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Almost Half Of All TSA Employees Have Been Cited For Misconduct (mercurynews.com)
Slashdot reader schwit1 writes: Almost half of all TSA employees have been cited for misconduct, and the citations have increased by almost 30 percent since 2013... It also appears that the TSA has been reducing the sanctions it has been giving out for this bad behavior.
Throughout the U.S., the airport security group "has instead sought to treat the misconduct with 'more counseling and letters that explain why certain behaviors were not acceptable'," according to a report from the House Homeland Security Commission, titled "Misconduct at TSA Threatens the Security of the Flying Public". It found 1,206 instances of "neglect of duty", and also cited the case of an Oakland TSA officer who for two years helped smugglers slip more than 220 pounds of marijuana through airport security checkpoints, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
The newspaper adds that "The misconduct ranges from salacious (federal air marshals spending government money on hotel rooms for romps with prostitutes) to downright dangerous (an officer in Orlando taking bribes to smuggle Brazilian nationals through a checkpoint without questioning)." Their conclusion? "The TSA's job is to make airline passengers feel safer and, not incidentally, actually make us safer. It's failing on both."
Throughout the U.S., the airport security group "has instead sought to treat the misconduct with 'more counseling and letters that explain why certain behaviors were not acceptable'," according to a report from the House Homeland Security Commission, titled "Misconduct at TSA Threatens the Security of the Flying Public". It found 1,206 instances of "neglect of duty", and also cited the case of an Oakland TSA officer who for two years helped smugglers slip more than 220 pounds of marijuana through airport security checkpoints, according to the San Jose Mercury News.
The newspaper adds that "The misconduct ranges from salacious (federal air marshals spending government money on hotel rooms for romps with prostitutes) to downright dangerous (an officer in Orlando taking bribes to smuggle Brazilian nationals through a checkpoint without questioning)." Their conclusion? "The TSA's job is to make airline passengers feel safer and, not incidentally, actually make us safer. It's failing on both."
After receiving several complaints, police detectives decided to follow a TSA agent in Seattle, and caught him filming up a woman's skirt while he followed her on an escalator.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
TSA was created by Bush as a knee jerk reaction to 9-11. I'm surprised Obama hasn't gotten rid of it.
However, government never seems to get smaller nor can it realize a mistake. It only perpetuates (in this case) an unnecessary bureaucracy.
Let's go back to metal detectors and private security. My tube of toothpaste isn't the problem.
TSA is.
And the TSA are merely players on the great stage of Security Theater.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
FTA; Neglect of duty is described as "inattention to duty resulting in a loss of property or life; careless inspection; negligent performance of duties; failure to exercise due diligence in performance of duties; failure to follow procedures."
When you have a lot of strict procedures, and you have tight monitoring, you get a lot of violations.
That's sort of the real issue. Republicans cut the TSA's budget -- partly in anticipation of "efficiencies" from a new system which never materialized. (See the related link). Since they're short-staffed, the TSA really can't fire their worst employees -- and can't offer incentives to their best employees to stay. Haven't we seen this pattern before? Cut funding, and then when things get crappy, call it proof that government programs are ineffective, and call for their elimination?
I traded in a 3 year old car last year with 124,000 miles on the odometer. I very, very rarely fly any more due to the TSA nonsense. I load my junk in the trunk, climb into the driver's seat, and drive 2,500 miles to and 2,500 miles back from an event in Arizona, and then I have events to go to in St. Louis, Indianapolis, La Crosse, Madison, Pittsburgh, and Southern New Jersey. If I do an event in California, I MIGHT fly. I also MIGHT ship my bags by other means, too. Enough of the nonsense of violating the 4th Amendment by having GOVERNMENT agents blanket searching people just because they want to travel on an airplane. The GOVERNMENT can't legally do that, but they ignore the Constitution and do it anyway. Lots of the Constitution is being ignored, more every day, and I for one am not going to cooperate. They can stick it.
Just a couple days ago, a TSA agent up here in the Pacific Northwest was arrested for taking up-skirt photos of women at Sea-Tac airport. Apparently he's been doing it for a while, too.
#DeleteChrome
It's like the Stanford Prison Experiment, only with a lot more experimental groups.
This and the whole situation you have with shootings of blacks should be no surprise. You give one group of people power over another group with insufficient checks and balances, they misbehave and turn into giant douches.
I'd argue that that one line is incorrect. TSA's job isn't to make airline passengers feel safer. It's to make them feel like they should feel unsafe except for the fact that the TSA is there.
That is: Their job is to make you think that you need them to do their job, and that without them you would be killed.
'Sensible' is a curse word.
that hired them, this isn't surprising
Turnover at TSA is so high that there are very few Bush administration hires left.
Real security is incompatible with mass air transit. Or indeed, free movement of people. The cost of real security is way higher than 10x the cost of the TSA.
FTFY
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
Public support for nationalizing airport security in 2001 was based on the claim that private airport 'rent-a-cops' were inherently underpaid, under-trained, and effectively responsible to no one. Nationalizing airport security was based on the notion that making those people Federal Officers at higher salaries would attract higher quality workers, subject them to rigorous and closely supervised training programs, and make their leadership directly answerable to national security leadership.
Turns out that the government hasn't made them "officers," in the sense of secret service or FBI, doesn't actually pay them any better, and is really struggling to train them faster than they quit. They do seem to have better documentation of their failures, so I guess that's a win of sorts. The "small government" party, who controlled the presidency, senate, and house at the time, forgot that they don't believe in nationalizing private industries, and now they have a fine demonstration of why.
"The TSA's job is to make airline passengers feel safer ...."
Yea, right. I'm going to feel safer with these obvious deviants and criminals groping me, taking dirty pictures of my family, and stealing what they can from my luggage? I simply refuse to fly any more.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
I don't care who started it or who hired them.
I just want to know why, with the many problems over so many years, it hasn't been completely dismantled. One would think that with so many politicians keen on privatization this would have been done rather quickly and long ago.
On the Oregon Cost born and raised, On the beach is where I spent most of my days
While I agree with the pattern you're pointing out the TSA seriously needs to go. The only reason it's still around is that it provides jobs for the unemployable.
If it's a jobs program we're looking for spend the money on replacing thousands of municipal waterworks running on pipes so corroded and plugged up that fire hydrants don't give enough pressure. Or spend the money creating a final say that will stop environmentalists from blocking desert solar power plants. Or finish making section 8 to break up the ghettos. Or clean out Chicago. There are a thousand other things that will pay back their costs. The TSA is a broken window.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
You obviously don't understand how a bureaucracy functions. It's function is to grow. Whenever tests are done that find inadequacies the answer is more TSA agents. Bureaucracies never die. They must be killed piecemeal. Completely destroyed and salt sewn in the barren remnants. Often they are just reborn with a new name.
Remember. Politics is 2 words joined together. Poli = many and tics = blood sucking parasites.
Procedures aren't strict, monitoring isn't tight.
Taking bribes? That should be go straight to jail, do not pass go, do not collect $200 material.