Maybe TSA finally realized that they are in violation of federal child pornography laws when they send minors through the scanners. The EU realized this early on and banned the scanning of minors. TSA still scans adolescent children and occasionally those under 12.
From 2008 to 2011, TSA insisted these didn't produce a naked image but later admitted that they did after the L3 system were equipped with ATR. Meanwhile, a group of TSA creeps in a back room are giggling and ogling your wife and kids. TSA is heavy on lies and light on facts when it comes to their mistreatment of travelers.
Even when something positive comes out on this agency they insist on demonstrating their disdain for the public they serve by saying that they don?t care about our privacy concerns and would have continued to violate our privacy if Congress hadn?t made them. This agency and its employees are corrupt and sociopathic and the entire organization needs to be replaced
Let the privacy lawsuits begin starting with OSI and TSA AdminisTraitor John Pistole.
So did any of the folks who were robbed of this $800,000 total get reimbursed by him or TSA? I doubt it. TSA likely denied responsibility for the thefts and they victims were out of luck after being robbed by their own government.
Everyone who flies regularly has had something stolen from a checked or carry bag. I have had belongings stolen six times, twice at the checkpoint and four from checked bags. Whenever something was stolen from checked luggage there was a TSA inspection slip inside as if they were bragging that they robbed and defying me to stop them. I filed six claims and all six were denied. The airlines refused payment saying that TSA had control of the bags.
I traveled just as much for fifteen years prior to TSA?s creation and never had anything taken. They don?t do proper background checks and don?t care.
Last week a TSA screener at Ft. Lauderdale airport, Andrew Smeal, was arrested for child pornography. He had been hired by TSA a month earlier even though he was under investigation by the FBI.
Much of the media has been pandering to TSA, repeating their propaganda and excusing the agency despite repeated incidents of smuggling drugs and guns, nearly a hundred criminal arrests and exposing over a dozen pedophile TSA screeners. The media that ignores these failures are promotes TSA propaganda is slowing reform of this failed agency and making air travel less secure.
TSA has become a jobs program for misfits who can't get hired anywhere else and crime is rampant within the agency. Does anyone really feel safer having people who will rub stranger?s genitals in public every day for $15 an hour and stealing from passengers in charge of security?
TSA costs taxpayers $8 billion a year and we can?t afford to pay public employees to commit crimes and endanger air travel.
The lasting tragedy of 9/11 is the damage that the unscrupulous fear mongers at TSA have done to our rights and values. They co-opt 9/11 to justify their existence and abuses even though over half of their screeners were working for the private security firms when it happened.
In 2008 who would have believed that people would allow a stranger to view a naked image of their child or permit the equivalent of a mall cop to rub their child?s privates in the middle of an airport?
Nearly a million people died defending the liberties that have been stripped away by TSA in the name of safety without providing any value. It is disgraceful that the government that is supposed to defend the Constitution is complicit in its destruction and that Americans dishonor the fallen by acquiescing to this.
Granting unbounded authority to TSA and it bureaucrats has led to wide spread and recurrent abuse of innocent airline passengers and their children. There have been thousands of reports of excessive and punitive searches that are amount to nothing more than gratuitous harassment of innocent people.
TSA operates with complete immunity and there a no consequences for abusing their authority. TSA is the sole arbiter of complaints leaving no avenue of redress for those who have been abused by the agency.
In the past two months 35 TSA workers fired or arrested and 66 more disciplined for misconduct. There were 98 TSA workers arrested in the last 20 months including 12 arrested for child sex crimes, over 26 for theft, 12 for smuggling contraband through security and one for murder.
A known pedophile, Thomas Harkins, was exposed three months ago but remains employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia with access to children. What kind of agency allows a known pedophile access to children?
It is unacceptable for any agency to be authorized to act contrary to the Constitution and the law. Both TSA and DHS need to be dismantled and their duties assigned to responsible and accountable agencies subject to strict Congressional and judicial oversight.
TSA has done more damage to our way of life and human rights than Al Qaeda could ever have hoped to do and Pistole and Napolitano have been their accomplices.
TSA allows a known pedophile, Thomas Harkins to remain employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia giving him access to search children. What kind of agency turns a known sex offender loose on children?
TSA. Growing the Police State and destroying the Constitution since 2002. Keep giving your rights away America, soon you won?t have any.
Pistole should be jailed for contempt of court until TSA completes the public comment process. TSA has consistently lied to Congress, the courts and the public about virtually every aspect of their procedures without any repercussions.
The Europeans don?t allow the backscatter scanners to be used on children because the image is so graphic it violates child pornography laws. These pose a cancer risk and still produce a naked image which Denver TSA area director Pat Ahlstrom, admitted "were graphic, no doubt about it.".
