TSA foolishness

I don’t fly much. It’s a very time consuming business and, as you know, you can spend far more time in the airport than in the air.

This Memorial Day weekend, we flew to Detroit and Lake Huron to see some friends. The Detroit weather was perfect, and Lake Huron was freezing. Anita’s Kitchen was the same as ever, wonderful. On the way back, I spotted some TSA stupidity. They know that the public won’t comment in the airport as TSA can make your life hell… put you on a list, and possibly cause you to miss your plane.

On the way back, we were waiting by the gate after clearing the multimillion dollar high tech scanner check point when we watched three TSA agents saunter over and stand around the door leading to the airplane.

It was obvious that they were going to do a spot check for boarding passengers, and they soon vanished into the passenger tunnel leading to the plane door.

We ran the gauntlet without a problem, but later into the flight I talked to the cabin crew about this TSA stupidity. Stupidity? Yes, the concept of spot checks implies that the standard checkpoints are not effective. By definition, if they were, spot checks would be unnecessary. Besides that, it was clear that they were going to do a boarding check, so anyone smuggling illicit materials onto the plane could have left the airport and tried another day.

As they don’t do these checks on every flight, a ticket holder could get on any flight that they had a ticket for without a spot check. If they were a terrorist, they could have multiple tickets and select the one without the TSA agents acting like Keystone Cops in full view of the public. All they have to do is get past the “security screening” illusion that provide taxpayer funded jobs for many and security for few. I won’t suggest how they could, but just by being observant during the process yields many keys.

For some reason, TSA doesn’t bother to scan the boarding passes when passing the standard checkpoint, so they don’t know who passes through with a valid ticket but doesn’t fly! For example, as you can get your boarding pass on your home PC, they don’t know if you’ve got as far as the gate and decided not to fly, or even traveled to the airport.

Yes, TSA is inept. For all the millions spent on security, very little has been improved but huge amounts of public money has been spent, making some people rich. I wonder how much Michael Chertoff has made from the screening machines business once he left his Secretary of Homeland Security position and started the Chertoff Group?

Will the public ever learn? Sadly, doubtful.

If elected, I’ll meet with the Homeland Security Secretary, discuss my findings so that the public will be safer, and if nothing changes I’ll make my suggestions public after a month. That will force change.

With your financial help, I’ll win this election and help make the traveling public safer.