Terminal Mixup Implicates TSA Agents In LAX Smuggling Plot 255
First time accepted submitter ian_po writes "The U.S. Attorney's office has filed indictments against 7 people, including two Transportation Security Administration Screeners and two former TSA employees, after federal agents set up several smuggling sting operations. The alleged smuggling scheme was revealed after a suspected drug courier went to Terminal 5, where his flight was departing, instead of going through the Terminal 6 checkpoint his written instructions directed him to. Court documents indicate the plan was to return to Terminal 5 through a secure tunnel after being allowed through security by the accused Screener. The courier was caught with 10 pounds of cocaine at the other checkpoint by a different TSA agent. If convicted, the four TSA employees face a minimum of 10 years in Federal prison." If ten pounds of anything can get onto a plane by the simple expedient of bribery, please explain again why adult travelers, but not children, must remove their shoes as they stand massed in an unsecured part of a typical U.S. airport.
The Weakest Link (Score:5, Insightful)
As always, the weakest link in anything security related are humans. This begs the question of whether we really need the TSA
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Insightful)
Who guards the guards?
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:4, Informative)
People already know what to do in case of a crime, why bother with police?
No, they don't. Most people would panic, shoot randomly, get shot, and/or violate all of the "alleged" criminal's civil rights. And most of the time, during the course of most crimes, people don't happen to be in the right place at the right time or have the authority to do anything about it if they are. Police do have that authority, and devote their full working hours to investigating (and occasionally stopping in the act) crime. In addition, any random crime is going to take place in an uncontrolled environment where stopping the criminal may lead to more collateral damage than just letting him/her get away. If we leave it to the general public to do what they "know" to do in case of a crime, we end up with 700 million George Zimmermans running loose.
A hijacking is a special circumstance. At the moment a passenger announces his intention to blow up the plane (and possibly crash it into thousands of people along the way), you no longer need to worry about social niceties like civil rights and proper police procedure -- the survival of the passengers depends on one thing only, STOP THAT HIJACKER. And thanks to the heroics of UA Flight 93, people do know what to do. Finally, unlike city streets, the body of an airplane may or may not have police (air marshall) on board so it's not like you can call 911 for help.
Suggesting that the dissolution of TSA is a call for the dissolution of law enforcement is a false equivalent, because what we're trying to establish here is that TSA is notlaw enforcement.
Apart from that, your rebuttal makes perfect sense.
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Vimes does.
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Informative)
Since they where caught, and are being tried, apparently someone is watching them.
Caught by the drug runner's stupidity. Dude went down the wrong line, that's how they got snagged. I wouldn't say the TSA "caught" them by their elite skills.
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:4, Insightful)
No TSA didn't catch them, TSA was allowing them to go through with the contraband and letting them use their secure employee areas to skip the other TSA checkpoints run by agents who haven't yet been paid off. Seriously though, this is more of a failure of the drug war, no other country is 1 gram of cocaine worth 20 bucks sorry, but making it so illegal has made it extremely profitable and this, being the USA, makes it irresistible since we're all 100% entirely profit motivated.
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Informative)
no other country is 1 gram of cocaine worth 20 bucks sorry, but making it so illegal has made it extremely profitable and this, being the USA, makes it irresistible since we're all 100% entirely profit motivated
The USA is high, but not the highest:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/27/how-much-is-cocaine_n_883853.html [huffingtonpost.com]
$154/g - Norway
$129/g - Finland
$120/g - USA
$104/g - Greece
$104/g - Sweden
$99/g - Italy
$97/g - Austria
$97/g - Ireland
$94/g - Denmark
$87/g - Luxembourg
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Can play a badass game of Dopewars with those prices :P
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh and LMFAO at that article you linked, yeah a slideshow of some scenic places tells me a whole lot about how much people pay for cocaine
If you read the captions on the slides, the pricing is right there. I'm sorry that you were distracted by the pretty pictures, I didn't create the slideshow.
