Dear President Elect Obama:

Please, while making cabinet nominees, appoint Mr. Spiff as Head of DHS. We will all be so much safer. Thank you.

^

This is one of the differences between you and the TSA screeners, and why their "Look for the Big Catch" mentality is warping their outlook.

According to the TSA, they find an average of about two guns per day. That is 700 per year. Do the math. If there was no turnover, with 45,000 TSOs, it means if each TSO worked a 40 year career the odds are any one TSO would find ONE gun in their entire career. One gun for every 2000 4 oz tubes of toothpaste they confiscate. They are looking for the needle in a haystack terrorist.

OTOH, unless you only work cold cases, you are directed to bad guys and associate with so many more of them. When you get a radio call "bank robbery in progress", you KNOW there is a Bad Guy, you KNOW where they are because you got told: a bank six blocks from you, and you KNOW there is a 100% chance you need to find a Bad Guy in the next 15 minutes.

A far different life from being told "you will probably find One Really Bad Guy in your entire 40 year career."

SgtScott31 might get 10 radio calls per day and end up arresting 3 people. If so 1/3 of the public you interact with are alleged criminals(innocent until proven guilty in a court of law). TSA screens 2 million pax per day and finds ZERO terrorists on average. A high percentage of everyone SgtScott31 talks to are arrested. 9,999,999 out of 10,000,000 passengers TSA screens are NOT criminals. See the difference?

No, a terrorist will have an accomplice put a bag containing a suspicious object throught he x-ray, then ignore it and walk into the terminal. The TSA will then willingly collect thousands of passengers for him and leave them milling about on the sidewalk where they become easy prey. Assuming, of course, the "terrorists" are still fixated on airports and not other, more accessible, venues.

Once you think about it for a moment, the TSA has nothing to do with law enforcement or "terror" prevention.

The operation of DHS/TSA sets a bad precedent for government intervention in the lives of US citizens. You are wrong to defend their practices.

i was talking about lumping the TSOs into a group like the LEOs...I've considered a career in law enforcement, so I'm not putting that down. I'm just saying, I wouldn't want people who go to Columbus State (the community college) to be lumped into the rest of my fellow students at tOSU


People are dumb, and will attempt to bring firearms through security. It happens. However, the most damage they could reasonably do is to somehow kill all 200 people aboard the plane, since the doors are fortified, and no pilot would allow the hijacker into the cockpit.

Again, not to target you or pick on you or anything, but saying X happened, but I can't give any details is the equivalent of you telling your kids "Because I said so"...it's not gonna help your cause

Have you looked closely at these? The guy has a Best Buy card, a "I(heart)NY" Visa card, and (gasp) a COSTCO CARD.

OMG, this is scary. It means Al Kidder intelligence is so good they can now send out deep undercover moles like this guy with Perfect All American Documentation.

Simply driving by T1/T2 at LAX on a typical day presents several hundred targets. Strap or carry an IED into the terminal and mingle in the 'rat maze' prior to security then flip the switch. Drive your VBIED to the curb at just about any airport and set it off. As Oklahoma City demonstrated, there is no need to drive into the terminal even if you could (see Glasgow UK).

What measures does the TSA take to prevent any of the above ? The DHS ?

That there have been zero IEDs inside the US since the beginning of the WOT is because nobody is trying it, not because anybody is preventing it. And I agree, there many other softer and more horrifying target locations than airports.

what's funny about it is that scenario is what SgtScott says he thinks the next attack will be, while continuing to sing the TSAs praises

The next attack won't be aviation. Here are the required ingredients:

• Shaky economy
• Troubled retailer
• Three random locations in the US
• Christmas shopping season

If suicide bombers were to target a single troubled retailer, say Sears, with bombings over a period of a few days, they could very effectively put that retailer out of business, seriously damage the US economy -- in the economy's current state it could create a very deep recession, and do untold damage to the American collective psyche.

Are we going to have a "papers, please" environment in our shopping malls?

... "Thanks to the quick reactions of police and instant notification of these BDOs, everyone got to where they were going on time."

If this is what it takes to get out of ATL on time, heck, I'll PAY for some nitwit to do this every time I fly out of that hell-hole

That's why there is Amazon.com

Long live the Internet (and Al Gore )

Right. Because it was all commercial planes has already reinforcement the cockpit doors. They need more protection with passengers & crew, too. If terrorist is on the planes but, the pilots will be automatically where the plane will be diverted to another airports. Because the cockpit doors has already kept close during the in-flight is in motion. If someone who gotten suspicious behaviors on the plane but, the F/A will notify to pilots. The planes will be diverted. It's taking own responsbility during the flight. If you see Air Marshals is on the plane. If someone who touch the flight crew. Its would be very serious for somebody. Passengers will restraining the bad person to put on the handcuffs. They need to put to sleep when the planes is landed. The authorities will wait for them on the plane. They will put into the police custody. They will be charges as inference of the crew. It will be very tough sentences for 20 years in the prison.

I'm not singing anything, but I agree with some of the things TSA has attempted to do. I definitely do not agree with some of their policies, and as you, find them rather ridiculous; however, it has definitely been more than what private (contract) security has done while paying their folks $7/hr.

I don't think frequent flyers (such a those on FT) will ever be happy with how the screening process is conducted. No matter how minimally invasive either TSA (or some other company/agency) makes it, there will always be those who p*ss and moan about it. I don't defend all their practices, but I don't hate them either, and come here to call them names on a daily basis. Show me another forum that people race to and start name calling on every bad apple they come across with an agency/company, no matter how miniscule compared to the total # of those employed with them.

That's like starting a McDonald's forum. Scenario: "Oh man you wouldn't believe the idiot I came across today at "x" location Mickey Ds..."

So who gets put on the chopping block when this occurs? TSA of course. Dam*ed if you do, dam*ed if you don't. So you are telling me that since the pilots are protected, an incident such as this is not that big of a deal?

Complaints here about the TSA are actually pretty specific. It is the mission creep that is the primary object of derision.

I think K-Mart might have more people than Sears. I can't remember the last time I went into a Sears or a KMart, but I think KMart has more people.

Shopping malls are already becoming a "papers please" type of place. The mall by me is the main place in CLT where I get asked to show ID to make a purchase. Many malls have curfew policies where young people have to show ID to prove their age after a certain time and people under a certain age unchaperoned are asked to leave.

But not for an adult to enter the building.

I'd pick Sears simply because, while like K-Mart they are financially troubled, unlike K-Mart they are not a stand-alone big-box store. Sears tends to be connected to a mall. Hit a K-Mart and you scare folks out of K-Mart. Hit a Sears and you scare them out of the mall. Hit three of them over the course of a week or two in random locations in the country, and you've shut down the whole season.

Also, in the Christmas shopping season, bulky clothing is the norm in much of the country. While others are wearing layers of wool and thinsulate, your layer of explosives will go unnoticed beneath an overcoat.