+1. I saw this in SAN. Screener walks in with a big back pack full of Lord knows what.

Meanwhile, we're all getting harassed, felt up and irradiated. :td:

Exactly. What we can learn from that "pen" incident in the other thread is that TSA screeners are far from morally perfect, low wage employees. If they have unfettered access to the terminal, it is a HUGE security hole.

e.g. some "friend" goes up to their screener...

"Dude, I'll give you $1000 to take this into the secure area."

screener: "What's in it?"

"Oh, nothing, just some stuff. You don't have to open it or anything."

screener: "$1000??? Ok."

It is a very BAD idea to give entire classes of people no security screening. :td:

Lack of screening, and the fact that this is publicly known, makes agents, ground crew, and baggage handling all prime targets for infiltration by smugglers and terrorists. Flight crew seems to get minimal screening too.

I do not worry that much about them taking a bribe. A bribe runs a greater risk of detection and getting reported.

I would be more concerned that with the lax hiring practices that someone with nefarious intent could just get a ramp job or even a job with the TSA. It would just take one, some time to learn how to game the system, and the act could be done. It would be easy enough that it is surprising that it has not already happened.

That is unless no one is really trying.

We ARE screened, but I would not call it "rigorous". The "rigorous" was done long before we ever worked a checkpoint.

Like the screener in Richmond (RIC), Virginia who was a convicted felon for robbery? Try again TSScreenerwRong

Exactly -- herein lies the problem, and the proof that this alone is insufficient lies in the innumerable episodes of TSA screeners committing crimes both on and off the job. In my little scenario, the TSA agent may not even know he or she is doing something absolutely terrible. It is a huge security hole.

You're funny!:p:D:D:rolleyes:

But your colleagues in IAH, MCI, RDU, SFO, PWM, ORD, MCO, and countless other stations aren't given so much as a walk through the WTMD...

And the background check which you claim as rigorous... Seems like it's missed several problems with clerks. Remember the clerk at RIC who TSA required get a SIDA, despite him being a convicted felon???

Christopher Elliott claims otherwise:

http://www.elliott.org/blog/tsa-watc...have-uniforms/

And I repeat my comment from earlier but now add, is this what you consider "not rigorous" screening?

Whatever the screening is, if it isnt the same as the px's screening then the whole thing is shena. Can't have a double standard.

I'm not reading what he says but he's wrong at least on airline employees. We are screened the same as you with maybe one slight exception. Today in PVD they tried to tell me to go to the "nude o scope" I showed my airline id & he just sent me on to the WTMD.

In fairness to Mr. Elliott, he's describing a new program at BNA.

And FWIW I don't view that exception for you as "slight" at all.

I'd love to be "slighted" like that. ;)

In August the TSA at BTV didn't even walk through the WTMD. THey walked through a gate next to the MDs. I observed them entering the sterile area in this manner because I had asked for a supervisor after a TSA tried to confiscate my child's near empty tube of natural toothpaste she uses for medical reasons. He asked me to state what medial reason before he would give it back. I asked if he was a medical doctor. When he said 'yes' I asked for his supervisor. I had to wait more than 20 minutes in security- luckily I arrived early enough - and sadly observed not a single screening of TSA's.

AT DFW I have watched airport employees enter through the employee access doors where all they do is swipe a badge and walk in. I have observed some of these employees entering with 6 2 liter bottles of beverage, one with a small rolling suitcase and others with backpacks and other personal belongings all without any form of screening.

Now things may have changed in the last couple of months but that is how it has been done for the past several years.

So it seems to me that airport employees may be subject to random screening but they are not subject to mandatory screening on each entry to the sterile area.