It's easy to get guns onto a plane just look your TSA agent in the Eye hand him a ten dollar bill and say I'm Sarticus it always works for me!
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Koshetz, the TSA spokeswoman, says the agency has evolved into a critical counterterrorism force whose battles extend far beyond what the average passenger sees at a checkpoint. "Let me ask you this: Do you want to sit next to someone with a knife or a venomous snake in their pocket? Do you have blind faith in the passenger next to you?" she says.
Are travelers really just forgetting it's not OK to bring a gun or knife or sword or cannonball to the most secure public facilities of our era? Consider these items seized at MIA: a marijuana grinder designed to look like a camouflage hand grenade, and a perfume bottle shaped like four sticks of dynamite. Who would intentionally try to carry these kinds of items onto a plane?
Jacob Katel
A week's worth of confiscations at Miami International Airport.
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"There's a certain stress with air travel and the screening process and the delays," Chief Roy Liddicott of the Broward Sheriff's Office says. "People are nervous from the stress of air travel, so they just become forgetful, I guess." He recalls recently telling a permit-holding gun owner at the Fort Lauderdale airport that TSA screeners found a loaded firearm in his carry-on. "He almost passed out. He just totally forgot he had his gun on him," Liddicott says. When passengers have concealed-weapons permits, they're generally not taken into custody.
"We have yet to have a case that we felt the person was trying to sneak it on or had some nefarious reason to sneak it on," Liddicott says. "We've had stun guns, we've had Tasers, we've had collapsible batons. It's the same thing — people just forget."
4 comments
This is nothing more than pandering TSA propaganda and a disgusting excuse for journalism.
Does anyone doubt that TSA would be gone in days if people actually had a choice between TSA and another option?
This agency is nothing more than a bloated jobs program feeding on public ignorance and relying on fear mongering to maintain its budget. TSA is inefficient and focused only on its own expansion and not on the mission of airport security.
Some recent reports from Ft. Lauderdale and Miami TSA.
Ft Lauderdale
FLL TSA worker hired two months ago charged with child pornography
NBC Miami, September 13, 2012
Three TSA officers arrested on drug charges in Florida and New York
NY Post, September 13, 2011
FLL TSA agent charged in theft of $450 pen
Sun Sentinel, July 22, 2011
Baby, 18 months old, ordered off plane at Fort Lauderdale airport
WPBF News, May 14, 2012
TSA Agent Nelson Santiago Caught With Passenger's iPad in His Pants; Allegedly Took $50,000 in Other Goods, Cops Say
Broward-Palm Beach New Times, July. 8 2011
Bungling screeners miss knife on flight from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to JFK
NY Post, May 11, 2011
FLL Airport: TSA Told Us to Lie About Existence of Security Video
Infowars, March 21, 2012
Miami
TSA officer, Milagros Casanas, arrested for attempted theft, battery and disorderly conduct in Key West
Miami Herald – July 30, 2012
TSA employees charged with trashing South Beach hotel room, shooting gun
Miami Herald, March 28, 2012
Miami TSA officer and his wife charged with stealing from passengers' luggage
Fox News, January 1, 2012
Cuba complains that guns in luggage checked in at MIA were not stopped.
Miami Herald April 24, 2012
Hi Fisher1949,
Sorry for spreading propaganda, as you claim... But a few points: First, a Gallup study released on August 8 showed that, “Despite recent negative press, a majority of Americans, 54%, think the U.S. Transportation Security Administration is doing either an excellent or a good job of handling security screening at airports.” So I don’t think it’s obvious the TSA would be disbanded if we actually had a choice. I do agree that there should be a debate whether the government or private security should be responsible and who should be footing the bill. It’s cool that you found some headlines showing that a TSA guy had child porn, another got arrested on drug charges, and another one stole a $450 pen. But people from private firms get arrested for the same things – kiddie porn, drugs theft, trashing hotel rooms – on a daily basis. There are also plenty of accounts of cops stealing from the same people they’re protecting and serving, just like a handful of the TSA agents who’ve been busted stealing from luggage. The one headline that does stand out and reflects a problem not necessarily of the TSA but of bureaucracy is the one about an infant being pulled from the airplane because she was on a no-fly list. Protocol and chain of command seem to be a huge hindrance for many organizations the size of TSA. I’m not pandering, just unsure what the better option is, especially when passengers can't even remember to leave their loaded gun at home. If you’ve got a few suggestions, I'd love to hear them...
Ninety percent of frequent flyers think that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is doing either a poor or fair job in performing security screenings at the nation's airports, according to a new survey of frequent flyers conducted by Frequent Business Traveler magazine, September 10, 2012.
In the past three months 35 TSA workers were fired or arrested and 66 more disciplined for misconduct.
There were 99 TSA workers arrested in the last 20 months including 13 arrested for child sex crimes, over 26 for theft, 12 for smuggling contraband through security and one for murder.
TSA allows a known pedophile, Thomas Harkins to remain employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia giving him access to search children. What kind of agency turns a known sex offender loose on children?
TSA needs to be replaced with something that actually works before this mismanagement results in a tragedy.
Some suggestions for improvement:
Replace 90% of screeners with bomb sniffing dogs.
Stop hiring criminals and get the ones in TSA out.
Stop strip searching grandmothers.
Stop fondling children.
Stop the gratuitous pat downs that never yield weapons and only harass innocent people.
Rely on the hardened cockpit doors and passengers as a last line of defense. This has proven to more reliable than TSA.
Eliminate the dangerous x-ray scanners.
Use the remaining scanners only as a secondary method as was promised to Congress in 2008.
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