Boggie Dog

Does that include the top dog himself or was he just promoted up until his incompetence revealed itself?

Caradoc

It includes all "employees."

IrishDoesntFlyNow

That's what I love about you, <deleted> - you're so the master of understatement.


~~ Irish

halls120

Why Pistole took the position continues to be a source of amazement. He's far too smart to have not realized what a CF TSA was. I suppose it could have been an ego thing on his part, thinking he could change things, but I have to think he gets up in the morning and wonders what ever possessed him to leave the FBI and take the thankless job he currently holds.

Boggie Dog

I think his degree of smartness can be challenged on the simple basis that he did take the TSA job.

Nothing coming out of TSA shows much intelligence at work.

Boggie Dog

I almost missed it but apparently TSA has responded to this incident.

Quote:

TSA agent confiscates sock monkey's pistol

http://www.king5.com/news/local/TSA-...234986321.html

artemis

So the TSA is claiming a 2" long toy is a realistic replica of a firearm? And we're depending on these cretins to detect ACTUAL terrorists?!

Caradoc

That does appear to be exactly what they're claiming.

I don't know who is. I'm certainly not. The only things I can depend on the TSA to do are to pretend to be relevant, try to bully me and steal my stuff, and put a kink in my travel plans.

RadioGirl

This was my point earlier in the thread. TSA has a restriction on "realistic replicas" and lets its 65000 employees individually decide what "realistic" means. And to the extent that we're "picking on <deleted>", it's because he thinks that TSA HQ leaving 65000 people to individually define "realistic" is sufficient.

When individual screeners decide that 2" guns and plastic light sabers and embroidered (= made. of. THREAD.) pistols are realistic, it should be clear that this approach is not working. Okay, clear to everyone except TSA management.

gsoltso

I have already openly disagreed with what happened here... I have also never been a fan of the lack of clearly defined prohibs for the first line of screening. There should be pretty clearly defined parameters on what each term/item means (at least for the majority of items, there will always be items that are not listed that we encounter). If there are adjustments to be made, have HQ make them and disseminate those changes nationwide. If a situation arises at a checkpoint where something is in question, that is what the LTSO/STSOs are for, to make those calls on a case by case basis. Evidently, I am in a minority within the organization.

If you love me as much as you say, you will already have seen my postings that I do not agree with the inconsistency approach - I understand what HQ has determined, and how they reached that conclusion, I simply disagree with it. It makes travel a challenge for the passengers (even the frequent flyers), and it makes it more difficult on the TSOs, and it is a PR nightmare for the organization. As it stands, based on the information I have, this was an item that should have warranted a minute or two extra of scrutiny (at the most) or simply looked at and sent on its way (at the best) - and that will remain my opinion in the absence of proof that something else was involved (like the item is actually a viable threat).

halls120

Well, you do have to consider what we're dealing with here.

And once again, TSA makes it appear that the language bolded above is the agency's #1 SOP - screw the passenger and make TSA look as bad as possible. Then again, all of my encounters with TSA management inside the Beltway produce the same result. I've never dealt with so many people who are so unconcerned about the impression they create by their actions. I'm beginning to believe that during the TSA interview process, they tailor the questions to single out people who have huge chips on their shoulders for some wrong done to them in the past, and extend them the job offer.

Carl Johnson

Clerk <deleted>, no, that wasn't my question. My question was "who would be shooting it" - that is, a functioning cap gun would only be needed by someone who could conceivably shoot it, but this gun belonged to a plush monkey. Thus, there would be no point in seeking out and acquiring a functioning cap gun; therefore it wasn't a functioning cap gun. And of course, the clerk didn't claim that it was a cap gun; she took it on the idea that it was a replica weapon and that if someone held it up to a passenger's neck, the passenger wouldn't know the distance.

Caradoc

I have. Fortunately, the company was in the private sector and did not survive. Since the TSA is shored up by taxpayer monies, there's little hope of them suffering typical corporate Darwinian action.

I don't believe that every TSA employee is a vindictive thug. I believe that mixed in with the thugs are people who truly are so stupid as to believe that the TSA is a worthwhile endeavor.

This makes the sockmonkey gun incident somewhat ambiguous - was the "screener" who confiscated the gun doing it to be a vindictive thug, or did they do it because they truly believed that a plastic 2" prop/toy represented an actual threat to aviation.

Note that neither case is "good."

InkUnderNails

I am not offering an excuse, just an explanation. I am a CWP holder and an owner of several firearms, many of them military styled. One was actually a military issue firearm (M1 Garand) at one time.

There are people with irrational fears of firearms of all types. I meet them from time to time and they treat me like someone with the plague when they learn that I am a stupid neanderthal that would actually handle a firearm, much less own one and (HORRORS!) shoot them will real ammo. When they learn that I have a permit to carry and that I might have one of these evil devices in their precious presence, they will run from the room if they do not faint dead away at my feet.

There are stories of children being disciplined for t-shirts with firearms, pop tarts shaped like firearms, finger pointing like a gun, and even drawing a nonexistent bow and releasing a nonexistent arrow. This is the playing out of this irrationality in the schools.

So, put someone with this irrational fear of firearms at the CP and this is what can happen. With training, it would not. With an un-mushy SOP it would not. With intelligent management, it would not.

Training/SOP/Management, the TSA triplet of failure.

Boggie Dog

Where the train goes off the rails is in a supporting TSA declaration supporting the confiscation. The problems are much deeper than a single clerk making an idiotic call. Anyone working for TSA is part of the problem, not part of the solution.