the TSA follies

from homeland stupidity: The Transportation Security Administration . . . Vigilant, Effective, Efficient. Yes, and pigs can fly, too.

Here are three examples of how the TSA is keeping you less secure, and giving a good laugh to those of us with enough sense to stay away from airports as long as the government is in charge of security.

In Miami, a dozen TSA officers from the graveyard shift were arrested and charged with grand theft and conspiracy to defraud last week after being caught not going to work — and having their co-workers punch them in. “If you can hand [ID badges] to different people, they can be handed off to the wrong people,” Miami-Dade Detective Javier Prellazo told the Miami Herald. “The bottom line is we were looking at this as a security issue. We want this airport to be secure.”

Good luck with that.

In Hawaii last week, an air passenger flying from Kona to Honolulu was shocked to open his duffel bag after getting home and finding a notebook labeled “Explosive Trace Detection” full of TSA sensitive security information (SSI), namely logs from an explosive detection machine, in the bag he’d checked through. “It makes me think, ‘Hey, what kind of people do we have working at TSA?’ Where they just accidentally leave this in a bag?” Joe Langer told KITV. He returned the notebook to the airport — but not before showing it to the television station.

The kind of people who will do criminal background checks on the families of September 11 victims who are suing to gain access to SSI they believe will be useful in their lawsuit against the airports and airlines for lax security, but will work while half-asleep and stuff SSI into passengers’ luggage and, some days, just not come in to work. As if the 9/11 victims are going to turn around and become terrorists themselves. Ridiculous.

related: TSA screeners still fail to find guns, bombs