Interesting Mac iBook story
Every time I hear about the TSA, I become more and more convinced that if Darwin's theory is correct, the TSA will cease to exist before long. The latest 'can they really be this stupid?' incident has to do with a Mac Airbook. At first I started thinking along the lines of a corollary to Chris William's 'Grandma Theory'. Maybe the TSA officers weren't dumb and clueless, maybe they were just older and technologically illiterate. But that can't be the case here b/c they clearly know enough about technology to know what a hard drive is and what ports are. They knew enough to think there's something fishy about a computer without a disk drive and ports. That made me start to envision a Cliff Clavenesque know-it-all who is a self-proclaimed computer whiz - trying to look smart in front of his/her peers. It's kind of hard for me to imagine that a TSA agent, unless they just started (and his comments indicate more than one TSA agent was involved), hasn't come across an iBook by now. At a minimum you'd think they would have come across some really thin/small computer that wouldn't have had a disk drive in it.
"I'm standing, watching my laptop on the table, listening to security clucking just behind me," Nygard recalls of the situation. "'There's no drive," one says. 'And no ports on the back. It has a couple of lines where the drive should be,' she continues."
Assuming the reports are true and accurate , this would be hysterical if these people weren't 'protecting' our country (and at ridiculously high union wages). My personal experience with TSA is a lot different. While they are often strange, bitter and/or incompetent, they don't seem technologically clueless. I have a travel bag that I keep my Ultra-mobile, my Zune, Phone, Headphones, USB Hub, a trackball and a few other misc items in. It always causes them to run it through the machine a few times (even when I pull just about everything out). But usually, after they see what all the stuff is individually, they either make some gadget geek joke or ask about one of the items (the most common one is asking if my Zune is 'the new iPod').