Another Hiring Triumph for TSA

LTB logo

There has been no shortage of news about bonehead TSA employees, which is surprising for an agency that has recruited security personnel by advertising on pizza boxes. But it really outdid itself when it hired Nna Alpha Onuoha, who until Tuesday was a TSA screener at LAX. This is the guy who, in June, angrily told a 15-year-old traveler to "cover yourself," something we learned about because the girl's father happens to be a co-founder of one of the world's most popular blogs.

Now the same guy is back in the news for trying to shut down LAX with a fake bomb threat.

The TSA did suspend Onuoha after the earlier incident, probably due to the bad publicity since its employees have done far worse and gotten away with it. (On the other hand, maybe they just temporarily ran out of vowels.) The suspension only lasted a week, though, and so he was back on the job until Tuesday, when he resigned.

According to the arrest affidavit mentioned in The Guardian, Onuoha then returned to TSA HQ and left a sealed envelope there addressed to a manager. He then made several calls saying that the airport should be evacuated because he was about to "deliver a message to America and the whole world." The envelope was found to contain an eight-page document entitled "The End of America, the End of Satan, we were not defeated," which according to The Guardian "expressed his thoughts on the episode involving" the 15-year-old girl. Either he didn't try to conceal his identity or this reference made it obvious who he was, which led to a visit from law enforcement. His apartment was empty except for a note that read "09/11/2013 THERE WILL BE FIRE! FEAR! FEAR! FEAR!"

When he was arrested, he told agents he had not intended these statements to be interpreted as threats. Yep, that sounds about right.

No bombs or weapons were apparently found, but this sort of thing is still "domestic terrorism" at least according to some legal definitions, and at a minimum it qualifies as making a "terroristic threat." Setting aside some serious issues with these laws, which as applied have been used to stomp all over free speech, by the government's own definitions it would appear that the TSA has been employing a terrorist.

I very much enjoy pointing this out because as you may recall, this is the agency that has been telling us for years that it can find terrorists just by looking. Hey guys, here's one you missed. Funny, he's been standing right next to you the whole time.