TSA plants baggie of white powder in traveller's bag

A TSA agent at the Philadelphia International Airport slipped a baggie full of white powder into an unsuspecting passenger's baggage, then terrorized her when he "found" it, before announcing that he was just kidding. When she complained to airport security, she was dismissed because "the TSA worker had been training the staff to detect contraband."

Then he pulled a small, clear plastic bag from her carry-on - the sort of baggie that a pair of earrings might come in. Inside the bag was fine, white powder.
She remembers his words: "Where did you get it?"
Two thoughts came to her in a jumble: A terrorist was using her to sneak bomb-detonating materials on the plane. Or a drug dealer had made her an unwitting mule, planting coke or some other trouble in her bag while she wasn't looking.
She'd left her carry-on by her feet as she handed her license and boarding pass to a security agent at the beginning of the line.
Answer truthfully, the TSA worker informed her, and everything will be OK.

Daniel Rubin: It was no joke at security gate (Thanks, Masturbating Bearcub!)

(Image: I love to fly and it shows)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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agreenster

Wait. If he was “training” other TSA agents to catch contraband, then wouldnt it have been a different TSA agent that would have found it? Or did they just suck and not find it?

Either way, this is super…SUPER uncool.
Teresa Nielsen Hayden

EH @22, I’m not sure it is legal. I’m sure it shouldn’t be.

The TSA agent should be required to put it on record that he’s going to do this training exercise, what it’s intended to accomplish, who’s being trained, and the exercise’s limits and variables. He should not be the only one who knows about it.

A system where a TSA agent can randomly drop a baggie of white powder into anyone’s luggage, scare the bejesus out of them, and claim afterward that it was meant as a training exercise, is way too open to abuse.
jahknow

In the words of DC’s so-called Mayor-for-Life, Marion Barry, “Bitch set me up!”
Gutierrez

When we all asked the TSA to lighten up, this is not what we had in mind. Glad to see from the article this inspector is no longer employed. Maybe they should revamp the little rules on a loop recording to say, “Passengers AND STAFF should avoid making jokes about airport security or possible threats.”
Mark Frauenfelder

Happy to see this update: “Ann Davis, the TSA spokeswoman, said this afternoon that the worker is no longer employed by the agency as of today. She said privacy laws prevented her from saying if he was fired or left on his own.”
- PapayaSF
  
  Yes, I’m glad to see they guy is already gone, but am compelled to point out that many in Congress wanted the TSA to be unionized. It’s a good thing it’s not or this guy would now be “on paid leave pending the results of an investigation.”
Anonymous

This is what worries me about revisiting the USA (being a foreigner).
Teller

It’s about time they nailed the TSA asshole that’s been bugging Cory all this time.
Nathan J Shaulis

so basically, if I joke about having a bomb while in an airport, I can go to jail. But a TSA employee actually planting false evidence on a person, then joking about it just gets fired? that is the *real* joke here.
Anonymous

Americans are paranoid about anyone visiting there ,why dont they just shut down all flights to there and stop anyone visiting then see how good they are ,(NOT)
MadMolecule

It’s tangential to the story, but this made me happy:

“Thanks, Masturbating Bearcub!”
vetnoir

“She said privacy laws prevented her from saying if he was fired or left on his own.” Privacy Rules? Since when is the TSA concerned about anyone’s privacy?
And the it was a joke thing? Try making a “joke” while you are passing through the security theater the next time you are at an airport, see what happens.
zikman

hahaha,”I’m just kidding.” what a prankster. I think next time I’m at the airport, I’ll bring a bag of fine, white powder and when they find it, I’ll say “gotcha!”
zenbeatnik

Didn’t we just go through this exercise last year when the TSA was strongarming somebody for having too much suspicious cash? Why is the TSA looking for any kind of contraband other than explosives? IT’S NOT THEIR JOB!
jeligula

She should have kicked him in the balls and declared “just kidding!”
bjacques

Oohhh…that image was nearly there! Patriotic Goatse!
Anonymous

After the attempted bombing on Christmas, Homeland Security is saying that it was because people were complaining about the ‘No Fly list’. Can we REALLY trust anything that these people say?!
Saint Fnordius

PapayaSF, having a union at TSA might have prevented this sort of fiasco in the first place, as unions also have been a leader in ensuring employees get the training they need in the first place. So please, spare us your urban myths.

