petaluma1

http://www.fox9.com/news/265354360-story

Maxwell Smart

From the story (bolding mine):

"In most cases, they succeeded in getting the banned items though. 17 out of 18 tries by the undercover federal agents saw explosive materials, fake weapons, or drugs pass through TSA screening undetected."

Ummm, I thought TSA has repeatedly stated they do not actively search for drugs, and only report them if they happen to come across them during screening?

chollie

drugs = medical nitroglycerin pills

It looks to me like 17 out of 18 items were concealed someplace besides the pax's genitals or butt crack or breasts.

So what will happen now? A pissed off MSP FSD (they might knock $500 off his $20K bonus for this) is going to double down and order 4-minute genital rubs for all breast-feeding mothers and underage kids who forget to remove juice packs or tablets. And no more Precheck! MSPs score actually declined - from 75% to 95%!

I really hope they are tracking the tests by which lanes they are conducted in: Pre, Pre-lite or regular.

FliesWay2Much

Perhaps, at least during this shift at this airport, they practice what they preach about drugs and really don't search for drugs as we've suspected the TSA actually does. In other words, if one of the testers just had pot in a bag and nothing else, the clerk may have seen it but didn't call for a bag check.

FliesWay2Much

Darn good way to convince Congress to fund zillions of our taxpayer dollars for those high-tech bag screening machines.

chollie

What's tricky is finding a way to game the tests after we spend a billion dollars on these new machines and the failures rates are still abysmal.

Boggie Dog

TSA has consistently performed poorly on testing that checks the effectiveness of the screening methods in place. What will it take to make TSA understand that its procedures are faulty?

chollie

TSA blames hardware and the pax for all failures. Nothing is going to improve because TSA is unwilling to admit that TSOs making up their own rules are the problem.

No business, not even a fast food joint would survive if the customer never knew what to expect. Security is TSA's 'deliverable'. Because there are no firm rules, the quality of the 'deliverable' is predictably all over the place.

I sure wouldn't want to be flying through MSP in the near term. I hope this failure will be reflected in the MSP FSD's annual bonus (usually thousands of dollars).

gsoltso

This is the kind of thing that happens when you have un-nameable sources, and no specific verification that you can publish, or a writer that chooses to embellish, or a writer that simply got things wrong. TSA does not go into bags looking for drugs, although we do report them if they are discovered while searching for possible threat items.

I am not saying this story is untrue, but I am still leery over unidentified sources. We have had tons of articles across the board where false stories are pushed out by anonymous/un-named/unidentified/unverified/unverifiable sources. Little things like a posting stating unequivocally that searching for drugs is a part of the testing, does nothing but lessen the credibility of the story, the writer, and the sources - especially when a little bit of research into the area (like checking the TSAs website), would remove the most glaring errors.

Boggie Dog

TSA could counter the story and publish exactly what happened, what the target items were, how the failures occurred, and what steps TSA was taking to correct the problems. TSA could even state that there were no targets that were made to appear as drugs.

Seems the balls is squarely in TSA's court.

chollie

1) TSA denies it looks for drugs.

2) TSA denies it confiscates nitro pills.

3) TSA says the final say on any item is up to the screener.

Only #3 is verifiably true.

goalie

But the toothpaste and shampoo! Think about how safe we are!

Boggie Dog

So if TSA just closed up shop and went home we would only be 5% less safe and would save $8,000,000,000.00 tax dollars each year. Think I'm willing to take the chance.

Maxwell Smart

I understand that a security-related agency like TSA will take the 'neither confirm nor deny' stance when it comes to reports of such tests, but the agency could certainly post on their public website unequivocally they DO NOT actively test or search for drugs, and that any reporting of such is false.

Since TSA has, in the past, made posts refuting aspects of media stories, they could certainly do it this time, even without referencing any specific story.

Boggie Dog

TSA could certainly be more forthcoming for issues that become public information. From almost its very beginning TSA dishonesty has been the standard of TSA communications with the public. I expect nothing different going forward.