TSA Epic Fails

[Torakus]

Didn't you say decisions in TSA took a back seat to effectiveness and bowed towards political expediency?

No I did not. What I said is the Administrator's ability to implement his decisions is often impeded by politics.

Also... what the court didn't address is the effectiveness of TSA in stopping items that can bring down a plane. If a couple of people can slip claymores through TSA... why in the hell should breast milk, catheters, purses with the image of a gun, and t-shirts critizing the TSA be the focus?

You are right, but then EPIC wasn't challenging their use based on their effectiveness. They would have lost that case as well though. And once again, the engineer from NJ who was caught trying to pass through with INERT (no explosives but were still detected visually and via explosive detection) claymores only CLAIMS that her co-worker made it through with those. I can't find any evidence that suggests that her claim has any merit. At the time of the claim the video of her friend would have still been available and if the claim were credible, the TSA would have gone to the gate, and brought her back for additional screening. People caught bringing prohibited items almost always use this argument, "My brother, sister, uncle, whoever, just went through with a HARPOON missile! Why can't I?" I know of a lot of cases where the other passenger is tracked down and screened with negative results, I have never seen a case where they are screened and a prohibited item is found.

You'd look great in a brown shirt, methinks.

You would look great in a bib with a pacifier in you mouth. This is some real cry baby shit.

I know, I know.. you're doing this in the best interest of the people, right Adolf?

No I do what I do for a paycheck, but I don't toss my cereal on the floor because mom won't give me more sugar.

Order of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State
On the basis of Article 48 paragraph 2 of the Constitution of the German Reich, the following is ordered in defense against Communist state-endangering acts of violence:
§ 1. Articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123, 124 and 153 of the Constitution of the German Reich are suspended until further notice. It is therefore permissible to restrict the rights of personal freedom [habeas corpus], freedom of (opinion)
expression, including the freedom of the press, the freedom to organize and assemble, the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications. Warrants for House searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on
property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed.

Yep, same thing as TSA.

[Embar Angylwrath]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/quee ... ixGKlehknI

TSA bufoons identify what they think are pipe bombs. Supervisor lets guy pass. Then TSA stores the suspected pipe bombs on a radiator... for 6 hours... before they figure out they're supposed to call someone about it.

Yep.. TSA... helping you beleive the skies are safer.

[Torakus]

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/quee ... ixGKlehknI

TSA bufoons identify what they think are pipe bombs. Supervisor lets guy pass. Then TSA stores the suspected pipe bombs on a radiator... for 6 hours... before they figure out they're supposed to call someone about it.

Yep.. TSA... helping you beleive the skies are safer.

Pretty tough to swallow. Unfortunately I don't have the daily reports from back in January when this supposedly occurred since I was not around yet. However, several things make me suspect of this report. First is the reporting itself. The author of the article opens with insults, not my idea of impartial news reporting. Second, at La Guardia, the Port Authority Police are at the checkpoint. Go see for yourself, there is a uniformed PAPD officer at EVERY checkpoint. If this had taken place, they would have known immediately. Third, no suspected explosive would EVER be place on a radiator. Every TSA checkpoint has accumulation areas for all type of surrendered items and that is where things that are NOT potentially explosive go, unknowns are removed immediately from the checkpoint. Fourth, when a suspect item is discovered it isn't just reported to the local supervisor, it is reported to the local coordination center who coordinate larger scale LE and emergency response beyond airport authority LE and EMTs.

The timing of you posting this is actually pretty nice. I actually only had experience with the written procedures for an incident like this until this week when a passenger tried to pass through a checkpoint with a rocket in his carry on bag. Amazingly enough there was no Benny HIll music, no Three Stooges cut aways, no Batman sound effects, nope just quiet professional screeners and a small five minutes delay for other passengers at the checkpoint. The screeners found it, informed the local law enforcement, spoke with the passenger, notified the air line, and helped the man and air line organize alternative transportation for his items (USPS).

But I guess anything is possible, so keep believing every complaint no matter how incredible.

