More TSA Failures: Undercover Agent Sneaked Handgun Past TSA Body Scan Tests Multiple Times, JFK TSA Employees Steal $40,000 from Suitcase, Dead Dog Creates Bomb Scare at Newark
Posted By Vicki McClure Davidson on February 20, 2011
More horror news stories about the mounting failures of the Transportation Security Administration.
Now we have DHS/TSA-mandated airport body scanners that don’t detect handguns, scurvy TSA employees stealing $40,000 in cash from an airline passenger’s suitcase, an unscreened dead dog and a hunting knife being allowed onto planes. Way to go, Napolitano and Pistole. Violation of law-abiding citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights still don’t stop guns from getting on planes.
On a cheerier note, last week, the Senate voted to make the misuse of TSA airport body scanner images a felony. So those who show those nude scanned photo images of citizens that supposedly don’t exist will carry felony charges if misused.
Don’t you feel safer now?
From NBC Dallas-Fort Worth, TSA Source: Armed Agent Slips Past DFW Body Scanner:
An undercover TSA agent was able to get through security at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport with a handgun during testing of the enhanced-imaging body scanners, according to a high-ranking, inside source at the Transportation Security Administration.
The source said the undercover agent carried a pistol in her undergarments when she put the body scanners to the test. The officer successfully made it through the airport’s body scanners every time she tried, the source said.
“In this case, where they had a test, and it was just a dismal failure as I’m told,” said Larry Wansley, former head of security at American Airlines. “As I’ve heard (it), you got a problem, especially with a fire arm.”
Wansley said covert testing by the TSA is commonplace — although failing should be rare.
The TSA insider who blew the whistle on the test also said that none of the TSA agents who failed to spot the gun on the scanned image were disciplined. The source said the agents continue to work the body scanners today.
Wansley said that is a problem.
“This was only a test, but it’s critically important that you do something, because if that person failed in the real environment, then you have a problem,” he said.
The TSA did not deny that the tests took place or the what the results were.
And this from New York… reported by FOX News Latino, JFK airport screeners charged with stealing $40K from suitcase:
Two Transportation Security Administration workers at New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport have been charged with stealing $40,000 from a checked-in suitcase, the Queens County district attorney’s office reported.
TSA screeners Persad Coumar and Davon Webb, passed a bag checked in for an American Airlines flight on Jan. 30 through a scanner and noticed that it had $170,000 inside it, according to prosecutors.
Shortly thereafter, one of them allegedly opened the suitcase and took part of the money, which they divided later in one of the airport restrooms, according to the accusation presented by the DA’s office.
The incident came to the attention of the Port Authority Police when another TSA worker reported it, and officers went to the homes of the two suspects, where they said they found the stolen money.
Another TSA agent theft and more scanner problems reported last week at Newark Airport:
Instead of snooping for terror threats, according to Federal prosecutors, last year a TSA Supervisor at Newark Airport was snooping around passengers’ bags looking for money to steal. Today he pleaded guilty.
The US Attorney’s office says Newark International Airport TSA Supervisor Joe Arato entered the guilty plea, admitting to accepting bribes and kickbacks from a co-worker who stole money regularly from passengers as they passed through security screenings stations.
They stole up to $700 a day at Newark Airport, according to prosecutors, who say their principal targets were non-English speaking women of Indian descent returning to India.
Authorities began investigating after a rash of passenger complaints.Attorney and aviation security expert Justin Green told PIX 11 News Tuesday, “The screeners are truly the last line of defense and if a screener, and in this case, potentially a supervisor, isn’t doing their job and instead is spending their time stealing, the integrity of the whole system is called into question.”
Prosecutors say all the thieving went on at Newark’s Terminal B. That’s where the feds say last year 41-year-old Arato permitted a co-worker to steal between ten and thirty thousand dollars in cash from travelers. That co-worker would then ‘kick back’ a portion of the stolen money to Arato according to prosecutors.
Other problems at Newark lately reportedly include a dead dog that wasn’t properly screened, a knife that got through a checkpoint, and two passengers who walked off even after problems with full body scans.
From The Gothamist, Dead Dog Creates Bomb Scare At Newark Airport:
TSA agents are unsure why a man decided to bring the body of his dead dog with him in a cardboard box on a flight from Newark Airport to Los Angeles on Tuesday, but he reportedly didn’t seem too suspicious. During check-in, he informed workers of the contents of the box; the workers then told him that it would need to be screened at the Continental cargo facility. However, once the plane was in the air TSA workers realized that the box hadn’t been screened, and feared it could contain a bomb or a disease.
Eventually the TSA concluded that the threat wasn’t big enough to recall the plane, and it landed in Los Angeles without incident. However, the situation has caused some uproar within the air travel safety community, who have often been accused of not focusing on the right security measures. Analyst Robert Mann asked, “If it should have been screened, and it wasn’t, why wasn’t the airplane brought back?,” and noted that the “shoe bomber” and “underwear bomber” were also inconspicuous.
Another TSA failure at Newark a few months back… reported by Security Magazine, Traveler with Knife Gets Past Newark Airport Screening:
A passenger carrying a knife in a carry-on bag was able to pass through security at Newark Liberty International Airport. The Transportation Safety Administration says the three-inch folding knife came to the attention of security personnel after the man turned it over to a Delta gate attendant.
TSA spokesman Ann Davis said the man was interviewed and said he had forgotten the knife was in his bag. He was allowed to board his flight to Atlanta. Davis said the TSA screener on duty is receiving remedial training.
Yet, a little more than an hour later, another screener at the same checkpoint noticed a firework in a passenger’s bag. The three-to-five-inch cardboard cylinder was removed and the passenger was allowed to continue on.
The failures of the invasive, expensive TSA airport body scanners and “groin gropings” are not new — while confiscating toys from children and humiliating handicapped senior citizens and women in wheelchairs, more real weapons have made it on board.
A short recap of just a few other known TSA failures to identify weapons or ammo I’ve reported here before that have made it onto airplanes in American airports:
On a flight from Burbank to Phoenix… an ammo clip.
On a flight from Houston… a loaded .40 caliber Glock.
On a flight from Boston to Miami… bullet primers that exploded on the tarmac.
Associated Press: FBI: Traveler Arrested After Bullet Parts Found
About the author
Had the TSA authorities heeded the warnings of those who said that the measures instigated at the airports are not thought out well they could have avoided the large number of people who had to suffer humiliation in spite of their serious medical conditions.
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