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If you are flying out of Colorado Springs this week, make sure to get there extra early. In the wake of the London-Glasgow events, random car searches are back.
Police started searching cars at random at the Colorado Springs Airport on Sunday. The road that leads to the terminal is cordoned off for those searches and police said they are doing these checks about three times a day. Police are stopping random cars, having them move off the road, to get searched at the airport. They have drivers shut off the car, and open the doors, hood and all the compartments. Cezar, a bomb-detecting dog, sniffs out the cars. Cezar spends a few minutes searching the cars for any explosives, and then the cars are back on the road.
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Denver International Airport advises that arriving at the airport just a few minutes earlier than usual should be fine. That means arriving at least two hours before your flight. This is all being done out of an abundance of caution.
“I have seen no specific, credible information suggesting that this latest incident is connected to a threat to the homeland,” Chertoff said.
Better safe than sorry? Perhaps, but at what point do these random searches become an exercise in looking for the needle in the proverbial haystack, not to mention, a violation of our civil liberties?