How Not to Test Airport Security
If this were fiction, no one would believe it. From MSNBC:
Four days after police at Charles de Gaulle Airport slipped some plastic explosives into a random passenger’s bag as part of an exercise for sniffer dogs, it is still missing—and authorities are stumped and embarrassed.
It’s perfectly reasonable to plant an explosive-filled suitcase in an airport in order to test security. It is not okay to plant it in someone’s bag without his knowledge and permission. (The explosive residue could remain on the suitcase long after the test, and might be picked up by one of those trace mass spectrometers that detects the chemical residue associated with bombs.) But if you are going to plant plastic explosives in the suitcase of some innocent passenger, shouldn’t you at least write down which suitcase it was?
Ned Baldessin • December 20, 2004 9:29 AM
Actually, “authorities are stumped and embarrassed??? is an understatement : the minister of interior made a statement saying it was “scandalous???. Apparently it was the idea of two security officers, and not (thank god) an established practice. A few days after the incident, disciplinary action was taken against them and they were suspended.