TSA Stocks Up on High-Tech Tools

They come with price tags to match, and they must be worth it because ...

It's a fact: guys love gadgets, and TSA Administrator John Pistole is no exception. If it beeps or buzzes, John wants one.

TSA has always lived in something of a technology fantasy world. This is, after all, the agency that stopped a traveler with a cupcake. Presumably the frosting might have been some explosive concoction of plastique and high fructose corn syrup. Or it might have been vanilla. (If only they had had a Digital Baked-Goods Analyzer, Pistole-man!)

Despite the fact that the 9/11 hijackings were carried out with simple box-cutters, and, in the aftermath, the majority of recent American military deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq have come from improvised explosive devices, the TSA's "Inspector Gadget" seems to think that James Bond is about to breach security at any moment, and he wants to be ready.