Unions serve a vital purpose, and that is making sure the guys doing the work, the employees, can deal fairly with the guys putting up the capital, the owners. Otherwise it’s far too easy for owners to divide and conquor and walk off with insame profits.

TSA was created because security was a McJob at so many airports. It was the sort of job that you did only if you couldn’t get anything better, not the sort of job you took because it was something you could be proud of. Too many TSA employees are holdovers from that era, and hold those old resentments. It will take time for them to lose that sense of entitlement, and they need to have a reason to take pride in their job.
- PapayaSF
  
  Those generalities about training and fairness sound nice, but that’s not often the way it works in the real world, where unions tend to reflexively and doggedly defend indefensible behavior by members, and where contracts forbid any swift action under any circumstances. In San Francisco some years back, a city bus driver took exception to two guys kissing on his bus, so he stopped and assaulted them. For committing a gay bashing on the job, he was put on paid leave pending the results of an investigation, which took some weeks or months. (Sorry, I’ve forgotten exactly how it ended.) Yeah, it’s just an anecdote, but there are lots more like that. I don’t want to run afoul of moderation rules, so that’s it for now.
Mark Frauenfelder

I hope the woman sues the TSA for the mental anguish the agent caused her.
benher

I don’t get it. Wasn’t there just a M.A.J.O.R debacle involving the planting of explosives on passengers that led to unjust arrests and unjustifiable harassment of innocent passengers?

Were these TSA agents not briefed on the incident and the PR debacles they inevitably lead to?
Afterthought

What is the threshold of armed revolt?

Justification? Or chance of success?
- davide405
  
  @Afterthought
  
  Justification, OR chance of success, OR moral outrage.
  
  Pick any two…
mdh

Hall monitor syndrome
Anonymous

So if the government wanted somebody arrested and out of the way all they have to do is wait for them to go to the airport?
DeWynken

New TSA slogan: It’s Not Rape If You Yell ‘SURPRISE!’ First!
- mtreighie
  
  Or “Just Kidding” afterwords.
tdearborn

From the original story…
Update: Ann Davis, the TSA spokeswoman, said this afternoon that the worker is no longer employed by the agency as of today. She said privacy laws prevented her from saying if he was fired or left on his own.
JoshP

I was reading an old essay today, following its logic a lot more of our society’s(I mean america mostly) problems are being caused by the removal of the ‘duel of honor’ than we might think. Would that jackass have done that if the lady could have challenged him to glocks at dawn??
rick386

The prospect of Olympics tourists coming to the US and being harassed by the TSA and DHS was one of the reasons Chicago was voted down as a host city. The terrorists are winning and the Repugnicans are loving it. This is another example of abuses you must suffer in the name of security.

What’s wrong with a little respect for others? If you wanted to train some people, why not ask a few passengers for permission to use their baggage as a test?
Give em a few bucks even. If she knew, she wouldn’t flip out, and, if the student doesn’t catch it, she knows its there.
bsdnazz

If they do that to me I think I’m going to faint. That should give them something to worry about…
murrayhenson

I have a nine hour drive ahead of me tomorrow to Gdynia (the north of Poland). When someone asked why I wasn’t flying – it would be a 75 minute flight – I just laughed and said it wasn’t worth the hassle.
- Spencer Cross
  
  Wow, so the TSA’s even hassling people flying in Poland now? When will the madness end?
Anonymous

Well, I feel better about having taken the train from Philly to Orlando and back last week now. The only security check from the TSA was a perfectly reasonable thing where they swiped the outside of my bags with a piece of paper, and stuck it in a machine that can detect explosive residue. No invasion of privacy, no long lines.
EH

