For those of you who believed TSA administration when they spoon fed you information that the TSA was not going to go private...You might want to read this article from April 2005.
Air Security Agency Faces Reduced Role
Stone Is Third Chief to Leave
By Sara Kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, April 8, 2005; Page A01
The Transportation Security Administration, once the flagship agency in the nation's $20 billion effort to protect air travelers, is now targeted for sharp cuts in its high-profile mission.
The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations blunders and criticism of its performance from the public and legislators. Its "No Fly" list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security screeners have been arrested for stealing from luggage, and its passenger pat-downs have set off an outcry from women.
Under provisions of President Bush's 2006 budget proposal favored by Congress, the TSA will lose its signature programs in the reorganization of Homeland Security. The agency will probably become just a manager of airport security screeners -- a responsibility that itself could diminish as private screening companies increasingly seek a comeback at U.S. airports. The agency's very existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a clause permitting the elimination of the TSA as a "distinct entity" after November 2004.
"TSA, at the end of the day, is going to look more like the Postal Service," said Paul C. Light, a public service professor at New York University and a Brookings Institution scholar who has tracked the agency since its birth in February 2002. Light calls the TSA "one of the federal government's greatest successes of the past half-century" and likens it to the creation in the late 1950s of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which was also born during great public excitement to serve an urgent national need.
But the TSA's time in the spotlight is over, and it should now step back to serve a more narrow role, Light said. "It's a labor-intensive delivery organization that is not going to be making many public policy decisions. Its basic job is to train and deploy screeners," he said.
We need to step back and look at the billions of dollars we spent on the system, which doesn't provide much more protection than we had before 9/11," said Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), referring to tests conducted by the Department of Homeland Security inspector general that gave a "poor" rating to TSA screeners for their ability to catch weapons at checkpoints. Mica, a key lawmaker who helped write the law that created the agency and chairs the House aviation subcommittee, would like to see private contractors take over screening jobs at airports. "TSA was something we put in place in an emergency, but it needs to evolve. You could whittle TSA down to a very small organization and do a much better job."
Stone faces the challenge of keeping the TSA's workforce motivated. Many screeners took their jobs expecting that the new agency would provide a path to a federal career. At a recent hearing, Stone acknowledged that screeners suffer from low morale. According to an internal survey last year, 35 percent of employees are satisfied with their job.
Check This Out!
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
AIRPORT SCREENERS BLAST TSA'S TACTICS
I know this article is a couple of years old, but it is the opinion of this writer that the meaning within the artcile and the low morale still exist within this blunderous government entity.
Airport screeners blast TSA's tactics
DIA workers say mismanagement by feds hurting morale, security
By George Merritt
Denver Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 06, 2003 - Security screeners at DIA are complaining about their managers' largely unregulated ability to fire them and are asserting it has damaged morale and created a security risk.
Sixteen screeners and supervisors with the federal Transportation Security Administration at Denver International Airport have come forward in interviews and letters obtained by The Denver Post with allegations of intimidation and retribution by officials at the airport. Thirteen of the employees sent letters to the office of Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo. The Post interviewed several of the screeners and either read or obtained all 16 letters, some of which were anonymous.
In the letters and interviews, screeners said they joined TSA believing their positions were a patriotic service. But managerial powers to demote and fire without oversight - a power instituted to make the new bureaucracy efficient and effective - have turned what was once a labor of love into a frustrating chore, they said.
"I'm tired of doing a good job and having my job threatened," one screener wrote. "It has gotten out of hand. I dread going to work."
Officials with TSA dismissed the claims and said morale is "very high" throughout the country.
"We are very cognizant of that," said Brian Doyle, a national spokesman for TSA. "We can't afford low morale. We go to great lengths to monitor how our screeners are doing."
Doyle said agency officials poll anonymous screeners at various airports to monitor morale.
Pat Ahlstrom, deputy federal security director for DIA, said the agency has exceeded expectations and has received acclaim from passengers, air carriers and airline personnel.
Ahlstrom said the agency is set up to maximize airline security by rewarding performance and weeding out "inadequate" workers. He said the complaints were probably coming from a few poor-performing screeners among the hundreds employed by TSA in Denver.
"There is a national belief that the government does not remove people that don't perform well," Ahlstrom said. "It was very much the intent of this organization to not have that reputation."
But screeners said that rather than eliminating inadequate workers, managers are promoting friends and intimidating, demoting and firing those who voice concerns about how the new agency operates.
Officials with a national labor organization said Denver's screeners are not the first to feel vulnerable.
"If there was a road map for how to screw things up, they are following it," said Mark Roth, general council for the American Federation of Government Employees, an organization trying to unionize screeners around the country. "This is not just at Denver. It is all over the country and the only thing consistent about them is their nuttiness."
The federation's attempt to unionize screeners was thwarted last month by James Loy, TSA's director. Loy blocked the workers' right to collective bargaining, citing the need to easily make shift changes in the event of a terror attack.
The TSA was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to federalize screening in the nation's 429 airports by Nov. 19, 2002. The job of inspecting every checked bag for bombs by Dec. 31 was put in the fledgling agency's hands.
Many of the agency's first employees were asked to work long hours and adapt to problems that arose in the rush to get the agency running. Now, screeners said, that request has become a demand.
The screeners who came forward - most of whom asked for anonymity, fearing they would be fired - said employee morale is so low it is only a matter of time before a mistake is made and security is breached.
They said they are expected to work long hours, ignore medical problems and endure termination threats while on the job.
"It is not uncommon to ride in on the bus and see a screener in tears," a supervisor said in an interview. "It is at a critical situation. There is nothing we can do."
James Bowers was fired from TSA last month after being placed on leave in January. Several of the disgruntled employees said his removal inspired them to come forward.
Bowers said his problems began when a screener was slapped on the arm by a supervisor. He helped the woman fill out a complaint on the incident, but it made him a target of the TSA leaders, he said.
Soon after that, Bowers was asked to work as screener - two steps down the chain of command from his position at the time. Bowers protested, but did the work.
But the retired Marine and former truck driver said he drew the line when management asked him to change his uniform to that of a screener His refusal to change his tie from burgundy (for supervisor) to blue (for screener) ultimately led to his dismissal, he said.
"That's the thing," Bowers said. "I felt there ought to be some procedure before they just demote you and I was fired for it."
Bowers filed a complaint with agency's Office of Civil Rights. But two weeks ago he received word that his complaint was not processed because of the "unavailability" of a counselor, according to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission document.
"This organization was born of a real noble cause: to re-instill confidence in the American public in safety of travel in this nation," Bowers said. "But ... any federal entity that is operating the way this entity is has no right to exist. They need to correct it or do away with it."
Ahlstrom said he could not comment on the details of Bowers' story, but said his termination had "nothing to do" with voicing grievances.
Most TSA employees are hired on a one-year probationary period allowing them to be fired "whenever a supervisor determines that an employee's performance or conduct is deficient" without the "right of reply," according to the agency's management policy manual.
The federation is still trying to give screeners a voice, but several screeners said they were told by a supervisor that if they talked to the group they would be fired.
Ahlstrom said TSA policy allows screeners to inquire about unions as long as it is done off duty and preferably out of uniform. He said he doubts anyone had threatened screeners' jobs.
Other screeners, such as Randy Wells, said TSA is a "very good organization" and any problems are simply growing pains associated with a new bureaucracy.
"I don't agree with everything that goes on," Wells said, "but it is a baby organization. You show up, you do your job and things are fine."
A spokesman for Udall said the workers' letters raised concerns, but said he could not discuss specifics without the individuals' permission.
"Mark (Udall) does have some concerns about how the department is being run, and about how employees are being treated," said Lawrence Pacheco, Udall's spokesman.
Airport screeners blast TSA's tactics
DIA workers say mismanagement by feds hurting morale, security
By George Merritt
Denver Post Staff Writer
Sunday, April 06, 2003 - Security screeners at DIA are complaining about their managers' largely unregulated ability to fire them and are asserting it has damaged morale and created a security risk.
Sixteen screeners and supervisors with the federal Transportation Security Administration at Denver International Airport have come forward in interviews and letters obtained by The Denver Post with allegations of intimidation and retribution by officials at the airport. Thirteen of the employees sent letters to the office of Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo. The Post interviewed several of the screeners and either read or obtained all 16 letters, some of which were anonymous.
In the letters and interviews, screeners said they joined TSA believing their positions were a patriotic service. But managerial powers to demote and fire without oversight - a power instituted to make the new bureaucracy efficient and effective - have turned what was once a labor of love into a frustrating chore, they said.
"I'm tired of doing a good job and having my job threatened," one screener wrote. "It has gotten out of hand. I dread going to work."
Officials with TSA dismissed the claims and said morale is "very high" throughout the country.
"We are very cognizant of that," said Brian Doyle, a national spokesman for TSA. "We can't afford low morale. We go to great lengths to monitor how our screeners are doing."
Doyle said agency officials poll anonymous screeners at various airports to monitor morale.
Pat Ahlstrom, deputy federal security director for DIA, said the agency has exceeded expectations and has received acclaim from passengers, air carriers and airline personnel.
Ahlstrom said the agency is set up to maximize airline security by rewarding performance and weeding out "inadequate" workers. He said the complaints were probably coming from a few poor-performing screeners among the hundreds employed by TSA in Denver.
"There is a national belief that the government does not remove people that don't perform well," Ahlstrom said. "It was very much the intent of this organization to not have that reputation."
But screeners said that rather than eliminating inadequate workers, managers are promoting friends and intimidating, demoting and firing those who voice concerns about how the new agency operates.
Officials with a national labor organization said Denver's screeners are not the first to feel vulnerable.
"If there was a road map for how to screw things up, they are following it," said Mark Roth, general council for the American Federation of Government Employees, an organization trying to unionize screeners around the country. "This is not just at Denver. It is all over the country and the only thing consistent about them is their nuttiness."
The federation's attempt to unionize screeners was thwarted last month by James Loy, TSA's director. Loy blocked the workers' right to collective bargaining, citing the need to easily make shift changes in the event of a terror attack.
The TSA was created after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to federalize screening in the nation's 429 airports by Nov. 19, 2002. The job of inspecting every checked bag for bombs by Dec. 31 was put in the fledgling agency's hands.
Many of the agency's first employees were asked to work long hours and adapt to problems that arose in the rush to get the agency running. Now, screeners said, that request has become a demand.
The screeners who came forward - most of whom asked for anonymity, fearing they would be fired - said employee morale is so low it is only a matter of time before a mistake is made and security is breached.
They said they are expected to work long hours, ignore medical problems and endure termination threats while on the job.
"It is not uncommon to ride in on the bus and see a screener in tears," a supervisor said in an interview. "It is at a critical situation. There is nothing we can do."
James Bowers was fired from TSA last month after being placed on leave in January. Several of the disgruntled employees said his removal inspired them to come forward.
Bowers said his problems began when a screener was slapped on the arm by a supervisor. He helped the woman fill out a complaint on the incident, but it made him a target of the TSA leaders, he said.
Soon after that, Bowers was asked to work as screener - two steps down the chain of command from his position at the time. Bowers protested, but did the work.
But the retired Marine and former truck driver said he drew the line when management asked him to change his uniform to that of a screener His refusal to change his tie from burgundy (for supervisor) to blue (for screener) ultimately led to his dismissal, he said.
"That's the thing," Bowers said. "I felt there ought to be some procedure before they just demote you and I was fired for it."
Bowers filed a complaint with agency's Office of Civil Rights. But two weeks ago he received word that his complaint was not processed because of the "unavailability" of a counselor, according to an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission document.
"This organization was born of a real noble cause: to re-instill confidence in the American public in safety of travel in this nation," Bowers said. "But ... any federal entity that is operating the way this entity is has no right to exist. They need to correct it or do away with it."
Ahlstrom said he could not comment on the details of Bowers' story, but said his termination had "nothing to do" with voicing grievances.
Most TSA employees are hired on a one-year probationary period allowing them to be fired "whenever a supervisor determines that an employee's performance or conduct is deficient" without the "right of reply," according to the agency's management policy manual.
The federation is still trying to give screeners a voice, but several screeners said they were told by a supervisor that if they talked to the group they would be fired.
