After 5 years of the USA TSA, I’m wondering if the increased security has resulted in a lot of arrests. Specifically, has the TSA nabbed a lot of fugitives from justice? Or has the agency been largely a failure?
Not that I’m a big fan of TSA, but I never knew that their primary mission was to catch fugitives. I thought they were to make airplanes safe(r) and I would guess that since there haven’t been any hijackings since 9/11, they are doing that part satisfactorily…
I keep a stuffed mouse in my pocket that keeps me safe from being crushed by an elephant. It works great! 
It’s been 7 years since 9/11. Guess how many terrorist hijackings there were of US-originating flights in the 7 years prior to it. Go on, guess.
I’m going to guess zero. Again, I’m not a fan of the TSA, but the OP posited that since they aren’t catching fugitives from justice they are a failure. I never knew that was a feature of the agency…
It’s given any number of local news stations and national dailies the opportunity to run a story about how their operative was able to get onto his flight with a bazooka in his carry-on.
I’d say that’s a moderate success.
Here’s a little something for everyone. To sum: the TSA is a failure, but they still manage to catch a few criminals.
2 guns a day? Who are these idiots?
While the article is funny, why is this silly? Shouldn’t a semi-known person be able to use a magazine article to identify himself if that is all that is available? Is this a new terrorist scheme? Have magazines publish fictitious articles so that people can board airplanes?
All the last article proves is that honestly isn’t the best policy. The guy admitted his mistake, but is still charged with gun possession. Of course, the TSA, or anyone else can’t make the airlines one hundred percent secure without a full strip down search which the public will never be for. Like George Carlin said, it is only to make white people feel safe.
ETA: Since the bomb was fake in the other example, what failure was there? The TSA wants to stop real bombs…
I don’t recall saying it was.
No, it serves to demonstrate the TSA is useless. It should not be possible to get a loaded gun past them at all, if all the screening equipment is working properly. The article (which is admittedly sort on details, generally) doesn’t mention such an equipment failure, so the presumption is someone dropped the ball.
Presumably if it had been a real bomb, it would have passed through, too.
To the naïve and uninitiated, it would appear the TSA exists for the obvious reasons, i.e. to stop Bad Guys from doing Bad Things, to keep Bad Guys from getting on planes, etc. This is not the real reason we have the TSA. We have the TSA - and any other security force, for that matter - to make the “regular people” *feel * safe.
Yes, every now and then the TSA will stop a Bad Guy. But these are fortuitous occurrences. If a Bad Person really wanted to do something bad, and they had half a brain on them, all of the security in the world won’t stop them from carrying out their evil deed.
For the most part, it is all about perception. The TSA gives the illusion of security, and that’s all that matters. As long as the “regular people” *feel * safe, then they have done their job, regardless of whether or not their presence offers any real security.
I don’t believe that the TSA does provide the illusion of security. Newspapers are always full of stories about weapons and bombs, both fake and real, that make it through screening; anyone with half a brain has to know the TSA hasn’t improved security at all since 9/11.
Perhaps, but the article didn’t give enough information to be able to determine that. Explosive screening looks for a pretty specific density range and molecular weight. I don’t know off the top of my head any materials that could be used to give a false positive.
If you guys promise to keep the screaming vitriol to a minimum, I will ask an old school friend of mine I have recently renewed my aquaintance with to stop in, she is as it so happens, a TSA screener.
There also have been no Martians getting on domestic flights either. The TSA is totally badass.
From where I’m sitting, the regular people don’t feel safe; they do feel real bothered, though.
Really? What was the nature of the fake bomb? Did it in fact contain any kind of explosive? Was there anything that security actually should have detected, or even possibly could have detected?
I saw one of those security tests once. A journalist simply took a small box, wrote the word “BOMB” on the outside and concealed it in his luggage. It was not detected. The airport security spokesman responded to the story like so (paraphrase) “It looks like we shall have to teach our sniffer dogs how to read.”
The point is, they have security that can detect the real bombs. Passing a fake bomb proves nothing.
Look up the word “presumably” sometime.
I’ve seen it pointed out that, if a suicide bomber wanted to cause maximum disruption and loss of life, the place to do it would be in the labrynthine line just outside an airport security checkpoint. There’s a whole lot of people packed closely together there, it’s by definition outside the screening which would catch a bomb, and it would shut down air transportation, at least at that airport and probably others, for days or weeks.
Except that it’s not a reasonable assumption.
I, obviously, must disagree.