PHILADELPHIA, PA (BocaNewsNow.com) — DECEMBER 15, 2011 — While we try not to over-editorialize here at BocaNewsNow.com, we do have to ask this question: If the TSA (Transportation Security Administration) supposedly does such a good job screening, why do they need to double check their work by inconveniencing travelers at the gate by re-examining their bags?
Case in point: A flight last evening from Philadelphia to West Palm Beach. This is — lovingly — a flight routinely loaded with Bubbies and Babies. It’s one of those flights where there are routinely more pre-boards due to wheel chairs then there are self-propelled passengers walking down the jetway without assistance. Perhaps fearing the deadly effects of Matzo Ball Soup interacting with Baby Formula, the motley crew of agents (seen in the photo) randomly chose this flight to re-examine bags — bags that had already been scanned, x-rayed, and pilfered through at the main security checkpoint.
The TSA will tell you that the key to security is being random. Anyone who has spent any time covering the TSA in the media — or living in airports as a frequent flier — will tell you this is code for, “calling our actions ‘random’ is great cover for being inept.” And when your bag is being re-examined by a group of people who look like they just left the smoking area at middle school, the word “inept” seems to be more fitting than “random.” We suspect this flight was chosen because the group of agents you see in the photo had just double-checked a flight at the gate next door.
Why move their screening table any further than they have to?
The problem, as we see it, is that the TSA is not law enforcement. Despite the shiny badge and pretty blue uniform, that person asking you to empty your pockets, or telling you your bag needs to be re-examined, is making somewhere around $30,000 a year (apply here), and undergoes training that — as we reported on for a national media outlet shortly after 9/11 — includes identifying pictures of weapons in a flip book.
Real law enforcement officers are professionals who undergo constant training and — in most cases — bring pride and expertise to the badge. The TSA requires that you:
“Have a high school diploma or General Educational Development (GED) credential OR at least one year of full-time work experience in the security industry, aviation screening, or as an X-ray technician.”
For that you get government benefits.
TSA supporters will say that there have been no attacks since 9/11. We say sometimes being lucky is more important than being good. And while there are absolutely good and professional TSA workers, and we want to believe professional investigative work going on behind the scenes, we wonder if the TSA may actually help its own image by being a little more sensible.
Targeting an oversold flight with Bubbies and Babies heading to West Palm Beach doesn’t create an image of safety. It creates an image of an out-of-touch agency with out-of-touch workers.
But the TSA will undoubtedly call such secondary screening of a flight like this the art of being “random.”
TSA Philadelphia Re-Checks Flight To Palm Beach
TSA personnel do not determine which flights are singled out, its randomly generated by a computer program, which we, personnel, did not program, it comes from higher up.
I don’t care if the flight selection is random. Why is the TSA doing it at all? Again, if TSA did such a fine job screening back at the checkpoint, why do you have to check our IDs, pat us down or go through our hand baggage yet again?
Instead of wasting our time and money stripping us of any dignity we had left crossing through the initial check point, why doesn’t TSA do something about securing things below the wing, where the biggest threat is nowadays? TSA can’t even manage to screen BAGGAGE and all sorts of people are coming and going behind the scenes with far more power to put something on an aircraft than your average passenger.
“” TSA personnel do not determine which flights are singled out, its randomly generated by a computer program, which we, personnel, did not program, it comes from higher up. “”
So the 5 yr old PC that ramdonly selects flights to be delayed is higher up then TSA workers? hmmm, I would have to agree in many cases
Freedom To Travel USA is firmly against the illegal and abusive TSA procedures. Please download the INFORMATION KIT off the INFORMATION Menu at http://fttusa.org to see the legal, security, and abuse issues of the TSA.
Having already gone through an initial security screening, there is zero need to do one again. Otherwise, you admit even legal screening is not sufficient. More importantly, the 4th amendment protects against searches.
Police in subways can do LIMITED bag searches which are a few-second look to see if a threatening device is inside. The Chief of Amtrak police kicked the TSA out of both their Savannah, GA and Chicago, IL train stations because of their excessive bag searches.
The fact that people put up with searches at the gates shows that we are afraid to fight for our basic constitutional rights, while other 3rd world countries have people dying just to get a quarter of the basic rights we (used to?) enjoy.
