There are organized theft rings in the TSA. One thief watches the X-rays at the baggage screening point and texts his or her confederates down the line to open the bags and steal the stuff.
If you want to take anything of value on a trip, you are better off hipping it to your destination by overnight courier. This has been going on for a very long time within the TSA and, as yet, nobody seems to be able to do anything within the TSA to stop their workers from stealing everyone's stuff.
This is now at the point were, arguably, we'd be better off by completely abolishing the TSA, letting everyone go back to locking up their own baggage and letting folks carry concealed on airline flights.
(H/T to Schneier)
Thursday, December 4, 2008
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3 comments:
Well, the way I see it, TSA luggage searches are total security theatre anyway. Think about it. The same plane carrying you and your luggage is also carrying post office mail and other cargo. That stuff doesn't get searched. So the bag on the plane with you is somehow a greater bomb risk than the uninspected cargo that has no passenger associated with it? Horsehockey.
"Security theatre" is exactly correct. That is all it is.
Yeah, the "security theatre" argument is one that Schneier makes regularly. The problem is that there are too many people who enjoy this security theatre to do away with it. There are the many contractors enriched by TSA contracts, there are the many statists who rub their hands with glee at the further Sovietization of American society and the inculcation of American citizenry with Sovok attitudes of compliance, and then there are the airline passengers themselves, many of which don't know anything but the theatre makes them "feel safer" so they like it. There seem to be no prominent voices in America right now putting liberty ahead of safety on our national priorities list, so ... (shrug). We get what we want. And deserve.
-- Badtux the Pessimistic Penguin
PS - my security word is 'twaser'. What's that, a taser wielded by Elmer Fudd?!
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