Just a reminder as you travel this holiday season: the TSA is a total waste of money.
The following lists are nowhere close to comprehensive. They are just the links I happened to save over time. The first two groups (Fools, Criminals) are only anecdotes and are a small sample over the course of many years. However, the third group (Incompetent) involves larger sample sets and speaks to the central question: Does the TSA keep us safe?
Fools:
TSA fires screener caught sleeping in Seattle – CNN, January 6, 2003
Florida teen detained because her purse had an image of a gun – Yahoo News, December 2, 2011
TSA subjects wheelchair-bound three-year-old to humiliating search – The Daily Mail, March 19, 2012
TSA Apologizes To Family After Clip of 3-Year-Old Girl in Wheelchair Goes Viral – Huffington Post, February 21, 2013 (Note this is a separate instance than the previous story.)
TSA Humiliated Double Amputee Marine – KTLA, March 22, 2013
TSA Agents Detained Nine-Year Old Boy Because He Had A Pacemaker – Reason, August 23, 2016
A panty liner triggers a TSA pat-down – Washington Post, March 30, 2017
Criminals:
3 ex-TSA workers plead guilty to theft – Seattle Pi, September 23, 2005
TSA Screener Arrested [after taking money from a passenger’s wallet] – TMJ4, October 14, 2006
Ex-TSA agent sentenced for role in pot smuggling scheme at LAX – Daily Breeze, March 25, 2013
6 Shockingly Childish Abuses of Power by Airport Employees – Cracked, April 22, 2014
Suit: Man held 20 hours after asking to file TSA complaint – San Diego Tribune, February 4, 2015
Video Shows Airport Security Tackling Cancer Patient With Disability – Huffington Post, August 12, 2016
A TSA agent who may have lied about a bomb threat can’t be sued – Los Angeles Times op-ed, August 26, 2017 (Passenger threatens to file a complaint against TSA agent, so TSA agent falsely tells police passenger made a bomb threat.)
Incompetent
Airport screeners fail to see most test bombs – Seattle Times, October 28, 2006
The Things He Carried – The Atlantic, November 2008 (Atlantic correspondent carries prohibited items on to multiple flights while investigating what the TSA can actually detect.)
TSA’s Program to Spot Terrorists a $200M Sham? – CBS, May 19, 2010 “The program is failing to catch terrorists. It’s never even caught one.”
Does the TSA Ever Catch Terrorists? – Slate, November 18, 2010
TSA Source: Armed Agent Slips Past DFW Body Scanner – NBC, February 21, 2011
The case for abolishing the TSA – Vox, May 26, 2014
Acting TSA director reassigned after screeners failed tests to detect explosives, weapons – CNN, June 2, 2015 (Note in both 2006 and 2015 the TSA failed to detect the relevant items over 90% of the time.)
The TSA is Still Really Bad at Evaluating Risk – Reason, December 21, 2017
Please, TSA Workers, Don’t Come Back – Reason, January 9, 2019
And just for fun:
See also the related DR post: TSA: A Cost-Benefit Analysis