Ahlstrom said TSA policy allows screeners to inquire about unions as long as it is done off duty and preferably out of uniform. He said he doubts anyone had threatened screeners' jobs.
Other screeners, such as Randy Wells, said TSA is a "very good organization" and any problems are simply growing pains associated with a new bureaucracy.
"I don't agree with everything that goes on," Wells said, "but it is a baby organization. You show up, you do your job and things are fine."
A spokesman for Udall said the workers' letters raised concerns, but said he could not discuss specifics without the individuals' permission.
"Mark (Udall) does have some concerns about how the department is being run, and about how employees are being treated," said Lawrence Pacheco, Udall's spokesman.
YET ANOTHER ARTICLE
I am sure that this is of no surprise to anyone who is a Screener at one of the over 400 airports around the country.
Having been in the trenches with these great people, I can honestly tell you that it is not the fault of the Screeners. In my opinion, the blame lies with TSA administration and its managment and so called "Training Coordinators".
Gap found in training for airport screeners
By Shaun Waterman
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Airline passenger and baggage screeners are not acquiring the on-the-job training they need to spot firearms, knives and explosives, and federal authorities have no way of determining how many have completed the required courses, congressional investigators say.
Inadequate training has been identified as a key issue in a succession of reports that have criticized airport screening. Researchers have found screening procedures no more effective than they were before September 11, 2001, even after the federal government spent $10 billion and hired an army of 45,000 staffers to check passengers and their bags for guns, knives and bombs.
Having been in the trenches with these great people, I can honestly tell you that it is not the fault of the Screeners. In my opinion, the blame lies with TSA administration and its managment and so called "Training Coordinators".
Gap found in training for airport screeners
By Shaun Waterman
UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
Airline passenger and baggage screeners are not acquiring the on-the-job training they need to spot firearms, knives and explosives, and federal authorities have no way of determining how many have completed the required courses, congressional investigators say.
Inadequate training has been identified as a key issue in a succession of reports that have criticized airport screening. Researchers have found screening procedures no more effective than they were before September 11, 2001, even after the federal government spent $10 billion and hired an army of 45,000 staffers to check passengers and their bags for guns, knives and bombs.
Sunday, July 10, 2005
EFFICENCY MY BUTT
I was reading an article on NewsMax.com recently and I came across something in particular in the article that caught my eye. The writer made the following statement; "If you privatize, you will move more toward the direction of crappy screeners," Schneier said. "A private company will want to wring efficiencies out of the system, and inherently security is not an efficient system."
Now as anyone who has had ANY contact with the TSA would know this; "Since when is it an efficient system to begin with!!!" Holy Crap, I can tell you from first hand experience, it is nowhere near anything resembling efficient.
One nite alone, their were 8 screeners on the checkpoint, busting their humps as usual, while 4 supervisors and 3 leads stood there watching over the Screeners, doing absofreakinlutely not a damn thing! How in the hell could that even remotely resemble "EFFICIENT". Let us examine the definition of the word efficiency.
ef·fi·cien·cy:
a.The quality or property of being efficient.
b.The degree to which this quality is exercised: The program was implemented with great efficiency and speed.
c.The ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input in any system.
d.The ratio of the energy delivered by a machine to the energy supplied for its operation.
e.Gets the job done with little waste of time and energy
f.'Doing more with less', creating the maximum result with the minimum use or wastage of energies and resources in a specific activity or context.
In the eyes of the TSA administration, "Doing more with less" only applies to the ones that are actually doing something besides standing at the podium with a Starbucks cup in his hand and glaring at his watch because it was "15 minutes since his last half hour smoke break and by G-d it's time for another one" supervisor who makes almost double the pay that the screeners make.
Or maybe the supervisor is just way too busy watching the Steelers football game in the airport bar AFTER his hour and a half lunch break because he is checking his number sheet from the football pool with the airport policemen, which by the way is gambling no matter how you white wash it.
Is it efficent to spend most of your 8 hour shift in the supervisors office doing your college homework at the expense of the taxpayers, while rarely showing your face on the checkpoint during the peak periods when your help is needed the most while passengers wait impatiently in a long line to get through airport security?
Is it efficient to take an hour and a half lunch break while only marking half an hour on your time sheet and THEN stepping off of the checkpoint after you return from your extended lunch to then take a half hour cigarette break?
Oh, yeah and let us not forget the vain schmucks who take an hour and a half lunch so that they can go to the gym and work out in between sessions of surfing on the internet, and the overpaid training coordinator who does What? Hell, none of us have a clue as to what this yutz does besides make one training video that was loaded with faulty information to begin with.
I really want to know. How is this considered efficiency in how my hard earned tax dollars are spent? The only people who are actually doing what is expected of them, the Screeners, are yet the ones that get most of the negative media attention. Maybe if they had leadership that led by example instead of a "Do as I say, not as I do" mentality, it would be more efficient. But yet I ask for the "Impossible Dream" because inefficiency and incompetence is what you get for a investment return when you recruit inexperienced and incompetent individuals who view leadership as a power trip and a way to inflict unusual burden upon others because one has little or no self respect and an overinflated ego.
As long as the government is in charge of this task of keeping our friendly skies friendly, EFFICENCY will not ever be a term used by this writer.
Your tax dollars at work America...Nothing like getting F#*$ed without even a kiss!
Let Freedom Ring..................The Rouge Jew
Now as anyone who has had ANY contact with the TSA would know this; "Since when is it an efficient system to begin with!!!" Holy Crap, I can tell you from first hand experience, it is nowhere near anything resembling efficient.
One nite alone, their were 8 screeners on the checkpoint, busting their humps as usual, while 4 supervisors and 3 leads stood there watching over the Screeners, doing absofreakinlutely not a damn thing! How in the hell could that even remotely resemble "EFFICIENT". Let us examine the definition of the word efficiency.
ef·fi·cien·cy:
a.The quality or property of being efficient.
b.The degree to which this quality is exercised: The program was implemented with great efficiency and speed.
c.The ratio of the effective or useful output to the total input in any system.
d.The ratio of the energy delivered by a machine to the energy supplied for its operation.
e.Gets the job done with little waste of time and energy
f.'Doing more with less', creating the maximum result with the minimum use or wastage of energies and resources in a specific activity or context.
In the eyes of the TSA administration, "Doing more with less" only applies to the ones that are actually doing something besides standing at the podium with a Starbucks cup in his hand and glaring at his watch because it was "15 minutes since his last half hour smoke break and by G-d it's time for another one" supervisor who makes almost double the pay that the screeners make.
Or maybe the supervisor is just way too busy watching the Steelers football game in the airport bar AFTER his hour and a half lunch break because he is checking his number sheet from the football pool with the airport policemen, which by the way is gambling no matter how you white wash it.
Is it efficent to spend most of your 8 hour shift in the supervisors office doing your college homework at the expense of the taxpayers, while rarely showing your face on the checkpoint during the peak periods when your help is needed the most while passengers wait impatiently in a long line to get through airport security?
Is it efficient to take an hour and a half lunch break while only marking half an hour on your time sheet and THEN stepping off of the checkpoint after you return from your extended lunch to then take a half hour cigarette break?
Oh, yeah and let us not forget the vain schmucks who take an hour and a half lunch so that they can go to the gym and work out in between sessions of surfing on the internet, and the overpaid training coordinator who does What? Hell, none of us have a clue as to what this yutz does besides make one training video that was loaded with faulty information to begin with.
I really want to know. How is this considered efficiency in how my hard earned tax dollars are spent? The only people who are actually doing what is expected of them, the Screeners, are yet the ones that get most of the negative media attention. Maybe if they had leadership that led by example instead of a "Do as I say, not as I do" mentality, it would be more efficient. But yet I ask for the "Impossible Dream" because inefficiency and incompetence is what you get for a investment return when you recruit inexperienced and incompetent individuals who view leadership as a power trip and a way to inflict unusual burden upon others because one has little or no self respect and an overinflated ego.
As long as the government is in charge of this task of keeping our friendly skies friendly, EFFICENCY will not ever be a term used by this writer.
Your tax dollars at work America...Nothing like getting F#*$ed without even a kiss!
Let Freedom Ring..................The Rouge Jew
WHAT DOES TSA MEAN?
During my nearly three years with the tax dollar sucking Transportation Security Admin. several people have asked me what TSA stood for. Well I found some very creative acronyms as to what TSA really stands for in the eyes of the tax paying citizen.
1.Thumbs Stuck (up) Asses
2.Terminally Stupid Assholes
3.Take Some Aspirin
4.Tax Sucking Authority
5.This Sucks Ass
6.Terrorist Stay Away[, please]
7.Take Scissors Away
8.Tough Shit Asshole
9.There's Still AMTRAK
10.Thousands Standing Around
Submitted by Bungholio
1.Thumbs Stuck (up) Asses
2.Terminally Stupid Assholes
3.Take Some Aspirin
4.Tax Sucking Authority
5.This Sucks Ass
6.Terrorist Stay Away[, please]
7.Take Scissors Away
8.Tough Shit Asshole
9.There's Still AMTRAK
10.Thousands Standing Around
Submitted by Bungholio
TSA - R I P
This article came from April 14th, 2005. I found it particularly amusing because of the amount of adjectives used to describe the management of the TSA.
Once again I would like to reiterate...I take my hat off to the TSA Screeners of America, they work their asses off. The management and administration on the other hand...I hold very little regard for that bunch of numbnutts.
In the meantime, I will be mentally preparing myself for what is sure to be my free proctological exam that the TSA is more then likely preparing for me the next time I fly.
TSA, RIP?
By Dan Alban
Government agencies tend to accumulate like barnacles on a ship's hull - once created, they're pretty hard to remove. Journalist Jonathan Rauch described this petrification of bureaucracy as "demosclerosis" in his book of the same title. So it's not every day that a government agency passes on to that happy regulating ground in the sky.
But last Friday, news reports revealed that Admiral David Stone, the director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), was stepping down and that the incompetent, mismanaged, wasteful & inefficient, cost doubling, under-trained & corner-cutting, repeatedly failure-prone, safety illusion creating, performance mismonitoring, screener certification bungling, threat ignoring and internally miscommunicating, rights trampling, privacy violating (& cover up promoting), sexual harassment promoting, thievery enabling, hypocritical security side-stepping, long line creating, nail clipper, scissor, pocket knife/tool, tiny toy gun and cigarette lighter-confiscating, peanut butter sandwich thieving, elderly & disabled harassing, on the job sleeping, air marshal hemorrhaging, employment discrimination facilitating, employee health hazard creating, and just generally awful1 Transportation Security Administration may soon be a thing of the past, or will at least have a much reduced role. As you can tell, I'm heartbroken. But I only wonder why this hasn't happened sooner.
TSA was created in November 2001 with a goal of securing our nation's (primarily airline) transportation, largely by replacing private airport security screeners with "fully trained, professional" federal screeners. TSA went about this, of course, by hiring a private company, TCS Pearson, to hire over 50,000 screeners, and by hiring a pair of private defense contractors, Lockheed and Boeing, to train passenger and luggage screeners respectively. Yeah, that sure showed those lousy private screeners that the federalistas were taking things over.
The 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which created TSA, established a deadline of Nov. 19, 2002 for TSA to federalize all airport screeners and a deadline of Dec. 31, 2002 for examining all checked bags for explosives. Miraculously, TSA met the first deadline (but failed the second). How? Because price was no object; TSA blew through its original $2.4 billion budget like a craps player on a bad bender, and was requesting an additional $4.4 billion by the summer of 2002. Then-chairman of the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY) put it simply: "The meeting of that deadline has cost a lot of money that it should not have."
Not only was there no cost control, but TSA wasn't necessarily spending to enhance security; they were just desperately trying to meet the Nov. 19 deadline. As Rep. John Mica (R-FL), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation, said in a 2003 hearing, "We've created a multi-billion-dollar mirage. You can have 200,000 screeners, whether they be private or public, and we're still at risk. TSA has done a good job of ramping up an army of screeners. They have not done a good job in developing technology."
