Hungry luggage-inspecting TSOs at ALB unable to resist yummy chocolate cake
Dec 29, 2011, 1:04 pm
#16
Join Date: Nov 2010
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At most airports you checked luggage spends more time with airport and airline employees that with TSA.
As to someone stating there is no chain of custody, that could not be more wrong. There certainly is a chain of custody.
http://www.ifly.com/albany-airport/baggage-and-security
Note the following:
Quote: "Baggage checkpoints* are now the first checkpoints you will encounter at the airport. Security screeners will screen all checked-baggage before it is loaded onto the planes"
This is a semi-inline baggage system. Which means the first people to have access to the bag are TSA employees, and the last people to have access to the bag are both airport and airline employees.
As to someone stating there is no chain of custody, that could not be more wrong. There certainly is a chain of custody.
http://www.ifly.com/albany-airport/baggage-and-security
Note the following:
Quote: "Baggage checkpoints* are now the first checkpoints you will encounter at the airport. Security screeners will screen all checked-baggage before it is loaded onto the planes"
This is a semi-inline baggage system. Which means the first people to have access to the bag are TSA employees, and the last people to have access to the bag are both airport and airline employees.
A chain of custody means that each individual person who accesses your bag is logged, and that nobody can access the bag without logging it. The very fact that you are able to cast doubts on TSOs stealing stuff from baggage means that there is no verifiable, trackable chain of custody for checked bags - which means that your entire screening process is completely worthless security theater, because "anybody could have taken that out of the bag at any point during transit" also means that, "anybody could have put anything INTO the bag at any point during transit" as well - and your agency, which is tasked with keeping bad things off of planes, would never know it, until it went boom.
A verifiable chain of custody is absolutely essential to any sort of true security screening. This has been well known for decades, hence the questions - "Has your bag been out of your sight since you packed it? Has anyone had posession of your bag since you packed it?"
TSA, as an agency, is either too stupid to know it, or too crummy at its job to care.
Dec 29, 2011, 1:42 pm
#18
Join Date: Sep 2009
Posts: 3,702
SATTSO, what is your definition of "chain of custody"? I understand that bags follow a path from the ticket counter to the aircraft, and that different people have different roles along that path, but that isn't a chain of custody according to this description, or this description.
Using those definitions, I fail to see how "that could not be more wrong." But you may be using a different definition. What is it, and where can it be found?
Using those definitions, I fail to see how "that could not be more wrong." But you may be using a different definition. What is it, and where can it be found?
Dec 29, 2011, 1:44 pm
#19
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Are you claiming that checked baggage does have positive control on who accesses the bags at all times after a traveler turns over their bag be it to the airline or TSA?
Dec 29, 2011, 1:59 pm
#20
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Perhaps there are other posters here who are more familiar than you are with what happens at other airports.
I have passed through airports (PHX comes to mind) where I immediately hand my luggage directly to a TSO for screening, but generally I hand my bags to someone else - skycap or an airline agent and TSA gets their hands on my bags at some point later in the process.
Dec 29, 2011, 2:07 pm
#21
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,972
Well, part of the process I can see: a baggage handler loads the bag onto a belt where another baggage handler who's inside the cargo hold takes it and stows it. If there were a chain of custody being maintained, there would be a process, for each bag, where one handler signs control of the bag to the other. Not only is this clearly not happening, there's no practical way that it could ever happen. So I too am confused about your definition of "chain of custody".
Dec 29, 2011, 2:19 pm
#22
Join Date: Dec 2011
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It's not a Chain of Custody, SATSO. You mean something else. Chain of Custody is a law enforcement/legal term, and it involves documenting/recording property as it exchanges hands . If the TSA uses a real chain of custody procedure, then an investigator would be able to identify exactly who stole item from a bag ......or ate half a cake.
Dec 29, 2011, 2:40 pm
#23
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Anyone who has ever sat on a plane and seen an orphaned bag sitting alone on the tarmac has seen a bag that is clearly not under anyone's 'positive control'.