TSA accidentally reveals airport security secrets

Oh, this is just Lovely.

From the Washington Post:

The Transportation Security Administration inadvertently revealed closely guarded secrets related to airport passenger screening practices when it posted online this spring a document as part of a contract solicitation, the agency confirmed Tuesday. The 93-page TSA operating manual details procedures for screening passengers and checked baggage, such as technical settings used by X-ray machines and explosives detectors. It also includes pictures of credentials used by members of Congress, CIA employees and federal air marshals, and it identifies 12 countries whose passport holders are automatically subjected to added scrutiny.

TSA officials said that the manual was posted online in a redacted form on a federal procurement Web site, but that the digital redactions were inadequate. They allowed computer users to recover blacked-out passages by copying and pasting them into a new document or an e-mail. Current and former security officials called the breach troubling, saying it exposed TSA practices that were implemented after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and expanded after the August 2006 disruption of a plot to down transatlantic airliners using liquid explosives. Checkpoint screening has been a fixture of the TSA's operations -- as well as a lightning rod for public criticism of the agency's practices.

This is just typical during our current "super information age". Just remember, that nothing is secret anymore. So take precautions with your personal info. Cause God knows we can't trust the government or any establishment to do so. But we want to trust them with our health care, and our banking, and our cars, and and and. Well you get it.

Technorati Tags: TSA, security secrets, Congress, CIA, air marshals, Sept. 11, 2001, Checkpoint screening, Dept. of Homeland Security