[Garrdor]

http://youtu.be/JqoiifBZD4E

TSA Epic Fail

[Nadia]

Infographic: TSA – Grope & Pillage
http://floorgem.com/blog/infographic-tsa-grope-pillage/

[Torakus]

Infographic: TSA – Grope & Pillage
http://floorgem.com/blog/infographic-tsa-grope-pillage/

I will shoot a few of these down.
1)The United States could save $1 Billion by hiring private security for the 35 largest airports; could screen 65% more passengers and cost 40% less to taxpayers.
Wrong, Wrong and Wrong. The Screeing Partnership Program already has proven that all of these are wrong. SFO (San Francisco) is one of those 35 largest airports and it is 100% private security. Covenant Aviation Security to be precise. What have we learned from SPP? That it actually cost 50 to 60 percent MORE than TSA and that wait times are longer at SPP airports. Pretty tough to screen 65% more passengers. Are we going to magically create more travelers because the screening is from a private company? This is the type of drivel that comes from the desk of John Mica, who accepts campaign contributions from private screening companies and then lobby's the committee he chairs on their behalf.

2)900 complaints a month.
30 travelers out of about 1.5 to 2 million travelers per day. Most businesses would be pretty fucking happy with that small of a complaint volume vs. that massive customer base.

3)7 out of 10 weapons get past screeners.
This is a statistic from a 7 year old report. I shit load has changed since then and besides how the fuck do you determine how many got through? TSA no longer releases this information, but I can tell you that the failure rate is likely much much lower today.

4) Probability of developing cancer from a single TSA scan 1 in 30,000,000.
Nonsense. The dose received during a backscatter x-ray scan is .002 - .009mrem. The worst case scenario estimates call it one additional cancer in 200,000,000 screenings. Dental x-rays (5mrem), chest x-rays (10mrem), living in Denver Colorado (300mrem), all cause significantly more cancer than TSA scanners, but we aren't banning Colorado!

5) Scanners are worthless because they cannot see items at your sides.
Wrong. Look at the image the next time you go through. The screen doesn't rely on the screener to pick out anomalies, so there is no dark background for dark objects to hide in. The system recognizes the return and bounds it on the paper doll image that you can see after you exit the machine. The screener then pats down that anomaly to resolve it, clears the scan and sends you on your way (or hands you over to law enforcement if it is a weapon).

6) Cost per gun $6,000,000 and not 1 belonged to a terrorist!
Tell me how you know that they were not terrorists. Does the creator of this graphic know for sure that none of those folks intended to shoot up the plane and passengers? If so lets hire that fucker and get rid of TSA.

7) For 9 months of work one TSA executive received $5.4 million.
Really? Senior Executive pay in the federal service is capped below $200k so I find this a little tough to swallow.

3,986 employees at TSA HQ have an average salary of $103k
First TSA HQ isn't big enough to house 4,000 employees but even if it were $103k isn't a lot of money in D.C., that is essentially low end I-Band (GS-13) pay with 35% locality pay. Being an agency headquarters one might assume that there would be a lot of J,K,L and SES level folks there, and they would be right, and that is why the average is high, it is where the executive leadership of a 45,000 person organization. That is right 45,000 not 62,000 (it is a Congressional mandate).

9) TSA has allowed more than 25,000 security breeches.
Really? Source that for me please. I read the daily sitrep every morning and the weekly report every week and it would take about 25,000 months for this to occur. I am pretty sure TSA hasn't been around that long.

[Ddrak]

Hmm... at 2 million passengers per day and 1 in 200m given cancer, you're saying the TSA gives 3 people cancer per year. While you're correct that other things also give people cancer, it's still not exactly awesome.

As for not knowing they are terrorists, I assume that if they were terrorists they would have been prosecuted as such, and as we've said before, the TSA would invest it all in much-needed publicity.

Not trying to pick too much, but you need to not rebut too much or sweat it too hard. The TSA is still definitely a shit-ton of money spent on trying to make people feel safer and you'd get much better value just letting planes blow up now and then, but politicians don't like brutally honest risk assessments.

Dd

[Torakus]

you'd get much better value just letting planes blow up now and then,

QFT.

