Newark TSO steals cash from wheelchair bound woman.
May 19, 2010, 11:58 am
#61
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May 19, 2010, 1:06 pm
#62
Join Date: Dec 2009
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That's good to know.
TSA should really consider getting this type of information out to the public as well. It would serve a number of purposes, from showing that the agency is serious about these types of problems to providing some public examples of how infractions are treated (which would hopefully discourage such future actions by TSOs).
When I fly later this summer, I may try marking a dollar bill or two and leaving it behind in the tray just to see what happens myself... We'll see. I do think that TSA should conduct those types of "integrity tests" of its agents periodically, though.
TSA should really consider getting this type of information out to the public as well. It would serve a number of purposes, from showing that the agency is serious about these types of problems to providing some public examples of how infractions are treated (which would hopefully discourage such future actions by TSOs).
When I fly later this summer, I may try marking a dollar bill or two and leaving it behind in the tray just to see what happens myself... We'll see. I do think that TSA should conduct those types of "integrity tests" of its agents periodically, though.
May 19, 2010, 3:30 pm
#63
Join Date: Nov 2008
Posts: 3,657
TSA defenders here claim that TSA critics take a few isolated cases and blow them all out of proportion to their importance. I claim TSA does the same thing ... crowing about finding firearms in .0002% of passengers every week and claiming that there's a Huge Threat to Commercial Aviation.
I go back to an old saw of mine. TSA demands passengers follow its unstated rules perfectly, 100% of the time. In return, TSA shouldn't be surprised when passengers demand that TSA do the same.
May 19, 2010, 5:21 pm
#64
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I don't think that pointing out the items they are supposed to find is an exaggeration.
Is it shameless to have a weekly count of how many items were caught? Yeah, kind of. But to the TSA's credit, they just do it in numbers, and as far as I know, they aren't holding a parade every time something is intercepted.
The touting of catching a moron with coke at a checkpoint or some guy using a fake ID is out of bounds and borderline embarrassing.
The TSA defenders are right in some, even most, cases.
The difference between what the TSA does and what's seen here is that they are at least diplomatic about their message. Here, it goes to "jackboots," "thugs" and "McDonald's workers" in the drop of a hat (isn't there a thread just-started thread about education level of TSAers?).
I actually understand the TSA's vantage point. They need to justify their existence. Here, there are a lot of very good points, but they get drowned out by the type of comments mentioned in the last paragraph.
It's abundantly clear that the TSA monitors this board, both in official and unofficial capacities. Think about it from the TSA's side....do you think they would want to have a level-headed discussion with frequent fliers making second grade-level comments made here on a regular basis? (Side note: some of those childish comments also do come from people who say they work for the TSA as well).
I'm getting way off track here, but I would wish that someone from the TSA, someone with an impressive business card, would invite some of us to sit down in a room and point out what we see first-hand, and listen to some solutions from a frequent fliers' perspective.
I agree that the TSA needs to abide by its own rules. I also agree there's a lot of arbitrary application that spills over into abuse of power.
However, in my opinion, many people who get into a confrontation with the TSA either seek it out, and/or just go way over the top and handle the situation very badly. Many people (again, in my opinion only), do it to leave a good story here in the TS/S forum. Well, it makes for good cheerleading and feeds the mob mentality of some, but it's the classic case of winning the battle, yet losing the war. In the end, we become the laughing stock of Flyertalk.
Again, the TSA needs to get it's crap together. Flyertalk has been influential in getting its voice into many other things in the travel industry and has left a great mark.
However, the TSA is a government bureaucracy that seems to want to expand faster than it can (and I know that goes against of what I said earlier about talking turkey with them). With the mob mentality here, we're not helping ourselves one bit. And that's a damn shame on many levels.
Is it shameless to have a weekly count of how many items were caught? Yeah, kind of. But to the TSA's credit, they just do it in numbers, and as far as I know, they aren't holding a parade every time something is intercepted.
The touting of catching a moron with coke at a checkpoint or some guy using a fake ID is out of bounds and borderline embarrassing.
TSA defenders here claim that TSA critics take a few isolated cases and blow them all out of proportion to their importance. I claim TSA does the same thing ... crowing about finding firearms in .0002% of passengers every week and claiming that there's a Huge Threat to Commercial Aviation.
The difference between what the TSA does and what's seen here is that they are at least diplomatic about their message. Here, it goes to "jackboots," "thugs" and "McDonald's workers" in the drop of a hat (isn't there a thread just-started thread about education level of TSAers?).
