blog.shrub

Two weeks ago, US customs held up a fire truck, and a hotel burned to the ground. How do you top that? Delay an ambulance with a heart-attack victim.

The incident happened last Monday, when 46-year-old Rick Laport needed emergency angioplasty — a procedure that couldn’t be performed at his Windsor, Ont., hospital.

Medical officials rushed Laport to the border, expecting to be waved through so they could take him to Detroit’s Henry Ford medical facility

Instead, U.S. customs asked the male driver to exit the vehicle and show his identification card. Another border official opened the back of the ambulance to confirm a patient was inside, and asked Laporte to verify his name.
…
The ambulance workers were only delayed by five minutes, but Laport’s heart had already been re-started twice by paramedics.

Some Québec firefighters tried to help save a burning building. They didn’t get there in time. Why? US customs.

Six volunteer firefighters rushing to assist a small-town fire department in upper New York State, part of a long-standing mutual-aid agreement, were held up while being grilled about their identification by a U.S. Customs official this week….Meanwhile, the landmark Anchorage Inn in Rouses Point, N.Y., burned to the ground.“I’ve been crossing this border for 30 years, and the only question we were ever asked was: ‘Where’s the fire?’” Lacolle fire chief Jean-Pierre Hébert told The Globe and Mail Wednesday.

Qantas Airways chairman Margaret Jackson was detained and frisked at LAX last year:

She said her briefcase had contained detailed plans of a new aircraft, including cross-section diagrams showing seat layouts, Australian newspaper the Herald Sun newspaper reported Wednesday.

“The guy said ‘Why have you got all of this?’,” she said.

“And I said, ‘I’m the chairman of an airline. I’m the chairman of Qantas’. And this black guy, who was, like, eight foot tall, said, ‘But you’re a woman’.”

Bruce Schneier brings more bad news about US airport “security”:

It seems like every time someone tests airport security, airport security fails. In tests between November 2001 and February 2002, screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 30 percent of guns and 60 percent of (fake) bombs. And recently (see also this), testers were able to smuggle bomb-making parts through airport security in 21 of 21 attempts. It makes you wonder why we’re all putting our laptops in a separate bin and taking off our shoes. (Although we should all be glad that Richard Reid wasn’t the “underwear bomber.”)

Security is all about tradeoffs. Bruce Schneier has five steps you need to take when making a security-related decision:

1. What problem does the security measure solve?
2. How well does the security measure solve the problem?
3. What other security problems does the measure cause?
4. What are the costs of the security measure?
5. Given the answers to steps two through four, is the security measure worth the costs?

Jesse points out another example of stupid security. Manitoba MP Pat Martin is being held up at airports:

Pat Martin says he’s “getting fed up” with the screening procedures that have prompted frustrating ticket-counter delays with Air Canada on two occasions. “I can assure you I’m not a security risk, but I am about to get violent if I get treated this way again,” he said in an interview.

Drop those nose hair clippers, soldier!

the FAA regulation that requires soldiers — all of whom were armed with an arsenal of assault rifles, shotguns and pistols — to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters.

don’t fly into dallas airport.