Systemic Weaknesses Revealed?

A Pennsylvania woman who triggered an Amber Alert last Tuesday with a false claim that she and her 9-year daughter had been locked in a trunk by carjackers has triggered a controversy surrounding airport security.

The FBI says its agents arrested Bonnie Sweeten in a hotel at Walt Disney World, ending the hunt for the fabricated carjackers in Pennsylvania. But the woman got herself and her daughter on a plane to Florida under a false name by paying cash for the ticket, and using the drivers license of a friend who looked similar. The ruse got past airport security because the government-issued photo-ID was authenticated, and matched the name on the ticket.

The daughter wasn't required to show ID to board the plane because of her age.

TSA spokeswoman Ann Davis told the Philadelphia Inquirer, "Our officers are trained to make sure that passengers' travel documents and government-issued IDs are legitimate. If the photo bears a strong resemblance to the passenger, and all other markings appear to be legitimate, then the ID would not raise any red flags."

FBI Special Agent JJ Klaver told the paper that despite the bad quality of DMV photos, "We don't use biometrics - fingerprints, retinal scans. It would be prohibitively expensive. We use a driver's license.

"The woman took steps to get away. She was successful at it. Does this show some systemic weakness in our security process? That's an opinion I'm not going to offer."

Excuse me, but we have to ask... is anything "prohibitively expensive" by TSA standards?

FMI: www.tsa.gov