Checked baggage theft prevention?
 

At my home airport of TLH, the checked-luggage explosives sniffer is in front of ticketing, and the public can see the entire thing--they also have inspection tables for customer-viewed hand inspection for when the sniffer detects explosives.

Upon check-in, the airline employee weighs your luggage and puts the destination tag on it. You then carry your own case to the TSA clerk, who makes sure it doesn't have an "unauthorized" lock on it, then puts it in the sniffer. If you're so inclined and want to hang around for a few seconds, you can watch it come out the other end, where an employee of the appropriate airline takes it, and off it goes.

Here are my questions concerning a setup like this?

- The TSA has already "cleared" the checked baggage before it disappears into the airport's abyss. Are TSA clerks kept out of this area, or can they go down there and insist on "inspecting" checked luggage for valuab--er, explosives?

- How about transferring luggage between flights? Can TSA clerks hijack transferring luggage for "inspection"?

- Same thing at the destination. Is your checked bag's trip from the airplane to the claim carousel TSA-free?

I think you get where I'm going here. If all checked baggage screening is done in plain sight of passengers in the ticketing area--and if the TSA clerks are kept out of the employee-only luggage areas--that would be a definite help in keeping TSA clerks from stealing checked baggage.

The only surefire way of preventing theft of checked luggage is to use good quality hardside cases with strong hinges and locks the TSA can't easily cut or remove.

FAR 1544.293 says that you must secure your checked luggage if you have a "firearm" in it. You can use real locks that keep the TSA out under Federal regulations. See http://deviating.net/firearms/packing/ for lots of good information.

One word: Bagcam. Put a DVD recorder in your luggage. Instructions and real life videos of the path bags take at different airports are here

I'm thinking in what some people might consider a very weird way: I don't want to have to either "declare a firearm" in my luggage or use a bagcam to keep things from being stolen out of my luggage. I simply want TSA clerks to have _no_ authority to touch luggage once they clear it through the checked-baggage bomb sniffer.

So I'm wondering if this is the case. When my bag comes out of the TSA bomb sniffer and an airline employee grabs it, is the TSA done with that bag for good? Or can they go under the airport and force airlines to fork over checked bags?

We would all love for that to be the case, but today that isn't the reality we have to live in.
We mere mortals of the traveling public aren't privy to that information. The TSA considers the details of what happens behind the scenes to be SSI, and not for the public to know. While there are some good reasons for that attitude, the TSA takes it to ridiculous, and pointless extremes.

Anyone here who has worked for the TSA in the past? Or works at an airport and can see the TSA doing their super-duper secret activities?

The system being described is the good ole days before the airlines and PAX demanded something more efficient. Now it is an line baggage system. Which while faster it is behind the scenes. To a certain degree it makes some sense. HOWEVER, after getting a tour of one inline system there is no reason why it needs to be behind a wall. In fact, I think it would be quite interesting from multiple points of views to have it fully visible to the general public. First, should inspections be visible to the public? Is there any difference between inspecting carry on baggage vs checked baggage? IMHO no, and yes. Next, I think from a how does an airport work it could be interesting to see a baggage system work. I mean image if there were windows all over an airport? Beside providing more light it would certainly provide more transparency. Imaging being in say ATL and watching your bags go zipping by while you walk down the concourse?

However, a bigger prevention would be simpler: the airlines are responsible for all baggage regardless of what is put in them.

Not to hijack too much, but this is the reason we have TSA in the first place. The airlines don't want to take responsibility for anything that they can feasibly pass off to government (and blame if something goes wrong). I agree that it would solve the problem but it would never happen. The airlines love TSA, because TSA lets them cover their butts if anything ever did (does) go wrong.

Bingo. Before the TSA, airline employees had custody of your checked baggage from check-in to claim, and any theft was on them. Now, they can just engage in circular finger-pointing with the TSA.

I'm still flabbergasted at how airlines love the TSA. If the TSA ever decides to start providing "security" at shopping malls, will mall managers be happy that they can point the finger at the TSA, since they no longer have the authority to kick them out as they did with in-house or contracted security?

As far as theft from checked luggage is concerned, the "we irrationally hate the TSA" crowd wants to pretend that only TSA employees are thieves.

I believe that any rational person understands that it is far more likely that a bag will get rifled by someone other than the TSA - the baggage handlers, other airline employees or airport employees that have access to baggage areas.

While the background screening of TSA employees leaves much to be desired, it is still better than the screening of airport/airline employees.

The problem that TSA refuses to address is that many people in the secure area receive no screening. They also have access to baggage and can easily introduce contraband or as more often happens steal from these bags.

