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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.
Clearly this indicates that travelers should be tipping their screeners more, and more often.
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.
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.
Because they can tell that a 10 pound package contains 10 pounds of cocaine and not 10 pounds of explosives with their magical ESP powers?
Or that there's not a knife or gun hidden in the center of that cocaine like substance?
Or, god forbid, a bottle of water hidden inside?
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.
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.
How could it be a terminal mixup if no one died?
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.
It's even easier than that. No bribing needed. I know people that have private pilot licenses. They fly out of small airports with no security and then into major airports all the time. Their bags aren't checked by TNA... I mean TSA. They are sometimes even allowed to drive their cars up to their planes. How much cocaine, explosives, or whatever can you fit in a car?
One person flying alone in a cheap two seat airplane can carry 200 pounds of cocaine, or whatever, right into any major airport in the USA you can think of. They can then drive their car up to the plane, load the whatever into the trunk, and drive off. I know this because a pilot I know had to get a very expensive machine very quickly from one place to another. The so called "airport security" people saw a box labeled "pin ball machine parts" or something and waved it by.
My theory has been that the TSA is not about keeping us safe. It's about keeping the powers that be safe. They don't want to see another jumbo jet get landed on their lap. It happened once at the Pentagon. Next time it might be the US Capitol.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
A 7 year old?
I got that beat: Howabout a 4 year old girl getting dragged away to a special room for a strip search?
http://articles.boston.com/2012-04-25/news/31399816_1_pat-down-tsa-agents-screening-procedures