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Terminal Mixup Implicates TSA Agents In LAX Smuggling Plot
First time accepted submitter ian_po writes "The U.S. Attorney's office has filed indictments against 7 people, including two Transportation Security Administration Screeners and two former TSA employees, after federal agents set up several smuggling sting operations. The alleged smuggling scheme was revealed after a suspected drug courier went to Terminal 5, where his flight was departing, instead of going through the Terminal 6 checkpoint his written instructions directed him to. Court documents indicate the plan was to return to Terminal 5 through a secure tunnel after being allowed through security by the accused Screener. The courier was caught with 10 pounds of cocaine at the other checkpoint by a different TSA agent. If convicted, the four TSA employees face a minimum of 10 years in Federal prison." If ten pounds of anything can get onto a plane by the simple expedient of bribery, please explain again why adult travelers, but not children, must remove their shoes as they stand massed in an unsecured part of a typical U.S. airport.
As always, the weakest link in anything security related are humans. This begs the question of whether we really need the TSA
The government assumes as usual that terrorists don't have money... why would they they only live in tents with sand all around.
You can just walk from terminal 5 to 6 normally, it's not hard, they're connected and adjacent to each other.
They get the same kind of inhuman treatment.
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/25/tsa-agents-bully-7-year-old-wi.html
EA David Gardner -"... but the consumers have proven that actually what they want is fun."
Clearly this indicates that travelers should be tipping their screeners more, and more often.
Really, how is one meant to sell cancer causing X-ray scanners if the public realizes that the costly scanners can't stop well funded people from bribing severely underfunded people.
Who would have thought?!?!
Seriously, though, as someone that proctored the TSA tests for years, believe me, I'm not surprised at all. Half the people I sat for the tests seemed to be under the influence of some type of narcotics, not to mention the gang tattoos and shit.
The test itself was stellar, too, asking hard hitting questions like "Have you ever lived in a house you thought was haunted?" I wish I could say I was kidding, but I'm not.
Remember this next time they've got their hand in your 8 year old's waistband....
If ten pounds of anything can get onto a plane by the simple expedient of bribery, please explain again why adult travelers, but not children, must remove their shoes as they stand massed in an unsecured part of a typical U.S. aiport.
Because the TSA isn't about security, it is about making people feel secure. Well, that and wasting billions of federal dollars on "security" equipment manufactured by private companies run by buddies of TSA directors and/or former TSA directors. I'm not actually sure which one is their main goal, right now.
Kudos to the Terminal 6 guy for actually noticing the 10 pounds of cocaine. I would not want to be a TSA agent who got thrown into Federal prison. That does not sound fun, at all.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
So why would the TSA give a shit?
Oh yeah, they'll never actually catch or stop an actual terrorist so using their fourth amendment exemption to search for things that aren't security risks is all they can actually do.
Those poor TSA agents thought that it was the CIA's cocaine they were waving through. They were just doing their jobs.
If it's possible to move ten pounds of cocaine through an airport, it's just as possible to move ten pounds of explosives. Hell, the TSA agents don't even need to know it's a bomb. If they think it's just drugs they probably won't care. Terrorists don't even need to get a bomb on a plane. They'd do far more damage setting it off in the airport, probably killing a larger number of people and likely resulting in air travel being grounded around the country for a few days while the powers that be try to figure out what happened and whether other airports are at risk.
Really, the only way to make it stop is to completely leave the Middle East alone, in which case they'll probably go bother someone else or each other. The only other alternative is to make sure they know that if they bomb our airports, we'll hit them back with one hundred times as much force and an equal disregard for human life. Either way, the TSA becomes completely pointless.
If ten pounds of anything ....
It does not relate to the subject. It is vague, specious, and kind of -1ish.
I'd like to think that since these people were in positions of power regarding 'Homeland Security', TSA agents after all, are supposed to be there to stop threats right, that such a violation of public trust and authority would warrant them much harsher penalties than some common bloke caught smuggling dope. Sadly I know this not to be true.