Recognizing this reality, I tend to favor the radical suggestion of magician/comic Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller), who suggests that we Make Terrorists Do the Profiling, in his article of the same name, by permitting anyone to carry anything on a plane. Yes, anything: knives, guns, nail clippers, brass knuckles, tweezers, chainsaws, bazookas, cigarette lighters, Martin Scorsese's Oscar - oh wait, I meant anything real or plausible, not anything deeply deserved but utterly improbable. Basically, the idea is that knowing anyone could be carrying anything on a plane will deter terrorists because they know they'll meet with armed resistance, rather than passengers stripped of even the smallest pocketknife or deadliest pair of nail clippers. Is this a risky strategy? Sure it is; life is full of risks and we can't pretend they don't exist by creating a government agency that pretends to eliminate them with massive spending, spiffy uniforms, high-tech theatrics, and goonish intimidation tactics. Freedom is a risky proposition, there's no doubt about it. But risk is always relative - how much more risk are we accepting by surrendering our freedom and trusting the TSA overlords to not only protect us from the bad guys, but to not be the bad guys themselves?
Once again I would like to reiterate...I take my hat off to the TSA Screeners of America, they work their asses off. The management and administration on the other hand...I hold very little regard for that bunch of numbnutts.
In the meantime, I will be mentally preparing myself for what is sure to be my free proctological exam that the TSA is more then likely preparing for me the next time I fly.
TSA, RIP?
By Dan Alban
Government agencies tend to accumulate like barnacles on a ship's hull - once created, they're pretty hard to remove. Journalist Jonathan Rauch described this petrification of bureaucracy as "demosclerosis" in his book of the same title. So it's not every day that a government agency passes on to that happy regulating ground in the sky.
But last Friday, news reports revealed that Admiral David Stone, the director of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), was stepping down and that the incompetent, mismanaged, wasteful & inefficient, cost doubling, under-trained & corner-cutting, repeatedly failure-prone, safety illusion creating, performance mismonitoring, screener certification bungling, threat ignoring and internally miscommunicating, rights trampling, privacy violating (& cover up promoting), sexual harassment promoting, thievery enabling, hypocritical security side-stepping, long line creating, nail clipper, scissor, pocket knife/tool, tiny toy gun and cigarette lighter-confiscating, peanut butter sandwich thieving, elderly & disabled harassing, on the job sleeping, air marshal hemorrhaging, employment discrimination facilitating, employee health hazard creating, and just generally awful1 Transportation Security Administration may soon be a thing of the past, or will at least have a much reduced role. As you can tell, I'm heartbroken. But I only wonder why this hasn't happened sooner.
TSA was created in November 2001 with a goal of securing our nation's (primarily airline) transportation, largely by replacing private airport security screeners with "fully trained, professional" federal screeners. TSA went about this, of course, by hiring a private company, TCS Pearson, to hire over 50,000 screeners, and by hiring a pair of private defense contractors, Lockheed and Boeing, to train passenger and luggage screeners respectively. Yeah, that sure showed those lousy private screeners that the federalistas were taking things over.
The 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act, which created TSA, established a deadline of Nov. 19, 2002 for TSA to federalize all airport screeners and a deadline of Dec. 31, 2002 for examining all checked bags for explosives. Miraculously, TSA met the first deadline (but failed the second). How? Because price was no object; TSA blew through its original $2.4 billion budget like a craps player on a bad bender, and was requesting an additional $4.4 billion by the summer of 2002. Then-chairman of the House Appropriations transportation subcommittee Rep. Harold Rogers (R-KY) put it simply: "The meeting of that deadline has cost a lot of money that it should not have."
Not only was there no cost control, but TSA wasn't necessarily spending to enhance security; they were just desperately trying to meet the Nov. 19 deadline. As Rep. John Mica (R-FL), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Aviation, said in a 2003 hearing, "We've created a multi-billion-dollar mirage. You can have 200,000 screeners, whether they be private or public, and we're still at risk. TSA has done a good job of ramping up an army of screeners. They have not done a good job in developing technology."
Recognizing this reality, I tend to favor the radical suggestion of magician/comic Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller), who suggests that we Make Terrorists Do the Profiling, in his article of the same name, by permitting anyone to carry anything on a plane. Yes, anything: knives, guns, nail clippers, brass knuckles, tweezers, chainsaws, bazookas, cigarette lighters, Martin Scorsese's Oscar - oh wait, I meant anything real or plausible, not anything deeply deserved but utterly improbable. Basically, the idea is that knowing anyone could be carrying anything on a plane will deter terrorists because they know they'll meet with armed resistance, rather than passengers stripped of even the smallest pocketknife or deadliest pair of nail clippers. Is this a risky strategy? Sure it is; life is full of risks and we can't pretend they don't exist by creating a government agency that pretends to eliminate them with massive spending, spiffy uniforms, high-tech theatrics, and goonish intimidation tactics. Freedom is a risky proposition, there's no doubt about it. But risk is always relative - how much more risk are we accepting by surrendering our freedom and trusting the TSA overlords to not only protect us from the bad guys, but to not be the bad guys themselves?
Saturday, July 09, 2005
Industry team forms to provide private screening at airports
Back in May, the Keystone Kops of the TSA administration held a meeting with its Screeners and one of the first words out the mouth of the FSD was, "I've never lied to you." As if he thinks our memories were that short, especially the memories of the former Screeners that were hired by the TSA when airport security was federalized in 2002.
He mentioned that Privatization was not going to occur. I found this article that cites different views.
By Chris Strohm
A major industry team has formed to provide private passenger and baggage screening services at the nation's airports.
Lockheed Martin and Covenant Aviation Security will seek contracts from the Transportation Security Administration to take over screening operations at airports. The companies said TSA plans to begin awarding contacts in May.
"The Lockheed Martin-Covenant team will bring experience-based innovation to security screening privatization and provide world-class training, human resources management, checkpoint traffic control and customer service through our partnerships with the TSA, airport management and the flying public," said John Freeh, president of Lockheed Martin Systems Management, in a statement.
Lockheed Martin has been under contract with TSA to conduct part of the agency's annual screener recertification program. Covenant has been under contract to provide private screening services at two airports.
TSA will collect proposals from private companies interested in doing screening until April 15. The agency plans to issue a list of qualified vendors by the end of May and begin making contract awards in the summer. So far, only one airport has applied to have private screeners: Elko Regional Airport in Nevada.
Congress created a federal screening workforce in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. A provision was included that would allow airports to submit applications to TSA starting Nov. 19 to have private companies manage local screening operations.
Congress also established a pilot program that allowed five airports to use private screeners. Those airports are in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Kansas City, Mo., Rochester, N.Y., San Francisco, Calif., and Tupelo, Miss. Covenant was contracted for passenger and baggage screener operations at San Francisco International Airport and Tupelo Regional Airport.
Both companies, however, have been criticized by screeners.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, TSA is investigating allegations by one screener at San Francisco International Airport that Covenant cheated to pass tests.
According to the screener, Gene Bencomo, the company devised an elaborate system to alert security checkpoints when undercover federal auditors, called decoys, arrived at the airport last year to conduct unannounced tests. As a result, Covenant's personnel intercepted as many as 90 percent of the federal decoys in the tests, Bencomo said in a complaint.
Screeners also have complained about how Lockheed Martin has handled its part of the screener recertification program. Screeners told Government Executive last year that Lockheed Martin trainers did not understand TSA standard operating procedures and used subjective criteria to administer the tests.
TSA expressed confidence in Lockheed Martin but eventually revamped the screener recertification program.
He mentioned that Privatization was not going to occur. I found this article that cites different views.
By Chris Strohm
A major industry team has formed to provide private passenger and baggage screening services at the nation's airports.
Lockheed Martin and Covenant Aviation Security will seek contracts from the Transportation Security Administration to take over screening operations at airports. The companies said TSA plans to begin awarding contacts in May.
"The Lockheed Martin-Covenant team will bring experience-based innovation to security screening privatization and provide world-class training, human resources management, checkpoint traffic control and customer service through our partnerships with the TSA, airport management and the flying public," said John Freeh, president of Lockheed Martin Systems Management, in a statement.
Lockheed Martin has been under contract with TSA to conduct part of the agency's annual screener recertification program. Covenant has been under contract to provide private screening services at two airports.
TSA will collect proposals from private companies interested in doing screening until April 15. The agency plans to issue a list of qualified vendors by the end of May and begin making contract awards in the summer. So far, only one airport has applied to have private screeners: Elko Regional Airport in Nevada.
Congress created a federal screening workforce in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. A provision was included that would allow airports to submit applications to TSA starting Nov. 19 to have private companies manage local screening operations.
Congress also established a pilot program that allowed five airports to use private screeners. Those airports are in Jackson Hole, Wyo., Kansas City, Mo., Rochester, N.Y., San Francisco, Calif., and Tupelo, Miss. Covenant was contracted for passenger and baggage screener operations at San Francisco International Airport and Tupelo Regional Airport.
Both companies, however, have been criticized by screeners.
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, TSA is investigating allegations by one screener at San Francisco International Airport that Covenant cheated to pass tests.
According to the screener, Gene Bencomo, the company devised an elaborate system to alert security checkpoints when undercover federal auditors, called decoys, arrived at the airport last year to conduct unannounced tests. As a result, Covenant's personnel intercepted as many as 90 percent of the federal decoys in the tests, Bencomo said in a complaint.
Screeners also have complained about how Lockheed Martin has handled its part of the screener recertification program. Screeners told Government Executive last year that Lockheed Martin trainers did not understand TSA standard operating procedures and used subjective criteria to administer the tests.
TSA expressed confidence in Lockheed Martin but eventually revamped the screener recertification program.
Entrance to Heaven for Thousands of Asians Delayed by TSA
From the news archives from last years Tsunamis in Asia I found this interesting article.
Entrance to Heaven for Thousands of Asians Delayed by TSA
HEAVEN (MGB) - With thousands of tsunami victims seeking entry into Heaven, the TSA has cordoned off the pearly gates in an effort to make sure that none of the souls in question are on the TSA's "no fly" list. Anyone who is found out to be on the list of suspected terrorists and supporters of terror groups will be pulled from the line and either returned to their place of origin to wander for eternity as a disembodied spirit or will be held at the US internment facility at Guantanamo.
Although the TSA's involvement in the processing of the dead has provoked criticism from some, particularly dead people, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for TSA Rear Admiral David M. Stone USN (Ret.) defended the necessity to set up shop in the great hereafter to ensure American safety in the here and now.
"Look, no one wants to put off the eternal bliss of Heaven for anyone, particularly those who were killed in such an untimely fashion. However, the fact is that amongst the dead were thousands of Muslims, many of who were suspected terrorists, and we cannot sit idly by while the enemies of the United States of America are allowed to go gallivanting around the afterlife. Terrorist groups must learn that the hand of American justice extends everywhere and death will no longer be accepted as an escape from the forces of freedom."
Entrance to Heaven for Thousands of Asians Delayed by TSA
HEAVEN (MGB) - With thousands of tsunami victims seeking entry into Heaven, the TSA has cordoned off the pearly gates in an effort to make sure that none of the souls in question are on the TSA's "no fly" list. Anyone who is found out to be on the list of suspected terrorists and supporters of terror groups will be pulled from the line and either returned to their place of origin to wander for eternity as a disembodied spirit or will be held at the US internment facility at Guantanamo.
Although the TSA's involvement in the processing of the dead has provoked criticism from some, particularly dead people, Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for TSA Rear Admiral David M. Stone USN (Ret.) defended the necessity to set up shop in the great hereafter to ensure American safety in the here and now.
"Look, no one wants to put off the eternal bliss of Heaven for anyone, particularly those who were killed in such an untimely fashion. However, the fact is that amongst the dead were thousands of Muslims, many of who were suspected terrorists, and we cannot sit idly by while the enemies of the United States of America are allowed to go gallivanting around the afterlife. Terrorist groups must learn that the hand of American justice extends everywhere and death will no longer be accepted as an escape from the forces of freedom."
Friday, July 08, 2005
THE FINAL STRAW
The Final Straw
Some screeners said they are starting to look for new employment, given past problems they've experienced with the agency as well as recent troubles with the training recertification program.
At a House hearing last week, Cathleen Berrick, director of GAO's homeland security and justice division, said turnover at TSA averages 14 percent annually, but ranges as high as 36 percent at some large airports. She said low pay and bad hours are reasons the agency has been unable to keep part-time workers. She added that recent interviews revealed 11 of the 15 busiest airports do not have enough screeners.
