — smart move on the prosecutor’s part. However, Mr. Brennan is also not entitled to a court-appointed lawyer nor to the standard of proving the charge against him “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Boing Boing reports that the judge in the matter has granted Mr. Brennan’s motion that the standard be “beyond a reasonable doubt,” but refused the motion for a jury trial. The trial date is July 18. See the article for more details. There appears to be some confusion in the article whether the “violation” is for indecent exposure or disorderly conduct; however, it seems the case will not be for a “crime.”

World Travel Watch has picked up early reports about a chimp attack on a guide at the Jane Goodall Institute Chimp Eden in South Africa. Early reports say the guide (an American university student) was dragged under a fence by chimps. Later reports, including this one from CNN, say the guide entered an area that was off-limits to humans where he was attacked.