http://www.wivb.com/dpp/money/4_your...are-under-fire

More Heat

Is it hiring procedures or TSA management that needs to be investigated?

From the article:

It's been happening for quite awhile Chuckie. If you'd stop grandstanding and blindly defending them all the time, you just might see what a mess TSA is.

That's an excuse from 10 years ago. What's the excuse now? TSA's had an absurdly high churn rate, so it's pretty safe to assume that the vast majority of those people hired then are gone. If bad employees are still there, why haven't they been dealt with? Could a union have something to do with that? Could it be TSA management just doesn't care?

We've been saying that for years, Chuckie. There probably are screeners somewhere in cahoots with terrorists. However, when TSA says:

And then TSA uses that as an excuse as to why they don't screen their employees, and cites the Occasional Bad Apple� as a one off when something does. We also know that TSA doesn't swiftly end federal careers when someone breaks the law. Just ask Alvin Crabtree.

I think things are gonna get better soon. People are getting cranky.

"You can't cheat the public for long." � Tennessee Ernie Ford

In fairness, did Alvin Crabtree actually break a law? I mean, yeah, firearms are prohibited from being carried through the security checkpoints, but does the jurisdiction there outlaw the carrying of a firearm?

We find guns in Huntsville at the security checkpoint maybe... oh... just to ballpark it, I'll say three or four a year. We're required per our procedures to notify law enforcement who take over everything from there, but the passengers are never arrested (except once, and only because he had an outstanding warrant for his arrest; the arrest itself had nothing to do with the fact that he was carrying a gun in his carry-on). Typically, they return their firearm to their car out in the parking deck, or place it in checked baggage, or give it to someone to take home, and then they roll back in through the checkpoint and continue on their happy way. There's no law here forbidding the simple act of carrying of a firearm.

What law did the person who TSA threatened to fine $11,000 violate?

Seems TSA wants it both ways. No violation when it suits TSA but stand by if TSA wants to make an individual a case in point.

None. As has often been pointed out, the fines are civil, not criminal.

With all due respect, a firing offense does not have to by an arrestable offense.

Agreed, and, in fact, most of them are not. The point of contention, however, was over a statement TSA made, and that Superguy commented about.

I stand by my statement.

I would suggest while you are may be correct ( I don't know if what he did violated the law, I believe it would depend on intent), making that the 'point of contention' is at best irrelevant.

The point of contention should be IMHO, how the TSA reacts to an employee who not only brought a firearm into his place of appointment, but attempted (whether on purpose or not) to bring it into the sterile area of an airport.

If memory serves, TSA's reaction was to promptly suspend him pending termination, and he filed an appeal with a disciplinary board that overturned the local manager's decision. Though I cannot, for the life of me, remember where I read that from.

How do you figure? If the statement was that "TSA moves swiftly and decisively to end the federal careers of those who break the law," and it's countered with "TSA doesn't swiftly end federal careers when someone breaks the law," to try to pump any more information into it just seems disingenuous. Like moving the goal-post or something.

Yes, what Alvin did was a bad thing. But if the scope of the entirety of the statements involve the breaking of laws, then the question must be asked -- did he, in fact, break the law? If yes, then TSA's statement is untrue. If no, then TSA's statement is, at least in the most literal of views, accurate.

The point of contention therefore is that TSA management believes bringing a firearm into the airport and attempting to bring it into the sterile area is not worthy of termination.

I, and many others disagree.

Its an unskilled job with zero qualifications.

The qualifications for TSA agent are exactly the same as that of janitor, gardner or dishwasher.

But those jobs don't have nearly the same rate of criminal element....and they DO a positive service for society.

The difference? Not only does TSA attract those with no skills, it also attracts those with a desire to exert power over others. Furthermore a dishwasher has -accountability-. If they break a dish they can't hide behind "SSI"

Very bad combination and its no wonder that the TSA bad apple tree is constantly raining bad apples.

I just searched the http://www.mspb.gov/ and find no record of an appeal of any decision by anyone named Crabtree. Maybe it didn't rise to that level since that would indicate he had in fact been fired.

Wouldn't his action been subject to an Administrative fine? Is there a record of those fines available to the public?

Most places I've worked you didn't have to break the law to get fired, you just had to suck at your job or maybe treat customers so badly that they constantly complained about you. Those involved with letting the box cutters get by and a gun in a bra get by don't need more training. They just weren't paying attention, which is actually something that could get a plane blown up as opposed to squeezing some woman's breasts. (From another post in another thread: "Then I loudly reported each step of the process to the general public witnesses: Ah, I see you feel the need to squeeze my breasts. Oh you are checking my butt crack.") Those involved with laughing at and making fun of the girl who had her top pulled down and breasts exposed should have been fired because they are too immature to be doing a serious job and because of how they treated the pax (according to lawsuite settlement statement by TSA no job action was taken against them since suite was settled . The TSO's who punished" the woman for showing them their own rules about not xraying breastmilk should be fired. (She got the tapes and put them on youtube. I saw the tapes Every one of the TSA person involved should be gone.) Is it that hard to fire a govt employee that they have to commit a crime?