"TSA continues to struggle to maintain an adequate number of screeners at airport checkpoints, and has not yet achieved a stable screener workforce," she said. Berrick added that TSA's hiring process "has hindered the ability of some [federal security directors] to adequately staff passenger and baggage screening checkpoints. Several FSDs we interviewed expressed concern that TSA's hiring process was not responsive to their needs, and wanted to have more input in the hiring process. These FSDs faced screener shortages that hindered their screening capability."
Clawson, who once qualified to be a screening supervisor, said she is seriously considering looking for a new job. She and her co-workers are frustrated, angry and becoming indifferent toward the problems at their airport.
"I will tell you that when I leave here I will not fly again until something is fixed," she said. "I want somebody held accountable for what's going on. The only reason I took this job is because I thought it was going to be different from other government agencies and I thought that we would have a government agency that would be accountable and responsible, and that hasn't happened."
HALLELUJAH!!!
In a short format, I couldn't even begin to outline some of the irregularities at this location. 'Unfair' practices; not to mention the legality of many; including not making FMLA available to screeners on a recurring basis. (The HR rep. didn't even know it existed until OPM was contacted in one instance.)
- HELP US - If any group of people needed protection from a group of egotisical people that don't have a clue about the 'hows' and 'whys' of people management, WE DO! AND... airport security? That's a whole new ball-game. The level is fast declining, simply because of moral! God bless and good luck. -- M
airport screener
Transportation Security Administration
Colorado Springs
AND STILL MORE LETTERS FROM SCREENERS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY........
TSA HQ's excuse is typical...TSA claims only a troubled or previously fired employee files complaints, never one that did their job right. With TSA HQs willing to violate its own employee salary determining hiring policies, signed job contracts offering higher salaries to previous screeners and ignore officials like, Kennedy, Kerry and Markey join their own high level TSA managers to decry such unfairness...it's time for serious change.
TSA cannot be trusted to resolve internal employee concerns because it doesn't want to solve them. TSA management firmly believes that they are better than any whom work below them. If they did care, we wouldn't have had to file one law suit after another against them just to get them to do the right and just thing.
TSA screeners need to Band together and go to the Media, problem is everyone is complaining but no one is doing anything about it. Usually when things in a company get globally this bad people strike, but since TSA cant strike, take it to the media, then march on CONGRESS AND MAKE THEM LISTEN! VOICES ARE HEARD EVEN IN SMALL NUMBERS. I think if we even get one person from each airport to go to DC and force Congress to listen to us it would be worth it. Call 20/20 or what ever news media and put it out there, create public outrage. Gain the interest and the outrage of the public, change the minds of the politicians.
TSA Takes Incompetence International
The TSA's security at US airports has now reached a level roughly equivalent to that of a Midwestern bowling alley.
Not deterred by such success, the TSA is traversing the globe to show all them there furriners how to do it just as well as we do. This past week, they had a team touring terminals in Cairo, no doubt giving Egyptians tips on how to make their airports secure from BIC lighters, nail files, and Phillips screwdrivers.
AND THE STORIES GO ON AND ON AND ON. ALL ONE HAS TO DO IS USE THE GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE AND TYPE IN THE WORDS "TSA SCREENER MORALE" AND IT COMES UP WITH 778 HITS!
AND I CAN TELL YOU AFTER RESEARCHING THIS FOR HOURS AND HOURS, THEIR WAS NOTHING POSITIVE THAT I COULD FIND IN MY SEARCH.
I ALREADY KNOW THAT TSA OFFICIALS WILL PROBABLY ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT THIS WRITER AS A DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE, BUT I CAN HONESTLY TELL YOU, NOTHING COULD BE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
SINCE LEAVING THE TSA ON JUNE 17TH, MY OVERALL HEALTH HAS IMPROVED. BOTH MENTAL AND PHYSICAL.
I NOW TAKE IT UPON MYSELF TO TELL THE WORLD ABOUT THE ABUSE AND MISMANAGEMENT THAT I WAS WITNESS TO FOR ALMOST 3 YEARS WITH THE TSA. SEVERAL OF MY CLOSE FRIENDS ARE STILL TRAPPED IN THIS DIS-ORGANIZATION AND I SALUTE THEM FOR WHAT THEY HAVE TO ENDURE ON A DAILY BASIS.
AT A JOB FAIR RECENTLY FOR A CASINO THAT IS GOING TO OPEN IN ABOUT 14 MONTHS FROM NOW, I SAW MORE THEN HALF OF MY CO-WORKERS IN ATTENDANCE, AND SOME OF THEM WERE THE INEPT SUPERVISORS THAT I SPEAK SO FONDLY OF. ONE SUPERVISOR IN PARTICULAR HAS ASSAULTED 2 DIFFERENT EMPLOYEES, YET ODDLY ENEOUGH THIS RETIRED ARMY NON COM KEEPS HIS JOB WITH CLAIMS THAT HE HAS ANGER MANAGMENT ISSUES. BUT YET I HAVE WANDERED FROM THE ISSUE AT HAND. THESE CO-WORKERS THAT ATTENDED THE JOB FAIR ARE CLIMBING OVER EACH OTHER TO GET OUT OF WORKING AT A GOVERNMENT JOB. THAT IS HOW LOW MORALE IS WITHIN THIS INFANTILE GOVERNMENT AGENCY.
LET FREEDOM RING......................................THE ROGUE JEW
Some screeners said they are starting to look for new employment, given past problems they've experienced with the agency as well as recent troubles with the training recertification program.
At a House hearing last week, Cathleen Berrick, director of GAO's homeland security and justice division, said turnover at TSA averages 14 percent annually, but ranges as high as 36 percent at some large airports. She said low pay and bad hours are reasons the agency has been unable to keep part-time workers. She added that recent interviews revealed 11 of the 15 busiest airports do not have enough screeners.
"TSA continues to struggle to maintain an adequate number of screeners at airport checkpoints, and has not yet achieved a stable screener workforce," she said. Berrick added that TSA's hiring process "has hindered the ability of some [federal security directors] to adequately staff passenger and baggage screening checkpoints. Several FSDs we interviewed expressed concern that TSA's hiring process was not responsive to their needs, and wanted to have more input in the hiring process. These FSDs faced screener shortages that hindered their screening capability."
Clawson, who once qualified to be a screening supervisor, said she is seriously considering looking for a new job. She and her co-workers are frustrated, angry and becoming indifferent toward the problems at their airport.
"I will tell you that when I leave here I will not fly again until something is fixed," she said. "I want somebody held accountable for what's going on. The only reason I took this job is because I thought it was going to be different from other government agencies and I thought that we would have a government agency that would be accountable and responsible, and that hasn't happened."
HALLELUJAH!!!
In a short format, I couldn't even begin to outline some of the irregularities at this location. 'Unfair' practices; not to mention the legality of many; including not making FMLA available to screeners on a recurring basis. (The HR rep. didn't even know it existed until OPM was contacted in one instance.)
- HELP US - If any group of people needed protection from a group of egotisical people that don't have a clue about the 'hows' and 'whys' of people management, WE DO! AND... airport security? That's a whole new ball-game. The level is fast declining, simply because of moral! God bless and good luck. -- M
airport screener
Transportation Security Administration
Colorado Springs
AND STILL MORE LETTERS FROM SCREENERS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY........
TSA HQ's excuse is typical...TSA claims only a troubled or previously fired employee files complaints, never one that did their job right. With TSA HQs willing to violate its own employee salary determining hiring policies, signed job contracts offering higher salaries to previous screeners and ignore officials like, Kennedy, Kerry and Markey join their own high level TSA managers to decry such unfairness...it's time for serious change.
TSA cannot be trusted to resolve internal employee concerns because it doesn't want to solve them. TSA management firmly believes that they are better than any whom work below them. If they did care, we wouldn't have had to file one law suit after another against them just to get them to do the right and just thing.
TSA screeners need to Band together and go to the Media, problem is everyone is complaining but no one is doing anything about it. Usually when things in a company get globally this bad people strike, but since TSA cant strike, take it to the media, then march on CONGRESS AND MAKE THEM LISTEN! VOICES ARE HEARD EVEN IN SMALL NUMBERS. I think if we even get one person from each airport to go to DC and force Congress to listen to us it would be worth it. Call 20/20 or what ever news media and put it out there, create public outrage. Gain the interest and the outrage of the public, change the minds of the politicians.
TSA Takes Incompetence International
The TSA's security at US airports has now reached a level roughly equivalent to that of a Midwestern bowling alley.
Not deterred by such success, the TSA is traversing the globe to show all them there furriners how to do it just as well as we do. This past week, they had a team touring terminals in Cairo, no doubt giving Egyptians tips on how to make their airports secure from BIC lighters, nail files, and Phillips screwdrivers.
AND THE STORIES GO ON AND ON AND ON. ALL ONE HAS TO DO IS USE THE GOOGLE SEARCH ENGINE AND TYPE IN THE WORDS "TSA SCREENER MORALE" AND IT COMES UP WITH 778 HITS!
AND I CAN TELL YOU AFTER RESEARCHING THIS FOR HOURS AND HOURS, THEIR WAS NOTHING POSITIVE THAT I COULD FIND IN MY SEARCH.
I ALREADY KNOW THAT TSA OFFICIALS WILL PROBABLY ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT THIS WRITER AS A DISGRUNTLED EMPLOYEE, BUT I CAN HONESTLY TELL YOU, NOTHING COULD BE FARTHER FROM THE TRUTH!
SINCE LEAVING THE TSA ON JUNE 17TH, MY OVERALL HEALTH HAS IMPROVED. BOTH MENTAL AND PHYSICAL.
I NOW TAKE IT UPON MYSELF TO TELL THE WORLD ABOUT THE ABUSE AND MISMANAGEMENT THAT I WAS WITNESS TO FOR ALMOST 3 YEARS WITH THE TSA. SEVERAL OF MY CLOSE FRIENDS ARE STILL TRAPPED IN THIS DIS-ORGANIZATION AND I SALUTE THEM FOR WHAT THEY HAVE TO ENDURE ON A DAILY BASIS.
AT A JOB FAIR RECENTLY FOR A CASINO THAT IS GOING TO OPEN IN ABOUT 14 MONTHS FROM NOW, I SAW MORE THEN HALF OF MY CO-WORKERS IN ATTENDANCE, AND SOME OF THEM WERE THE INEPT SUPERVISORS THAT I SPEAK SO FONDLY OF. ONE SUPERVISOR IN PARTICULAR HAS ASSAULTED 2 DIFFERENT EMPLOYEES, YET ODDLY ENEOUGH THIS RETIRED ARMY NON COM KEEPS HIS JOB WITH CLAIMS THAT HE HAS ANGER MANAGMENT ISSUES. BUT YET I HAVE WANDERED FROM THE ISSUE AT HAND. THESE CO-WORKERS THAT ATTENDED THE JOB FAIR ARE CLIMBING OVER EACH OTHER TO GET OUT OF WORKING AT A GOVERNMENT JOB. THAT IS HOW LOW MORALE IS WITHIN THIS INFANTILE GOVERNMENT AGENCY.
LET FREEDOM RING......................................THE ROGUE JEW
California Offers Work Release at TSA for Imprisoned Sex Offenders
In light of TSA's new security policy of intimate contact with passengers as part of security screening procedures, California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expect to announce a new security initiative today to strengthen TSA operations in California. TSA (the Transportation Security Administration), which often struggles to find adequate numbers of qualified screening agents, will be able to tap into the large population of convicted sex offenders in California, thousands of whom will now be given supervised work furloughs to serve as low-cost screeners at airports throughout California. Several patriotic inmates have even offered to pay for the privilege of making America more secure.
"This is important work," said Governor Schwarzenegger, who has allegedly offered to serve as a TSA volunteer on weekends when they are short-handed. "One never knows what security threats might be found beneath someone's underwear." President Bush praised the California initiative, dismissing the charge that some passengers do not wish to be fondled or groped during travel. "The TSA is doing important work, making America more secure and helping to make Homeland Security a more intimate part of each American's life. Thanks to TSA, our government can now reach out and touch millions more people better than ever before - and in more places. Isn't that what it's all about?"