Yeah that's end user price I was talking about dealer rates...When you buy a kilo u ain't payin to 120 per gram, not if you intend to make money that is. You're talking about something that doesn't have a real cost to manufacture so at dealer levels they basically define the price at however much they want to move to keep their rep up this week.
Why would you quote prices in gram for volume pricing that's usually purchased in kilos?
In any case, the wholesale price of cocaine in the USA ranges from $14 to $39 per gram:
http://www.narcoticnews.com/Cocaine-Prices-in-the-U.S.A.php [narcoticnews.com]
While in the UK, you'll pay around 60 US dollars for a gram:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8044275.stm [bbc.co.uk]
You may pay less if you're purchasing cut cocaine.
And those numbers look suspiciously like averages...I mean, noones payin for a gram of anything illegal by the dollar, they pay in intervals of 5 because some drug dealers will actually shoot you in the head if you try to give them 1's or change. In other words, this article is bullshit.
You are kidding, right? How else would you represent the price of cocaine in a country if not using averages? Would you just pick the price at some random street corner and use that as the price for the entire country? And then would you convert from whatever currency they use, then round to the nearest 5 US dollars since that's how a street dealer in the USA would price it?
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I'm not sure which is more disturbing, that you know about a site called narcoticnews.com, or that it exists. :)
I didn't follow the link though, I have enough reasons to be on too many lists. I don't need the DEA knocking down my front door to find no drugs. It's expensive to replace a door. :) That, and we'd spend the next two hours trying to catch the cats that went running out. "Make sure you shut... no don't let the cat .. shit, cat got out again."
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:4, Insightful)
"In any case, the wholesale price of cocaine in the USA ranges from $14 to $39 per gram:"
Gee, thanks for telling me what I just told you.
"How else would you represent the price of cocaine in a country if not using averages? "
I wouldn't, there is no price of cocaine in a country...its variable. I was tryin to ridicule that, but you got caught up in semantics.
Right - when you say Cocaine costs $20/gram in the USA, we should accept it as fact (which happens to prove your point). But when prices are quoted for other counties, they are just some ridiculous made up numbers that mean nothing because prices are variable.
About Norway, but they actually have responsible drug policies in Norway and prefer to treat addiction, not vilify it, so I'm sure their price is so high because is so rare anyone in Norway wants cocaine, they can legally get other drugs. I just fail to see how that's proof of anything other than anyone can pull an article out of their ass on the internet.
Sure, that makes perfect sense (?) -- the USA drives up cocaine prices with their insane drug policies, but Norway drives up cocaine prices with their sane drug polices. So if only the USA had more reasonable drug policies, cocaine would be less expensive than in say, Norway , which has sane policies. Oh wait, except that it costs more in Norway because they have more sane policies. So does that mean that USA drug policies keep cocaine cheaper?
I firmly believe the war on drugs is misguided, but your logic isn't proving the point.
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It's all supply vs demand. The US keeps the supply very tight. So as the demand continues to remain constant or rise (well, after the 1980's peak), a cut in supply will always raise the price.
It's that much easier when your clients *have* to have the product. It's almost like they're addicted or something. :)
There are other questions on this. How involved is the US Gov't with drug smuggling into the US?
Cocaine One [madcowprod.com]
ATF drug/gun sc [wikipedia.org]
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Insightful)
Since they [were] caught, and are being tried, apparently someone is watching them.
Caught by the drug runner's stupidity. Dude went down the wrong line, that's how they got snagged. I wouldn't say the TSA "caught" them by their elite skills.
Considering all that we've been hearing about the TSA's investigative skills, I don't understand why anyone's surprised by the way this story's playing out. It just looks like more of the same that we should expect of them. Incompetent bunglers tripping over themselves and *wonder of wonders* an idiot falls into their laps. Woohoo! Got one. The surprise is they actually noticed.
What a waste of money "security theatre" is. It's not even all that entertaining.