The issue of continued thefts from checked baggage clearly shows the weakness in TSA Security protocols and TSA has done nothing to resolve this issue.

This problem is certainly a dead center bulls eye for TSA FAIL.

deleted- double post

The TSA is the reason that I can't use a real lock on my bag. So they get the blame there.

+1 And the TSOs view my bag with xrays. Unlike the baggage handlers, they have a pretty good idea what's in the bag before they open it, so they are much more efficient.

Besides...I've seen TSOs getting in trouble for baggage shenanigans. I don't seem to see as many baggage handler busts.

Too bad there's not a way to use the exploding dye packets the banks put into cash bundles in the movies.

Something like this might work better than the bank markers.

The baggage handlers aren't the ones that are cutting locks off of bags, they also don't have the authority to rifle thru the bags. The TSA does both of these things.

While I have had some theft problems before TSA, my personal experience is that after the TSA became involved the problem got more than an order of magnitude worse. I went from having stuff occasionally stolen only at DTW and LAX to having stuff get stolen/rifled thru at more than 50% of the airports I visited. This stopped after I started flying with "firearms", thus locking out the TSA. While this anecdote isn't proof that the TSA is rife with thieves, it does lend credence to that theory.

I'm certain that there is lots more theft from baggage handlers and other non-TSA employees - it just isn't that well publicized.

:D:D:D:D:D

Funny post of the day!!

Care to cite your reasoning? (Bolding mine.)

Yes, other actors besides TSA have access to baggage areas, including airline and airport employees. (As others have pointed out, TSA has far more knowledge of which bags might have items worth stealing inside, and has contributed to lapses in physical security with the "TSA-approved" lock farce, which bad apples are happy to exploit.) But the fact that TSA is just one of several entities with access to checked baggage doesn't mean that it is "far more likely" that someone other than TSA will rifle bags. It just means that it is at least as likely as the others.

I really would love for you to share your logic with us, and support this assertion you've made. Because I don't see how it follows at all.

Virtually all my theft problems were pre-TSA. The only item I've lost post TSA is a hairbrush on an international flight to VIE. The bag had a "we opened your bag" paper inside and stuff had been rifled through but the only thing missing was a ratty old hairbrush. The only unfortunate thing is that I didn't unpack until after the stores closed on Saturday and finding a hairbrush in Vienna on Sunday is impossible.

I'm glad I could make you laugh. ;)

As posted above, I don't agree with the first part of this, but I do think that thefts from TSA are more well-publicized. TSA spokesholes have to be seen as doing something, after all, and announcing their zero-tolerance policies gives the bloggers things to write about and lets them ignore the mission-defeating holes in their security.

If all you lost while traveling is a hairbrush, then you were most likely not traveling much on business, and having to carry equipment with you. My guess is that you are leisure traveler, or at best a light business traveler.

I used to travel heavily on business, there were several years where I was traveling more than 80% of the year. Most of that travel required taking equipment and tools with me in checked bags. When I was able to lock hard sided cases, I had no losses (unless the whole case went missing). After the TSA came on the scene I began losing individual tools and pieces of equipment out of checked baggage. It got to the point where it was cheaper to use FedEx and UPS to ship the tools and equipment to the site rather than risk the pilfering at the airport.

cb1111 overlooks one point. The other workers at the airport have to be productive. They don't have the bottomless cash supply that TSA enjoys. I think any rational criminal investigator would look at the possibilities and start with TSA.

You're right, I never checked any gear (with the exception of my phone/laptop chargers) and actually avoid checking anything but clothing and personal items of no use to anyone, but I was a frequent business traveler both domestically and internationally. Now my business travel is primarily domestic.

I've never checked anything valuable and I never will - that's probably why (almost) nothing of mine goes missing.

That's an absurd statement and one that clearly typed while wearing your tin foil hat.

My understanding is that TSA as a theoretical matter, has the right to check luggage anywhere in the system. However, as a practical matter, they don't deal with any such bag once it's been scanned at the origin unless there's some highly unusual situation (e.g., a bomb threat and everything on the plane is searched again).

Yes, that would explain why you haven't had anything valuable stolen. ;)

Correct, but contrary to the "tin foil crew" I don't trust anybody and don't just single out the TSA. :)

There are way too many places in an airport/train station/bus depot where checked bags are out of sight.

If it is valuable and I can't take in my carry-on (the one that goes under my seat) then I don't take it. If it is really valuable then it goes on my person.

If I can't take it but it needs to go somewhere then I use the USPS - they might lose it but there is a much lower likelihood of it get stolen over (wh)UPS or FedEx.

I've dealt with the legal folks at UPS and FedEx and the amount of pilferage is staggering - but then again they do move mountains of stuff every day.