I actually understand the TSA's vantage point. They need to justify their existence. Here, there are a lot of very good points, but they get drowned out by the type of comments mentioned in the last paragraph.
It's abundantly clear that the TSA monitors this board, both in official and unofficial capacities. Think about it from the TSA's side....do you think they would want to have a level-headed discussion with frequent fliers making second grade-level comments made here on a regular basis? (Side note: some of those childish comments also do come from people who say they work for the TSA as well).
I'm getting way off track here, but I would wish that someone from the TSA, someone with an impressive business card, would invite some of us to sit down in a room and point out what we see first-hand, and listen to some solutions from a frequent fliers' perspective.
However, in my opinion, many people who get into a confrontation with the TSA either seek it out, and/or just go way over the top and handle the situation very badly. Many people (again, in my opinion only), do it to leave a good story here in the TS/S forum. Well, it makes for good cheerleading and feeds the mob mentality of some, but it's the classic case of winning the battle, yet losing the war. In the end, we become the laughing stock of Flyertalk.
Again, the TSA needs to get it's crap together. Flyertalk has been influential in getting its voice into many other things in the travel industry and has left a great mark.
However, the TSA is a government bureaucracy that seems to want to expand faster than it can (and I know that goes against of what I said earlier about talking turkey with them). With the mob mentality here, we're not helping ourselves one bit. And that's a damn shame on many levels.
May 19, 2010, 5:49 pm
#65
Original Poster
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The TSA defenders are right in some, even most, cases.
The difference between what the TSA does and what's seen here is that they are at least diplomatic about their message. Here, it goes to "jackboots," "thugs" and "McDonald's workers" in the drop of a hat (isn't there a thread just-started thread about education level of TSAers?).
I actually understand the TSA's vantage point. They need to justify their existence. Here, there are a lot of very good points, but they get drowned out by the type of comments mentioned in the last paragraph.
It's abundantly clear that the TSA monitors this board, both in official and unofficial capacities. Think about it from the TSA's side....do you think they would want to have a level-headed discussion with frequent fliers making second grade-level comments made here on a regular basis? (Side note: some of those childish comments also do come from people who say they work for the TSA as well).
I'm getting way off track here, but I would wish that someone from the TSA, someone with an impressive business card, would invite some of us to sit down in a room and point out what we see first-hand, and listen to some solutions from a frequent fliers' perspective.
I agree that the TSA needs to abide by its own rules. I also agree there's a lot of arbitrary application that spills over into abuse of power.
However, in my opinion, many people who get into a confrontation with the TSA either seek it out, and/or just go way over the top and handle the situation very badly. Many people (again, in my opinion only), do it to leave a good story here in the TS/S forum. Well, it makes for good cheerleading and feeds the mob mentality of some, but it's the classic case of winning the battle, yet losing the war. In the end, we become the laughing stock of Flyertalk.
Again, the TSA needs to get it's crap together. Flyertalk has been influential in getting its voice into many other things in the travel industry and has left a great mark.
However, the TSA is a government bureaucracy that seems to want to expand faster than it can (and I know that goes against of what I said earlier about talking turkey with them). With the mob mentality here, we're not helping ourselves one bit. And that's a damn shame on many levels.
The difference between what the TSA does and what's seen here is that they are at least diplomatic about their message. Here, it goes to "jackboots," "thugs" and "McDonald's workers" in the drop of a hat (isn't there a thread just-started thread about education level of TSAers?).
I actually understand the TSA's vantage point. They need to justify their existence. Here, there are a lot of very good points, but they get drowned out by the type of comments mentioned in the last paragraph.
It's abundantly clear that the TSA monitors this board, both in official and unofficial capacities. Think about it from the TSA's side....do you think they would want to have a level-headed discussion with frequent fliers making second grade-level comments made here on a regular basis? (Side note: some of those childish comments also do come from people who say they work for the TSA as well).
I'm getting way off track here, but I would wish that someone from the TSA, someone with an impressive business card, would invite some of us to sit down in a room and point out what we see first-hand, and listen to some solutions from a frequent fliers' perspective.
I agree that the TSA needs to abide by its own rules. I also agree there's a lot of arbitrary application that spills over into abuse of power.
However, in my opinion, many people who get into a confrontation with the TSA either seek it out, and/or just go way over the top and handle the situation very badly. Many people (again, in my opinion only), do it to leave a good story here in the TS/S forum. Well, it makes for good cheerleading and feeds the mob mentality of some, but it's the classic case of winning the battle, yet losing the war. In the end, we become the laughing stock of Flyertalk.
