US Customs Computers Had An "Outage" Tonight. What Does That Mean?

I was watching television with my wife when I started to see tweets that didn’t look good. Maybe I’m just sensitive after the recent Atlanta airport power outage. I hadn’t really contemplated what a sustained “outage” of the CBP processing systems would look like. What would the ramifications be?

It seemed like the (relatively) short outage tonight yielded some long lines and angst.

https://twitter.com/JetSetCD/status/948023942450688001

#breaking ~2,000 passengers are in line at customs at @iflymia due to an apparent computer outage impacting systems used by Customs and Border Protection at passport control. The outage is affecting other airports across the county, according to official familiar w/ the situation pic.twitter.com/wbRUrWDOzL
— Kris Van Cleave (@krisvancleave) January 2, 2018

The Customs & Border Patrol system is apparently down nationwide. We’re being held in the terminal and told to try and use mobile passport. I’d be mad but the #Bills are in the playoffs.
— Luke Russert (@LukeRussert) January 2, 2018

It Appears The System Was Down For A Couple Of Hours. Then, This From The CBP

All airports are back on line after a temporary outage of #CBP’s processing systems. During the disruption, CBP had access to national security-related databases and all travelers were screened according to security standards. No indication the disruption was malicious in nature.
— CBP (@CBP) January 2, 2018

What Does This Mean?

How were they screened?

How did they have access to the national security-related databases but not the processing systems?

And, well, why not tell people when the outage started?

Looks like the CBP/Global Entry systems are back online. At least CBP was kind enough to announce the outage is over, even if it couldn't bother to acknowledge it was down. #PaxEx https://t.co/Ss2AhVwhOm
— Seth Miller (@WandrMe) January 2, 2018

I can’t imagine there will be a detailed explanation of what happened being released anytime soon. Systems break, stuff happens. It’s on matters like this that I question the oversight CBP has. I sure hope someone gets a full explanation. And, I hope they work on redundant solutions.

But, I still wouldn’t mind knowing how all those people got screened during an outage.

The post US Customs Computers Had An “Outage” Tonight. What Does That Mean? was published first on Pizza in Motion

2 Comments

D2 says:

January 2, 2018 at 12:00 am

I think the poor communication is an indicator of what they think as an organization of the flying public.

1. Edward Pizzarello says:
  
  January 2, 2018 at 12:06 am
  
  D2, I don’t doubt it, given the zeal with which they tried to enforce the first immigration order.