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No, guards.
But what are they accomplishing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Those humans are letting smugglers through ... but they haven't caught a single terrorist yet.
I'd say that almost all of the "additional security" since the WTC attack is only "security theatre". Aside from the improved flight deck doors and increased passenger involvement.
Get rid of the TSA.
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Insightful)
This begs the question of whether we really need the TSA
No. I'd say it answers the question quite succinctly.
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This begs the question of whether we really need the TSA
No. I'd say it answers the question quite succinctly.
Yeah, and anyone "begging the question" on /. is seriously out of it. Damn, I'm glad I don't need to fly these days.
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Informative)
This begs the question
Raises.
Sorry. I need help.
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Funny)
This begs the question
Raises.
Sorry. I need help.
Beg for it.
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:5, Interesting)
My spouse used to work for one of the companies that fuels commercial aircraft at many of our nation's major airports. These workers have an extremely important job, and as you might expect, they have access to extremely sensitive parts of airport and aircraft. Nevertheless, their background checks are (or were) done by the cheapest contractor they could find. The results were... spotty. It seems reasonable to assume that the same goes for workers at the terminal food courts, news stands, custodial services, etc. Those poor smugglers could probably have bought the services of a Cinnabon worker for a lot less than a TSA agent.
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To help smuggle drugs in, apparently.
Re:The Weakest Link (Score:4, Funny)
As always, the weakest link in anything security related are humans. This begs the question of whether we really need the TSA
No, we don't. A relatively few honest people with common sense and actual training would trump the massive number of illiterate mouth breathers they have now. Oh, wait, did I say that out loud?
You are so on a no fly list now.
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No, we don't. A relatively few honest people with common sense and actual training would trump the massive number of illiterate mouth breathers they have now. Oh, wait, did I say that out loud?
You are so on a no fly list now.
Mr. Flappinbooger, please step over here... [sound of latex gloves snapping on]
Of course... (Score:5, Funny)
The government assumes as usual that terrorists don't have money... why would they they only live in tents with sand all around.
Who says the TSA ignores children (Score:3)
They get the same kind of inhuman treatment.
http://boingboing.net/2012/04/25/tsa-agents-bully-7-year-old-wi.html [boingboing.net]
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A 7 year old?
I got that beat: Howabout a 4 year old girl getting dragged away to a special room for a strip search?
http://articles.boston.com/2012-04-25/news/31399816_1_pat-down-tsa-agents-screening-procedures
Bribery, huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Bribery, huh? (Score:5, Interesting)
TSA employees took payments of up to $2,400 to provide drug couriers unfettered access at LAX over a six-month period last year.
Up to $2,400 bucks. That's less than the cost of a first class ticket for the average Joe who doesn't want to deal with TSA. It's also well within the budget of a terrorist organization. That's awfully cheap.
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Well, here's the question though, would these screeners have 'ignored' an explosive for $2,400?
I mean I wouldn't lift a finger to report someone selling pot. But if I somehow knew someone was selling plastic explosives I would definitely report them. I think a TSA agent is probably more likely to turn a blink eye to cocaine than an actual threat to people's lives.
I know I could sleep easy knowing there is a kilo of coke in the world. I wouldn't be able to sleep easy if I let a terrorist kill 200 peop
Re:Bribery, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they wouldn't possibly lie to you about what you're helping them smuggle.
Re:Bribery, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Much as the recording of them accepting a bribe to let the explosive through would look very different than them performing their job duty without corruption..
So - if the scenario goes like this:
1) You accept bribe to permit 'cocaine' through, and the smuggler films you doing this
2) Later on, a bomb is smuggled through while the smuggler lets you in on the fact that you were filmed.
3) You: either report the issue and risk (perhaps reduced but still significant) prison time when the terrorists cooperatives release the video through anonymous means, or let the person through and cross your fingers.
If you're the kind of person that accepted the bribe in the first place..
you're probably the kind of person that would do 'b' and hope for the best..
that's the problem with corruption - it corrupts.
