If you didn’t see the latest TSA-related news item about a woman’s cupcake being confiscated because its icing surpassed the legal amount of “gel” that could be taken aboard a plane, you must be living under a rock.
The news item, which began in late December, is still making headlines all these weeks later. Last week, the TSA on its blog claimed the cupcake, which is actually inside a jar and called National Velvet, had a thick layer of icing that the TSA agent considered a “gel.” The TSA’s blogger wrote the following:
“In general, cakes and pies are allowed in carry-on luggage, however, the officer in this case used their discretion on whether or not to allow the newfangled modern take on a cupcake per 3-1-1 guidelines. They chose not to let it go.”
The cupcake’s owner shot back that it had three layers of cupcake, each with a medium layer of icing, according to CBS News.
How comical can this get? Well, the company that made the cupcake, Wicked Good Cupcakes in Cohasset, Mass., says business is booming since the story of its cupcakes being considered a security threat hit the airwaves. It told ABC News that its website visits went from 100/day to 3,000/day. The company has renamed its infamous cupcake “National Security Velvet.”
Not to miss a good opportunity, Silver Spoon Bakery in Providence, R.I., is marketing The Compliant Cupcake. According to a press release, “This cupcake is made of moist vanilla bean cake and is topped with a dollop of the company’s signature vanilla bean frosting. Three ounces to be exact. Prepared for take-off, this cupcake comes in its very own one quart-size bag for proper adherence to the TSA 3-1-1 rule.”
And, a hat tip to the TSA blogger for coming up with the “Cupcakegate” moniker.
I wrote last month about the controversy in Dallas over the firing of Lisa Chambers, the director of Dallas County’s Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management.
CNN has reported that TSA screeners at Norfolk International Airport in Virginia prevented a 17-year-old girl from bringing her leather purse onto her flight because it displayed an image of a gun—an Old West six-shooter, to be precise. A TSA spokesperson told CNN that replica weapons are prohibited because they can be mistaken for the real thing in the X-ray machine or by fellow passengers. “Security checkpoints may be impacted or closed because replica weapons like toy guns, novelty grenades, fake bombs and other items appear similar to the real thing when viewed through an X-ray machine,” the spokesman said.
TSA screeners in Los Angeles discovered a stun gun in a passenger’s possessions that was disguised as a pink Smartphone, according to the TSA blog. The comments on the blog post are interesting. Many people seem to think the TSA overreacted in taking the stun gun away from the passenger, which seems odd to me. One person said: “Big deal. My laptop is probably more dangerous than that stun gun.” Another said: “Keep up the good work of stopping harmless items from getting on airplanes.” Everyone seems to be a TSA hater.
TSA is in the spotlight again. This time for an alleged gaping hole in airport security at Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport, which was exposed by an investigation from Atlanta’s Channel 2 news team.
According to the television station, a whistleblower who works for Gate Gourmet, the world’s largest airline catering company, stepped forward to report glaring security breaches he witnessed at the airport. And he brought video to prove himself. The whistleblower, who remains anonymous, took video that shows back doors being opened to allow several people through without swiping their badges and insecure access to catering carts destined to be loaded onto flights (one video shows the whistleblower putting an unauthorized orange juice container into one of these carts). “If I were some crazy lunatic, or Osama bin Laden sympathizer, I can come in and put anything on this plane,” the whistleblower tells the TV station.
Neither the airport or the TSA responded to Channel 2′s requests for comment (not counting generic statements reiterating the strict security procedures in place), though Gate Gourmet did offer a statement that said the video “does not capture the full extent of the vigorous, systematic, and multi-layered catering access control procedures that are in place,” according to the TV station.
Security consultants who watched the videos and were interviewed by the TV station were stunned by the oversights. “The back door of this airport seems to be wide open,” Brent Brown, a corporate security consultant, told the station. “This is a big, huge, gaping hole in aviation security right here.”
According to TSA meeting minutes dug up by the station’s investigation, there has been ongoing concern that catering operations are a soft spot in airport security.
What do you think? Watch the video and let me know. Do you think the video shows serious security breaches? Do you think this is the status quo at U.S. airports? If a group of emplyees who know each other arrive at work at the same time, is each opening the door with their badge, closing it in the face of a colleague so that he or she can than swipe their badge?
Email me at wrichardson@securitydirectornews.com to share your thoughts.
Whit Richardson
Managing Editor
Security Director News
The agency implemented a pilot program over the summer in Terminal A of Boston’s Logan International Airport. Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport now joins the pilot.
The program employs TSA officers to ask passengers simple questions about where they’re traveling, what they’ll be doing there, etc., and watch their responses for signs of nefarious intent. Hence the term “chat down”, as opposed to “pat down”.
The program, which has been compared to the extensive questioning that airline passengers undergo in Israeli airports, is an attempt by the TSA to move away from a one-size-fits-all approach to security and towards a risk-based approach.
The TSA catches a lot of flak in the media, whether for frisking a six-year-old girl or searching a woman’s afro for weapons. I’ll occasionally highlight the latest controversy or interesting news item picked up in the media in this blog under the heading TSA Watch. My purpose is not to pig pile on the negative or sensational press, but to keep track of the type of security-related news the mainstream media latches onto and, subsequently, the news most people hear.
