August 14, 2008, - 6:40 pm
Safe? HA!: TSA Fails “Security” Tests, Then Does Nothing
By Debbie Schlussel
Hmmm . . . with their ongoing record of screw-ups, failing security tests, and pandering to Muslims to the point their noses are brown with falafel and shawarmeh, you have to wonder if TSA really stands for Too Stupid for Anything. If this latest story is any evidence, it certainly isn’t deserving of the name, Transportation Security Administration.
Remember those tests where up to 75% of fake bombs were let through by TSA airport screeners? Well, they do the tests, but do nothing to address the abysmal results. There’s nothin’ “secure” about this:
A government program to find gaps in airport screening is “a waste of money” because it doesn’t follow up on why screeners failed to spot guns, knives and bombs on undercover agents, the head of the House Homeland Security Committee says.
A Government Accountability Office (GAO) report obtained by USA TODAY says Transportation Security Administration inspectors posing as passengers do not record why individual screeners failed to spot weapons. The TSA ran 20,000 covert tests at the USA’s 450 commercial airports from 2002 to 2007, and the results ought to be used to improve screening, the report says.
The TSA disputed the report and said it has adopted many new screening practices and technologies to close holes revealed by testing.
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., plans a hearing next month to press the TSA on making better use of covert tests.
“You have a system that’s supposed to strengthen airport security, but you don’t use the results of the tests to do exactly what you’re doing the tests for,” Thompson said. “It’s obviously a waste of money.”
Results of the covert tests are classified, but recent reports made public have alarmed lawmakers. A November GAO report said investigators repeatedly smuggled liquid explosives and detonators past airport checkpoints in 2006. An internal TSA report said screeners in Los Angeles and Chicago airports missed fake bombs on agents in more than 60% of tests in 2006. . . .
The GAO said the TSA did not list reasons for test failures in an agency database. “The agency is not fully using the results of these tests” to close security holes, the GAO said.
Why the heck do they do tests, if they won’t respond and improve TSA screening? And why the heck do we have TSA screeners making me take my shoes off, if they miss fake bombs and won’t do a thing to make sure they find the bombs the next time?
But don’t worry, they never miss an opportunity to hire extremist Muslims to do the “screening,” and they never miss the opportunity to harass those who don’t fit the profile.
Kip Hawley has been atop the TSA for quite some time, and every single one of these failures and the stupid three-ounce liquid rules are all under his, um, “leadership.”
Yet, President Bush has never asked for his resignation.
Heckuva Job. T Minus Four Months for both o’ them. And not soon enough.
Debbie – you forgot to add this is the same TSA that wants to ban concealed carry weapons from being brought into and around airports! Their hierarchy regards gun owners as a greater threat than extremist Muslims. I’m not kidding here!
NormanF on August 14, 2008 at 7:38 pm