Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Paging Dr. Scholl

Now that the Transportation Security Administration is making all air passengers remove their shoes before going through security, AP cites a report that X-rays don't detect explosives.

A TSA spokeswoman said, "We do not have a specific threat regarding shoes. In an abundance of caution we require all shoes to be removed and X-rayed to mitigate a variety of threats," including weapons (remember the spring-loaded dagger concealed in Lotte Lenya's espadrille in From Russia With Love?). One might think that the inner structure of an explosive-packed shoe would look different from one intended to transport the wearer to somewhere this side of Paradise, but one might also wonder if TSA screeners are trained to spot the difference.

(TONE has it on some authority that problems in TSA are a lot more pervasive than whether X-raying shoes will actually reveal plastique.)

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