"This is important work," said Governor Schwarzenegger, who has allegedly offered to serve as a TSA volunteer on weekends when they are short-handed. "One never knows what security threats might be found beneath someone's underwear." President Bush praised the California initiative, dismissing the charge that some passengers do not wish to be fondled or groped during travel. "The TSA is doing important work, making America more secure and helping to make Homeland Security a more intimate part of each American's life. Thanks to TSA, our government can now reach out and touch millions more people better than ever before - and in more places. Isn't that what it's all about?"
TSA THEME SONG
AS SUNG TO THE TUNE OF "I'M LEAVING ON A JET PLANE" THIS IS GREEEAAAAT! CLICK ON THE POST TITLE TO LISTEN TO THIS SONG....WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER REQUIRED....I LAUGHED MY ASS OFF WHEN I HEARD THIS LITTLE DITTY.
All my bags are packed,
I have my ID,
A printed itinerary,
A boarding pass,
And major credit card.
And I'll show you that
My computer works.
I'll shake my head at all the jerks
Whose crankiness is making this so hard (It's way too hard).
So frisk me to check for clues,
Tell me to take off my shoes,
Touch me, ask me what you need to know.
'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Just stand in line, and don't complain.
And soon, they'll let me go.
It's embarrassing each time I hear
Detectors beep on my braziere
It's underwire, so watch your hands you punk!
There's no hurry now,
My flight's delayed.
It's all because of somebody made
A joke and asked, So is our pilot drunk? (So is he drunk?)
So frisk me to check for clues,
Tell me to take off my shoes,
Touch me, ask me what you need to know.
'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Just stand in line, and don't complain.
And soon, we'll get to go.
Now it's time, unless they're lyin'
One more line, and I'll be flyin'
A random search and I'll be on my way.
At the gate,
What's this I see?
My airline declared bankruptcy.
They've cancelled every flight they had today. (they had today)
I'm pissed, and I want some booze.
Tell me where they took my shoes.
Hold me back, 'cause there's one thing I know...
I'm not leavin', there's no jet plane.
Just 18 hours down the drain.
(Leavin', there's no jet plane,
Just 18 hours down the drain)
(Leavin', there's no jet plane,
Just 18 hours down the drain)
(Leavin', there's no jet plane,
Just 18 hours down the drain)
Someday we'll get to go...
All my bags are packed,
I have my ID,
A printed itinerary,
A boarding pass,
And major credit card.
And I'll show you that
My computer works.
I'll shake my head at all the jerks
Whose crankiness is making this so hard (It's way too hard).
So frisk me to check for clues,
Tell me to take off my shoes,
Touch me, ask me what you need to know.
'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Just stand in line, and don't complain.
And soon, they'll let me go.
It's embarrassing each time I hear
Detectors beep on my braziere
It's underwire, so watch your hands you punk!
There's no hurry now,
My flight's delayed.
It's all because of somebody made
A joke and asked, So is our pilot drunk? (So is he drunk?)
So frisk me to check for clues,
Tell me to take off my shoes,
Touch me, ask me what you need to know.
'Cause I'm leavin' on a jet plane
Just stand in line, and don't complain.
And soon, we'll get to go.
Now it's time, unless they're lyin'
One more line, and I'll be flyin'
A random search and I'll be on my way.
At the gate,
What's this I see?
My airline declared bankruptcy.
They've cancelled every flight they had today. (they had today)
I'm pissed, and I want some booze.
Tell me where they took my shoes.
Hold me back, 'cause there's one thing I know...
I'm not leavin', there's no jet plane.
Just 18 hours down the drain.
(Leavin', there's no jet plane,
Just 18 hours down the drain)
(Leavin', there's no jet plane,
Just 18 hours down the drain)
(Leavin', there's no jet plane,
Just 18 hours down the drain)
Someday we'll get to go...
COAST GUARD OATH
With all due respect to the different branches of Military, this particular piece is aimed at a few schmucks I use to work for.
U.S. COAST GUARD ENLISTMENT OATH
"I, (State your name), swear to sign away 4 years of my life to the UNITED STATES COAST GUARD because I know being in the real military scares me. However, I swear to defend our position as the fifth branch of the Armed Services, although at one point we were under the Department of Homeland Security. I understand that atleast twice a day, someone will refer to me a member of the Air Force or Navy, and when I correct them, they will question my military status. I will work on boats the size of kayaks and small yachts during the worst of natures storms, and recieve no thanks or notice form the public. I will fly in helos into the eye of the storm to rescue people dumber then rocks, and then be heckled by the same people when I bust them for transporting drugs two months later.! I will prevent thousands of gallons of pollution, but be accused of impeding the economy when I won't allow vessels to pour oil into the ocean. I will be the red-headed step child to all of the other services, although I know I got the better deal. All of my equipment will be discarded Navy property. I will use most of my time in the Coast Guard to take college classes, and perfect my web surfing abilities, then complain that I work too much. I will perfect avoiding PT at all costs, and do my best to attend training that will give me a great competitive edge in the career field of my choice, making retention efforts of the Coast Guard pointless. I will come in contact with so many pollutants during my tenure, I will glow in the dark for the rest of my natural life and refer to myself as "salty" because of it. I will do my best to work 8 to 3, with a two hour lunch, on normal days, and have my pager and cell phone surgically attached, SO HELP ME GOD.
____________________
Signature
____________________
Date
U.S. COAST GUARD ENLISTMENT OATH
"I, (State your name), swear to sign away 4 years of my life to the UNITED STATES COAST GUARD because I know being in the real military scares me. However, I swear to defend our position as the fifth branch of the Armed Services, although at one point we were under the Department of Homeland Security. I understand that atleast twice a day, someone will refer to me a member of the Air Force or Navy, and when I correct them, they will question my military status. I will work on boats the size of kayaks and small yachts during the worst of natures storms, and recieve no thanks or notice form the public. I will fly in helos into the eye of the storm to rescue people dumber then rocks, and then be heckled by the same people when I bust them for transporting drugs two months later.! I will prevent thousands of gallons of pollution, but be accused of impeding the economy when I won't allow vessels to pour oil into the ocean. I will be the red-headed step child to all of the other services, although I know I got the better deal. All of my equipment will be discarded Navy property. I will use most of my time in the Coast Guard to take college classes, and perfect my web surfing abilities, then complain that I work too much. I will perfect avoiding PT at all costs, and do my best to attend training that will give me a great competitive edge in the career field of my choice, making retention efforts of the Coast Guard pointless. I will come in contact with so many pollutants during my tenure, I will glow in the dark for the rest of my natural life and refer to myself as "salty" because of it. I will do my best to work 8 to 3, with a two hour lunch, on normal days, and have my pager and cell phone surgically attached, SO HELP ME GOD.
____________________
Signature
____________________
Date
Thursday, July 07, 2005
Security Policies Lack Common Sense
Before you read this story taken from Screener-Central, I just want the reader to realize something. In this story, the writer questions the common sense of the "Screener". We must remember that the Screener is more then likely the only person with any amount of common sense and he/she is only doing what a more then likely inept supervisor told him/her to do. This story only strengthens my low opinion of TSA administration and management. If you were to walk into a meeting of the minds of these people, one would be lead to think that they just stepped into Darwins Waiting Room.
Last month a group of veterans of the legendary Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division - made famous as "The Band of Brothers" - visited Bastogne, where they endured the awful winter of 1944, as the guests of a group of Dutch people. As a token of their gratitude for the Band of Brothers' role in liberating Europe from the Nazis, the soldiers were presented with individually engraved Zippo lighters, replicas of the lighters that were standard issue in World War II.
On one side, the lighters depict a map of the places where Easy Company fought. On the other, each veteran's name is engraved above a unit insignia. The lighters obviously were special commemoratives to anyone who would think for two seconds.
But never underestimate thick-headed bureaucratic stupidity. On the way back home, a Transportation Security Administration airport screener confiscated Easy Company veteran Bill Wingett's special lighter from his carry-on luggage. Lighters, you see, are forbidden aboard U.S. airliners. Wingett appealed to common sense, pointing out that the lighter had no flint and no fluid, and that he had no fluid in his luggage - so therefore it could not be used to make a flame. A supervisor, apparently just as dense, was summoned, then another. Wingett even suggested handing it to the airliner's pilot for safekeeping for the final leg of his flight home. The bureaucratic screeners dug in. No one would bend the rules, not even for an old vets' commemorative.
Fortunately this story has a happy ending. A friend in the Oregon National Guard heard about the lost lighter and fired off phone calls and e-mails to the TSA, United Airlines and Army friends. One of the messages made its way to John Williams, a United Airlines claims representative whose father is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. A message from Williams got to Jerry Golladay, a TSA aviation manager who is a Navy veteran. Soon every possible spot at Dulles Airport where the confiscated lighter could have gone was turned inside-out. The cherished Zippo was found on the second round of searching - and returned to Wingett.
The story highlights the continuing stupidity of airport screening policies that insist upon treating an 82-year-old military veteran exactly the same as a young Middle Eastern man traveling to the United States on a one-way ticket.
The TSA can't mandate common sense among its airport screeners, but it can rethink airport security policies that continue to wreak havoc on travel in large and small ways and yet fail to focus on the most likely security threats to airliners.
http://news-register.net/edit/story/076202005_edtiedit2.asp
Last month a group of veterans of the legendary Easy Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division - made famous as "The Band of Brothers" - visited Bastogne, where they endured the awful winter of 1944, as the guests of a group of Dutch people. As a token of their gratitude for the Band of Brothers' role in liberating Europe from the Nazis, the soldiers were presented with individually engraved Zippo lighters, replicas of the lighters that were standard issue in World War II.
On one side, the lighters depict a map of the places where Easy Company fought. On the other, each veteran's name is engraved above a unit insignia. The lighters obviously were special commemoratives to anyone who would think for two seconds.
But never underestimate thick-headed bureaucratic stupidity. On the way back home, a Transportation Security Administration airport screener confiscated Easy Company veteran Bill Wingett's special lighter from his carry-on luggage. Lighters, you see, are forbidden aboard U.S. airliners. Wingett appealed to common sense, pointing out that the lighter had no flint and no fluid, and that he had no fluid in his luggage - so therefore it could not be used to make a flame. A supervisor, apparently just as dense, was summoned, then another. Wingett even suggested handing it to the airliner's pilot for safekeeping for the final leg of his flight home. The bureaucratic screeners dug in. No one would bend the rules, not even for an old vets' commemorative.
Fortunately this story has a happy ending. A friend in the Oregon National Guard heard about the lost lighter and fired off phone calls and e-mails to the TSA, United Airlines and Army friends. One of the messages made its way to John Williams, a United Airlines claims representative whose father is buried at Arlington National Cemetery. A message from Williams got to Jerry Golladay, a TSA aviation manager who is a Navy veteran. Soon every possible spot at Dulles Airport where the confiscated lighter could have gone was turned inside-out. The cherished Zippo was found on the second round of searching - and returned to Wingett.
The story highlights the continuing stupidity of airport screening policies that insist upon treating an 82-year-old military veteran exactly the same as a young Middle Eastern man traveling to the United States on a one-way ticket.
The TSA can't mandate common sense among its airport screeners, but it can rethink airport security policies that continue to wreak havoc on travel in large and small ways and yet fail to focus on the most likely security threats to airliners.
http://news-register.net/edit/story/076202005_edtiedit2.asp
Wednesday, July 06, 2005
FOR THE RECORD
Just so that there are NO mistakes, I would like to state FOR THE RECORD, that I am not a DISGRUNTLED FORMER EMPLOYEE. Fact of the matter is that I have never been happier in my life. The powers that be ACTUALLY did me a favor, for that alone, I thank them.
Furthermore, now that it is established that I am NOT a disgruntled former employee, I do want to state that from here on I am a TAXPAYING CITIZEN with certain Rights, Freedoms, and Liberties, who is FREE to speak out against ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY and report the FACTS to my readers in my own little personalize and satiracle way!
Obi Wan Konobi told Darth Vader during they're dual in the first STAR WARS, "By striking me down, you will only make me more powerful."