The backscatter scanners have not been tested for radiation exposure despite testimony by radiologists that these pose a risk. These lack privacy software and a screener is viewing the nude image of every passenger who passes through in violation of multiple State and federal laws.
The government also said that Agent Orange was safe and we all know how that ended up. If TSA won't allow testing and install privacy software they should not be allowed them to use them.
This is the third time that the few remaining decent TSA workers have exposed TSA management for these illegal profiling schemes. These front line TSA screeners have also spoken out against the corrupt management that is forcing them to engage in this sick circus. They know as well as anyone else that groping a six year old and strip searching Grandma doesn?t keep anyone safe and only hands another victory to Al Qaeda.
There is plenty of evidence, including these three profiling incidents and the mass firings of screeners in Ft. Myers, Hawaii and Ft Lauderdale, that much of TSA management has become populated with perverse and corrupt people and no one is a better witness to this than the TSA workers who expose these managers. If this is not stopped at this point the decent screeners who dislike being ordered to grope and humiliate passengers needlessly will quit and the thugs managing the agency will fill their ranks with abusive bullies. At that point security will become unbearable and America will be in very bad place.
The behavior detection program has been shown to be hocus-pocus used to conceal a drug interdiction scheme. Is anyone really stupid enough to believe that TSA can train a fast food worker to read minds in six weeks?
This is the third major incident in this program in a year involving racial profiling and harassment, illegal interrogations and unlawful searches and there have been others that received less exposure. TSA investigated themselves in the incidents in Newark and Hawaii and found they were innocent. No one was fired or prosecuted for their illegal searches and harassment of innocent people. What a surprise.
Where does this stupidity stop?
In the past two months 35 TSA workers fired or arrested and 66 more disciplined for misconduct on the job. A known pedophile, Thomas Harkins, was exposed in May but remains employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia. There were a total of 97 TSA workers arrested in the last 20 months including 12 arrested for child sex crimes, over 26 for theft, 12 for smuggling contraband through security and one for murder.
This is precisely the problem with TSA, no accountability when they exceed their authority and those in management are never fired. Even police are subject to prosecution by victims. Not so for TSA employees and this must change.
The TSA management and screeners responsible for this illegal activity should be prosecuted and the agency sued for billions.
TSA is terrified of being exposed for the fraud that they are.
They are so accustomed to boldly lying to Congress that they no longer show any discomfort doing this. Incredibly, no lawmaker has had the courage to hold them in contempt of Congress or withhold funding for the agency. Until Congress and the public demand that TSA adopt sensible and civilized security procedures it will continue to be a morass of corruption and criminal behavior.
There were no airline attacks between 2001 and 2010 and TSA didn?t need feel up little kids, strip search old ladies, remove diapers from incontinent passengers or irradiate and take nude photos of people then. In ten years TSA has not caught one terrorist.
They didn?t find one item in 2011 because of the scanners or groping. Over 90% of items were found using the x-ray belt and walk through metal detectors. They are only groping people to get them to use the scanners and funnel more money to the scanner manufacturers that former TSA head, Michael Chertoff, now represents.
Over 1.3 million Americans have died in defense of the liberties that TSA is trampling. Cowards who defend TSA?s violation of the 4th Amendment in exchange for false security are a pitiful and dishonor the sacrifice of those heroes.
This agency and its workers are a national disgrace and should be replaced with a system that actually works. Thankfully Rand Paul and a few other legislators are trying to preserve our liberties and stop the ascent of the American police state.
I trust that Amy Alkon will be victorious and hope that she counter sues her assailant. I will gladly contribute to her legal fund and appreciate that she exposed these abusive thugs for the criminals that they are.
TSA attracts misfits that delight in abusing their piece of authority by harassing. molesting and humiliating the people they are supposed to be protecting.
In the wake of 9/11 Congress gave DHS carte blanche to do whatever they want to the American people. The result is that the department has assaulted their own citizens and carried out crimes against humanity and the Constitution.
This has culminated in TSA digitally strip searching and reaching into the pants of children all without any accountability. It is no wonder TSA complaints are up 40% over last year. This is unacceptable and those responsible must be held accountable.
TSA claims that they conduct respectful pat downs and do not touch genitals or the anus. Why would they have any objection to the Texas legislation which only prohibits what TSA claims doesn't happen?
Their arrogance is seemingly boundless and have managed to intimidate Congress and escalate their assault on travelers and the Constitution.
In the last five months there have been 25 screeners arrested, 23 security failures, 4,000+ groping complaints and dozens of lawsuits. Yet TSA hasn't stopped one terrorist incident in nine years.
Fortunately some people and lawmakers are beginning to realize that they are being misled by TSA's paranoia.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by Fisher1949.
TSA Leads Corruption
Maybe TSA finally realized that they are in violation of federal child pornography laws when they send minors through the scanners. The EU realized this early on and banned the scanning of minors. TSA still scans adolescent children and occasionally those under 12.
