From the article:
Originally Posted by Chuck Schumer
"How did it happen? How often is it happening in other places? What is the screening for TSA agents? These are questions that leap out," wondered Senator Schumer.
It's been happening for quite awhile Chuckie. If you'd stop grandstanding and blindly defending them all the time, you just might see what a mess TSA is.
A union leader for current TSA agents believes part of the problem is that a private contractor was brought in to hire these federal workers as the TSA was created shortly after September 11th, 2001.
TSA union leader Ron Moore said, "The rush to bring people in. These contractors are paid to hire people, they're not paid to catch every little detail and they were very sloppy and they didn't do a very good job, frankly."
That's an excuse from 10 years ago. What's the excuse now? TSA's had an absurdly high churn rate, so it's pretty safe to assume that the vast majority of those people hired then are gone. If bad employees are still there, why haven't they been dealt with? Could a union have something to do with that? Could it be TSA management just doesn't care?
Senator Schumer questioned, "What if a TSA agent were in cahoots with a terrorist? And we have had terrorists crossing our border with Canada in the Buffalo area."
We've been saying that for years, Chuckie. There probably are screeners somewhere in cahoots with terrorists. However, when TSA says:
A TSA spokesperson responded to this saying that all TSA employees are subject to extensive background and criminal history checks, and that the TSA moves swiftly and decisively to end the federal careers of those who break the law.
And then TSA uses that as an excuse as to why they don't screen their employees, and cites the Occasional Bad AppleŽ as a one off when something does. We also know that TSA doesn't swiftly end federal careers when someone breaks the law. Just ask Alvin Crabtree.