Furthermore, now that it is established that I am NOT a disgruntled former employee, I do want to state that from here on I am a TAXPAYING CITIZEN with certain Rights, Freedoms, and Liberties, who is FREE to speak out against ANY GOVERNMENT AGENCY and report the FACTS to my readers in my own little personalize and satiracle way!
Obi Wan Konobi told Darth Vader during they're dual in the first STAR WARS, "By striking me down, you will only make me more powerful."
BEWARE IF YOU ARE READING THIS....
Unconfirmed Sources report that the DHS/TSA is on the make. The DHS/TSA was caught napping once, but not again. Recent revaluations at the 911 commission have lit a fire under HOMELAND SECURITY agents nation wide.
Agents are on the move and looking at everyone as a possible suspect. The truth is, if you are reading this on a subversive web site you more then likely have a flag in your personel file, tagging you as a "TROUBLE MAKER".
NOTE:This article is of a satiracle nature. It is meant to only piss off a certain few individuals and make the rest, laugh their asses off!
Agents are on the move and looking at everyone as a possible suspect. The truth is, if you are reading this on a subversive web site you more then likely have a flag in your personel file, tagging you as a "TROUBLE MAKER".
NOTE:This article is of a satiracle nature. It is meant to only piss off a certain few individuals and make the rest, laugh their asses off!
MORE THEN JUST NASTY RUMOR?
I'm wondering if it's more then just rumor. This article and many others can be found by googling the words, "dismantling the TSA".
I found this intriguing article on line and thought that alot of my readers would find it interesting.
Makes a person wonder....Oh hell, read on..............
Break out the champaign. It’s party time!
The Transportation Security Administration, once the flagship agency in the nation’s $20 billion effort to protect air travelers, is now slated for dismantling.
Boy, I didn’t see this one coming. Hopefully, the reports of the TSA’s demise will not prove premature. I’d always assumed that once a government agency was given that much power, any attempt to curtail it would only land you in an administrative gulag that’d make Siberia look like a cakewalk.
My first encounter with the TSA occurred at John Wayne Airport in 2002. I was singled out for “additional screening” because I was dressed nicely. At least, that was the official answer. I asked the screener why all the folks singled out were white. The answer: to do otherwise would be racist.
Then there was the time I made the mistake of asking a screener in Seattle why they were confiscating tweezers from airline pilots when those same pilots would only minutes later be occupying a cockpit containing a large, razor sharp crash axe.
Yeah, that was a mistake. Don’t confuse them with logic. Or questions. And whatever happens, don’t stand up for your rights. Or admit to possessing a pilot certificate.
The Washington Post article was a bit more diplomatic:
The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations blunders and criticism of its performance from both the public and legislators. Its “No Fly” list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security screeners have been arrested for stealing from luggage, and its passenger pat-downs have set off an outcry from women.
I’m really starting to like the Post. They don’t just report the news, they use it as the source for a genuine comedy routine.
The agency’s very existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a clause permitting the elimination of TSA as “distinct entity” after November 2004.”TSA, at the end of the day, is going to look more like the Postal Service,” said Paul C. Light, a public service professor at New York University and a Brookings Institution scholar who has tracked the agency since its birth in February 2002. Light calls the TSA “one of the federal government’s greatest successes of the past half century,” and likens it to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the late 1950s, which was also born amid great public excitement to serve an urgent national need.
Mr. Light cracks me up. First he compares the TSA to the Postal Service (which is insulting to the USPS) and then compares them both to NASA! One agency clogs our mailboxes with junk. The other put a guy on the moon.
Please.
The TSA’s day ended before it began. Any agency whose genesis is a panic induced rush to “do something” about security is going to end badly when that panic abates and Americans want to live in America again.
I predict this is only the start of a backlash against many of the irrational changes that took place after 9/11. The more odious provisions of the Patriot Act come to mind. The moronic flight restrictions around Washington DC, too. Even the little things count. British Airways recently announced that it was tossing out the plastic silverware in favor of metal.
Fare thee will, TSA: we wish we’d hardly known ye. Unfortunately, we did.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article printed from The House of Rapp: http://www.rapp.org
URL to article: http://www.rapp.org/archives/2005/04/goodbye_tsa/
I found this intriguing article on line and thought that alot of my readers would find it interesting.
Makes a person wonder....Oh hell, read on..............
Break out the champaign. It’s party time!
The Transportation Security Administration, once the flagship agency in the nation’s $20 billion effort to protect air travelers, is now slated for dismantling.
Boy, I didn’t see this one coming. Hopefully, the reports of the TSA’s demise will not prove premature. I’d always assumed that once a government agency was given that much power, any attempt to curtail it would only land you in an administrative gulag that’d make Siberia look like a cakewalk.
My first encounter with the TSA occurred at John Wayne Airport in 2002. I was singled out for “additional screening” because I was dressed nicely. At least, that was the official answer. I asked the screener why all the folks singled out were white. The answer: to do otherwise would be racist.
Then there was the time I made the mistake of asking a screener in Seattle why they were confiscating tweezers from airline pilots when those same pilots would only minutes later be occupying a cockpit containing a large, razor sharp crash axe.
Yeah, that was a mistake. Don’t confuse them with logic. Or questions. And whatever happens, don’t stand up for your rights. Or admit to possessing a pilot certificate.
The Washington Post article was a bit more diplomatic:
The TSA has been plagued by operational missteps, public relations blunders and criticism of its performance from both the public and legislators. Its “No Fly” list has mistakenly snared senators. Its security screeners have been arrested for stealing from luggage, and its passenger pat-downs have set off an outcry from women.
I’m really starting to like the Post. They don’t just report the news, they use it as the source for a genuine comedy routine.
The agency’s very existence, in fact, remains an open question, given that the legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security contains a clause permitting the elimination of TSA as “distinct entity” after November 2004.”TSA, at the end of the day, is going to look more like the Postal Service,” said Paul C. Light, a public service professor at New York University and a Brookings Institution scholar who has tracked the agency since its birth in February 2002. Light calls the TSA “one of the federal government’s greatest successes of the past half century,” and likens it to the creation of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in the late 1950s, which was also born amid great public excitement to serve an urgent national need.
Mr. Light cracks me up. First he compares the TSA to the Postal Service (which is insulting to the USPS) and then compares them both to NASA! One agency clogs our mailboxes with junk. The other put a guy on the moon.
Please.
The TSA’s day ended before it began. Any agency whose genesis is a panic induced rush to “do something” about security is going to end badly when that panic abates and Americans want to live in America again.
I predict this is only the start of a backlash against many of the irrational changes that took place after 9/11. The more odious provisions of the Patriot Act come to mind. The moronic flight restrictions around Washington DC, too. Even the little things count. British Airways recently announced that it was tossing out the plastic silverware in favor of metal.
Fare thee will, TSA: we wish we’d hardly known ye. Unfortunately, we did.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Article printed from The House of Rapp: http://www.rapp.org
URL to article: http://www.rapp.org/archives/2005/04/goodbye_tsa/
WHO CAN BE TRUSTED?
I found this intriguing article at www.tsa-screeners.com In the recent weeks, with the media attention about DEEPTHROAT and the Nixon administration, I figured something like this would give a boost to some overworked and underpayed friends of mine who are sometimes targets of the media. The media, in fact should point their investigations not toward the front line workers, but the ones who are "directing traffic" behind the scenes, locally and nationally! The supervisors, managers and above are the ineptness that directs their subordinates to do things that they normally would not do.
Keep up the good work guys!
It is dispiriting to say the least to witness the unexpected and mysterious departure of Clark Kent Ervin from his position as Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security. But it is yet another episode in the chronicle that will be revisited time and again as increasing numbers of people come to realize that bureaucratic corruption is a significant threat to freedom in the early 21st Century.
It is very tempting to conclude that yet again, only sycophants are valued inside federal agencies. Someone who very properly criticized the TSA for its self-indulgent partying and excessive bonus awards does not fall comfortably into that category.
When worms and the tide turn…
One plaintiff in a suit against TSA is hopeful that January 7, 2005 will be a signal date in the calendar of United States justice. Others with a similar interest are watching. This and subsequent actions may at last begin to turn the tide.
On January 7, 2005, at 400PM in the United States District Court, Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division, the Honorable Judge Sharp will be hearing Oral Arguments in the case of Michael Ferrill against TSA, concerning Discrimination of Older Workers, Disabled Veterans, Harassment's and Intimidation in the work place, and targeted terminations of females, blacks, and employees over the age of 40.
Once the oral arguments are heard, then the next step is jury selection and a trial against TSA concerning its alleged abuse of power, the unlawful terminations of thousands of American workers, and thousands of EEOC complaints that have been covered up and kept hidden from the American people.
The case will become case law, No.3:03CV0234AS, potentially opening the flood gates for hundreds of lawsuits against the agency.
This case may be the Case Law that is pivotal to hundreds of other cases across the nation, and many attorneys are reportedly awaiting the outcome of this case before themselves filing in Federal Court, referencing the hundreds of Discrimination, and EEOC complaints against the Transportation Security Administration.
Plaintiff Michael Ferrill would like “ the truth told for the first time about the thousands of American workers who have lost their jobs, their homes, and yes even their families, and why even today another 9-11 will take place sometime in the future because of TSA practices and abuse of their workers”.
The ‘Forgotten Army’ Still Has A Voice…
This commentary has no direct bearing and offers no opinion on Mr. Ferrill’s case. But it is inspired by the consistency of the innumerable stories passed on by the screener community.
Approximately 22,000 contract screeners lost their jobs during 2002 and 2003 as a result of federalization and the incompetent recruitment process; to be followed by thousands more as malicious vindictive managers continued to orchestrate the termination of many honest and patriotic screeners who had thought they were helping their country but found themselves working in a corrupt system. An extraordinary number of these, as in the case of Mr. Ferrill, have a distinguished military service record, and a good percentage of them were humble enough to accept screener positions despite their prior years of experience having held officer rank and the command of other Americans.
Ask those former contract screeners and the former TSA screeners about their experience of corruption from early 2002 to the present time and you will hear a catalogue of abuse, leading to denial of accountability, wiretaps, telephone interference through to surveillance, computer ‘mishaps’ and more.
Some expert observers have ventured to suggest that private security contractors have been operating to undermine legitimate claims filed against TSA, and that this may have subverted the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission [EEOC] processes. We are told that private vendors who are willing to ignore ethics offer a useful escape route for public servants who want to use dirty tricks against individuals. It is evident that hundreds if not thousands, of potential claimants have backed away through fear of the consequences of facing up to federal agencies that cultivate a reprisal culture.
The appalling record of avoidance of accountability by those who are supposed to be stewards of the systems of redress, clearly demonstrated by the constantly changing points of reference and persistent failure to respond to inquiries, on a wide scale shows that there was never any intention to observe civil rights. There is a price to pay for that. Regrettably the traveling public who have been conned by the façade of aviation security will probably pay the ultimate price. The audience must get the message: The best screeners – those willing to object and perhaps to blow the whistle when your protection has been and is deliberately or recklessly compromised – have already left the theater.
Under The Freedom of Information Act, those former employees brave and strong enough to persevere have learned of the forgeries and false documentation that make up their TSA employment files. In many instances, especially in the case of those who were ’processed’ during the infamous NCS Pearson/TSA recruitment saga, no files are to be found, but then that is if you believe what officialdom is telling you.
Time to redefine ‘Corruption’ in government?
The following web based six-part definition seems to be so suited to the TSA that the Congress would be more than justified to seek legislation in order to bring public servants into a very visible frame of accountability. In some states, the law is very much stronger when it comes to the Unlawful Influence of Public Servants. The obtaining of a pecuniary advantage or interest is no longer satisfactory as the main measure of corruption in public service. That is out of date.
Public servants have circumnavigated legal limitations and their abuse of power has brought its own form of advantage, at the cost of individuals and of the nation. The legislative doctrine should now begin to address all issues thrown up by the fuller definition:
From: http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stage=1&word=corruption
The noun "corruption" has 6 senses in WordNet.
