TSA is the Front Line Defense...God Help Us

Immediately after 9/11, air security suddenly became a much bigger deal than it had been on 9/10. Security screeners worked for contractors and the entire system was a complete mess. The civil service unions smelled money to be made and when the government federalized the screeners, they also made them union. This was supposed to ensure we hired only the highest quality workers to inspect our bags and look at X-ray images of our belongings.

We all know how that turned out. TSA on the screener side became more of an embarrassment than they were previously. They are rude, not exactly the brightest people and generally are not very good at what we taxpayers pay them for but, alas, they are union and Obama's a union supporter and the media loves Obama so we really don't hear the bad stories like we used to. Except after back-to-back terror attacks--one involving ISIS blowing up a Russian plane.

So we have these awesome stories today for our enjoyment. First, someone didn't exactly check out who they were hiring. For the record, these are the type of people who are vetting the Syrians entering the US as we speak and they couldn't match up people looking for a job. :

Anyway, the malfeasance inside the TSA extends throughout the agency, apparently, from line workers, to top brass and even to HR. According to a report released this week, the TSA had 73 "aviation workers" on its payroll who also happened to be on the terror watchlist, something the TSA, in it's extensive screening process, failed to discover.

That. Is. Awesome. I honestly don't blame the intel people or those who are active in the terror fight. They do their jobs quite well actually (how well we'll never know because it's not released), it's the idiots who hire the screeners. Becoming a screener is a patronage job, favors are done and backs are slapped. I mean seriously, look at the screeners the next time you are in an airport, really? Are they the people you actually want protecting you from Ahmed the merry bomber? Honestly, would you hire half the friggin' derelicts that work for TSA as screeners? Well, actually, probably a lot less than half because they have entirely too many people per shift. Fly to the US from Germany, about a quarter of the people who do their jobs exceptionally well...but I digress.

Second, we have this heart warming story of TSA screeners scoring a whopping 25% in a recent test. Glad their working hard at raising that GPA:

TODAY national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen and the Rossen Reports team went undercover at several airports across the country to see how well the TSA performed. In three out of four cases, they were able to get banned items past TSA inspection. 

 We are so screwed. All it takes is four or five dedicated people to take down a plane and with the new tricks they've discovered, maybe less. We rely on the screeners to detect threats and not spend the time trying to pick up their fellow screeners. Instead we have a half-assed security service whom is failing miserably.