The TSA is still definitely a shit-ton of money spent on trying to make people feel safer

I really don't think it is that much. The Food Stamp Program cost more in 2011 alone than TSA has cost tax payers in 10 years. Don't get me wrong, I am not arguing against food stamps, but it doesn't seem to be that effective for the money spent. TSA has the mission of protecting the flying public from acts of terror. On average TSA (whose customer base is equal to 2X the U.s. population annualy) has cost the U.S. government $8 billion per year (about $13.00 per passenger). In 10 years not one American has been injured or killed due to an act of terror on a domestic flight. Sure its a limited data set, but so far TSA is batting 1.000. Food stamps, which services the U.S. population (+ illegal immigrants) costs us around $72 billion per year. Yet for 1 in 6 Americans (52,000,000) hunger is a reality. About 50 million Americans live below the poverty line and 52 million go hungry. Easy fix right, feed them. Not working apparently. Or does that mean that without food stamps 100 million Americans would go hungry? But then food stamps was never really just about feeding the hungry anyway and it has done a good job of keeping our agricultural industries from falling flat. I am conflicted on whether or not we would get better value from letting those hungry Americans starve and the bloated ag industry fail though.

[Harlowe]

Yes, hungry children should just starve. That might be a better value.

[Ddrak]

I do think comparing the TSA to a Social Security program is oddly appropriate.



Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

I do think comparing the TSA to a Social Security program is oddly appropriate.



Dd

In a very real sense, it is. It's become a home for less-than-employable folks who couldn't get a job at Walmart or McDonalds. It's nothing more than a multi-billion dollar employment program now, providing little more than a warm fuzzy to people that can't think for themselves.

We really need a plague that attacks people with the stupid gene. I'd lose over half my family, but i'm willing to live with that.

[Embar Angylwrath]

http://www.dynamist.com/2429/mission-cr ... profile-in

BDO officers complaining that upper TSA management are so desparate for showing the TSA can produce results, are pressuring officers to identify possible petty criminals, ones that might be prone to drug posession or something similar, so TSA management can crow about "success". However, that lead to racial profiling, with BDOs referring an overwhelming majority of blacks and hispanics to police, all for non-flight safety related issues.

This fucked up organization has got to go. If the cheerleader on the board here can only say "How do you know we didn't catch a terrorist" in the TSA's defense, its a telling illumination into the kool-aid indoctrination they make their gullible employees swallow, and shows just how soft-minded and idotice the whole organization is.

[Torakus]

You seem very mad. Did a TSA employee sleep with your significant other and leave the sheets dirty or something?

In a very real sense, it is. It's become a home for less-than-employable folks who couldn't get a job at Walmart or McDonalds.

16,000+ veterans of the U.S. military are part of that number, and in fact they are the less transient among TSO. The TSO ranks have close to a 33% turn over rate each year for various reasons but a couple bigs ones are that a large number of our officers are college students earning extra money or are graduates who are applying for other federal jobs and are just getting their 52 weeks of federal experience which helps them make more cert lists for the jobs they are actually after. These people aren't less-than-employable, they just don't give a shit about the current job. TSA also has a hiring process that lets through people who are not physically conditioned enough to even do the minimal labor required of a TSO and the fat, lazy, shiftless workers compensation system rapists have found a home. I can't defend every TSO because it is clear that we have a lot of turds, but it isn't even close to most of them.

BDO officers complaining that upper TSA management are so desparate for showing the TSA can produce results, are pressuring officers to identify possible petty criminals, ones that might be prone to drug posession or something similar, so TSA management can crow about "success". However, that lead to racial profiling, with BDOs referring an overwhelming majority of blacks and hispanics to police, all for non-flight safety related issues.

Unfortunately you are going to see a lot more of this as we move toward privatization. I am not suggesting that their is no issue at BOS, there very well could have been, I simply don't know. What I do know is, that TSOs around the country, especially those with strong union presence are worrying about their jobs due to the privatization effort. When an airport goes private, these nice government jobs go away. Experience shows that complaints like the one in BOS, EEO complaints and traumatic injury rates skyrocket in this type of situation because the employees, including some management are trying to secure their income stream prior to the work going away.

This fucked up organization has got to go. If the cheerleader on the board here can only say "How do you know we didn't catch a terrorist" in the TSA's defense, its a telling illumination into the kool-aid indoctrination they make their gullible employees swallow, and shows just how soft-minded and idotice the whole organization is.

Wow, you have nailed my entire argument. Bravo. Would the board cry baby like a towel for the tears or a drool cup to catch the foam.

I have an idea Embar: Why don't you tell us your personal experiences with TSA that have lead you to form this very negative picture of both the people and policies? I am not talking about parroting more complaints from questionable sources, just your personal experience.

