Originally Posted by
Bart
I'm a paratrooper. What the hell else do you expect?
How about some civility, and some basic manners? I had a colleague who was a Navy Seal before he joined us. He wasn't rude, offensive, or impolite.
Blaming your former profession for your lack of manners is pathetic.
Originally Posted by
Bart
SFO does have a federalized staff. It is not an independent private security company. It has TSA managers, a TSA FSD and it is trained by TSA instructors like myself.
Ok, you want to pick nits, fine. I've never said we should have indpendent private security. Yes, SFO has federal managers, but the line screeners work for Covenant Airport Services, IIRC. Not another group of entitled federal employees with attitude.
Originally Posted by
Bart
As for TSA inspectors themselves tipping off airports in advance, I have to tell you, I do not know of any. This is not to say, however, that they "OPSEC'd" themselves; in other words, in trying to be discreet, they do the opposite and tip themselves off. Not saying that it's not possible; just saying that I don't know about any specific instance of an inspector violating his or her code of conduct and being employed the next day.
For someone who professes to be a security professional, and knowledgeable about TSA, you apparently don't get around too much.
TSA Tipped Off Screeners About Security Test
In E-Mail to Airport Staff, Agency Official Relayed Alert on Undercover Agents
By Eileen Sullivan
Associated Press
Saturday, November 3, 2007; D03
The Transportation Security Administration promotes its programs to ensure security by using undercover operatives to test its airport screeners. In one instance, however, the agency thwarted such a test by alerting screeners across the country that it was under way, even providing descriptions of the undercover agents.
The government routinely runs covert tests at airports to ensure that security measures are sufficient to stop a terrorist from bringing something dangerous onto an airplane. Alerting screeners to an undercover officer's timing and appearance would defeat the purpose.
But that's exactly what happened on April 28, 2006, according to an e-mail from a top TSA official who oversees security operations.
In an e-mail to more than a dozen recipients, including airport security staff, the TSA official warned that "several airport authorities and airport police departments have recently received informal notice" of security testing being carried out by the Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration.
The e-mail from Mike Restovich, assistant administrator of TSA's Office of Security Operations, relayed an alert that described a couple who were testing security. The woman is white but has "an oriental woman's picture" on her identification card, it stated. "They will print a boarding pass from a flight, change the date, get through security (if not noticed) and try to board a flight and place a bag in the overhead."
Because the pair had altered the date on a boarding pass, the e-mail advised: "Alert your security line vendors to be aware of subtle alterations to date info."
The TSA inspector general is investigating the incident, and the agency would not discuss details of the case because it is part of an ongoing investigation.
TSA spokeswoman Ellen Howe said, "We are confident in the overall integrity of the program. Tip-offs are not a systemic problem because we do so much testing."
Lawmakers are asking for more details on the incident as well.
"Any effort to undermine the integrity of covert testing of TSA's screening checkpoints is unacceptable," Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) wrote in a letter Thursday to TSA Administrator Kip Hawley. Thompson chairs the House Homeland Security Committee.
So much for Congressional oversight.
Originally Posted by
Bart
That's been my point all along. The so-called private companies are, in reality, federalized contractors. They are treated the same as their federalized counterparts except they are contracted whereas their federalized counterparts are not.
You said they were performing better, and I challenged that claim. I do not challenge that they are performing about the same. I would expect them to.
I do believe you claimed the same with regard to TSA employees. But that is beside the point. If contract screeners perform as good as TSA employees, why do we need 30,000 more federal employees on the payroll?