If you add in the strip searches and sexual assault pat downs (no, it is not like a pat down at a sporting event), it is very disgusting that Congress has not proactively corrected this agency’s abuses. And, the President is likely more culpable as it is happening on his watch, the agency reports directly to him…and he taught about the Constitution! Very depressing.
The TSA does nothing more than treat the sheeple like crap to keep us bowing down to the government. Molesting old ladies and kids does not keep us safer, it keeps us in line which is so un-American it’s not funny. Under B.O. it has gotten worse. Under Bush, we didn’t get groped, at least.
Not only does TSA rescreen bags at gates, they also do their gropes/sexual assaults at the gate. This was recently posted on flyertalk dot com:
“TSA came along for the gate checks. This gate had an area that was segregated for inspections. In this case, they were pulling people out of line for thorough pat-downs. After the pat-downs, they forced people to stay within this segregated area.”
Thank you for speaking out.
This is just another example of the rampant incompetence within TSA. Random procedures means their workers are incapable of following procedures consistently.
These imbeciles have never caught a terrorist and only harass travelers over absurd and inconsistent rules either for their own amusement or to justify their miserable existence.
TSA has had 62 of their screeners arrested this year for serious crimes, including 10 for child sex crimes and 4 for smuggling contraband through security.
Instead of purging their workforce of criminals and misfits, they try to rationalize their ridiculous behavior to the public by citing one of their stupid rules, as if that legitimizes their stupidity.
The continuous reports of TSA crimes, abuses and arbitrary enforcement simply reinforces that this agency is a debacle and needs to be dismantled, and responsibility for airport security returned to FAA.
The TSA is totally unnecessary. But so are metal detectors. If people had been allowed to carry their own knives and guns onto airplanes prior to 2001, the Twin Towers would still be standing.
My wife of 28 years got Randomly asked at Midway in Chicago to go to a seperate room to be stripped searched, because when they ran a pad over her palms and they said a chemical was on them. Even tho she told them she just used a baby wipe to clean her hands. They called a supervisor, after they let her put her shoes on, they led her away, she was humilated and freaked the way they went under her pants waist line and rubbed her breasts and sides of her torso and between her legs. These are not Human beings, Who are these freaks and from what planet. Our 4th ammendment Rights are no longer valid, I felt the trust we put in our goverment will unfortuntly be the end of us! I served my country for six years and my wife gets felt up, NICE …
Love the embellishment on your experience Atrod. If there was something done incorrectly by the TSA, the “actual” facts are more than enough to post. No need to add to it. Strip search?? Never happened.
Meanwhile, Americans who travel from one part of America to another by plane are subjected to degrading pat downs and naked body scans that by no means has been proven medically safe.
Because some bad men attacked us ten years ago, we created a nanny security state in which poorly trained bottom rung employees of a vast security apparatus are given god-like powers over those poor schlubs who find themselves in need of a plane ride.
Nothing degrades this nation more than the cowardly ways in which we responded to a one-day flurry of terror. Out of fear of terrorism, we opened the doors wide to fascism.
TSA is nothing more than a conduit through which Congress shovels money to security contractors and the military-industrial complex.
ABOLISH THE TSA.
It does nothing but rape taxpayers, almost literally at the airports, and figuratively to the tune $8.2 billion per year.
It doesn’t even matter what any of you think. Greyhound and Amtrak is always available if you have a problem with TSA… But then again, TSA is at Amtrak too… Well, I hope some of you are up for a road trip!
The reason that these gate checks were implemented is due to a rash of airline employees who were passing off bad things to bad people inside the terminal before the flghts were boarded. This included firearms, other weapons, drugs, etc. Why, you may ask, were these airline personnel permitted to bring these things in? Because their unions refused to allow “their people” to undergo mandatory screening and allowed them to access areas therough swipe card locked doors. That airline guy wandering through the terminal more than likely wasn’t screened. Now, if you really want to get indignant about the whole process, make it mandatory for all people, including the union thug airline personnel, to be screened.
As for TSA performing security functions outside of the airport: read the law. The “t” stands for transportation and the agency is supposed to, under the authority of the DHS secretary, perform its core functions anywhere that transportation takes place.