WhatFinger


TSA Still Means Thousands Standing Around

Carraway Demotion is Hope for Future TSA Accountability



You missed out on last summer’s viral social exhibitionism craze and never got around to scheduling an Ice Bucket Challenge, but you have no intention of making that mistake twice. So you’ve already started planning a Let’s Draw Mohammed contest. No need for ice this time, but there is the question of what organization will handle screening the attendees?
Should you contact TSA or your local police department? If you picked TSA there is no need to include me on the guest list. The acting TSA head, Melvin Carraway, was demoted this week after the Inspector General found his crack crew of coffee drinkers failed to spot weapons and explosives in 95 percent of the unannounced tests conducted by a security team. For your Draw Mohammed Contest this means TSA will be confiscating pencils while the C–4 wrapped in a turban sails through unmolested. The 2015 budget for TSA (Ta–Ta Squeezing Animals) is approximately $7.3 billion. As he was showing Carraway the door, DHS Sec. Jeh Johnson told The Washington Times “I continue to have confidence in the TSA workforce. Last fiscal year TSA screened a record number of passengers at airports in the United States, and, at the same time, seized a record number of prohibited items." This is the equivalent of a toll road operator taking credit for encouraging tourism. What’s more, most of us aren’t worried about teenagers trying to sneak a 6 oz. bottle of shampoo on the aircraft. We’re worried about the weapons the screeners can’t seem to find while they jockey for position in front of the monitor when attractive women go through the “full body” scanner. Among the shampoo bottles, toenail clippers, and containers of breast milk confiscated by TSA in 2014 there were also some 2,000 guns. This is supposed to be a big victory for government–provided security.

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It’s safe to say 100 percent of those weapons were carried in error or owned by someone just recently off life support. If the guns had been part of a jihadi plot then there would have been more violence in the security line than is found at the average Mohammed cartoon convention. The Times quotes Sen. Ben Sasse, R–Neb., expressing concern regarding the test failure: “This news raises serious questions about TSA's competence and could undermine their previous claims. This January, TSA bragged about stopping an average of six firearms a day last year but now Americans aren't sure if that's a measure of success or a colossal failure.” Evidently the good senator didn’t follow the news closely before his election last year, because conservatives have questioned TSA’s competence since its inception during a climate of panic in the Bush administration. The IG security team tried to smuggle guns or explosives past TSA security guards a total of 70 times and in 67 instances the contraband got through. The other three times TSA personnel spilled coffee on the package causing the ‘BANG’ flag to deploy prematurely. Johnson essentially admits all the inconvenience at the airport is security theatre. TSA’s excuse is the testers who got the weapons through “security” are professionals that studied the system and planned accordingly to exploit weaknesses. Well that’s a relief. The only terrorists that get through screening are the really good ones. The airport “security” system we have is essentially an IQ test for terrorists. Billions of dollars are spent to protect you from Don Henley’s “wild–eyed, pistol wavers who ain’t afraid to die,” but terrorists that have an IQ above room temperature may be in the aircraft bathroom mixing up something special. My air travel experiences include TSA guards cutting a luggage strap in two instead of squeezing the plastic clasp, opening and drinking some of the booze brought back from a Caribbean cruise and dumping the contents of my bag on a table and walking off. And good luck complaining about TSA rummaging through your drawers. When I buy whitey tighties at Walmart I know they were inspected by Inspector No. 32, but when TSA damages your bag there is no recourse. You get a slip of paper urging you to call a number that’s never answered. If TSA was serious about stopping terrorism they would replace poorly motivated government time servers with highly motivated dogs trained to sniff for gunpowder and explosives. The dogs would work harder, retain more of their training and wouldn’t vote Democrat on Election Day. A win, win, win. The only good news to come from this failure is Carraway’s demotion from TSA chief. It shows there is some glimmer of accountability in the great inert mass that is TSA. The bad news is Carraway may be checking your carry–on bag in the security line next week. © Copyright 2015 Michael Shannon.


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Michael R. Shannon -- Bio and Archives

Michael R. Shannon (The Whole Shebang (mostly))  is a Virginia-based public relations and media consultant with MANDATE: Message, Media & Public Relations who has worked in over 75 elections on three continents and a handful of islands.


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