Remember Farid Seif Mr. Seif is the Houston
Iranian-American businessman who mistakenly carried a Glock handgun through
security, onto a plane, all the way from Houston to Indianapolis. When he got to
his destination and realized his mistake, he alerted security officials. There
was reportedly "nothing else" in Mr. Seif’s carry-on besides the weapon. Yet the
security screeners at George Bush International, America’s eighth-busiest
airport, missed it entirely. The scariest part of that story was that
Transportation Security Administration officials told reporters that this type
of incident was "not uncommon." Now another Texas airport,
Dallas-Fort Worth, is proving the point. This week, a high-level TSA source told
the local NBC affiliate that "An undercover TSA agent was able to get through
security at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with a handgun during
testing of the enhanced-imaging body scanners." The TSA insider
who blew the whistle on the test also said that none of the TSA agents who
failed to spot the gun on the scanned image were disciplined. The source said
the agents continue to work the body scanners today. This is
not confidence-inspiring. If TSA screeners can’t even stop guns getting through
security, why are they taking away our bottled water Incidents like this only
lend incentives to TSA critics who say the whole airport security apparatus is
an enormous waste of time and money, The TSA’s attitude towards the reporting of
these sorts of messes isn’t helpful, either. They only provided the NBC with a
brief statement claiming that they don’t reveal the results of secret testing
for "security reasons" and arguing that "advanced imaging technology is an
effective tool to detect both metallic and nonmetallic items hidden on
passengers." That’s pretty much the public affairs equivalent of sticking their
fingers in their ears and saying "lalalalala we can’t hear you!"
It is really hard to have an accountable TSA without greater transparency
about the results of secret testing. Instead of leaking hints to the press that
failure rates have decreased since the last public reports, the TSA should back
up its whispering with actual data. If it won’t, some enterprising congressional
committee should order it. "Trust us that this works" just isn’t cutting it
anymore. The last sentence of the passage suggests that the author’s attitude to
the TSA is ______.
A. appreciative
B. critical
C. tolerant
D. indifferent