Originally Posted by chollie

If there is a background check so rigorous and so reliable that airport employees and TSOs can be granted virtual unchallenged access to the sterile area for months or years at a time based on that one background check, why aren't pax allowed the same privileges if they have undergone the same background check?

If the background checks are insufficient to clear an ordinary pax and random gropes are necessary, then why aren't airport workers and TSOs subjected to the same 'random' checks?

I don't know the actual numbers, but I suspect a far larger percentage of airport workers and TSOs have been caught and prosecuted for taking advantage of their privileges (smuggling drugs and guns, stealing) than pax.

That's particularly chilling when you realize that TSA will go out of its way to cover up for its own employees and airport workers working in conjunction with them while throwing the book at a pax for something as trivial as being unlucky enough to encounter a TSO with a chip on his/her shoulder.