But it’s still faulty and things get through and people are randomly hassled for no good reason. So let’s keep debating how to do this stupid thing, because the how matters so much.

The agency disputes that theft is a widespread problem, however, saying the number of officers fired “represents less than one-half of one percent of officers that have been employed” by TSA.

What’s the percent that’s been fired for breaking urine bags, making people remove their prosthetics, or any of the other horrible shit I read about in any given BoingBoing article about the TSA?

This part was good though, and it bears itself out over and over again with the way entitled people complain:

Half of the TSA hate seems to be about some pretty ugly class/caste conflicts between well-off frequent flyers and lower-income TSA employees (“that uppity TSA guy doesn’t know his place.”)  In a job with that kind of social dynamic, knowing that the union’s got your back can make a big morale difference.

In my defence I was young, and had much poorer standards for chocolate than I do now.

Whether someone is Gov or Private sector, the true standard should be accountability. Are staff being held to the rules and standards set down by their employers, and are those rules and standards appropriate/fair?

I agree, having things that are supposed to be allowed onto a plane randomly confiscated is a problem, because it creates a lot of uncertainty and fear. But is this a solely a feature of Government processes? I would argue it is a failure of the chain of command, which can happen in any organisation without proper oversight and accountabilty.

A lawyer might have known how to respond: 

“Entrapment” 

“My client thought it was a free iPad, not a trap iPad” 

“My client is too stupid to answer your questions” 

“I would prefer to help you deflect this issue onto the TSA employment administration please and thank you.”

“My client drank a potion and thought it was his iPhone”

“My client’s wife did it, because it sounds legit coming from me and not my client”

“My client is totally counter-suing everybody, even you, yes, you, and you, and you, and you.. Imma get me a ferrari”

Hopefully it becomes his ultimate job-stopper, Google-style, even though that won’t bode well for her either.

One thing that TSA employees will not be if privatized, is employees.

They’ll be disenfranchised, desperate working poor fake “contractors” with no employment insurance, medical insurance worth having or hope of not starving in retirement. 

This response to the TSA troubles is water on a grease fire, bad for everyone.

BTW  ken, the TSA is evil, the DHS is evil, and some of government is evil. That has little to do with the people that work there.

While TSA clearly hires whosoever is willing to be part of a machine most people see as worthless, inept and harmful, staffed by pariahs and crooks and generally reviled, the acrimony is based most often on policies and procedures, violations of civil liberties and unwarranted delays. 

Rude, crude and socially unacceptable staff are just the icing on the cake and the goto source for anecdotal accounts that support the core basis of most complaints.

What complaints there are that may be solely based on an individual feeling that they should not be impeded but by someone of perceived equal social standing are not something I’ve encountered. 

But if they are there, there is a chicken/egg, if the person were competent, would the complainer complain? The same person might eat at Mcdonalds without complaining if the service is fast, efficient and polite, despite feeling that they are a much better human being than the server for reasons that make them less so.

As for unionization, since I don’t intend to enter US airspace  while I can use a car or train, I’m all for it. It matters little to me that the TSA employees are scum and doing something that shouldn’t be done for their living when I consider the matter in relation to employment practices. If the TSA rabble is being wronged in that manner they are correct to unionize. From where I sit it is merely a rearguard action by Americas dwindling unions, and a poor choice too unless death by association is the goal, yet beggars can’t be choosers. 

When the house of cards that is an unsupported consumer market collapses, the unions will rise again as we pick ourselves up and dust ourselves off.

Number of felonious TSA officers = 0.5%
Number of fraudulent votes WA 2004 Gubernatorial election = 0.0009%
Number of fraudulent votes OH 2004 Gubernatorial election = 0.00004%

(Thanks to The Brennan Center!)  http://www.brennancenter.org/content/resource/policy_brief_on_the_truth_about_voter_fraud/

That said, given the ease and ability to track and find iPhones and iPads, TSA workers taking them should be fired for stupidity. If you can’t see the trap people are laying out in front of you, you deserve to fall in it.

Of course, the other half of the TSA hate is about their corrosive effect on US civil liberties, their imposition of increasingly invasive warrantless searches as a condition of travel, and their “normalization” of police-state features like de facto internal passports and no-fly lists.  A union helping to push for *more* of this — in the same way that the prison guard union pushes for more prisons — is not a good thing.

All the more reason to fix the TSA’s worst-in-the-First-World “security” policies now, before things like unionization make the policies even harder to roll back.

This is just another example of how TSA — while it may not see itself as intentionally “evil” — is not at all focused on providing statistically relevant security, but is instead quite intentionally focused on providing a theatrical security-like experience to serve as an alibi for US politicians and bureaucrats when the next bad thing inevitably happens.

…everyone making post about this theft has stolen something in their life and many even from their employer.

Please don’t project your own moral inadequacy onto the rest of us.

It’s like they don’t even want you to know that you’re wanted, truly special and loved…

Seriously: “Apologize to me because the airport is busy!”

Holy entitlement..

See the NFL debacle.  It is a completely reasonable comparison.