Because 'It's your fault for leaving it readily available to thieves' is always a valid excuse.

It is far more likely, by several orders of magnitude, that the security person searching luggage is a thief, than it is likely that the person whose luggage is being searched, is a terrorist.

[QUOTE=bluenotesro;19578930]I presume you work for the TSA.

For the rest of us, it's important to keep your eyes on your bags at all times. Americans have the right to have items of significant value with them as they travel within the country. Never let a bag out of your sight for even a moment.

Of course, the theft in this case is alleged. But since there have been proven cases of the TSA engaging in exactly this sort of scam, an abundance of caution is necessary.

As echoed in some prior comments, Innocent until proven guilty dosn't deserve to be applied to the TSA.

When I go through an airport checkpoint, I'm assumed to be guilty of being a security threat and a terrorist unless proven otherwise. Why, given their history of thefts and failing to run background checks on their employees among other things would I give them the benefit of the doubt that the person accused is likely an upstanding citizen who couldn't possibly be guilty of stealing something?

Yeah. A lot more TSA agents are busted for theft than false claims we hear about. Furthermore, the lack of the tape makes it pretty clear what really happened. TSA is quick to produce the tapes when it will exonerate them.

Wow! Who else should have their Constitutional rights stripped from them? Maybe the Jews, Gypsies and homosexuals should be next? I know a great little place in Poland you could sent them.

Who do you work for? Has an employee of that company ever done anything wrong? If so, maybe YOU should also be guilty until proven otherwise?

TSA screeners have no Constitutional right to be alone, unobserved, with passenger's property. They also have no right to be above suspicion, especially given the statistics. They are in no danger of being falsely imprisoned, just closely watched. Where's the harm in that?

I agree with all of what you said but the individual screeners do, and SHOULD, have the right to a presumption of innosence (until convicted in a court of LAW, not public opinion) when accused of a crime. Once we start dictating which Americans the Constitution applies to and which ones it doesn't we start walking on a very slippery slope that leads to all the things we claim to oppose.

When do passengers get the same presumption of innocence?

When they've been accused of a crime. That's what the presumption of innocense applies to.

Doesn't TSA consider us all potential terrorists? Aren't we already subjected to a Constitution free zone at the airport?

Legally, you are of course correct. Practically, virtually no one wants to give TSA the benefit of any doubt, given their track record of the the last 10 years. When you are the most disliked federal agency of all, you reap what you sow.

I don't know what the solution is. If I did, I'd be very rich and very powerful worldwide, but the problem is that both freedom and security are a) never absolute and b) directly opposed to each other.

Does the TSA consider us all potential terrorists? Well, yes, they probably do. Can't the same be said for every bank, courthouse, concert, etc, etc where there are restrictions on what we do or what we carry on our person? I have never intended, attempted or planned to shoot someone in a courthouse. However, I get screened whenever I enter one. Are we (as a group) potential terrorists? Yes we are POTENTIAL terrorists. Was there any way on 9/11 of looking at the groups of people getting on the various jets and saying "Yeah, he's ok. Yeah, she's ok. Wait, this guy? Nope, he's a terrorist!"? The folks getting on those jets that day looked just like me, you and John Q Public. Are there some people on FT who are either terrorists or potential ones? I'd say most likely. FT is a wealth of information that can be used by good guys and misused by others.

So, what do we do?

Do we sacrifice personal liberty in the name of security (as they've done in Israel, etc for quite some time)? If so, in order to TOTALLY PREVENT the possibility of a security breach security needs to be much tighter. Tighter to the point that it becomes virtually unworkable.

Do we sacrifice public safety in the name of personal freedom? If so, the people that want to harm us will exploit our weakness. How many people will blame the government for not protecting us in that event?

Do we find a compromise in the middle somewhere? If we do, we will likely have neither freedom nor security. We will (and do) have reductions in freedom that increase security but not enough to prevent those who want to from doing us harm.

While I understand that a few (ok, several) bad apples may have tainted the bunch, this happens fairly often in a variety of ways. Priests molesting boys. Teachers having sexual relations with their students, cops stealing money and drugs from suspects, etc. Where I used to be a LEO we had a large percentage of African American and Mexican American people who sold drugs (as compared to the percentage of Caucasians that did). Does that mean that all priests, teachers, cops, African Americans and Mexican Americans should all be tarred with the same brush? If not, what makes individual TSOs any different?

Most importantly, once we decide that we are going to refuse those individuals their Constitutional rights are we not exactly the same as those we claim to dislike so much?

Easy Answer.

First, we recognize that lax gate security did NOT cause or facilitate the 9/11 attacks. If you look, you won't find in the official 9/11 Commission Report a finding that lax gate security caused the attacks. Because it didn't. The decision to "federalize" airport security was a panic-produced overreaction to the attacks, something that finally, even some TSA supporters in Congress are beginning to realize and admit.

Second, we force DHS and TSA to release the comprehensive interagency study of the risks to commercial aviation that they suppressed four years ago. That study properly ranked the then-known threats, and to no surprise, the above the wing threat from passengers wasn't the #1 threat. We update that study, and implement the necessary changes. Which will be difficult, because it will involve a dismantlement of much of the existing TSA structure - in particular, the inefficient and ineffective federalized screening force.

Third, we should retain TSA, but as a vastly different organization. We should consign the nudeoscopes to the junk pile where they belong, just like other advanced countries chose to do. Responsibility for the execution of airside passenger security would be returned to airports, supervised by a TSA FSD who would be charged with ensuring that minimum standards are maintained. The majority of TSA effort would be directed where it belongs - to address the most pressing threats to aviation security - under the wing security in particular.

Finally, the federal government should come clean to the American people and admit that despite its best efforts, it will never be able to eliminate the threat posed by terrorists. In other words, tell people to grow up and recognize that living is not a 100% risk-free endeavor.

I agree with pretty much everything you said to one degree or another.

I can think of about a dozen ways to create absolute havoc in a terrorsim event at an airport and none of them would involve bringing anything detectable through a TSA checkpoint. I think most people with a law enforcement, military or chemistry background would agree.

The establishment of the TSA was, without a doubt, a knee-jerk reaction which has done very little except increase the deficit and prove that Bin Laden did his job, and very well at that.

As for the rest, yeah, what you said.

Forgive my ignorance ... but why couldn't that report be FOIA'd into the public record?