For today’s installment, let’s return to Orlando, the site of this year’s ASIS conference. As everyone returned from the trade show last week, a man was caught at Orlando International Airport trying to carry three guns — two of which were loaded — through a TSA checkpoint. Wow. For the record, the man claimed he had grabbed the wrong bag when he left his home. Another whopper of a statistic cited in the news story is that the TSA claims to have caught passengers at OIA trying to carry 46 guns through security during the past 12 months.
This news made me think of my own recent TSA experience. I have an admission: In my preparation for my first ASIS show, I grabbed my backpack that carries my laptop and digital SLR camera. It’s the bag I carry at all times. Since I never know when I may need to cut some twine or open a well-sealed package, I carry a knife in my bag. As it turns out, I forgot to remove the knife, which I only realized once I was in my Orlando hotel room after having flown from Boston with it in my carry-on luggage. Not wanting to take any chances, I put the knife in checked luggage on the way home.
It just goes to show that no screening process is perfect. My bag was so full of computer cords, camera chargers and pens, I can understand how someone may have missed a knife, but I was still surprised when I realized what had happened. Thankfully, though, the TSA screeners in Orlando didn’t fail to catch this man’s three guns when his bag went through the x-ray machine.
Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Homeland Security, told Politico this morning that airline passengers may soon be able to keep their shoes on when they pass through airport security, a result of a move toward a more risk-based approach to security screening. She did say, however, that there was no end in sight for restrictions on liquids.
After writing earlier today about discrepancies in how campus security officers are armed at two, similarly-sized urban universities (York University in Toronto and the University of Cincinnati in Ohio), I reached out to Chris Blake, associate director of the International Association of Campus Law Enforcement Administrators, to ask his opinion. One major component that contributes to the discrepancy, he writes to me in an email, are different gun laws in this country and in Canada. “This could serve to diminish the need for officers on a campus to carry firearms,” Blake writes. “I don’t know this for a fact, but it would seem to make sense.”
Different gun laws are a piece of the equation I hadn’t considered. Let’s dig deeper. “I cannot specifically comment on gun laws in our respective countries (I am not a specialist) however I can mention and advise that no college or university have campus security/police armed with firearms in Canada,” writes Pierre Barbarie, associate director of university safety and head of security services at McGill University in Montreal. Barbarie is also the Canadian Region Director on IACLEA’s board.
It’s a matter of “our different cultures … and how we feel we should deal with criminal activity and protecting our respective campuses,” Barbarie writes. But even within Canada, like in the United States, there’s no uniform approach to campus security. “Some of us have sworn officers, some non-sworn and some have a hybrid approach, some have internal personnel while others contract private security personnel,” Barbarie writes.
Thanks to Chris and Pierre for offering this very interesting insight into campus security approaches from both sides of the border.
-Whit Richardson
Managing Editor
Security Director News
One thing I’m looking at are other intermediary force options being considered by law enforcement. I hope to speak with someone from Aegis Industries, which designed the Mark 63 Trident.
I also read this morning about York University in Toronto arming its campus security guards with batons and handcuffs. York University is not a small school. According to its website, it’s home to 54,000 students. University of Cincinnati has roughly 41,000 students, according to its website.
So it’s interesting to juxtapose universities that have sworn police officers carrying firearms, Tasers and pepper spray, with universities like York, whose campus security officers are only now receiving approval to carry batons. There are, of course, myriad variables that determine how campus security or police officers should be armed. The University of Cincinnati is in an urban environment. Judging by Google Maps, York University is, as well.
Obviously the two universities have different policies when it comes to security and intervention, and their relationships with local law enforcement. York has a “longstanding policy of non-intervention by security staff,” but is now arming its security guards with batons and handcuffs to counter perceptions that the campus is unsafe, according to the newspaper article. University of Cincinnati has no such non-intervention policy.
During my research of my Taser-reaction story, I came across a 2008 report by the Department of Justice that looked at trends in campus security during the 2004-05 school year. In that report, I was surprised to discover that campus law enforcement agencies with non-sworn officers were more likely to authorize the carrying of Tasers than agencies with sworn police officers–24% to 20%. Since the DOJ only does that report once a decade, I couldn’t find any more recent data on the carrying of Tasers by campus police.
These will be issues I’ll be watching closely. Please chime in with your thoughts on arming campus security or police officers, or to point me to additional information I may have missed.
-Whit Richardson
Managing Editor
Security Director News
With campus security departments preparing for the imminent return of students, the recent news of a student’s death after being Tased by a campus security officer at the University of Cincinnati may force a re-examination of policies dictating when Tasers should and shouldn’t be used.
Here’s what happened: UC police officers were responding to an early morning 911 call that reported an assault at a dorm when they encountered an agitated 18-year-old student who wouldn’t back off after being asked multiple times, according to an article from the Cincinnati Enquirer. The student was shot with a Taser stun gun and died of a heart attack, according to the newspaper. UC police have temporarily stopped using Tasers as a result, the newspaper reported.
The newspaper’s report also discusses the liabilities surrounding the use of Tasers and a new weapon being deployed by law enforcement officials: the Mark 63 Trident device from Virginia-based Aegis.
This may be an issue worth a deeper examination by Security Director News. What do you think?
