Friday, 19 February 2016

Security breaches in US airports... By Julie Spadin

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I plan on working in an airport. I've always loved traveling and, growing up, I moved everywhere, so airports are familiar to me.

This is why I chose to talk about the airport security. Millions of people use airports so, in order to prevent terrorist attacks and other crimes, airports have tight security systems. In every airport, there are policemen and police dogs (for explosives and drug detection), soldiers and security guards. There are metal detectors that screen the passengers for object that could be used as a weapon. For finding explosives, there are X-ray machines. These are the main big security systems but there are many more.

The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) is an agency of the US Homeland Security. It is responsible for the security of travelers in the United States. It carries out regular airport security inspections. In June 2015, the Red Team agents of Homeland Security investigated the security of a dozen US airports at checkpoints. Their investigation showed that there were many breaches in airport security. Agents disguised themselves as simple passengers and hid explosives and banned weapons in their luggage or under their clothes to see if they were detected. Out of 70 tests, 67 failed! This provoked a huge scandal. As a consequence, the director of the TSA was reassigned to another job and the TSA is working on improving its security systems in airports. These kinds of tests were also carried out in 2013; an undercover agent had managed to pass all the checkpoints with a fake bomb…

The terrorist attacks on the Twin Towers, as well as the recent terrorist attacks show that the security systems in airports, but also elsewhere, have many breaches and need to be more secure. Security is what keeps the world going. Airports being one of the most important ways of traveling have to be really secure in order to guarantee the security of the passengers as well as the countries.

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