I've always thought that Federal employees, be it lowly TSA employees, postal workers right up to Supreme Court Justices, should be held to a much harsher judicial standard than your every day citizen, or local and state public servant. Why? Because the amount of power within the system that is retained by those positions, makes the violations of it that much more severe because they breaking the public trust.
In short, if the system is rotten from within, kinda hard to support in it theory, much less in practice.
Not surprising when the TSA, who is effectively accountable to no one, hires high school dropouts and trains them to be airport security theater thugs.
Perhaps if the TSA goons had a shred pride and professionalism we would not have such terrible problems. Not saying your average PD or Sherrif's department are perfect, but they're orders of magnitude more competent and professional than our petty airport dictators.
I'd wager that number of agents that could be bribed to allow explosives/weapons/etc on board is significantly smaller than those that could be bribed to allow drugs.
If you had the TSA agents focus on actual threats instead of acting as the smuggling police, they would both be better at their jobs (due to more focused training and less distraction), and less corruptible (nearly all TSA agents are against hijacking/bombing airplanes, but opinions are mixed on drugs)
That little of a bribe is required! That is horrible, the "accused" agent met the smuggler to get the second payment of $600. Why would a terrorist not just see that as part of the costs of doing whatever plot they have planned. I'm sure they could easily scrounge up that much money, just call the whichever explosive cocaine and they'll be fine. Ugh.
Will the prison be more secure than the airport? :o
Their may be a grammatical error, misspeling, or evn a typo in this post.
From the article:
OK, the people who took bribes to let this stuff get through deserve to be prosecuted, but can we please stop appealing to so-called "national security"?
I wonder if the previous story about the 4 year old was actually TSA attempting to "recruit" another drug running mule.
Several decades ago a popular author of thrillers said something along the lines of "the best way to smuggle a nuclear bomb into the USA is to disguise it as drugs and bring it in through the Miami airport".
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
... an airplane how? Is the terrorist going to threaten to force everyone to snort it?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Its possible that finally congress will take a hard look at the TSA.
I'm annoyed by the TSA as much as the next guy, but it's their job to screen people and baggage for threats to aircraft (snow globes, nail clippers, pasta sauce, hand grenades etc.). Since when is it their job to detect drugs? That's the job of the police, not the TSA. Cocaine and meth are not threats to aircraft.
Why do all the Bad Guys get caught "IN" TSA rather than "BY" TSA?
Clearly we must install scales at all security check points. If your measured weight is more than slightly off your medically recorded weight, you'll have to go through a more extensive security screening.
Those humans are letting smugglers through ... but they haven't caught a single terrorist yet.
I'd say that almost all of the "additional security" since the WTC attack is only "security theatre". Aside from the improved flight deck doors and increased passenger involvement.
Get rid of the TSA.
I've always thought this is one of the biggest holes in the entire system -- all a terrorist has to do is bribe one of the thousands of screeners (or a few of them) in some small airport anywhere in the country, and the terrorist can fly his 10 pound bomb to JFK or any other large airport.
The screener will think he's getting paid $25,000 in cash to smuggle in some drugs, he doesn't even have to know it's a bomb.
Um, excuse me, but did it escape your notice that the vast majority of terrorists in this country are white "Christians" on the extreme right?
Complete bullshit. The vast majority of terrorists in this country today are black democrats who form "flash mobs" to terrorize retail stores and also seek out and beat the fuck out of random white victims as "justice for Trayvon".
