10.02.2007

If the terrorists don't get you the jargonistas will

So look. You might be wondering why the guys under the bed are cracking down on kids with remote-controlled cars at airports. Well, wonder no more. It's all about "credible specific information," reports the NYTimes.

OK, they don't explain what nonspecific information might be - maybe it's classified or something. (I'm pretty sure incredible information is one of those trees-falling-in-the-forest things.) For all we know, "credible specific information" is just plain old regular information - but whatever it is, coming up with it, explains Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Kip ("Kip") Hawley, is all about sorting through dots. Yeah. I'm not kidding. Sorting through dots.

"A lot of that work is sorting through dots," Mr. Hawley said of the different intelligence leads that produced the heightened scrutiny. "This is a dot that just came up with enough granularity that it seemed we should take direct action on it."

See? What did I say? You find a granular dot, you know you're onto something big. Just a regular dot, not so much.

You're wondering, can it really be so simple? Well sure it can, explains Kip.

"Everybody knows there is an intelligence and law enforcement community out there, that there are people seeking to do us harm," he said. "This is just the tangible manifestation of that."

Is that Kip a modest guy or what? Smart, too. Who else would know the difference between "this" and "that"?

But why, you might ask, is the intelligence and law enforcement community seeking to do us harm? 

Well, don't ask me.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Happy to report nothing to report after traveling through SeaTac and Maui airports. No pineapples were smuggled, no bottled water. Neither, did TSA come running through, guns drawn, playing freeze tag with passengers.

Had to show my boarding pass and ID to stand in the security line, before I went through the metal detector, and then after - as if somehow my identity could change while I was actually in the metal detector. Very thorough these TSA agents. (No ID required to enter the jetway, however, and no ticket is required when actually boarding the plane. But the metal detector, watch out.)

I have to give a shout out to the baggage handlers at SeaTac - my bag arrived on the carousel before I even got there! In one piece, I might add.

Ted Compton said...

So, what, you had to leave your pineapples there?

I've been told some people have magnetic personalities. Ya think maybe some people have magnetic identities too? I mean, maybe those metal detectors....oh, never mind.

Go baggage guys.