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TSA Employee Caught With $200K Worth of Stolen Property
The plane moves me or I move the plane? writes "After years of people complaining about their luggage locks being broken in the name of the Transportation Security Administration, and after countless properly-stowed utilities and tools had been scrutinized from a paranoid point of view, an employee of the TSA (which is part of the Department of Homeland Security) has been captured with evidence of over $200,000 worth of stolen property he was selling on eBay. With the help of local police and the USPS, a search of his house found a great deal of property pilfered from the un-witnessed searches that occurred after luggage had been checked, where the rightful owner was not allowed. 'Among the items seized were 66 cameras, 31 laptop computers, 20 cell phones, 17 sets of electronic games, 13 pieces of jewelry, 12 GPS devices, 11 MP3 players, eight camera lenses, six video cameras and two DVD players, the affidavit said.'"
jesus christ.
i'm mailing my shit next time.
"If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
And yet another reason why flying in the US sucks.
"Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?"
(But who is to guard the guardians?)
Juvenal, Satires, circa 120 AD
Parity: What to do when the weekend comes.
After having my TSA-approved lock ripped off of my new suitcase on its very first trip and basically told to F-O about complaints over it (Oh, it might have gotten caught in the machinery, and btw, why are you locking it at all) this is vindication - but no better protection than yesterday - of what a lot of us have been saying for a very long time. Yes I want my flight to land as safely as it took off since I'm in it, but providing a secret open hunting ground for minimum wage employees doesn't cut it for me.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
that there might be people who find this surprising.
These are the modern day (government approved) highwaymen and the only solution I can think of is to label them socially ("you work in airport security? oh dear - is that the time already ...") as the pariahs they really are.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
...why the TSA is allowed to open up packages without the presence of the owner of said packages. If they were forced to page the owner to come back and observe the TSA performing a screening on the contents, that would cut down a lot on the opportunity for this type of theft to occur. If the owner doesn't respond to the page from the TSA, then the package simply is not allowed onboard is a fair policy I think. Also, make sure that the TSA personnel are required to fill out paperwork for every package they page the owners for will cut down on abuse of powers as well.
Imagine all the photographs of naked children that could be taken with 66 cameras.
Imagine all the child porn that could be download/stored/viewed using 31 laptop computers.
Imagine all the phone calls paedophiles could make with 20 cell phones.
Imagine all the children that could be lured into a paedophiles house with 17 sets of electronic games, and 13 pieces of jewellery.
Imagine all the children that could be tracked with 12 GPS devices.
Imagine all the children that could be deafened by paedophiles letting children use 11 MP3 players at high volume.
Imagine the sick movies made and viewed using six video cameras and two DVD players.
And the eight camera lenses......dear God the eight camera lenses!!!
I remember reading a statistic recently citing that over 100,000 laptops were "lost or stolen" within the realm of airline travel. Now I wonder how many of these occurrences are inside jobs.
I guess TSA Gangstaz (NSFW!) was actually a documentary then...
I remember clearly the latter half of September 2001. Of course there were the plastic flags flying from almost every motor vehicle, but what stands out for me is the memory of how I kept scanning the horizon for explosions when I was driving.
I didn't feel safe. Not that I'd ever been safe, but my perception had always been so.
The thing that still puzzles me, though, is how we in the US have tolerated such a rapid erosion of civil liberty. It's not that our documented rights and freedoms haven't been violated all along, but now there are legal provisions--and already some legal precedent--to protect and justify such violations.
Sure, sure, human psychology, thinking with the fear centers of our brains, even the Milgram Experiment--these and more describe how we react to a perceived threat. And fear is known to reduce the blood supply to the brain.
I find it sad to consider that this particular finding will have no effect on the encroachment on human rights in these United States. I suppose this man is just one "bad apple." Like the cases of the prosecuted torturers at Abu Ghraib (and other locations), the years-later finding that the illegal and shocking techniques were known and even encouraged by the entire organization will have no effect on the policies which shall remain in place.
"Press to test."
