https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/ammunition-airport-security-turks-caicos-tsa-b2569993.html
Exclusive: Louisiana Rep Garret Graves, chairman of the House aviation subcommittee, admits it’s concerning that the TSA has no idea how American tourists are managing to accidentally take ammo onto flights unnoticed. James Liddell reports
TSA has an 80% failure rate during inspections.
Everyone knows the TSA is useless. I know people who have accidentally carried fixed blade knives through security without getting stopped.
But you can be damn sure they'll catch that 5oz bottle of shampoo you've got.
BTW: your link is broken because you have a 9 at the beginning
Yet they never, ever fail to miss the banana I have in my carry-on for manual review. They very literally only look for the lowest-hanging fruit in scans. And that's not a joke, they focus on the easiest to do and accept or reject.
They keep intensely checking my stuffed triceratops. Triclor is a good boy and they need to stop picking on him.
Aww! It's not a pet per se, so I can't invoke the pet tax, but might I request a picture of your stuffed friend?
I’ve accidentally brought my pocket knife through the TSA multiple times. But coffee? That that’s clearly a bomb let’s scan it.
I brought a used weed pipe, a used grinder, and a baggie of psilocybin powder through TSA by mistake.
Good times.
I brought a 3-inch credit card blade (acquired at a trade show, with some tech company logo on it) through the airport four consecutive times without even realizing it.
I found it while packing for another trip, and I decided to gut my overly-thick wallet and realized that I'd been carrying it around everywhere, including through courtrooms and other government buildings that X-ray everything I bring every time I pass through as a contractor.
So yeah, a knife inside my wallet went through about 50 X-ray machines at federal facilities completely undetected, and I unknowingly carried it through all sorts of places where it is extremely illegal to have a knife. They always scolded me though if I tried to bring anything made of glass, like a coke bottle or something, because it could be used as a weapon.
Pictured: 
Yeah, wtf do they mean 'they don't know how?'.
The TSA is probably the only employer in America worse than Boeing when it comes to employees giving a shit about doing their jobs and actually doing them well.
Both organizations promote incompetent ass kissers over those who actually give a shit, and both orgs also have a massive culture of making up excuses for why something that was supposed to happen did not.
Oh right, both also have absurd amounts of paperwork that 'ensures' policy was followed, but seeing as everyone hates you if you actually try to keep up with it, most people just focus on a few main things and sign off on anything.
I mean "they don't know how" doesn't have to mean this is an exceptional case
They could just be ubiquitously incompetent and they don't know how a lot of stuff happens
I mean it in the sense of:
Every job I've ever worked, if someone asks 'how did this happen?', that is a question that has an actual answer within usually 30 seconds, maximum 30 minutes.
I basically agree with you, I'm phrasing it as if I were some kind of competent person asking where a whole bunch of taxpayer money is going.
There are times when it takes longer, such as when Fukushima had a meltdown. The thirty-second answer only starts to explain how it happened, the thirty-minute one makes you start to realize that a good part of it is because people fucked up, and the full answer, which requires going over reports since the construction of the plant shows you just how comprehensive the fuck-ups were and why it was only a matter of time for something that catastrophic to happen.
But yes, usually these things can be figured out pretty quickly. It doesn't take nuclear science to figure out why they can't do their job.
I totally agree with you that systemic failures require a systemic evaluation to figure out what actually happened. Most of the jobs I've worked have been as an analyst of one kind or another, so I of course know that many things do not have quick answers.
So yes technically I should have added some kind of qualifier, but you seem to get that I mean that common, routine job functions or system functions pretty much always should have fairly simple explanations as to why something routine happens or does not.
So, it takes me a while to do a root cause analysis of a quarter or years worth of one kind of failure in a complex process or another, but I very rarely have to manually investigate some specific totally unknown thing in person, as the system is (or should) be designed in such a way that tbis stuff is tracked and easily analyzed.
Contrast that with: Why isn't the report released yet?
Oh, because a data set I need access to is offline right now, or some dumbass changed the access creds without informing me prior, I emailed them a week ago, and they have not responded.
That is a simple answer.
I once lived and worked in a small store in rural Australia. When I left the job, I threw my box cutter in my backpack at the end of my shift without thinking.
They flew me back to the nearest city when I left, then from there I flew to Bali and back, then eventually I flew home. Every time I flew. I used that backpack as my carry on luggage. It was found when I landed after that final flight. I'd totally forgotten it was in there, and it had been scanned for all of those flights.
I flew across country and back twice with a pack of super sharp Olfa snap off replacement blades that if forgotten were tucked into the bottom of my laptop bag.
I travel a lot for work. US Customs and the TSA are absolutely a sick joke. I could easily write a novella on the extremely poor training of TSA employees. I have a small permanent retainer (read: braces); about 25% of the time, that is considered suspicious, and I get an enhanced inspection. "Ya know, I could just open my mouth and show you what's in there."
The TSA always determines that my juggling balls are suspicious, so I never pack them in carry-on anymore. I have NEXUS, yet I always get an enhanced inspection on return to the US. Literally every other country to which I have flown just waves me through, even before I got Pre-Check/NEXUS/Global Entry.
My partner had her rigging knife in her backpack on a flight out and back. She was unpacking and found it in her backpack after the trip. Good catch, TSA.
And the absolute frosting on the TSA shit sandwich: one of my close friends owns a private security firm. His company was approached by the TSA to assist in security audits at a major international airport. He and his team were contracted to "smuggle" fake firearms through TSA checkpoints, any way they could. The TSA repeatedly failed to detect the firearms for each of five audits. The TSA division (district? regional?) manager, frustrated at his group's 100% failure rate, determined that my friend's company must have specialized criminal training, and everyone who worked that contract were put on the no-fly list. It took him about 18 months to unfuck that mess for him and his employees.
