GUWonder

There are ways for the feds to attack this kind of problem on their own:

1. Scrap the passenger identity checking and use the freed up resources to put additional federal eyes on watching the TSA itself.
2. Streamline passenger and cabin baggage screening by defaulting to give all passengers PreCheck style screening at the airports so there are fewer TSA employees required and fewer to meddle around inappropriately.
3. Scrap the carte blanche allowance for the TSA to open passengers checked bags in the absence of the bag’s owner or a de facto custodian of the bags which isn’t the government.
4. Require less “unpacking” of passenger cabin baggage, and less undressing, at the passenger screening checkpoints.

In other words, drain the swamp of federal government-provided opportunities for federal government-employed thieves at airports.

One way to also do this is for the TSA to be put out of business and to let US airports and airlines return back to pre-9/11 type non-federalized security screeners.

WillCAD

Any calls for the agency to shrink, streamline, or go away are just old men yelling at clouds. After twenty two years, the TSA monster has a life of its own, and it'll never die, nor give up any of its marked territory.

But there is one trend at TSA that I think can help with the theft issue, and that's automation. Sure, the automation costs a lot, and brings up a lot of its own problems - sometimes it just doesn't <vehement explative> work - but the more jobs are done by machines instead of TSOs, the fewer opportunities that bad TSOs will have to steal from or abuse pax. We'll never eliminate thievery at the c/p entirely, but if we cut back on the number of TSOs it takes to operate a c/p, that reduces the number who can distract pax (even unwittingly) while others rob them.

So I like the concepts of automated tub returns, automated TDCs, and automated screening machinery. Machinery doesn't have emotional bias. Machinery isn't distracted by personal considerations. Machinery doesn't get into bad habits. And machinery doesn't lie, cheat, or steal from people. Machinery can malfunction or be badly programmed, but I have faith that the tech will eventually catch up to the promise of safer, more consistent, more accurate screening operations than the fallible and sometimes criminal human beings who are currently doing the job. Whether that takes ten years or fifty is anybody's guess.

SPN Lifer

Such solutions will require major legislative overhauls.

Meanwhile, the Miami-Dade D.A. should get some of his or her Deputies designated as SAUSAs.
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Boggie Dog

Arguing about federal or state prisons being the more favorable system I would suggest keeping in mind that the federal prison system has a less generous good time rule. I'd say that many states prison systems would be a tougher experience compared to the federal.

I think of TSA controlled checkpoints as being little islands of federally controlled property and federal law should trump state/local authority. I'm sure the Fed's want nothing to do with such.

GUWonder

A majority of those solutions for the federal government to fix this would not require any legislative changes. A minority of them would require legislative adjustments, but not necessarily a major legislative overhaul.

Boggie Dog

TSA should have been a regulatory/compliance agency from day one. Now we have an unnecessarily bloated federal jobs program.

i0wnj00

What you say is only true, if they turned in their SF-85P/SF-86 forms, that the vetting wasn't done and/or properly done or were they allowed to work despite potential red flags on their application and before the investigation was complete so they can push people through the pipeline.

Or it could of been that after they were favorably adjudicated that they conspired because they saw opportunities to steal from passengers, this I'm not sure you can blame the TSA for, unless they had first hand knowledge of an yet unknown or probable group of TSOs stealing or participating in illegal activities and did nothing about it. In that case that's negligence on the TSAs part.

N830MH

They never trusted them! These 3 screeners will be fired and they will never work for TSA ever again! That's stealing! They stole $600 cash from passengers' wallet. That's not acceptable!

No one ever touch the passengers' wallet. Leave the money alone! Obviously, they're breaking the law! Shame on you!

SPN Lifer

Every time I see a new post to this thread, I am hoping they made a federal case out of it.

N830MH

Yes! I doubt that. I do believe that. Every time I heard the news on Facebook or else. Yes, they will pursued them. They will be charged with theft.

i0wnj00

Nor is it likely they will be able to work for Federal Government again as their firing and the reasoning stays on the SF-50, their permanent personnel file and if they apply for different government agency, they could lie and claim that they were never fired but if this is discovered they will be disqualified. I don't think any agency would like to take a risk of hiring 3 people who stole money from the people they were entrusted to serve...

That's why I stuff my wallet in my backpack and try to keep an eye on it...
You'll never know who's going to try to swipe it...

I knew one TSO who got axed for touching a passenger's wallet..
He claimed that he placed said wallet in his back pocket and gave it to a supervisor at their desk, he only got caught because management was reviewing the cameras for another reason. Most TSOs, me included stayed away from passenger wallets and simply left it at the end of the lane or at minimum, toss the wallet into a bin/bowl and hold it (the bin/bowel) so the cameras can see what you were doing, it was too easy to get into trouble by handling these things...

N830MH

They have more video evidence. I did see TSA officers on security camera. I do think he was stealing the money from the passengers� wallet.

Video evidence shows TSA officers allegedly stealing from passengers at Miami International Airport

https://www.local10.com/news/local/2...ional-airport/

SNA_Flyer

It�s ironic that more screening clerks have been busted for theft than the amount of terrorists than the TSA has busted.

Boggie Dog

It's been said more than once that TSA presents a larger threat to the flying public than terrorists.

N830MH

You�re absolutely right about that. I don�t like it either. I don�t appreciate that. I don�t like behavior at all. They are not supposed to touching people�s bags. They will be fired and they will never get jobs back again. You could lose your job. No more warnings.