Re:Bribery, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, here's the question though, would these screeners have 'ignored' an explosive for $2,400?
Do these screeners have a portable chemical lab kit right next to the pornoscanner? Are they trained chemists who know what to do with this lab kit to tell the difference between a drug and an explosive?
Of course, once the screeners are paid the courier carries whatever he pleases, and nobody is going to check what it is.
I think a TSA agent is probably more likely to turn a blink eye to cocaine than an actual threat to people's lives.
Cocaine may be more destructive than explosives.
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Not while it is in transit on an airplane. Of course, neither are explosives that dangerous, provided they aren't set up to be detonated in flight, as an Army veteran demonstrated recently with a block of C4 on a domestic flight.
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Cocaine won't bring down an airplane. It won't explode in the TSA queues. It won't leap out of the bag and stab anyone.
Re:Bribery, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Drugs and wars over drugs killed more people than all airplane crashes, by all causes, combined.
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Cocaine may be more destructive than explosives.
The victims of cocaine chose to do cocaine. The victims of explosives usually did not want to be meaty bits splattered over the walls.
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Victims of alcohol are children and the other family members of alcholics.
However, criminalizing the use and possession of alcohol does not make the problem of alcohol abuse go away. It just creates additional problems because now only criminals can possess or use alcohol . So you have a bunch of violence and theft and turf war crossfires. See "Prohibition, USA 1920s".
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Their called "Explosives Trace Detection systems", and, yes, TSA checkpoints have them.
Where I've seen them in use, IIRC, its not by the same agent doing the other screening, and I seem to recall that, to expand flexibility, they are now using mobile systems that aren't fixed to a particular checkpoint.
Re:Bribery, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bribery, huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying that the TSA guy who took the bribe trusted the obviously trustworthy guy trying to bribe him that it was really coke, as opposed to say, 10 lbs of plastic explosives?
Security theater to catch the rare stupid attacker and enrich the buddies of those in congress and nothing more is all it is.
Re:Bribery, huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're saying that the TSA guy who took the bribe trusted the obviously trustworthy guy trying to bribe him that it was really coke, as opposed to say, 10 lbs of plastic explosives?
Security theater to catch the rare stupid attacker and enrich the buddies of those in congress and nothing more is all it is.
I've seen the TSA catch people with bottles of water or penknives. Never seen them catch the "rare stupid attacker", and certainly not the even rarer smart attacker.
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> Up to $2,400 bucks. That's less than the cost of a first class ticket for the average Joe who doesn't want to deal with TSA. It's also well within the budget of a terrorist organization. That's awfully cheap.
But that's what you get when you have people who are awfully badly paid, doing an awfully shitty job.
It's all smoke and mirrors. (Score:2, Insightful)
Really, how is one meant to sell cancer causing X-ray scanners if the public realizes that the costly scanners can't stop well funded people from bribing severely underfunded people.
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Not even "well funded". $2,400 (the alleged price) is, like, two middle-class house payments.
TSA corruption?! (Score:5, Informative)
Who would have thought?!?!
Seriously, though, as someone that proctored the TSA tests for years, believe me, I'm not surprised at all. Half the people I sat for the tests seemed to be under the influence of some type of narcotics, not to mention the gang tattoos and shit.
The test itself was stellar, too, asking hard hitting questions like "Have you ever lived in a house you thought was haunted?" I wish I could say I was kidding, but I'm not.
Remember this next time they've got their hand in your 8 year old's waistband....
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"Have you ever lived in a house you thought was haunted?"
Wait, which is the right answer?
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Fuck if I know, I didn't score the tests; I just sat people for them and made sure they weren't cheating.
How one 'cheats' on questions like that, though, I have no idea...
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How one 'cheats' on questions like that, though, I have no idea...
You get one of your non-crazy, more dishonest (more than you, because he'll pass the test, obviously) friends to help you using SMS/MMS while taking it.