I had written a few more paragraphs about TSA hassles, but I think y'all get the picture.
The TSA division (district? regional?) manager, frustrated at his group's 100% failure rate, determined that my friend's company must have specialized criminal training, and everyone who worked that contract were put on the no-fly list.
What in the fuck?
Oh, throughout the whole thing, he and his employees were treated like garbage. He would get through security, go directly to the person's office, and reassemble the pistol in front of the manager. And then my friend (or one of his employees) would get interrogated for hours on unrelated questions, like it was somehow my friend's fault that the TSA failed their audits.
Damn I think this might somehow be worse than the Iowa county who had physical pen testers arrested: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2020/01/iowa-prosecutors-drop-charges-against-men-hired-to-test-their-security/
If my juggling of balls catches your fancy, you might also be interested to know that I also smoke meat, play the flute, and churn butter. 😆
He does it every single flight.
All of those things.
An absolute pleasure to share a flight with.
I've carried a set of leather wrapped juggling balls on flights off and on since the 90's. They used to make every X-ray reader twitch out. They're about the right size for bad items (explosives, grenades), and I have three, not just one.
Normally it would get a quick search, a moment of confusion, and then no worries.
Once when going through the old airport in Berlin, I got searched at the second checkpoint, they brought out the balls to me, so I started juggling them and did a routine. It was really quiet so I was the only passenger in sight. That was the only time I've performed in front of an audience who was carrying machine guns.
This kind of makes me want to take my Renegade pins in a carry-on to see what TSA makes of them.
the only surprising thing in this story is that no one got their genitals full on cupped and brushed.
I've had 3 different TSA agents reach down the front of my pants and either full on grab my junk or very heavily brush the back of their hands over it (through underwear)
Isn't TSA just a money-grab?
With no actual oversight, requirements, or sanctions, that's just transfer of public money to some random wage-slaves and private subcontractors (like for the all-so-special equipment they must have, as well as tons of gloves and lube they consume daily).
Im sure AI could do racial profiling just as racially biased as them, and also fail at detecting any real threats. And Im sure I've seen some 'cavity search'-like robots online that could be deployed.
Of course they don’t know how it got missed! If the knew how, they’d’ve been able to improve their 70+% miss rate
I know this one… it’s because the TSA sucks and isn’t anything more than security theater.
What's surreal is being in a security line that is so backed up that the TSA on duty decide to tell people to keep their shoes on, and they open up the old fashioned metal detector to supplement the body scanner just to get people through faster.
Straight up confirmation that none of what they do matters.
It’s also a slush fund pork-barrel for screening device manufacturers! (alwayshasbeen.meme)
you mean the devices that were stupid and no one wanted to buy because they were mostly useless, until suddenly 9/11 and the investors in the company Republicans demanded they be installed in every airport and bus station?
I read an article a little while ago that stated exactly this. That security theater was the actual goal of the TSA.
I put a 5 inch blade in a bag I used for work that I totally forgot about, for 2 full years and flew all over the US without anyone calling me on it. I’m glad that TSA provides employment for so many people but they are in fact a joke
I would probably be fine with TSA as a jobs program, except I really don't like being yelled at by power tripping agents just for taking my laptop out, or for leaving it in my bag. Because no airport is the same and they all seem to make things up when it comes to policy. To be fair most agents are pretty chill, but some out there definitely enjoy the power trip.
And yet I've had to throw out a whole bottle of St. Ives lotion. Which country is threatened by me having silky smooth skin?
I think they are quite consistent, as a foreigner, when I travel to the US I get the random inspection every.single.time
/s
In the only line I've ever remembered from the show Absolutely Fabulous: Only Just the one?
A hypothetical version of myself may have worked in an International Airport as a security lead. That hypothetical version would have to pass through general passenger TSA and Border checkpoint dozens of times a day. They also may have always been carrying dab pens on him and his coworkers might have on several occasions just carried handguns through that they might have forgotten on their persons.
Yeah Airports are to security as Ant traps are to an exterminator. Lotta smoke and mirrors. Most cameras are non functioning or just straight up not wired in the first place.
Can confirm hypothetical dab pens. And joyrides in the electric carts next to the planes taking off.
Just a few months ago, my wife and I went on vacation, and she had my mushroom hunting knife with like a 4 or 5-inch blade on it in her purse. The purse went through scanners and everything and no one said a fucking thing. Didn't realize we had the knife until we were on the plane in the air, and she went to get gum out.
We got harassed because we brought a bag of goldfish for the kiddo. Dude actually dug through the bag.
I passed through TSA with a pocket knife, a small pair of sewing scissors, and a Leatherman multitool I forgot I put in my work backpack, but had to throw away my solid hand lotion for being 3.4oz. Larger than 3oz was a potential explosive, they told me. I had to toss it in a trashcan filled to overflowing with other potential explosives, located in the most populated area of the airport. I guess so it would take out as many people as possible and do the most structural damage, if my sealed Working Hands lotion was to explode and set off the other containers of lotions, water, and sodas. TSA is a joke.
American border is like prison border with the world being the prison. They are more concerned about people getting out of the prison than people getting in.
TSA is not in a fun position.
They are literally dealing with "The Most Armed Nation ... In The World." /clarkson And that is not often given to them out loud as the reality of their working parameters. Statistically that gives them a magnified margin of error by sheer volume of gun owners in the USA to my mind.
That said I have been terrorized by some TSA operators and patted down in the Denver airport without being asked or given a chance to have privacy by a TSA in the middle of line.
So won't you at least give the TSA a chance to go fuck themselves ?