Again, the TSA needs to get it's crap together. Flyertalk has been influential in getting its voice into many other things in the travel industry and has left a great mark.
However, the TSA is a government bureaucracy that seems to want to expand faster than it can (and I know that goes against of what I said earlier about talking turkey with them). With the mob mentality here, we're not helping ourselves one bit. And that's a damn shame on many levels.
We've posted many things (several topics with many comments) that anyone could see were reasonable. Heard anything from anyone in power over at DHS/TSA comment on any of that? Frustration doesn't lend itself well to people behaving civilly when they feel ignored, especially by their government.
May 19, 2010, 6:27 pm
#66
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 88
He looks very contrite in the Star Ledger photo
May 20, 2010, 10:51 am
#67
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Remember in this thread where a TSAer had some difficulty whether he reported a crime he saw?
May 21, 2010, 9:08 am
#68
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Location: An NPR mind living in a Fox News world
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-- The last figure I saw, coincidentally, was in the summer of 2007. In the article in which the figure was reported, a Spokeshole confirmed that something like 500 TSA employees had been fired for theft. It's obvious that Spokesholess Annie picked 2007 as a starting point because using the real number since the beginning of the TSA was unfavorable to the TSA.
-- "23 were fired for theft..." Parsing this statement begs the following questions:
-- How many were arrested for theft?
-- How many were arrested but were not fired?
-- How many were arrested and "resigned"?
-- How many were arrested, put on administrative leave, and returned to duty? (Not theft, but, Alvin Crabtree is a prime example)
May 21, 2010, 1:57 pm
#69
Join Date: May 2009
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It has occurred to me, and probably the terrorists, too, that the TSA make us MUCH less secure. You have too many people who can cooperate with someone to let them sneak something through a checkpoint.
It would be extremely easy to get a sympathetic person hired in a TSA position, or bribe or blackmail one of them.
Each TSA agent is like a weak link in a chain.
It would be extremely easy to get a sympathetic person hired in a TSA position, or bribe or blackmail one of them.
Each TSA agent is like a weak link in a chain.
May 21, 2010, 2:23 pm
#70
Join Date: Apr 2010
Posts: 88
Yes, it seems to me that there are way too many TSO's at each gate, especially as compared to security protocols in other countries. The problems I've seen or heard about all involved several TSO's, sometimes issuing contradictory orders, speaking sharply to pax, or causing more serious problems.
The amount of distraction at the checkpoints I've been through have caused me to leave behind items, fortunately, we noticed and none were stolen. However, I do know several people who've "lost" stuff at checkpoints - although nothing so heinous as the guy stealing from the wheelchair bound woman.
The amount of distraction at the checkpoints I've been through have caused me to leave behind items, fortunately, we noticed and none were stolen. However, I do know several people who've "lost" stuff at checkpoints - although nothing so heinous as the guy stealing from the wheelchair bound woman.
May 22, 2010, 2:47 pm
#71
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Traveling the World
Posts: 6,072
This is not right
Its not fair that we have to go through security and these TSA officials can steal from us? How would they like it if I stole their money and their personal items? Its not fair that they pry through our luggage stealing items and we have to follow the rules.
If I found out that a TSA official stole something from my luggage I would demand that I get the compensation today and I will ask that the Police be summoned and file a report and press charges. If someone steals from someone else then they can be charged so why not the TSA official?
Stealing from a wheelchair bound passenger is beyond disgusting its a sin. That officer needed to repay that person with his/her own personal check on the spot. If it was me I would have said I need that money as this is all I have since it was caught on camera I would say I had the money before submitting to the check and now I don't have it. I would cause a scene until I get my money back. I would say that I need the money for meals and the rest was for other items.
You get the point!
If I found out that a TSA official stole something from my luggage I would demand that I get the compensation today and I will ask that the Police be summoned and file a report and press charges. If someone steals from someone else then they can be charged so why not the TSA official?
Stealing from a wheelchair bound passenger is beyond disgusting its a sin. That officer needed to repay that person with his/her own personal check on the spot. If it was me I would have said I need that money as this is all I have since it was caught on camera I would say I had the money before submitting to the check and now I don't have it. I would cause a scene until I get my money back. I would say that I need the money for meals and the rest was for other items.
You get the point!
May 23, 2010, 5:42 am
#72
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May 23, 2010, 2:31 pm
#75
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I imagine the majority of TSO's have a high school diploma plus, but the above isn't exactly setting the bar really high.