Why is this legal?
Swamp Angel

From my observance of the behavior of many TSA employees, it’s my opinion that they’re working for TSA because they haven’t the requisite intelligence to be real police officers. They remind me quite a bit of the Gammorhean guards that provided security for the palace of Jabba the Hutt (insofar as their overall intelligence and demeanor).
Felton

JoshP, I think you might be onto something there. Of course, I’m not sure what glockenspiels at dawn would accomplish. :-D
- jackie31337
  
  “I’m not sure what glockenspiels at dawn would accomplish.”
  
  It would wake everybody within earshot up, for one thing. Maybe the duel would be decided according to which participant had the greater amount of rotting vegetables and old shoes thrown at them.
- Anonymous
  
  “I’m not sure what glockenspiels at dawn would accomplish.”
  
  Really tired cacophony.
Anonymous

A few years ago a TSA agent told me they were supposed to be looking for weapons and bombs, not drugs, but that if they happened to come across drugs that had to report them to the police. Has this changed and now they are training agents to look for drugs?
stosh machek

T.he S.tupid A.gency once again does something so incredibly wrong it makes my brain backflip
Kevin Kenny

My worry: that the next time, the drugs will be real, and the passenger will be run in for possessing them.

Or the bomb-making components will be false, and the passenger will be run in for a “hoax device.”
Anonymous

I’m pretty such the privacy laws referred to is, at a minimum, the Privacy Act. Under the Privacy Act, the TSA would be barred from disclosing the man’s name and what disciplinary action was taken against him without his permission except under the circumstances listed in the Privacy Act and under the agency’s own rules for their Privacy Act Systems of Records. Telling the press his name would be considered a deliberate disclosure and if the now ex-employee sued, he would be entitled to a potentially 5 figure or more payout and probably attorney’s fees. I think we’re all in agreement that the creep should not profit from his sick joke.
Anonymous

The usual story – has nobody told these guys they’re supposed to *stop* terrorists, not *be* terrorists?
thequickbrownfox

Interesting 2007 article here, from a journalist who worked as a TSA screener to get the inside story.

http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/articles/10624?pageNumber=1

Thanks to Jim DeMint, the TSA will continue as it is.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation-and-world/la-na-tsa21-2010jan21,0,7965576.story
- jackie31337
  
  From the article: “Whether or not Schneier is correct, it’s hard to argue with his assertion that the ultimate solution will be found in technology such as the sophisticated 3-D X-ray machines and explosives sniffers that are in place at only a handful of airports.”
  
  Wait, when did Bruce Schneier say anything like that? Schneier himself writes that for years he’s been saying “Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.”
johnocomedy

a few years back, i had a security supervisor drop what looked like a big wad of masking tape on top of my bag just before it went into the x-ray machine. I though it was odd and then the employee watching the screen’s eyes got very wide. the supervisor quickly calmed him and told me to come look at the screen, the xray revealed the distinct silhouette of a grenade in my carry-on bag.

he said he was training the employee, retrieved his tape-wrapped grenade and sent me on my merry way. the employee was still trying to catch his breath
Sovilous

The same sort of thing happened in Slovakia a while ago. Several people had contraband planted on them, as part of a training exercise. But they didn’t catch one guy, who had explosives planted on him, and he was allowed to go on to Dublin before getting stopped.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8441891.stm

Why would they do this, exactly? Can’t they train their people outside of the actual airport environment?
cameronh1403

Hmmm not that I really needed it, but now I have another reason to avoid flying if I don’t have to.
Powers

Reminds of the scandal at Narita in Japan last year where a security official planted 5 ounces of Marijuana on a passenger to test a security dog and never recovered the drugs, which carry a 5 year jail term in Japan.
cherie62

It does not surprise me that this happened at the Philadelphia airport.
cherie62

It does not surprise me that this happened at the Philadelphia airport.