Dudemon,
I don't know how many firefighters you personally know, but the 2 I had dinner with last night would never work as screeners no matter what pay you pick. They are because being a firefighter allows them time off and schedules that allow many of them to work other jobs. A better example would be jail guards and I will be surprised if you can show me any examples of guard positions that draw those kind of numbers. You will find very high turnover, low satisfaction and most likely many unfilled job positions.

You will also find by objective standards that the best scoring applicants often are not the ones always hired by fire departments, because of gender and racial equity requirements. No matter how many times I have asked, no one with military or prior police experience has made any attempt to prove that raising the salary and making the position a federal/state law enforcement position will fix the problems. The job will always be boring and repetitive. Doing it correctly will result in complaints. Until 9-11 most articles about police talked about low morale and increasing numbers of civil rights complaints. An example of how some police respond in Cincinatti has been to only respond to 911 calls and stop being proactive on the streets.A year from now when that older lady starts screaming about being harrassed because she forgot to take out the scissors in her purse.

You can never get zero mistake security. I do agree that if you throw enough money you will get some better quality employees. My arguement is that it will not seriously change the overall situation. That has changed forever because of how people will respond to any hijacking attempts.

Finally I would like to know more about this incident. It seems curious that it happened right after the transportation secretary said he would accept zero mistakes. It seems like it could have been designed as much as a statement. I cannot believe that a person continued on after setting off an alarm. I would bet money that somebody set off the alarm and when wanded was passed on when the security person thought they had found what was detected. Has anyone seen a report that said more than it was closed after a security error, and without attacking the national guard and police, where were they? Everything I have seen says that police or troops are overseeing every entry. So how have federal positions made things better?


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Robert