(click)
"Release to detonate."
but I am comforted to learn from the article that:
I read that as
"CLOSE TO THREE HUNDRED EMPLOYEES HAVE BEEN TERMINATED FOR THEFT!"
I like microcars
The best part of the article is near the end. Something along the line of "Don't worrie, crimes like these are REALLY rare. Only about 300 TSA employees have ever been fired for theft".
300 employees fired for theft. If you read the article (i know, i know...) the only reason this guy got caught was because he's a retard (putting his return address on the stuff he sells, always using the same name on ebay, etc). So if 300 were caught, there's probably several times that many. Then you add that the TSA has like 40-45 thousand employees... and that adds up to 2/3rd of a percent of their total workforce (of course, the 300 figure is over time, but its still interesting to put the numbers in perspective).
Thats just insane. It takes only one person to steal enough to really ruins some people's days. And here you have -hundreds- (just the ones that were caught!!!). I'll suffer through GreyHound busses, thank you.
A friend of mine Fedex's his from location to location - no need to check stuff in, pick it up after the flight, no hassles and all of the hotels he stays in are willing to cooperate when he explains what hes doing. He carries an overnight kit in his carry-on, just in case. Costs him a little more, but not so much that hes considering stopping.
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
Your post was funny.
I previously read on /. a method of shipping your camera gear safely.
A reader had said he'd purchased a larger aluminum suitcase / roadcase, with foam cutouts for his camera gear, and a flare gun.
Upon arriving at the airport, he'd declare he had a weapon, and check the suitcase as a weapon. It got stored, handled and inspected differently, and he never had any loses.
Seems to make sense to me...
And if nobody was supervising him to make sure he didn't steal things, what was to prevent him from introducing dangerous items into the luggage?
How hard would it be for someone with ill intent to get a TSA job?
... for traveling light. Avoid checking any luggage at all, carry on only! Not only do you save time by not having to wait around for your luggage (which may never arrive) at the belt, but you can also stay within view of your gear.
This works fine for me when I go on short personal trips, but most of the time I find it's not just not practical. I'm always carrying something prohibited. The carry-on restrictions with regards to liquids finally pushed me over the edge. I wear contacts, use hair gel, like deodorant, prefer to brush my teeth and actually shave. This pushes me beyond the one small clear bag that I can hold up while some goon pretends to be able to tell if it's potentially explosive.
Then there's the problem that when I travel for work, I'm usually carrying a firearm. Even if I'm not, being from southern Ohio I never go anywhere without my trusty pocket knife (which has to be checked).
Believe it or not I was once told by a TSA supervisor that by having a gun in my luggage I'm probably least likely to be ripped off. Since it's in a locked case in my suitcase, presumably the thief would think it's valuable and try to bust it open. Upon finding it's a gun if he's smart he'll close it up and run away. If I get to my destination and find my gun is missing, unlike say a stolen iPod, both airports will likely go on lockdown until it can be accounted for. Even a $7.00 hour grunt realizes that everybody down there will be searched and all the video tape will be immediately reviewed. As an added bonus, TSA hand screens my checked luggage in front of me when I check in. They then seal it up with the "Passed TSA Security" sticker while I stand there. Theoretically it then goes straight to the airline and bypasses the other checked luggage that has to be screened by some unknown down below.
Oh wait, this is real hard property...
That is not exactly an encouraging number.
How dare you criticize anything the administration does during any of the wars they fraudulently start.
If you criticize anything you're with the terrorists.
It's all being stolen for your security.
Most of that equipment could be used to access or record information that could undermine the current administration with stuff like facts.
... sorry but this shit just ain't acceptable.
Its another of a long and growing list of government abuses that are easily amounting to be worse than the terrorism its supposed to be protecting us from.
"Those who sacrifice freedom in exchange for security, will have neither."
who said that?
465 transportation security officers have been terminated for theft since May 1, 2003
Does anyone find this a little extreme? That's a little over one firing for theft every 4 days!
Makes one wonder...
