Originally Posted by
jkhuggins
Because my bag was already checked at the TSA checkpoint and deemed "safe" for transport.
Either TSA didn't do a proper job of checking the bag at the checkpoint (fail), or someone trusted to enter the sterile area without screening transferred an "unsafe" item into my bag inside the sterile area (fail). Gate screenings, as I understand them, are attempts to counteract either (or both) of those failures, and possibly others.
Or am I missing something?
How do we know that some co-conspirator did not hand off something to you that was not properly screened?
Screening is not perfect. Nothing can make it perfect, no matter if it TSA doing it or some civilian agency. Even the military cannot make screening perfect. No one and nothing can make it perfect. Period. Eliminating screening is an even worse proposition. Suggesting that doing so is irresponsible, and ignorant (not that I am saying that this is what you are suggesting).
One of the basic duties of our federal government is to do its best to protect its citizens. TSA is one way of doing that. The US Army is another. As is the EPA, Health and Human Services, and the CDC. And people scream just as loudly about each and every one of those agencies as you and the others here do about the TSA. I have seen it stated many times that HHS is the most hated agency there is, even more so than the IRS, and they all think that they had the data to back up their claims. Sound familiar? Change the “HHS” to “TSA” and you can find that same sentence many times in this forum.
THAT is the reason that I take every such claim here as little more than venting.