Re:TSA corruption?! (Score:5, Funny)
"Have you ever lived in a house you thought was haunted?"
Wait, which is the right answer?
"No, because ghosts are afraid of the invisible goblins that follow me everywhere."
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Re: (Score:2)
Why? Because (Score:5, Informative)
If ten pounds of anything can get onto a plane by the simple expedient of bribery, please explain again why adult travelers, but not children, must remove their shoes as they stand massed in an unsecured part of a typical U.S. aiport.
Because the TSA isn't about security, it is about making people feel secure. Well, that and wasting billions of federal dollars on "security" equipment manufactured by private companies run by buddies of TSA directors and/or former TSA directors. I'm not actually sure which one is their main goal, right now.
Kudos to the Terminal 6 guy for actually noticing the 10 pounds of cocaine. I would not want to be a TSA agent who got thrown into Federal prison. That does not sound fun, at all.
Re:Why? Because (Score:4, Insightful)
Because the TSA isn't about security, it is about making people feel secure.
Wrong!
The TSA isn't about security, or security theater, or making people feel secure.
At this point, they're like every other useless, failed agency in this country. A bunch of hacks trying to cover their asses so they continue to get paid for doing a job that isn't actually needed.
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Because the TSA isn't about security, it is about making people feel secure.
Wrong!
The TSA isn't about security, or security theater, or making people feel secure.
At this point, they're like every other useless, failed agency in this country. A bunch of hacks trying to cover their asses by busting people for drugs
Re:Why? Because (Score:4, Insightful)
The principles behind the TSA are far worse than that. People's rights are slowly being boiled away. The TSA is about getting people used to random searches no matter where they are. There have been repeated efforts to expand the TSA to all public transport, not just planes.
Also the TSA publicly and emphatically break the principle that "We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal", instead the wealthy are specifically excluded from the predation of the TSA. This is not even hidden yet the majority blindly accept that the poor and middle class are routinely abused while the wealthy are left alone shoes on, never touched, carry on assault rifles, all the fluids they want on private or charter flights.
So public enforcement of the principle that America is a classed society, those that are protected (as publicly described by a US president the haves and the haves more) from those that are abused (the have not). Then other lesson being driven home is the majority have no right to personal privacy of any kind either direct physical (naked scanners and direct sexual abuse) or belongings (phone, camera, computer data). Again with a distinction between rich and middle class/poor.
All without a single hint of protest at people being treated differently, about a grossly unequal quality of treatment for the rich.
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Lol... "Somalia's worse, ergo, nothing needs fixing". That's some great logic there, Lou.
In response to GP, though... it's clear the TSA's busted. What other good-for-nothing orgs are there? I'm generally of the opinion some have some actual value :)
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No but I've thought about moving to the EU where they've outlawed nudebody scanners as hazardous to health, and don't have any kind of patdowns/sexual assault by strangers. Funny. The former Eastern Europe is now MORE free than the U.S.A.
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Yes. I hear they have their own version of the TSA, which reportedly has kept terrorism to a minimal.
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Because the TSA isn't about security, it is about making people feel secure.
Close, but not quite. It's about the government making it look like they are doing something about security. ...And spending lots of money like you said.
I don't think they give a flying fart about how people feel. If they did, they wouldn't have groped that little girl from a few stories back.
Is cocaine an explosive? (Score:4, Insightful)
So why would the TSA give a shit?
Oh yeah, they'll never actually catch or stop an actual terrorist so using their fourth amendment exemption to search for things that aren't security risks is all they can actually do.
Be fair, guys! (Score:5, Funny)
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4 out of 5 top athletes agree with this.
Terrible (Score:5, Interesting)
If it's possible to move ten pounds of cocaine through an airport, it's just as possible to move ten pounds of explosives. Hell, the TSA agents don't even need to know it's a bomb. If they think it's just drugs they probably won't care. Terrorists don't even need to get a bomb on a plane. They'd do far more damage setting it off in the airport, probably killing a larger number of people and likely resulting in air travel being grounded around the country for a few days while the powers that be try to figure out what happened and whether other airports are at risk.