Corruptness, corruption -- (lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain)
Putrescence, putridness, rottenness, corruption -- (in a state of progressive putrefaction)
Corruption -- (decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation))
Corruption, degeneracy, depravity -- (moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles; "the luxury and corruption among the upper classes"; "moral degeneracy followed intellectual degeneration"; "its brothels; its opium parlors; its depravity")
Corruption, subversion -- (destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity; "corruption of a minor"; "the big city's subversion of rural innocence")
Corruption -- (inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by committing a felony); "he was held on charges of corruption and racketeering")
Will the FBI investigate the Transportation Security Administration in 2005?
Probably not, if we connect the dots after reading into Clark Kent Ervin’s demise as Inspector General. But it should. Here is what the FBI FAQs have to offer:
“Does the FBI investigate graft and corruption in local government and in state and local police departments?
Yes. The FBI uses applicable federal laws, including the Hobbs Act, to investigate violations by public officials in federal, state, and local governments. A public official is any person elected, appointed, employed, or otherwise has a duty to maintain honest and faithful public service. Most violations occur when the official asks, demands, solicits, accepts, receives, or agrees to receive something of value in return for influence in the performance of an official act. The categories of public corruption investigated by the FBI include legislative, judicial, regulatory, contractual, and law enforcement.”
Note the reference to ‘local’ and ‘state’ agencies. Also the sentence - “Most violations occur when the official…..” The implication here is that the Department of Justice and the FBI may not have moved with the times. They are blinkered, deliberately or otherwise, from the goings on in federal agencies.
If not the FBI, who’re we gonna call?
February 2005; the TSA will have been in existence three years; and we have no more assurance of a safe and secure commercial aviation system than we did on September 10, 2001. There is no sign of a champion of real change; and it is sad to recognize that only when history judges this period will the truth be acknowledged. Those screeners’ voices should reverberate through the years ahead to highlight this shameful record.
Osama Bin laden in a recent audio broadcast said "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
That certainly seems to be the management culture in TSA doesn’t it?
David Forbes President, BoydForbes Inc. Aviation, Logistics & Govt. Security Analysts
Source: David Forbes (12/31/04). Reposted with permission. David Forbes is the president and COO of Boyd Forbes. Mr. Forbes has a distinguished background in a wide range of security and threat-prevention activities within the aviation and logistics industries.
Keep up the good work guys!
It is dispiriting to say the least to witness the unexpected and mysterious departure of Clark Kent Ervin from his position as Inspector General at the Department of Homeland Security. But it is yet another episode in the chronicle that will be revisited time and again as increasing numbers of people come to realize that bureaucratic corruption is a significant threat to freedom in the early 21st Century.
It is very tempting to conclude that yet again, only sycophants are valued inside federal agencies. Someone who very properly criticized the TSA for its self-indulgent partying and excessive bonus awards does not fall comfortably into that category.
When worms and the tide turn…
One plaintiff in a suit against TSA is hopeful that January 7, 2005 will be a signal date in the calendar of United States justice. Others with a similar interest are watching. This and subsequent actions may at last begin to turn the tide.
On January 7, 2005, at 400PM in the United States District Court, Northern District of Indiana, South Bend Division, the Honorable Judge Sharp will be hearing Oral Arguments in the case of Michael Ferrill against TSA, concerning Discrimination of Older Workers, Disabled Veterans, Harassment's and Intimidation in the work place, and targeted terminations of females, blacks, and employees over the age of 40.
Once the oral arguments are heard, then the next step is jury selection and a trial against TSA concerning its alleged abuse of power, the unlawful terminations of thousands of American workers, and thousands of EEOC complaints that have been covered up and kept hidden from the American people.
The case will become case law, No.3:03CV0234AS, potentially opening the flood gates for hundreds of lawsuits against the agency.
This case may be the Case Law that is pivotal to hundreds of other cases across the nation, and many attorneys are reportedly awaiting the outcome of this case before themselves filing in Federal Court, referencing the hundreds of Discrimination, and EEOC complaints against the Transportation Security Administration.
Plaintiff Michael Ferrill would like “ the truth told for the first time about the thousands of American workers who have lost their jobs, their homes, and yes even their families, and why even today another 9-11 will take place sometime in the future because of TSA practices and abuse of their workers”.
The ‘Forgotten Army’ Still Has A Voice…
This commentary has no direct bearing and offers no opinion on Mr. Ferrill’s case. But it is inspired by the consistency of the innumerable stories passed on by the screener community.
Approximately 22,000 contract screeners lost their jobs during 2002 and 2003 as a result of federalization and the incompetent recruitment process; to be followed by thousands more as malicious vindictive managers continued to orchestrate the termination of many honest and patriotic screeners who had thought they were helping their country but found themselves working in a corrupt system. An extraordinary number of these, as in the case of Mr. Ferrill, have a distinguished military service record, and a good percentage of them were humble enough to accept screener positions despite their prior years of experience having held officer rank and the command of other Americans.
Ask those former contract screeners and the former TSA screeners about their experience of corruption from early 2002 to the present time and you will hear a catalogue of abuse, leading to denial of accountability, wiretaps, telephone interference through to surveillance, computer ‘mishaps’ and more.
Some expert observers have ventured to suggest that private security contractors have been operating to undermine legitimate claims filed against TSA, and that this may have subverted the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission [EEOC] processes. We are told that private vendors who are willing to ignore ethics offer a useful escape route for public servants who want to use dirty tricks against individuals. It is evident that hundreds if not thousands, of potential claimants have backed away through fear of the consequences of facing up to federal agencies that cultivate a reprisal culture.
The appalling record of avoidance of accountability by those who are supposed to be stewards of the systems of redress, clearly demonstrated by the constantly changing points of reference and persistent failure to respond to inquiries, on a wide scale shows that there was never any intention to observe civil rights. There is a price to pay for that. Regrettably the traveling public who have been conned by the façade of aviation security will probably pay the ultimate price. The audience must get the message: The best screeners – those willing to object and perhaps to blow the whistle when your protection has been and is deliberately or recklessly compromised – have already left the theater.
Under The Freedom of Information Act, those former employees brave and strong enough to persevere have learned of the forgeries and false documentation that make up their TSA employment files. In many instances, especially in the case of those who were ’processed’ during the infamous NCS Pearson/TSA recruitment saga, no files are to be found, but then that is if you believe what officialdom is telling you.
Time to redefine ‘Corruption’ in government?
The following web based six-part definition seems to be so suited to the TSA that the Congress would be more than justified to seek legislation in order to bring public servants into a very visible frame of accountability. In some states, the law is very much stronger when it comes to the Unlawful Influence of Public Servants. The obtaining of a pecuniary advantage or interest is no longer satisfactory as the main measure of corruption in public service. That is out of date.
Public servants have circumnavigated legal limitations and their abuse of power has brought its own form of advantage, at the cost of individuals and of the nation. The legislative doctrine should now begin to address all issues thrown up by the fuller definition:
From: http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn?stage=1&word=corruption
The noun "corruption" has 6 senses in WordNet.
Corruptness, corruption -- (lack of integrity or honesty (especially susceptibility to bribery); use of a position of trust for dishonest gain)
Putrescence, putridness, rottenness, corruption -- (in a state of progressive putrefaction)
Corruption -- (decay of matter (as by rot or oxidation))
Corruption, degeneracy, depravity -- (moral perversion; impairment of virtue and moral principles; "the luxury and corruption among the upper classes"; "moral degeneracy followed intellectual degeneration"; "its brothels; its opium parlors; its depravity")
Corruption, subversion -- (destroying someone's (or some group's) honesty or loyalty; undermining moral integrity; "corruption of a minor"; "the big city's subversion of rural innocence")
Corruption -- (inducement (as of a public official) by improper means (as bribery) to violate duty (as by committing a felony); "he was held on charges of corruption and racketeering")
Will the FBI investigate the Transportation Security Administration in 2005?
Probably not, if we connect the dots after reading into Clark Kent Ervin’s demise as Inspector General. But it should. Here is what the FBI FAQs have to offer:
“Does the FBI investigate graft and corruption in local government and in state and local police departments?
Yes. The FBI uses applicable federal laws, including the Hobbs Act, to investigate violations by public officials in federal, state, and local governments. A public official is any person elected, appointed, employed, or otherwise has a duty to maintain honest and faithful public service. Most violations occur when the official asks, demands, solicits, accepts, receives, or agrees to receive something of value in return for influence in the performance of an official act. The categories of public corruption investigated by the FBI include legislative, judicial, regulatory, contractual, and law enforcement.”
Note the reference to ‘local’ and ‘state’ agencies. Also the sentence - “Most violations occur when the official…..” The implication here is that the Department of Justice and the FBI may not have moved with the times. They are blinkered, deliberately or otherwise, from the goings on in federal agencies.
If not the FBI, who’re we gonna call?
February 2005; the TSA will have been in existence three years; and we have no more assurance of a safe and secure commercial aviation system than we did on September 10, 2001. There is no sign of a champion of real change; and it is sad to recognize that only when history judges this period will the truth be acknowledged. Those screeners’ voices should reverberate through the years ahead to highlight this shameful record.
Osama Bin laden in a recent audio broadcast said "We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”
That certainly seems to be the management culture in TSA doesn’t it?
David Forbes President, BoydForbes Inc. Aviation, Logistics & Govt. Security Analysts
Source: David Forbes (12/31/04). Reposted with permission. David Forbes is the president and COO of Boyd Forbes. Mr. Forbes has a distinguished background in a wide range of security and threat-prevention activities within the aviation and logistics industries.
Sunday, July 03, 2005
THE BATTLE BEGINS!
The true war for the freedom and soul of this nation is about to begin. President Bush is now given the opportunity to nominate someone to fill a seat on the Supreme Court of the United States of America. The seat that now belongs to Supreme Court Justice and Former President Ronald Reagan nominee, Sandra Day O'Conner.
With what will be the inevitable retirement of Justice Rhenquist soon, the Liberal Democrats are scared to death right now.
The Supreme Court is considered by Conservatives to be the last hold on power they have in this country and they are not going to give it up easy. They are already calling on President Bush to consult with them on who they want to fill these vacated and soon to be vacated seats on the highest court in the land.
I hope that President Bush uses this opportunity to show Americans just how partisan and corrupt the Democrats really are.
Watching sunday morning TV, I saw all of the big power brokers for the Democrats on all of the Sunday morning news shows. Sen. Ted "hic" Kennedy and Sen. Diane Feinstein all calling for the President to be fair in nominating replacements.
BULLSHIT! That's what I say! If the President does not flex his political muscles on this issue, I will be greatly dissapointed in him and my party. I say NUKE the bastards. Use the "Nuclear" option on this one...It's just to damned important now.
Thay way it is right now, the Democrats are using the Supreme Court to further their distructive agenda on Amerca because they lost their power in the White House and on Capitol Hill. The Supreme Court is their last hope in destroying morals, capitolism, and of course the removal of G-d from our everyday life in America, thus creating their own version of a godless, Marxist society in this great country of ours.
Watch closely the events that are sure to unfold in the near future as this great opportunity for President Bush to leave a positive lasting legacy, unlike the schmuck he took over for... BJ Bill Clinton, whose only legacy to his failed presidency was a cum stained dress, and the fact that he was impeached.
The Rogue Jew
With what will be the inevitable retirement of Justice Rhenquist soon, the Liberal Democrats are scared to death right now.
The Supreme Court is considered by Conservatives to be the last hold on power they have in this country and they are not going to give it up easy. They are already calling on President Bush to consult with them on who they want to fill these vacated and soon to be vacated seats on the highest court in the land.
I hope that President Bush uses this opportunity to show Americans just how partisan and corrupt the Democrats really are.
Watching sunday morning TV, I saw all of the big power brokers for the Democrats on all of the Sunday morning news shows. Sen. Ted "hic" Kennedy and Sen. Diane Feinstein all calling for the President to be fair in nominating replacements.
BULLSHIT! That's what I say! If the President does not flex his political muscles on this issue, I will be greatly dissapointed in him and my party. I say NUKE the bastards. Use the "Nuclear" option on this one...It's just to damned important now.
Thay way it is right now, the Democrats are using the Supreme Court to further their distructive agenda on Amerca because they lost their power in the White House and on Capitol Hill. The Supreme Court is their last hope in destroying morals, capitolism, and of course the removal of G-d from our everyday life in America, thus creating their own version of a godless, Marxist society in this great country of ours.