Obviously, we're not paying the TSA agents enough money to do their jobs. If we provided them with ample salaries, they would never resort to these underhanded methods to earn a little extra on the side. Problem solved. /s
If ten pounds of anything can get onto a plane by the simple expedient of bribery, please explain again why adult travelers, but not children, must remove their shoes as they stand massed in an unsecured part of a typical U.S. aiport.
you're misinformed:
/.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending-now/tsa-under-fire-mistreatment-7-old-girl-cerebral-164507761.html
and this from earlier today on
http://politics.slashdot.org/story/12/04/26/0352242/tsa-defends-pat-down-of-4-year-old-girl
insensitive clod overlords obligatory xkcd car analogy russian reversals whoosh pedant fanbois ftfy in 3...2...1..PROFIT
How can a 4yr girl of average height & weight (36 pounds = 16.3293253 Kg) /. earlier report today about groping a 4yr old; add McCarthy
could walk with 10 pounds of anything, a third of her weight, and be a threat
before she fall over is sure proof that America's TSA are zealots without a
clue. Reference
"witch hunts", and Spanish Inquisition (sans pillows). There are bad people
in the world, even more zealots with good intentions, but without wisdom
and temperance.
How could it be a terminal mixup if no one died?
Since the TSA was founded, more TSA agents have been convicted of felonies than air travelers have.
Strictly by the numbers, the TSA should be disbanded.
The Israelis have a very effective system based on profiling.
The Russians have a very effective system based on killing every hijacker and doing the reverse of what they request.
When will you finally get to the point you have had enough and throw off these chains of tyranny?
Your country has had civil war, overthrowing the King, for less abhorrent reasons yet you roll over and allow your government to repress and control you without action.
Rise my Brothers, take your country back from the corporations and corrupt politicians trying to subjugate your good peoples.
as they stand massed in an unsecured part of a typical U.S. aiport.
And that is the biggest, most glaring, elephant-in-the-living-room hole in U.S. airport security. The last time I had the misfortune to go through Chicago O'Hare airport, there must have been 300 people packed into an area the size of a basketball court, all waiting to go through the TSA checkpoint. Never mind a nail bomb, the place was so packed that if someone had dropped a lit road flare, the panic and stampede would have caused casualties.
Not that I'm advocating dropping lit road flares in check-in lines, but if I can think of it, I'm sure someone else can.
Because the "simple expedient of bribery" is WAY more risky than simply putting something in your pocket and getting on a plane with it. I'm not saying that TSA isn't a runaway agency that's gone way beyond their intended mandate. But there's huge risk in attempting to bribe someone, and further risk in the event that things don't go as planned...as this slashdot post points out.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Can we just disband that worthless fucking agency already? Any terrorist organization that has the funds to get a dozen people into the country, with fake IDs, and pay them into flight school, probably has a couple grand left over to pay off the high-school dropouts charged with keeping 'Merca safe. It is
Not
Fucking
Working.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
You know how when you fly to a different country, they ask you all those questions about the purpose of your trip, ask if you have anything to declare, etc.? I think we need to put together a list of questions to ask them.
Do you plan to... ... molest my frightened, preschool-aged child? ... humiliate my elderly relative with a medical condition? ... steal anything out of my luggage? ... profit from my inconvenience? ... be remiss in your duties? ... let someone smuggle illegal and/or unsafe materials onto the plane?
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Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Whooda thunkit
1. It raises the bar for loners like Breivik in two ways
(a) By making it possible for 'a package' to get discovered which is a LOSE.
(b) By encouraging a smaller package in the hope that it will 'pass'.
2. It raises the bar for organised criminals by
(a) Encouraging them to spend time and money subverting the security systems rather than take a punt on getting a specific package onto an aeroplane. There is then the hope that this subversion will be detected.
(b) Factoring in expected detections into courier operations. This is amounts to aggravation as well as cost.
(c) Detection leads to pattern analysis.
3. The actual risk of detection should be fairly easy to compute for 'contraband' substances from the rate at which customs at a /destination/ airport detect illegal packages. Shouldn't these have been detected at the /departure airport? Well *some* should have but departures are more concerned with passengers carrying weapons/threats on their person.than narcotics.
4. IMHO it's a good idea to stop people carrying guns and grenades onto aeroplanes. I thought they did that by x-raying your carry-on and making you walk through a metal detector arch since the days of the Red Baron.