Really, the only way to make it stop is to completely leave the Middle East alone, in which case they'll probably go bother someone else or each other. The only other alternative is to make sure they know that if they bomb our airports, we'll hit them back with one hundred times as much force and an equal disregard for human life. Either way, the TSA becomes completely pointless.
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Really, the only way to make it stop is to completely leave the Middle East alone, in which case they'll probably go bother someone else or each other.
Terrorists are not rational, and their hatred for the West runs too deep for such a strategy to work.
The only other alternative is to make sure they know that if they bomb our airports, we'll hit them back with one hundred times as much force and an equal disregard for human life.
We tries/are trying that. It's not really working. They still blew up London in 2007.
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We have not tried. If we did, we would have carpet bombed several countries by now.
Re:Terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
Starting with the countries that actually had a hand in 9/11. Like Saudi Arabia.
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I wouldn't say explosives are the same as cocaine. There are chemical detectors that can detect that kind of thing... as a colleague of mine discovered when he tried to go through security in Tel Aviv a day after placing his laptop bag on an engine part filled with jet fuel.
-d
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Indeed. And even the ones who are not are considered fairly dangerous.
As a matter of fact, I have the names of some of the greatest terrorists the world has known. Their exploits are legendary, and their actions are said to have changed a nation: George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson...
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It seems to me that you guys don't understand what the word "terrorist" means. It doesn't mean "somebody who I oppose politically". It also should not be confused with "protestor", or even "vandal" or "hooligan". They are different things.
your argument is gratuitous (Score:2)
Crime sans punishment.... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd like to think that since these people were in positions of power regarding 'Homeland Security', TSA agents after all, are supposed to be there to stop threats right, that such a violation of public trust and authority would warrant them much harsher penalties than some common bloke caught smuggling dope. Sadly I know this not to be true.
I've always thought that Federal employees, be it lowly TSA employees, postal workers right up to Supreme Court Justices, should be held to a much harsher judicial standard than your every day citizen, or local and state public servant. Why? Because the amount of power within the system that is retained by those positions, makes the violations of it that much more severe because they breaking the public trust.
In short, if the system is rotten from within, kinda hard to support in it theory, much less in practice.
Only $1,200 required to get 10 lbs on the plane (Score:2)
Federal Prison... (Score:2)
Will the prison be more secure than the airport? :o
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Considering the amount of drugs in the prison system, clearly not.
Nation's security needs? (Score:2)
From the article:
OK, the people who took bribes to let this stuff get through deserve to be prosecuted, but can we please stop appealing to so-called "national security"?
Heh... (Score:2)
Utterly unsurprising (Score:3)
Several decades ago a popular author of thrillers said something along the lines of "the best way to smuggle a nuclear bomb into the USA is to disguise it as drugs and bring it in through the Miami airport".
10 punds of cocaine is going to endanger ... (Score:2, Insightful)
... an airplane how? Is the terrorist going to threaten to force everyone to snort it?
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They have other jobs in addition to finding bombs and guns. They're on the lookout for all contraband, including drugs. They seriously freak out if you bring unauthorized produce into the country.
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So apparently doing something illegal is okay as long as it's not one of the items on the Security Theater checklist?
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He's going to get jumped, that's what's going to happen.
On 9/11, the attitude of the passengers was, "all right, I'll sit back, relax, and get a trip to Cuba, then retire after a fat emotional distress lawsuit against the airline. Fuckin' A." This was perfectly justifiable at the time.
It'll never happen again. You pull a gun on a plane, the 10th, 11th, etc person are going to kick your ass. You pull out a bomb, people are going to assume that they're dead already and they have nothing to lose by rushing
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
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The issue is that their approach to security requires tracking every substance and object that enters the secure area.
