Originally Posted by
eastport
To state it from a different angle: this story shows a process and management failure.
A retaliatory search easily diverted the full attention of multiple employees. That's an attitude and training problem. When supervisors reinforced the flawed actions, that's a management problem. Throughout this event, no one recognized the true situation of petty screeners, an illegal search of papers, and failed security.
The TSA dismisses the GSA tests of gate security as being "too clever". It doesn't take very much cleverness at all to spot and exploit these gaping holes.
What this tells me is that even the screeners themselves don't believe they have any likelihood of stopping an act of terror at the checkpoint. As easily drawn into retaliation as they are and as frequently as their attention is diverted by their personal power trips, they allow their time and focus to be consumed with hassling the people who simply want to get from Point A to Point B.