FUBAR: TSA Morans* Post Airport Screening Procedures Online

Careful with that moran stuff. Here in Oz, the Morans are a notorious crime family.

Har!

USA, the scardiest country on the planet. I feel bad for all the nice people who live there, and there are many.

By downloading that TSA bulletin, you are automatically added to the TSA No-Fly list. You will be there forever. No explanation. No appeal. No due process. No airline seat for you!! Take the bus with John Madden.

So the “fix” is to just reprimand those responsible. This does not address the SECURITY breach at all.

Ummm…this is all fun and all, but in my experience the government and its many agencies tend to be a rather humorless lot (the IRS comes to mind) and I would treat the referenced document as a highly radioactive item. I would not promote it, re-post it or even put up a link to it.

Yeah, it is out there and control is totally lost, but while I know that and you know that, some faceless bureaucrat doesn’t and collecting a few scalps here and there might make his bosses feel better. Be Careful with this — unless you like endless discussions with creepy guys in suits.

The TSA is a joke and has been since day 1. The FSD’s (field safety directors) are the main bosses at an airport. Each airport has an FSD. During the brief time I worked at TSA, the FSD at my airport was in an office over a mile away, and rarely ever showed his face. Most FSD’s and other managers are retired military just double dipping for a second pension. Virtually none of them have any real security training or knowledge. Almost all management are political appointees or friends of friends.

The SOP is a large 3 ring binder that sits in the office and is seldom seen by the front line screeners. If you bother to read it, you will see that it gives enormous discretion to the FSD’s. That is why screening procedures are rarely the same from one airport to another.

When I started early in the life of TSA, they had many intelligent smart people who wanted to do a good job. But it quickly became apparent that promotions were limited to the’politically’ connected and daily life was managed by often unhappy, unsophisticated, and sometimes dumb managers, who were more interested in whether the screener’s uniform was correct than actual security. Morale quickly plummeted. Any one with any intelligence or ambition, quickly left for real jobs. Both managers and screeners.

The frequently quoted 20% figure was a minimum standard for airports without baggage scanners. Most class A and B airports scan 100% of checked luggage using CT scanners (like cat-scan machines in the hospital). Only luggage that ‘alarms’ in the scanner is opened and checked.