This current bust demonstrates that for very small amounts of money, outside agents could get their packages into the secure area with very low risk of detection.
The net result is that literally billions of dollars, and probably several cases of cancer per year, were wasted. Because if drug dealers could do this, so could would-be terrorists.
Weakest link (Score:3)
I've always thought this is one of the biggest holes in the entire system -- all a terrorist has to do is bribe one of the thousands of screeners (or a few of them) in some small airport anywhere in the country, and the terrorist can fly his 10 pound bomb to JFK or any other large airport.
The screener will think he's getting paid $25,000 in cash to smuggle in some drugs, he doesn't even have to know it's a bomb.
Re:Weakest link (Score:4, Interesting)
It's even easier than that. No bribing needed. I know people that have private pilot licenses. They fly out of small airports with no security and then into major airports all the time. Their bags aren't checked by TNA... I mean TSA. They are sometimes even allowed to drive their cars up to their planes. How much cocaine, explosives, or whatever can you fit in a car?
One person flying alone in a cheap two seat airplane can carry 200 pounds of cocaine, or whatever, right into any major airport in the USA you can think of. They can then drive their car up to the plane, load the whatever into the trunk, and drive off. I know this because a pilot I know had to get a very expensive machine very quickly from one place to another. The so called "airport security" people saw a box labeled "pin ball machine parts" or something and waved it by.
My theory has been that the TSA is not about keeping us safe. It's about keeping the powers that be safe. They don't want to see another jumbo jet get landed on their lap. It happened once at the Pentagon. Next time it might be the US Capitol.
Terminal? (Score:4, Funny)
Standing massed in unsecured areas (Score:4, Interesting)
as they stand massed in an unsecured part of a typical U.S. aiport.
And that is the biggest, most glaring, elephant-in-the-living-room hole in U.S. airport security. The last time I had the misfortune to go through Chicago O'Hare airport, there must have been 300 people packed into an area the size of a basketball court, all waiting to go through the TSA checkpoint. Never mind a nail bomb, the place was so packed that if someone had dropped a lit road flare, the panic and stampede would have caused casualties.
Not that I'm advocating dropping lit road flares in check-in lines, but if I can think of it, I'm sure someone else can.
Re:Side effect of War on Drugs (Score:4, Informative)
Because they can tell that a 10 pound package contains 10 pounds of cocaine and not 10 pounds of explosives with their magical ESP powers?
Or that there's not a knife or gun hidden in the center of that cocaine like substance?
Or, god forbid, a bottle of water hidden inside?
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They probably knew the person. He didn't show up and start throwing 2400 dollars around.
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I'd also wager that said screener was bribed t let the smuggler through with a 10 lb brick of whatever the heck he was carrying. I don't think the screener pulled out the DEA drug test kit to make sure that was a block of coke and not a block of say, semtex. It's probably also fair to assume that this wasn't the first time he's done this, thi
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You're assuming that the TSA agents are checking to make sure that's 10 pounds of cocaine and not 10 pounds of semtex. If they know there's drugs there that are supposed to be waved through I imagine they'd try to minimize the exposure of those drugs.
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You're assuming that the TSA agents are checking to make sure that's 10 pounds of cocaine and not 10 pounds of semtex.
How about ten pounds of weaponized Anthrax?
That's enough to kill several hundred thousand people, maybe even a million or more, depending.
There's a video I saw somewhere where a radical Islamic cleric is talking about smuggling Anthrax across the Mexican border by paying Mexican drug cartels and coyotes, where he mentioned that a few pounds could kill 300,000 Americans.
Sleep well, fellow citizens! The high level of security at the southern border combined with thorough TSA security at our airports, train, a
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"I'll give you $2,400 to let me bring this bomb ... I mean, these drugs through your checkpoint.
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[Y]our average PD or Sheriff's department are ... orders of magnitude more competent and professional than our petty airport dictators.
And that's saying something.