Loren Pechtel

Exactly. It's meaningless. Also, if they put a tag does it have the right number?

Accountability means cameras in the area and passengers can get the video easily.

petaluma1

I agree that screeners who steal are still going to find a way to steal. Video coverage is usually the domain of the authority that operates the airport. Do they have someone watching that video at all times?

The inspection notices need to advise passengers how to obtain video coverage of baggage screening. I've read comments from individuals who have gone to the TSA to get that coverage and been told they need a subpoena to get it or that it's SSI and not available to the general public. That's wrong, of course, but typical of TSA to either intentionally lie or just not have a clue how one gets the coverage.

Loren Pechtel

I don't think there's any need for someone watching all the time. Only look if someone has a problem.

I do like the idea of the notices indicating how to get the video.

trooper

Di d theft from checked baggage only suddenly start happening after the TSA was formed? Does baggage theft NOT happen in other countries with no TSA?

By all means increase scrutiny of the WHOLE chain of baggage handling.... (although given reports of thefts by handlers from baggage AFTER loading into the aircraft I'm not sure how complete it could be) but the fact you dislike the TSA does not mean they are responsible for all or most theft ......The demand by the OP that TSA be held responsible for all "Reported" theft speaks volumes IMO......not proven... just reported... yeah.. that's fair.

petaluma1

TSA has bee foisted upon us as a scheme to secure air travel. If just about anyone who has access can get into baggage, then TSA has NOT secured air travel and the OP is correct: TSA needs to be held responsible for ALL items missing from baggage.

chollie

TSA is tasked with ensuring that each plane that takes off has no contraband on board - via people or their bags.

Any gaps in ensuring that bags are secure from check-in to delivery are TSA's ultimate responsibility. TSA makes theft easier for baggage handlers by encouraging people to travel with unsecured bags and by routinely cutting and discarding the locks they do encounter.

I personally never had things stolen or damaged from my checked baggage until TSA. I never had a baggage handler cut the lock, rifle the contents, open liquids and toss them back into the bag unsealed.

Most worrying, I had never picked up my bag and found something belonging to someone else inside prior to TSA, something I seriously doubt any thieving baggage handler would do. I am supremely grateful that the added items were not drugs or worse.

Common sense says that the thieves are more likely to be people who know in advance, via xray, whether or not the bag contains valuable electronics and/or jewelry. Common sense also says that the thieves are more likely to be those folks in blue who are allowed to cut locks and rifle bags as part of their jobs on camera. A baggage handler caught cutting a lock and rifling a bag will have some explaining to do; it's all part of a TSO's daily job.

My own company has a similar chain of events involving an outside vendor, similar to the relationship between TSA and baggage handlers. If something goes wrong with the vendor, our end customer rightly holds my company ultimately responsible, not the vendor because we are responsible for the end service.

I care about secure baggage. It's too bad TSA doesn't.

Section 107

Video from the TSA baggage screening areas is much more difficult to obtain because it is deemed SSI because it shows methods and procedures.

But truth be told, there is some legitimacy to the video being SSI because it shows the video displays of the screening equipment. However, any offending portions in desired video can be electronically redacted/blurred, if necessary, without much effort so the strenuous objections are almost absurd.

chollie

Seems odd that TSA and the airport can have videos at the checkpoint that do show screener actions, often without displaying the SSI xray screens, but somehow TSA can't position cameras in the baggage screening area that monitor TSOs opening bags without displaying the xray screens or whatever.

Isn't the newest baggage technology supposed to work more like the current NoS's, ie, the screener doesn't actually view the 'nude' version of the bag to decide whether or not to select it for rifling, but the algorithms kick out bags displaying 'anomalies' that need to be manually inspected? If this is so, there is absolutely no reason not to have camera footage of the bag any time it is not actually in an area not accessible to humans (bowels of the baggage transport system).

TSA felt it was an agency responsibility to climb on the pitot tubes of airlines parked on a tarmac overnight to determine if they were properly secured. Equally, TSA's responsibility for ensuring baggage security should extend all the way to the belly of the plane. There simply should be no way anyone can tamper with a bag off-camera. It is TSA's responsibility to make that happen.

Boggie Dog

The only video needed is where a screener hand searches a bag and then while the bag is being moved to the aircraft. There is no need for video showing technology. So a camera over each screening table and video surveillence all the way to the airplane possibly even in the cargo holds.

Opportunities to pilfer bags is limited to roughly three events. Hand searches by screeners, when a screener telegraphs bag info to baggage handlers, and by baggage handlers just picking random bags to pilfer.

Section 107

At the PSCs the display screens are not (easily) visible to pax and photography of the screens is prohibited. The baggage screening areas are only accessible to TSA and limited other authorized airport workers let alone the public so there is no reason to be worried about placement of the display screens vis a vis surveillance cameras.

WillCAD

At SOME checkpoints the screens are not easily viewable by the public. At others, the screens are not covered or obscured properly. I've seen a couple of c/ps with glass-walled exits next to them, where the screens are turned toward the wall - the transparent glass wall past which thousands of people walk all day long, with the screens in nearly full view of any casual observer. I've seen others where the screens are totally visible from balconies above the c/p.

TSA's objection to photography has more to do with not being embarrassed online when they screw up or goof off than with any real security reasons.

Loren Pechtel

Shouldn't be hard at all to block off any screens that show up in the image. The cameras are fixed so the areas to be zapped are also fixed. And the screens aren't what we need to see, so blocking them off does no harm, either.

Loren Pechtel

Contrast that with China, where the security people actually showed me the screen once. (And it sure helped--we would have been a long time trying to resolve the issue otherwise as I did not know the object existed in the first place. I knew my wife had bought some chopsticks and I had packed some against the tubes of the handle. I had no idea one pair was metal and so of course had no idea what the offending object was when they described it. When they showed me the image the location told me what it had to be. The chopsticks were behind the lining--thinking they were ordinary I had packed them against the rigid tube to protect them. The liner doesn't have enough slack to permit packing against both rails without going behind it.)