From 2008 to 2011, TSA insisted these didn't produce a naked image but later admitted that they did after the L3 system were equipped with ATR. Meanwhile, a group of TSA creeps in a back room are giggling and ogling your wife and kids. TSA is heavy on lies and light on facts when it comes to their mistreatment of travelers.
Even when something positive comes out on this agency they insist on demonstrating their disdain for the public they serve by saying that they don?t care about our privacy concerns and would have continued to violate our privacy if Congress hadn?t made them. This agency and its employees are corrupt and sociopathic and the entire organization needs to be replaced
Let the privacy lawsuits begin starting with OSI and TSA AdminisTraitor John Pistole.
TSA Theft
So did any of the folks who were robbed of this $800,000 total get reimbursed by him or TSA? I doubt it. TSA likely denied responsibility for the thefts and they victims were out of luck after being robbed by their own government.
Everyone who flies regularly has had something stolen from a checked or carry bag. I have had belongings stolen six times, twice at the checkpoint and four from checked bags. Whenever something was stolen from checked luggage there was a TSA inspection slip inside as if they were bragging that they robbed and defying me to stop them. I filed six claims and all six were denied. The airlines refused payment saying that TSA had control of the bags.
I traveled just as much for fifteen years prior to TSA?s creation and never had anything taken. They don?t do proper background checks and don?t care.
Last week a TSA screener at Ft. Lauderdale airport, Andrew Smeal, was arrested for child pornography. He had been hired by TSA a month earlier even though he was under investigation by the FBI.
Much of the media has been pandering to TSA, repeating their propaganda and excusing the agency despite repeated incidents of smuggling drugs and guns, nearly a hundred criminal arrests and exposing over a dozen pedophile TSA screeners. The media that ignores these failures are promotes TSA propaganda is slowing reform of this failed agency and making air travel less secure.
TSA has become a jobs program for misfits who can't get hired anywhere else and crime is rampant within the agency. Does anyone really feel safer having people who will rub stranger?s genitals in public every day for $15 an hour and stealing from passengers in charge of security?
TSA costs taxpayers $8 billion a year and we can?t afford to pay public employees to commit crimes and endanger air travel.
9/11 Legacy
The lasting tragedy of 9/11 is the damage that the unscrupulous fear mongers at TSA have done to our rights and values. They co-opt 9/11 to justify their existence and abuses even though over half of their screeners were working for the private security firms when it happened.
In 2008 who would have believed that people would allow a stranger to view a naked image of their child or permit the equivalent of a mall cop to rub their child?s privates in the middle of an airport?
Nearly a million people died defending the liberties that have been stripped away by TSA in the name of safety without providing any value. It is disgraceful that the government that is supposed to defend the Constitution is complicit in its destruction and that Americans dishonor the fallen by acquiescing to this.
Granting unbounded authority to TSA and it bureaucrats has led to wide spread and recurrent abuse of innocent airline passengers and their children. There have been thousands of reports of excessive and punitive searches that are amount to nothing more than gratuitous harassment of innocent people.
TSA operates with complete immunity and there a no consequences for abusing their authority. TSA is the sole arbiter of complaints leaving no avenue of redress for those who have been abused by the agency.
In the past two months 35 TSA workers fired or arrested and 66 more disciplined for misconduct. There were 98 TSA workers arrested in the last 20 months including 12 arrested for child sex crimes, over 26 for theft, 12 for smuggling contraband through security and one for murder.
A known pedophile, Thomas Harkins, was exposed three months ago but remains employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia with access to children. What kind of agency allows a known pedophile access to children?
It is unacceptable for any agency to be authorized to act contrary to the Constitution and the law. Both TSA and DHS need to be dismantled and their duties assigned to responsible and accountable agencies subject to strict Congressional and judicial oversight.
TSA has done more damage to our way of life and human rights than Al Qaeda could ever have hoped to do and Pistole and Napolitano have been their accomplices.
TSA Crimnals
TSA allows a known pedophile, Thomas Harkins to remain employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia giving him access to search children. What kind of agency turns a known sex offender loose on children?
TSA. Growing the Police State and destroying the Constitution since 2002. Keep giving your rights away America, soon you won?t have any.
Prosecute Pistole
Pistole should be jailed for contempt of court until TSA completes the public comment process. TSA has consistently lied to Congress, the courts and the public about virtually every aspect of their procedures without any repercussions.
The Europeans don?t allow the backscatter scanners to be used on children because the image is so graphic it violates child pornography laws. These pose a cancer risk and still produce a naked image which Denver TSA area director Pat Ahlstrom, admitted "were graphic, no doubt about it.".
The backscatter scanners have not been tested for radiation exposure despite testimony by radiologists that these pose a risk. These lack privacy software and a screener is viewing the nude image of every passenger who passes through in violation of multiple State and federal laws.