Taking Stuff from Airtravelers
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Quoting the TSA:
The actions of a few individuals in no way reflect on the outstanding job our more than 43,000 security officers do every day to ensure the security of the traveling public," she said.
I'm of South Asian ethnicity and have a few Middle Eastern friends. We're all used to getting the secondary protocol at the airport due to our last names. Funny how they say a few bad TSA employees shouldn't reflect upon the other employees, yet they treat anyone with a brown shade of skin as a criminal.
But this summer, Brown got too ambitious for his own good, allegedly stealing a $47,900 camera from an HBO crew and a camcorder from a CNN employee, authorities said.
Steal from Joe Sixpack and Lizzy Hockeymom all you want. But don't screw with corporate media!
-- I Am Not A Terrorist.
With all the new baggage fees and such that the airlines are starting to charge, this is likely to become cheaper than checking your baggage anyway.
Note - Liberal use of <sarcasm> tags may or may not need to be applied.
How appropriate. Cameras ARE weapons. The pen being mightier than the sword and the picture worth 1000 words.
If I were in charge of things, there'd be security cameras recording the inspectors. Also, each inspector who opened a bag would be required to stamp his/her identity number on a tag affixed to the bag. If anything was reported missing, those inspectors would be the first ones looked at, particularly if their id number shows up on a lot of bags with missing items.
You're not prevented from locking your luggage. The TSA doesn't want you to lock your luggage because they're searching it after you check it. Therefore, locking it makes it difficult for them. However, if you lock it, they'll deal with it. You might not like the way they deal with it, but they'll deal with it and you've broken no law by locking your luggage. TSA does offer a compromise; you can use one of those locks they have keys to. It's not foolproof; there have been lots of reports of those locks being destroyed. However, it's worth a shot.
Some of us have been forced to learn the ins and outs of this crap in more detail than we wish. If, like me, you travel with firearms, you'll learn that the FAA is statutorily in charge of what can and can't be checked and the TSA can't order me to do anything that violates FAA regs. FAA regs mandate that luggage with firearms must be locked. Period.
There are some tips and tricks for dealing with this situation but they're beyond the scope of this discussion. My point is simply that it's incorrect to say that we're "prevented" from locking our baggage. We most assuredly are not.
So I have a good friend who is on the rather kinky side. Last year, he went on a trip to a certain event that involved bringing various "toys." So he packed various items into checked luggage, and went through the security screening. When he arrived at his destination and opened his luggage to unpack, he discovered a slip of paper that indicated that his suitcase had been opened by a TSA screener.
What he found remarkable was not the paper itself, but where it had been located. It was very neatly and securely wrapped around a large black rubber dildo.
The first thing that came to mind when he told me this was to ask whether he had put it in some kind of ziploc bag. (I am a big fan of storage bags.) He replied, "Why would I do that?" I then pointed out that perhaps the person who put that paper there would have chosen to "handle things differently" (gloves notwithstanding) had they given some thought as to where this object has been.
The moral of the story, my friends, is don't put anything worth stealing in your checked luggage. For example, I would never put computers or electronic equipment in checked luggage. That is like putting a giant bulls-eye on your stuff, saying, "STEAL ME." And sometimes, putting something a little...distasteful might even help prevent stealing. I imagine the TSA screener wasn't about to abscond with an already-used (though clean, my friend claimed) sex toy.
More like "Whose watches do the watchers get?"
Why is any TSA employee allowed to leave the baggage area with a laptop under his arm?
Search the employees on the way out, problem solved.
No sig today...
I wouldn't consider that unusual at all. If I can get to somewhere by car in 8 hours, I'm not even going to consider flying. I'm not going to save any time or money by flying, and the amount of hassle and stress is far lower.
Simply paid off. The majority lives off the minority who pays the bulk of the taxes. Income redistribution makes for some very lazy and apathetic people. There is nothing about fairness in a progressive tax, it is all about control.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Fuck you for using them to push your police-state agenda.
Have you been touched by his noodly appendage?