Watch closely the events that are sure to unfold in the near future as this great opportunity for President Bush to leave a positive lasting legacy, unlike the schmuck he took over for... BJ Bill Clinton, whose only legacy to his failed presidency was a cum stained dress, and the fact that he was impeached.
The Rogue Jew
WHAT IF?
We are about to celebrate the birthday of our country. All over America people are having picnics, parties, and setting off fireworks. All to celebrate the freedoms that we enjoy in this great nation of ours.
Mind you, we should always remember the sacrifices that were made for these liberties. Men and boys died in combat because they had a common dream, FREEDOM! Just like the people of Iraq and all over the Middle East. People dream of freedom.
Much like we are helping the Iraqis now, we had much needed help during the American Revolutionary War in the 1700's. Believe it or not, the French gave us much needed assistance although they're many times General Washington did not appreciate the underhanded intentions of the French.
It should be well known, that the French did not come to our aid because they wanted to be our friends, it was only because the disliked the British more then they did this foundling little nation that was hell bent on being free. The French government had been supplying the Americans secretly through the work of America's minister to France, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was popular with the French people and with French government officials. He helped gain French sympathy for the American cause.
After the American victory at Saratoga, the French decided to enter the war on the American side. The government recognized American independence. The two nations signed military and political treaties. France and Britain were at war once again. The British immediately sent a message to America's Continental Congress. They offered to change everything so relations would be as they had been in 1773. The Americans rejected the offer. The war would be fought to the end.
In 1779 Spain entered the war against the British. And the next year, the British were also fighting the Dutch to stop their trade with America. The French sent gunpowder, soldiers, officers, and ships to the Americans. However, neither side made much progress in the war for the next two years.
So as you see, we did not win freedom alone. Maybe, just maybe we can honor the memories of those early Revolutionaries who yearned to be free by helping others to live as freely as we do in America.
How have we become so selfish and so ignorant as to forget the men who fought and died for this country in its infancy? I suppose that we can thank our public education system for that. They are too busy trying to indoctrinate our children with Marxist ideals with a defeatist mentality. In short, our children are being made into a bunch of politically correct pussies who strive to be second best.
What would our founding fathers say if they would have known what happening to the great nation that they fought and died for?
If we don't continue to stand firm in Iraq, then the Iraqi people will be doomed to a life of radical Islam and our security in this nation will be further threatend by the whack Islamofacists that want to inflict their perhistoric, uncivilized, and murderous way of life upon those of us who live free.
On November 4th, 1979, radical Islamofacist overtook the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran and took the occupants hostage,all because failed former President Jimmy Carter had withdrawn support for the Shah of Iran in 1977 and turned our back on a valuable ally in the Middle East.
In 1979, I was 14 years old. Since then I have learned some things about the man my parents voted for twice. I have learned that Jimmy Carter was one of the worst Presidents the United States ever had. Maybe THE worst. Carter's failure to order us into actual combat with Iran in 1979-1980 over the Hostage incident allowed the rise of radical Islam to begin. The snowball effect of that radical Islam was shown on September 11, 2001. Events in the last 10 years, however, and knowlege of events of the 1980's have shown Jimmy Carter to be a dishonorable man. In fact, if the accounts are corect, Jimmy Carter is a traitor.
What do you think would happen in Iraq if we withdraw our support for those who wish to be free like us here in America? What would have become of our infant nation had the French not helped us? If Spain and the Dutch had withdrawn from trading with us?
I believe history answers those questions.
Happy Birthday America. G-d bless America and her people.
The Rogue Jew
ANYONE WHO QUESTIONS THE FACT THAT JIMMY CARTER IS RESPONSIBLE IN PART FOR 9/11, JUST CLICK ON THE POST TITLE TO READ THIS INCRDIBLE ARTICLE THAT DOCUMENTS HIS FALIURES AND JUSTIFIES THE CHARGE OF TREASON AGAINST HIM.
Mind you, we should always remember the sacrifices that were made for these liberties. Men and boys died in combat because they had a common dream, FREEDOM! Just like the people of Iraq and all over the Middle East. People dream of freedom.
Much like we are helping the Iraqis now, we had much needed help during the American Revolutionary War in the 1700's. Believe it or not, the French gave us much needed assistance although they're many times General Washington did not appreciate the underhanded intentions of the French.
It should be well known, that the French did not come to our aid because they wanted to be our friends, it was only because the disliked the British more then they did this foundling little nation that was hell bent on being free. The French government had been supplying the Americans secretly through the work of America's minister to France, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin was popular with the French people and with French government officials. He helped gain French sympathy for the American cause.
After the American victory at Saratoga, the French decided to enter the war on the American side. The government recognized American independence. The two nations signed military and political treaties. France and Britain were at war once again. The British immediately sent a message to America's Continental Congress. They offered to change everything so relations would be as they had been in 1773. The Americans rejected the offer. The war would be fought to the end.
In 1779 Spain entered the war against the British. And the next year, the British were also fighting the Dutch to stop their trade with America. The French sent gunpowder, soldiers, officers, and ships to the Americans. However, neither side made much progress in the war for the next two years.
So as you see, we did not win freedom alone. Maybe, just maybe we can honor the memories of those early Revolutionaries who yearned to be free by helping others to live as freely as we do in America.
How have we become so selfish and so ignorant as to forget the men who fought and died for this country in its infancy? I suppose that we can thank our public education system for that. They are too busy trying to indoctrinate our children with Marxist ideals with a defeatist mentality. In short, our children are being made into a bunch of politically correct pussies who strive to be second best.
What would our founding fathers say if they would have known what happening to the great nation that they fought and died for?
If we don't continue to stand firm in Iraq, then the Iraqi people will be doomed to a life of radical Islam and our security in this nation will be further threatend by the whack Islamofacists that want to inflict their perhistoric, uncivilized, and murderous way of life upon those of us who live free.
On November 4th, 1979, radical Islamofacist overtook the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, Iran and took the occupants hostage,all because failed former President Jimmy Carter had withdrawn support for the Shah of Iran in 1977 and turned our back on a valuable ally in the Middle East.
In 1979, I was 14 years old. Since then I have learned some things about the man my parents voted for twice. I have learned that Jimmy Carter was one of the worst Presidents the United States ever had. Maybe THE worst. Carter's failure to order us into actual combat with Iran in 1979-1980 over the Hostage incident allowed the rise of radical Islam to begin. The snowball effect of that radical Islam was shown on September 11, 2001. Events in the last 10 years, however, and knowlege of events of the 1980's have shown Jimmy Carter to be a dishonorable man. In fact, if the accounts are corect, Jimmy Carter is a traitor.
What do you think would happen in Iraq if we withdraw our support for those who wish to be free like us here in America? What would have become of our infant nation had the French not helped us? If Spain and the Dutch had withdrawn from trading with us?
I believe history answers those questions.
Happy Birthday America. G-d bless America and her people.
The Rogue Jew
ANYONE WHO QUESTIONS THE FACT THAT JIMMY CARTER IS RESPONSIBLE IN PART FOR 9/11, JUST CLICK ON THE POST TITLE TO READ THIS INCRDIBLE ARTICLE THAT DOCUMENTS HIS FALIURES AND JUSTIFIES THE CHARGE OF TREASON AGAINST HIM.
Friday, July 01, 2005
NO APOLOGIES HERE!
The leftist, socialist liberal Democrats just never cease to show their true colors as the hipocritic schmucks that they are.
Last week, Karl Rove, at a fund raising function made statements directed at the Leftist liberals about their lack of support toward the troops and the war in general.
Sen. Hitlery Clinton was quick to retaliate by demanding that Karl Rove apologize for his statements and demanding that New York Govenor Pataki take Rove to task for what he said.
Pataki responded that he was not going to do any such thing and that if he did, it would only happen if Sen. Clinton would be equally outraged at what Sen. Durbin had said about comparing our men and women in uniform to Hitler's Nazi Army.
One thing that I would like to take notice on is the fact that Sen. Clinton's media machine is working in high gear to try to make her come out as a Moderate Democrat, not liberal. Why is Clinton upset about anything being said about Liberals if she is not one of them.......BECAUSE SHE IS A LIBERAL. SHE IS ABOUT AS FAR TO THE LEFT AND AS MARXIST IN HER THINKING AS ONE COULD GET!
I myself, having had my leash removed and am more free then ever to say whatever I wish to say, have only 2 words for Sen. Hitlery Clinton. "FUCK YOU!" And the same goes to every other socialist Liberal Democrat such as Ted "hic" Kennedy, Sen. Durbin, Failed Former President Jimmy Carter, and the most recent Liberal Failure to try and bullshit their way into the White House, Sen. John Kerry.
Before any Republican ever apologizes for anything, and I mean ANYTHING, I would like to hear former President Bill "BJ" Clinton apologize to the country for getting caught with his pants down instead of doing his job and apprehending Osama bin Laden. When the opportunity was given to him and Osamas head was offered to him on a silver platter by the leaders of the Sudan, good ole Blow Job Bill was way too busy getting a hummer, and I'm not referring to a large SUV.
Or how bout an apology from Failed former President Jimmy Carter, who in his defeatist mentality and Liberal ways, devestated and demoralized our military strength in the world theatre to the point where our great nations national security was in serious trouble, and let's not forget the hostages in Iran and the reason they were put in the situation that they were in. Carter turned his back on our ally the Shah which allowed for the Radical Islamofacists to take over the country of Iran, thus launching the Jihad against America.
No apologies from me, thats for sure. I regret nothing that I have ever said, and if I hurt your feelings in any way, then you probably had it coming. So all you Liberal do gooders, Politically Correct Schmucks, and Ass kissers of the world, I give you a big huge Roguish Middle Finger Salute, and a loud "Fuck You!" You know who you are!
The Rogue Jew!
The Rogue Jew
Last week, Karl Rove, at a fund raising function made statements directed at the Leftist liberals about their lack of support toward the troops and the war in general.
Sen. Hitlery Clinton was quick to retaliate by demanding that Karl Rove apologize for his statements and demanding that New York Govenor Pataki take Rove to task for what he said.
Pataki responded that he was not going to do any such thing and that if he did, it would only happen if Sen. Clinton would be equally outraged at what Sen. Durbin had said about comparing our men and women in uniform to Hitler's Nazi Army.
One thing that I would like to take notice on is the fact that Sen. Clinton's media machine is working in high gear to try to make her come out as a Moderate Democrat, not liberal. Why is Clinton upset about anything being said about Liberals if she is not one of them.......BECAUSE SHE IS A LIBERAL. SHE IS ABOUT AS FAR TO THE LEFT AND AS MARXIST IN HER THINKING AS ONE COULD GET!
I myself, having had my leash removed and am more free then ever to say whatever I wish to say, have only 2 words for Sen. Hitlery Clinton. "FUCK YOU!" And the same goes to every other socialist Liberal Democrat such as Ted "hic" Kennedy, Sen. Durbin, Failed Former President Jimmy Carter, and the most recent Liberal Failure to try and bullshit their way into the White House, Sen. John Kerry.
Before any Republican ever apologizes for anything, and I mean ANYTHING, I would like to hear former President Bill "BJ" Clinton apologize to the country for getting caught with his pants down instead of doing his job and apprehending Osama bin Laden. When the opportunity was given to him and Osamas head was offered to him on a silver platter by the leaders of the Sudan, good ole Blow Job Bill was way too busy getting a hummer, and I'm not referring to a large SUV.
Or how bout an apology from Failed former President Jimmy Carter, who in his defeatist mentality and Liberal ways, devestated and demoralized our military strength in the world theatre to the point where our great nations national security was in serious trouble, and let's not forget the hostages in Iran and the reason they were put in the situation that they were in. Carter turned his back on our ally the Shah which allowed for the Radical Islamofacists to take over the country of Iran, thus launching the Jihad against America.
No apologies from me, thats for sure. I regret nothing that I have ever said, and if I hurt your feelings in any way, then you probably had it coming. So all you Liberal do gooders, Politically Correct Schmucks, and Ass kissers of the world, I give you a big huge Roguish Middle Finger Salute, and a loud "Fuck You!" You know who you are!
The Rogue Jew!
The Rogue Jew
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