Your Safety, Their Punch Line -what TSA's been up to

[Rose Siding]

I once thought working for the Transportation Security Administration was serious business. I didn't have a clue.
...
I know from my own experience that the TSA's Miami operation is stretched thin, and even with scores of us working overtime, we don't cover every hole in airport security. We don't have a comprehensive evacuation strategy, either, in the event of an actual threat. A committee of TSA employees developed a plan many months ago, but it has never been implemented.

Among the security gaps we can't close: We inspect luggage but we don't load it onto planes, so ramp workers, airplane cleaners, and other contractors -- many of whom earn less than ten dollars per hour and may or may not have cleared security checks -- have innumerable opportunities to tamper with everything from suitcases to the airliners themselves.
...
In fact we're almost never told anything about the upper echelons of TSA management, but this past November 24 screeners did hear in official stage whispers (literally) that assistant federal security director Alex Miranda, TSA's second-in-command in Miami, had been put on "administrative leave," no reason given, and that if we discussed this in any way with anyone, we would be suspended without pay.
The administrative leave became a firing two days later when, as expected, the nightly news got hold of it. But the timing of the scandal is curious. Most TSA employees had long been aware of intimations and outright accusations of sexual misconduct against Miranda........
...
Repressing criticism might be a way of streamlining operations, but it conceals security problems that sooner or later, one way or another, will be revealed. Even the greenest screener at MIA knows that an alert terrorist would have little trouble slipping past a checkpoint. And passing through deadly objects? Child's play. That's partly because humans err, but also because TSA rewards those who can look efficient and do nothing..........

http://www.miaminewtimes.com/issues/2004-12-16/news/feature_1.html