gingersnaps

delete and moved

DaveBlaine

Article or Snapshot?

I do love my Infographics.

Boggie Dog

Thanks. I am truly curious if TSA has been bad all along or if the push to find a greater variety of so-called threat objects is a factor in their doing a poorer job.

I suspect that it is a combination of doing the same thing over and over resulting in complacency, the addition of new threat objects which may be harder to detect, and an overall workforce that is marginally trained in the first place.

Randyk47

I too have not seen any data or documentation. You get caught in this trap of logic and debate where people ask how many potential terrorists have been caught versus how many potential terrorists have not tried to get on a plane because of the security. The answer to one is zero and the other can't be qualified. You can't prove a negative. Personally I thought the security at IAD pre-9/11 was horrible but that was more out of my personal frustration with dealing with them and English as a third or fourth language with the rent-a-cop security company that had the Dulles contract.

gingersnaps

Most Fake Bombs Missed by Screeners 2007

"Tests earlier in 2002 showed screeners missing 60% of fake bombs. In the late 1990s, tests showed that screeners missed about 40% of fake bombs, according to a separate report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress."

What is interesting is that as of 2015, according to DHS Inspector General John Roth private screeners fair no better than TSA, yet the above 2007 article suggested they did. According to the article and a CNN article covering the same topic, private screeners were constantly tested. Today though neither group is better than the other.

Boggie Dog

Been to Miami TSA lately?

Randyk47

No, haven't been in or out of Miami in ages. That bad? Interestingly even with the heavy Hispanic population here in San Antonio it would appear, and I caution I've not exactly counted, that the vast majority of TSA personnel here are caucasian English speakers. Locally TSA employment seems to be very attractive to our large vet and retired military personnel population.

cestmoi123

As much as I dislike TSA, there is a genuinely difficult aspect to every screener's job, which is that the vast, vast, vast majority of the baggage and passengers they screen don't present a threat. In that sort of environment, it's really hard not to glaze over.

If memory serves, one of the aircraft engine manufacturers had a similar problem with people inspecting jet engine turbine blades. Defects were so rare that, one the very rare case somebody did come across one, they were likely to miss it, since they might go through thousands of blades before finding a defect. So, they started intentionally introducing a very small number of defects before the blades were inspected, to keep the inspectors mentally engaged. These weren't lazy or incompetent people - they were just human.

chollie

Distraction is also a major factor.

The unnecessary barking, the loud and pointless noise pollution of senseless airport loops, the personal conversations and the cellphone use all contribute to TSOs missing what's relevant.

Local priories are also a factor. Emphasize fake IDs and fancy perfume bottles or lifelike artifacts or start pressuring TSOs to confiscate more to prove they are alert and the mission itself gets distorted.

I have had a TSO hold up a hand for me to wait while she finished typing on her cellphone and then said something to another TSO on the other side of the belt. Way to go folks, got your mind on everything except your primary task.

gingersnaps

The 2007 article suggested that one airport did better because they were constantly tested.

A recent article cited a security consultant suggest that there should be continuous testing of TSA personnel. I am all for it.

TSA and the traveling public should:

Stop focusing attention on items of little consequence, e.g. knives, blades, stun devices.
Stop focusing on line times at the expense of security.

chollie

If there was regular and frequent testing, TSA would be able to identify any screeners with particularly high failure rates. TSA could also look for patterns: do cell phone use, personal conversations, noise level, confiscation and 'random' quotas, and specific focuses on non-threatening items (drugs, cash, fake IDs, Arabic script, 'lifelike' representations of mythical weapons, etc) have any impact on the failure rates.

84fiero

The paranoia (or racism, whichever stupid thing was the complaining passenger's motivation) is getting ridiculous. When will airlines and airport authorities start applying some common sense when responding to passenger allegations?

And as someone else mentioned it's getting like the Boy Who Cried Wolf which doesn't help either. Or maybe it's the "Boy Who Saw a Mouse and Assumed It Was a Wolf"?

I'm just going to go ahead and report you to TSA now

That's a very good quote. "See Something Say Something" only serves as an attempt at job security and budget expansion for DHS, TSA, etc. and adds to the security theater.