STBCypriot

The new patdown procedures have got me thinking about what kind of background checks a TSA employee goes through before being authorized to grope the general public.

Is their credit record checked?
Is their criminal record checked?
Has the FBI investigated their behavior and talked to their neighbors and coworkers?
Do they have to take a crazy test (like the MMPI)?
Do they undergo some kind of pyschological evaluation?

I ask this because I'd like to know what kind of person is performing US government sanctioned groping.

BTW, I have undergone these experiences/tests (and passed) because I have worked/ do work in nuclear and chemical facilities with some very nasty stuff.

So I'm thinking I am more trustworthy than the TSA yahoos and have passed the tests to prove it. Yet I am the one who gets to be groped, if I am selected.

VH-RMD

do you eat pizza?
do you buy petrol (gas)?

STSO_Davis

Criminal Background, Credit, FBI, Fingerprinting, the background investigation form alone is about 40 pages that has to be completed by the perspective employee.

And with that being said you are going to have goofballs (for lack of a better word) working anywhere despite background investigations. Look at the school system, police, firefighters, doctors, lawyers, amongst many more. All have had bad apples working there despite whatever checks they do on their employees.

Boggie Dog

TSA has hired known felons.

That should tell you everything you need to know about TSA background checks.

doober

Many of us began to call for psychological evaluations of all screeners as soon as the large-scale deployment of WBI was announced (together with the opt out pat downs).

With past history of more than a few screeners being arrested on sexual abuse/assault or other perversion charges, it is incumbent that the TSA initiate such evaluations.

But they won't until a screener who is allowed to fondle passengers and view images is arrested on other perversion charges. Even then TSA will say it was only a one-off event.

2089x5449

So credit, local and national agency check, and whatever the prospective employee feels like disclosing? Do they pull local police records for previous residences? Civil records? ChexSystems? Medical records? Do they interview references and neighbors? Previous employers? A forty page form is worthless if the data is not actually verified. That's how a lot of the "bad apples" you mentioned got through. Someone drinks too much or touches a kid, they're fired without criminal charges, then they move and start the cycle over.

Mr. Elliott

Lets see now, I have read that over 200 TSO’s have been arrested on the job for various reasons, like theft from luggage in the last 2 years, that speaks a lot for the quality of the TSA background checks.

Mr. Elliott

tehiota

I can't speak for the TSA checks, but in order to have an airport badge (Which TSA employees must have to navigate the airport) you have to undergo an FBI background check (10 yr) with finger prints.

Then annually, they run your DL and do a search for wants/warrants, etc. This is done by the local APD, so if someone did get passed TSA's screening (the irony, i know), APD *should* catch it.

Ari

Are you talking about that form 28 thing? I can't imagine that most TSOs filled out 40 pages of paperwork to get hired. Are you talking about the thing for Secret Clearance?

What you're describing sounds like the form for an SSBI and that isn't done on all TSOs.

RichardKenner

Hasn't that happened already? I thought I saw a thread to that effect.

Global_Hi_Flyer

It does sound like the SF-86 (or the current online version). The TSA wouldn't want to pay for either Secret or TS clearances for screeners that have heavy turnover.

This report tells more.

lostinthewash

So a Nexus card holder is just as thoroughly checked as someone holding an airport badge, but can't get into the secure zone without a scan or a grope. Trusted to get into the country, but not on a plane. Too bad that logic only applies to PAX.

N965VJ

Inside Job: My Life as an Airport Screener

Concierge.com

<SNIP to the background check part of the article>

It takes two minutes to fill out the information requested on the application and press the send button. Within three weeks, I receive an e-mail saying that I've made it past the first round. I then report to a location I was told not to reveal, for a surprisingly arduous test of my aptitude for picking weapons out of what amounts to a lineup of X-ray images of baggage. After an hour, I leave with a throbbing headache and the conviction that I've failed completely. But that same day, I receive another e-mail from the TSA with an effusive opener: "Congratulations! You have passed the…test to become a transportation security officer with the TSA."

Within a few days, I am directed by another e-mail communiqué to a TSA office at an airport. There, I am fingerprinted and consent to the expected background investigation. (I have no reason to assume it wasn't done, but not one of the half-dozen references I gave, including people who have worked with me professionally, was contacted.)

My "interviews" are so detached and impersonal that they could have been carried out by a robot. My first face-to-face with a TSA official consists of my sitting mutely while she reads to me stiffly from a script. I am then ushered into a different office, where another interviewer asks me a series of generic questions that he reads from his computer screen ("Have you ever helped anyone in need without being asked?"). The queries offer no opportunity for probing, and never during the hiring process am I asked about my reasons for wanting this job. One assistant tells me: "We are supposed to ask everyone the same questions," which, if correct, seems a rather literal-minded interpretation of a government-fairness policy.

Mr. Elliott

I wonder what the turn over rate is for TSO’s, I am sure the TSA won’t say what it is, because they will say it’s SSI, just to protect themselves.

Mr. Elliott

Global_Hi_Flyer

If you google it on the web, you will find that it can be as high as 20%.