5. The whole ethos of proper security is to match actual threat with suitable defence. It makes more sense to spend more time on a few high-risk individuals and attack vectors rather than spreading your resources evenly. Obviously you need to have a way of spotting higher-risk individuals but these have existed for a while and are constantly being improved. There is still threaten everyone with basic screening and 'magic detector technology' to weed the loonies but as the billion-dollar smuggling industry has shown there are plenty of holes if you are prepared to put up with some attrition.
6. The best defence against subverting staff is that most people (even low paid erks) are honest and trustworthy. In a complex environment very few can work alone so if p(baddy)=.01 say then p(3 baddies) is .000001. The difficulty with this argument is when specialist cadres of 'we're special and have access to all areas and don't want you nosing what we do' get a foothold. 'Macho' and 'bullying' cultures as found in far too many 'law enforcement' cultures are a good breeding ground for deviant behaviour.
7. If you want good airport security it should be overseen by sensible people but integrated with all the other functions.
Ted Kennedy (the US Senator, now deceased) was stopped trying to board a plane in 2004 because his name was on a terror watch list.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-08-19-kennedy-list_x.htm
He was rich and powerful. Of course that was 8 years ago and perhaps TSA changed their policies since then to no longer search the rich and powerful. I don't have any more recent examples.
Legalizing drugs means that nobody will be bribed to look the other way while drugs are being moved. Which removes a huge source of corruption within government, including law enforcement. Which prevents them from conditioned to accepting bribes, such that when a terrorist tries to bribe them they are more likely to turn him in than accept the bribe.
I live in Germany with my family and just recently read about the little 4 yr. old girl and her pat-down from the TSA. I turned around and started explaining the story to my wife when my son interrupted and asked what we were talking about and what is going on with this 4 yr. old girl.
So. What is one to do? How do you explain the depths of stupidity needed to start and fund the TSA to an 8 yr. old without him losing faith in adults? I tried. I really did. However, I only got as far as explaining that the TSA had searched the girl because she MAY have had a weapon the she got from hugging a family member while waiting to get on the plane.
Well, we all know how children are. "They say the darnedest things". This was a complete exception to the rule. He looked at me with this look on his face like he had just found out that people actually eat rancid shark meat and says "wie hirnlos". A literal translation being "How brainless". Took me really be surprise that he connected the dots that fast and came to the conclusion that the TSA needs to go.
An 8 year old boy that was born and raised and lives in Germany can look at the situation and see what needs to be done and a large portion of the adult population in the nation cannot. Sad state of affairs to say the least.
IT Admins Group: Where you decide the content
When TSA employees want to smuggle drugs their co-workers create a distraction by frisking a 4 year old.
..come to think of it why didnt the guy just take a bus?
I know the focus of this story is on how shitty the TSA is, but may I just point out that, thank god this smuggler didn't get the goods on board? Why, the whole plane might have exploded or crashed into a populated area with this dangerous explosive compound...excuse me for a moment. What's that? It wasn't dangerous material? Then what was...oh.
Never mind.
Because adult shoes, particularly ladies high heels, have metal rods and thus set off the scanner alarm.
NO JUSTICE. The U.S. Attorney's office filed the indictments. Interesting how they get that moving so fast, but when someone's had their testicles assaulted, you can't even file a fucking complaint let alone an indictment.
Why, Johnny, it's to make them all look like dick-heads. Isn't that obvious. It's the entertainment part of "security theatre", and you're the entertainment.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
Also, not mentioned in the article, he didn't wrap the ten pounds of cocaine in marijuana leaves as his written instructions directed him to.
Someone please explain how the safety of the aircraft was in jeopardy?
No, I'm not arguing for more drug trafficking, but the duties of the TSA should be limited to insuring safety. Full Stop. Even if they discovered a terabyte of child porn, $100,000 cash, 1kg of cocaine, and a box of Cuban cigars in my bag, as long as there is nothing to cause harm to the aircraft or the other passengers the proper response should be "Thank you sir, have a nice flight."