Yes, hungry children should just starve. That might be a better value.

Clearly missed the point. Let me draw it out with crayons. Many here have suggested that there are better and cheaper ways to accomplish TSAs goals and I don't completely disagree with them, I just wanted to show a comparison of TSA and its rather low cost to another much more expensive program where there are much better and less expensive ways to accomplish the goal and the troll in me forced me to point out that the stated goal of that program, "feed the hungry children" as you say, isn't really the goal anyway and is better stated as "feed the farmers".

[Torakus]

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/video/tsa-age ... r-17336428

This sucks but:

If Congress thinks this is just the tip of the iceberg perhaps they should take a look in the mirror. In the same time that .1% our officers were fired for theft, 2.5 % of the legislative branch have been convicted of felonies. What is more important here, a handful of iPads or the integrity of our federal legislative branch. Obviously we know what Congress thinks, they let Maxine and Charlie walk with stern talkings to. {My numbers: TSA has 45,000 officers with an average annual turnover rate of over 33% resulting in an estimated 193,000 unique employees over 10 years, the legislative has averaged 17% annual turnover of 435 reps and senators for a total of 830 bodies.}

TSA takes this serious, has a zero tolerance policy on it, and is spending a lot of your money to install very sophisticated closed circuit television systems to make sure that this rather trivial number of thefts drops to zero. I say trivial because on average 38.1 thefts per year is trivial when you compare it to the 640 million people who passed through security. Just to be accurate that is .000006% of passengers. Whereas 53% of us (you know the ones who pay taxes) are stolen from every time one of our Congressional Representatives steals.

If TSA's kleptos are the tip of the iceberg, then Congress is fucking Antarctica.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Really? That's your defense? We suck but they suck more?

Also of note, TSA fires people they catch. (Or, more likely, others catch for them). Under-reported are all the thefts and other misdeeds that go unreported, or no action is taken. Hell, you can get to zero just by not firing anyone. No one fired means thefts aren't happening, right? Jeez man, I don't know what you've been drinking, but you've really turned into a TSA zombie.

Also, what's with all the "FREEZE!" shit happening at TSA checkpoints. Ya' know, where TSA agents scream FREEZE!, for no apparent reason, just to see if passnegers stop in their tracks. Tell me what the fuck that is about.

[Torakus]

Honestly I don't know, I will have to check I haven't seen it happen or even heard of it.

I think what I am saying in the last post is that even though TSA agents have been caught stealing it is actually at a rate lower than the average for the ordinary American 3.1% of whom are in some sort of correctional supervision or for the people (Congress 2.5%) who scream the loudest. I think I also made it clear that it isn't ok and that TSA has pretty good CCTV systems in most places and a current program to get systems deployed to those that do not.

[Ddrak]

First I've heard of there being any issue with TSA guys stealing stuff. I'd be more concerned about other passengers taking it off the end of the conveyor by mistake.

Dd

[Embar Angylwrath]

http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/valley ... at_sky.php

More on the TSA shouting "Freeze". What bullshit.

[Torakus]

Really? I mean FUCKING REALLY? This is what has your panties in a twist? The video shows this older TSO very calmly telling people "Stay right there." and then when the drill is over, waving them on and thanking them for their patience. Perhaps more than 2 decades of dealing with real actual stressful life and death situations has numbed me to this egregious abuse of power, lol. Fucking silly. I guess in a world where everyone has to play and get a trophy, I have to accept that calmly being told to stand still for 120 seconds somehow an abrogation of your Constitutional rights.

I might as well address the cancer patient from Detroit who is crying wolf in Seattle. The video has been reviewed and the verdict?

She is full of shit like the rest. The TSOs followed procedures to the letter. Included in those procedures are "advisements", and in this case the first one is that they can opt for a private screening. That option was not elected. No saline bag was punctured, and no bandages were touched or even asked to be moved. Once again we have a woman who pitched a bitch and probably didn't know she was on camera. Typical.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Yes. FUCKING REALLY.

Under what authority does a TSA goon have to try and control movements of anyone once past the screening area. What is the purpose of it, Tora? More and more, you sound like a TSA zombie. Your whole attitude is "What are you bitching about, its not that much freedom we're taking from you".