TSA Kills Bad Program!
The government is scrapping a post-Sept. 11, 2001, airport screening program because the machines did not operate as intended and cost too much to maintain.
The so-called puffer machines were deployed to airports in 2004 to screen randomly selected passengers for bombs after they cleared the standard metal detectors. The machines take 17 seconds to check a passenger and can analyze particles as small as one-billionth of a gram. (“An Airport Screening Program Is Killed,” New York Times
Via Froomkin. I hear they’re investing the saved money in a porcine catapult.
[Update: It turns out that TSA will not be allowing pigs to fly. Their implanted ID chips are not government issued, and when challenged, they do not demonstrate a willingness to cooperate with the TSA officials. Sorry.]