Roving Screeners Surging in Florida Airports

Travelers and airport workers in several of the Florida's largest airports may find themselves confronted by roving gangs of security screeners armed with handheld metal detectors and police dogs-- part of a self-described "surge" by the Transportation Security Admininistraton that will soon go nationwide, according to an agency press release.

This surge implements security enhancements directly focusing on employees working in airport secure areas. These include:

-- a sharp increase in random, unpredictable screening of employees in secure areas;
-- limiting secure area access during non-business hours and auditing door access during those hours for suspicious activity;
-- deploying integrated teams of federal air marshals, K-9 teams, law enforcement officers and transportation security officers to areas throughout the airport;
-- conducting random screening of employees and passengers at boarding gates, including behavior detection; and
-- [Transportation Security Officers] randomly inspecting aircraft.

TSA is commencing the surge in Orlando International, Tampa International, Miami International, Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood International and Luis Munoz Marin International (San Juan, P.R.) airports, but says it plans to be surging all over the country and surging without warning soon.

TSA says it has no intelligence that there's any heightened risk in Florida or Puerto Rico, but says the random surge "illustrates TSA's ability to quickly and unpredictably deploy assets based on risk."

UPDATE: I guess I should have realized the surge is a response to the arrest last week of a man who stepped off a flight from Orlando to Puerto Rico with a carry-on bag that had 14 firearms and 8 pounds of marijuana. Turns out there looks to be some sort of insider ring.