The government also said that Agent Orange was safe and we all know how that ended up. If TSA won't allow testing and install privacy software they should not be allowed them to use them.
TSA's Profiling Problem
This is the third time that the few remaining decent TSA workers have exposed TSA management for these illegal profiling schemes. These front line TSA screeners have also spoken out against the corrupt management that is forcing them to engage in this sick circus. They know as well as anyone else that groping a six year old and strip searching Grandma doesn?t keep anyone safe and only hands another victory to Al Qaeda.
There is plenty of evidence, including these three profiling incidents and the mass firings of screeners in Ft. Myers, Hawaii and Ft Lauderdale, that much of TSA management has become populated with perverse and corrupt people and no one is a better witness to this than the TSA workers who expose these managers. If this is not stopped at this point the decent screeners who dislike being ordered to grope and humiliate passengers needlessly will quit and the thugs managing the agency will fill their ranks with abusive bullies. At that point security will become unbearable and America will be in very bad place.
The behavior detection program has been shown to be hocus-pocus used to conceal a drug interdiction scheme. Is anyone really stupid enough to believe that TSA can train a fast food worker to read minds in six weeks?
This is the third major incident in this program in a year involving racial profiling and harassment, illegal interrogations and unlawful searches and there have been others that received less exposure. TSA investigated themselves in the incidents in Newark and Hawaii and found they were innocent. No one was fired or prosecuted for their illegal searches and harassment of innocent people. What a surprise.
Where does this stupidity stop?
In the past two months 35 TSA workers fired or arrested and 66 more disciplined for misconduct on the job. A known pedophile, Thomas Harkins, was exposed in May but remains employed as a TSA Supervisor in Philadelphia. There were a total of 97 TSA workers arrested in the last 20 months including 12 arrested for child sex crimes, over 26 for theft, 12 for smuggling contraband through security and one for murder.
This is precisely the problem with TSA, no accountability when they exceed their authority and those in management are never fired. Even police are subject to prosecution by victims. Not so for TSA employees and this must change.
The TSA management and screeners responsible for this illegal activity should be prosecuted and the agency sued for billions.
TSA Fears the Truth
TSA is terrified of being exposed for the fraud that they are.
They are so accustomed to boldly lying to Congress that they no longer show any discomfort doing this. Incredibly, no lawmaker has had the courage to hold them in contempt of Congress or withhold funding for the agency. Until Congress and the public demand that TSA adopt sensible and civilized security procedures it will continue to be a morass of corruption and criminal behavior.
TSA Police State
There were no airline attacks between 2001 and 2010 and TSA didn?t need feel up little kids, strip search old ladies, remove diapers from incontinent passengers or irradiate and take nude photos of people then. In ten years TSA has not caught one terrorist.
They didn?t find one item in 2011 because of the scanners or groping. Over 90% of items were found using the x-ray belt and walk through metal detectors. They are only groping people to get them to use the scanners and funnel more money to the scanner manufacturers that former TSA head, Michael Chertoff, now represents.
Over 1.3 million Americans have died in defense of the liberties that TSA is trampling. Cowards who defend TSA?s violation of the 4th Amendment in exchange for false security are a pitiful and dishonor the sacrifice of those heroes.
This agency and its workers are a national disgrace and should be replaced with a system that actually works. Thankfully Rand Paul and a few other legislators are trying to preserve our liberties and stop the ascent of the American police state.
TSA Crimes & Abuses
bit.ly/TravelUndergroundTSAabuses
Amy Alkon
I trust that Amy Alkon will be victorious and hope that she counter sues her assailant. I will gladly contribute to her legal fund and appreciate that she exposed these abusive thugs for the criminals that they are.
TSA attracts misfits that delight in abusing their piece of authority by harassing. molesting and humiliating the people they are supposed to be protecting.
In the wake of 9/11 Congress gave DHS carte blanche to do whatever they want to the American people. The result is that the department has assaulted their own citizens and carried out crimes against humanity and the Constitution.
This has culminated in TSA digitally strip searching and reaching into the pants of children all without any accountability. It is no wonder TSA complaints are up 40% over last year. This is unacceptable and those responsible must be held accountable.
TSA
TSA claims that they conduct respectful pat downs and do not touch genitals or the anus. Why would they have any objection to the Texas legislation which only prohibits what TSA claims doesn't happen?
Their arrogance is seemingly boundless and have managed to intimidate Congress and escalate their assault on travelers and the Constitution.
In the last five months there have been 25 screeners arrested, 23 security failures, 4,000+ groping complaints and dozens of lawsuits. Yet TSA hasn't stopped one terrorist incident in nine years.
Fortunately some people and lawmakers are beginning to realize that they are being misled by TSA's paranoia.