This Is Screwed Up
I got home last night at around 2 o’clock in the morning (gimme a break - I was working). As I was getting ready for a shower I turned on the TV to watch some news.
What I saw left me speechless. Apparently, to get through the back doors of the Chicago O’Hare International Airport, one would only need a card that you swipe and get access to (pretty much) everything. Quite standard procedure you might think. How about if I told you that there’s hundreds of former employees of the airport, law enforcement agencies and companies who have contracts with the airport for certain services (such as cleaning) who have never turned in their cards after leaving their jobs? Cards that are still working. Nobody bothered to cancel them or try to get them back.
What does all this mean? Well, any former employee still has access to the back stage of the airport. Any of them could get on any plane without a problem. From this moment on just use your imagination as to what could happen. Oh, and to help you sleep better on your next flight from O’Hare, one of these former employees is a guy with 3 aliases, a bunch of arrests and, if I’m not mistaken, a couple of convictions as well. How did this guy get such a job in the first place? Anyway, sweet dreams!
The whole thing started with the guy who reported the news finding, in a dumpster, a bunch of files of former employees of one of the companies that provides services for the airport. These files contained social security numbers, addresses, bank accounts (for direct deposits) and other personal information.
Now, I’m not for going crazy over security issues. But when I see that basic measures are not beeing taken by some (disabling a card belonging to a former employee or shredding documents that are being trashed - which I believe is not that hard to do), I kind of can’t help but think: “Why the heck do I need to take my shoes off when I go through an airport security check point, when others (with questionable backgrounds) have such easy access to an airplane?” and “Thank God I’m self employed and I don’t have to trust a stupid comapny with my personal information!”
God help us!
February 12th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
Good point! It’s kind of funny all the things we have to go through to “stay safe” when in reality there’s a backdoor that any criminal can easily take. It’s like gun control. I remember a Ronald Reagan radio spot on gun control where he mentioned a girl who wrote him a letter. The basic gyst of it was that gun control laws don’t stop the criminals from getting guns - the criminals don’t go through legal channels. So the laws only make it harder for the law-abiding citizens to get guns.
Anyway, good point, and well-written.
February 12th, 2007 at 11:06 pm
thanx for your comment Daniel.
to be honest, i thought about the gun control issue myself a few times. and there’s a couple of issues that came to mind. i’ll write a post about it, so please come back and let me know what you think.
cheers
February 13th, 2007 at 12:12 am
[...] Jackson from The Equity Advantage left a comment on one of my posts, nicely pointing out what I was trying to say: It’s kind of funny all the things we have to go [...]
February 13th, 2007 at 9:34 am
Cosmin, you raise a very interesting point. How safe are we really? It amazes me (although it probably shouldn’t) that these kinds of security mishaps still occur in a post 911 America, especially when you consider the fact that such a security laps is easily preventable. This world is a dangerous place, and we will never truly be secure in it. I think all the shoe removing and scanning is for the benefit of law abiding passengers, the ones that never think about or plan to be a security risk. We are lulled by that warm fuzzy feeling that a false sense of security provides, when the truth is that this world is dangerous, and we need to remain aware of it. I’m not say that the TSA should stop implementing security measures, because they should continue. However they should put themselves under a more intense microscope than the one they put the law abiding passenger under.
March 23rd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
The UK Government managed to “lose” the personal details of everyone who claims child benefit - makes my attempts at shredding somewhat futile. Apparently, the criminals will wait until our children reach 18 years of age before stealing their identities.