(Editors Note: The NW Offices for Covenant are based in Anaconda. The company president is also a native of Anaconda, MT)
If you saw the picture on The Drudge Report Thursday, it looked less like airport security, and more like a cattle ranching AI operation. (For those who don’t know what AI’ing is: think artificial insemination.)
The AP describes the national outrage taking place this way:
Furor over airline passenger checks has grown as more airports have installed scanners that produce digital images of the body’s contours, and the anger intensified when TSA added a more intrusive style of pat-down recently for those who opt out of the full-body scans. Some travelers are using the Internet to organize protests aimed at the busy travel days next week surrounding Thanksgiving.
The Electric City Weblog in Great Falls links to a Krauthammer piece:
Not quite the 18th-century elegance of “Don’t Tread on Me,” but the age of Twitter has a different cadence from the age of the musket. What the modern battle cry lacks in archaic charm, it makes up for in full-body syllabic punch.
Don’t touch my junk is the anthem of the modern man, the Tea Party patriot, the late-life libertarian, the midterm election voter. Don’t touch my junk, Obamacare – get out of my doctor’s examining room, I’m wearing a paper-thin gown slit down the back.
The earlier quoted AP article notes that concerns over TSA security are now leading some airports to do away with TSA altogether:
For Republican Rep. John Mica of Florida, the way to make travelers feel more comfortable would be to kick TSA employees out of their posts at the ends of the snaking security lines. This month, he wrote letters to nation’s 100 busiest airports asking that they request private security guards instead.
Plus- could this be a boom for a Montana-based aviation security firm, which has already taken over security at several Montana airports?
The AP also pointed to private security firms, including Covenant Aviation Security- led by Anaconda native Gerald Berry, president of Covenant Aviation Security.
You may recall news from about a year ago here in Montana as several Montana airports inked deals to allow Covenant to take over their security operations:
Brett Berry is the Northwest regional director for Covenant Aviation Security LLC, a private Chicago-based company that employs more than 20,000 people nationwide. He works out of Anaconda, a branch that oversees operations at airports across the country including New York’s LaGuardia, one of the nation’s busiest.
This Montana Standard article also quoted Butte airport director Rick Griffith:
He said the privatization of security is “entrepreneurial” and shows the creative ways that airports are working to stay afloat and care for their customers.
“We are doing what we can,” Griffith said. “This is another way to keep our facilities viable, improve customer service and keep a high level of security.”