TMOliver

With some background in corporate and institutional security and "risk analysis", I'm pretty comfortable that there were literally dozens of folks not TSA employees who had access to the bag in question over a greater period and with more opportunities for theft than did the TSA staff.

I have no love for the agency and its "dismal product line", largely conflated by the imagined "Will of the People" ("If they need to feel safe, we'll give'em a whole panoply of safes, mostly for effect.").

But don't confuse the elephantine and grotesque side show which makes up the biggest part of TSA's airport circuses with the fact that accusations flung carelessly about with no more to base them upon than had the OP in this case have more to do with stupidity and incipient paranoia than with fact.

That's not to say there might not be a handful of rapacious ladrones on the payroll, but I'll bet that you'll find this set of sticky fingers were over in the land of baggage handlers (no guiltier than the greedy opportunists who stimulate crime by purchasing ill-gained booty with little fear of apprehension or punishment beyond a light flogging with pasta long past al dente).

stockmanjr

This has been happening for years and will keep happening with or without the TSA around. The problem is as others have said that so many people have access to your bags that it's really hard to tell who has stolen your item. There is no way to fix this since human greed exists among everyone even those with SIDA badges. Back in the pre-tsa days I had my passport swiped at the checkpoint because I was tired and put it next to my laptop...Oh and btw I've heard many stories of people being relieved of their items after checking bags at European airports..
Cheers
Howie

RadioGirl

But in the pre-TSA days it was possible to put a decent lock on a checked bag. (It still is in the rest of the world). It might not stop the most persistent thief but it kept the merely curious out. The options now are a useless TSA lock, a cable tie or nothing. As others have said, it's like the gov't requiring you to keep your house unlocked. They may not be the thieves, but they're making it possible for anyone else.

Any X-ray, whether CAT or not, distinguishes density. You've got two pieces of technology: a CAT X-ray which creates an image, and software which looks for patterns in that image. In a thread some months ago, it was suggested that at large airports the images are interpreted automatically, but at smaller airports there was someone viewing the images (as per carry-ons). The fact that the image may be interpreted automatically does not necessarily equate to it being a poor image - even a computer does better with a clear image than a fuzzy one! (My father did fundamental research in image analysis and I have professional contact with people who develop scanning hardware and image analysis software. I'll admit that I don't run baggage screening equipment, but I do know the basics of the technology!)

The CAT scan that you've described IS an X-ray; your continued attempt to say "bags aren't X-rayed" suggests either that you don't understand the technology you're defending or that you're trying to confuse the issue. It's like saying, "My pet didn't poop on your lawn, because only dogs do that, and this isn't a dog, it's a beagle." It may just be that he didn't poop on my lawn, (and it may just be that the TSA has invested in crappy technology), but "he's not a dog, he's a beagle" is not a reasonable argument.

So out of the very limited choices to hide, say, a small zippered jewelry bag (rolled/stacked inside clothes, inside a shoe, under the lining) can your criminal acquaintance tell us which is the one the thief would search first?? Now you seem to be blaming the pax for the theft, since they put their valuables in the wrong place.

Cee

I can't speak for OOTPYLTH, but I think the point she is trying to make is that the CTX machines do not require an operator to be sitting at the screen, studying the images. Because the CTX will stop and identify bags that need to be screened, there may not be an operator looking at each image to even see valuables. I don't work in baggage, so I don't know if they are required to sit at the monitor and watch every bag. I have heard the CTX referred to as the "Smart Machine", it does the job for the TSO's.

oneofthosepeopleyouloveto hate

I don't have to understand it; I just have to know how to operate the durned thing!

Sorry for being obtuse, but I was trying to outline for the layman the difference between the (checkpoint) X-ray, which is "read" (interpreted) by a human, and the (checked baggage) CTX, which (as Cee so much more nimbly explained ) is an automated process. The machine makes the threat/non-threat determination, therefore image quality isn't paramount, as it is (or should be) at the checkpoint.

Some large items with distinctive shapes ARE recognizable on the CTX, but the Hope diamond? Grandma's brooch? Umm, not so much.

That wasn't my intent at all!

Rather, there seems to be a notion here that there's some sort of vast right-wing conspiracy, aided by technology, to steal from bags.

I happen to think it's much more likely that

1) as you say, the options for hiding items is limited; and

2) as I discovered in the cited anecdote, it's likely many people use the same hiding places, nonetheless thinking they're being clever.

Ergo, it probably doesn't take an accomplished thief very long to rifle a bag and find the "goodies," even without the help of an X-ray image!

Again, this is just a hunch on my part, as I don't know anyone who actually has stolen anything from a bag.

drat19

Not from me there isn't that notion. As I have stated repeatedly, I believe that TSO thefts of specifically chosen items from checked bags are crimes of opportunity, not of targeting specific items during x-ray or other first-level examination. They're opening up and searching bags as part of their useless and doing-nothing-to-make-America-safer jobs, finding items of value that can be pilfered with utter impunity, and deciding that today's the day to "stick it to the man 'cuz I'm feelin' underpaid today". And apparently there are plenty of opp'ys to do this outside of the view of surveillance cameras that may or may not be in place...case in point: the thieving thief TSO caught at Cee's airport.

I'm going to keep driving this point home with a sledge hammer, because it's real and I will not tolerate any denial of its existence. It is utter h*ll to carry on bags due to the War for Overhead Storage (not to mention the Liquid Ban sham), and it is utter h*ll to check bags because of airline mishandling and because of theft that is either committed by, or facilitated by (due to not being able to lock bags), the useless efforts of the TSA which are doing nothing to make America safer. In short, the carrying of ANY personal possessions during flying is utter h*ll.

DFW Flyer71

TSA needs to screen their people more carefully. DFW is full of theft. If you have anything valuables I suggest you carry on. Otherwise an opportunistic TSA thief..oh I mean employee will take it.

On my flight out yesterday from DFW to Orlando I had a small bag full of jewelry that belonged to my wife in my checked bag. The bag and valuables were with us until we handed the bag over to TSA. We arrived in Florida and got to the hotel. When I opened the check luggage I noticed a flyer from TSA confirmed that they had examined my bag ….and to my surprise that my jewelry bag was missing. We call home to make sure it had not been misplaced and when I called TSA they were absolutely no help.

Kiss your valuables good bye when you check bags. TSA doesn't care and I’m sure can’t control their own employees.

DesertNomad

My bag has been opened "randomly" by TSA about 7 of the last 10 flights (They open it on ATL-RNO 100% of the time when arriving in ATL from overseas), but nothing has been taken that I know of (and there are always random foreign coins in one pocket).

Beyond some coins, there is never anything very valuable, but it does disturb me how often they open it. How often do they open other people's bags? It must take a huge amount of time to process bags if they open most of them... perhaps this is why my bag rarely makes the RNO connection out of ATL?

drat19

DN, I've read many of your other posts, and (no offense, promise) surely by now you realize that due to your particular travels to/from the Middle East, you and your possessions have a big ol' bullseye on them...don't you? You MUST BE "the Big Catch"!

DesertNomad

I understand I am being profiled.... which is why the "random" is such a misnomer. I haven't been PRG-ATL-RNO since the Czech Republic joined Schengen (which didn't fully happen until late March) so we'll see it that helps at all.... one can always hope.

I've got a fresh passport now too which currently has about 50% of its stamps from safe, friendly countries like the UK (of course the others are from dark, evil places like Tunisia ), but I won't be back in the US until September. I am quite interested in how it goes.