Looks like it’s Clown Week here at Lowering the Bar, with one post about Insane Clown Posse and now two about the Transportation Security Clown Posse Administration. (No offense meant to ICP.)
According to KPIX-CBS, a 53-year-old man was arrested on Tuesday after he managed to infiltrate a security checkpoint and pose as a TSA agent long enough to grope two women in separate groping incidents. And by “infiltrate,” I mean he appears to have passed through security, gotten drunk at an airport lounge, walked back to the security checkpoint, grabbed a pair of blue gloves, and then grabbed a pair of women. Granted, this sort of cunning plan is probably not in the TSA’s training manual, and, plus, they were probably all looking the other way. Who could have predicted that a potential terrorist might attack from another direction? Not the TSA, that’s for sure.
Looks like it’s time to add another “layer of security”!
Further confabulusing the TSA’s detection efforts, according to several reports: the man was wearing a blue polo shirt and khaki pants. This detail does not flatter the media or the TSA, though, because TSA agents (right) don’t wear either of those things.
So, apparently, what we have here is a case of a drunk guy who was not even dressed like a TSA agent, let alone in possession of a badge or security card, just walking into a checkpoint, grabbing some gloves, and managing to get a woman into a private screening booth for groping purposes, twice, before anyone noticed him doing this.
Again, to be fair, he did come up from behind, which is pretty darn sneaky.
Not entirely sure where the budget stands right now, but the House budget bill for 2015 proposed $4.6 billion for the TSA, and something like $70 billion has been spent on this farce in total. While the 2015 number is $300 million less than it’s currently getting, you may remember that the “September 11 Security Fee” recently more than doubled (although the TSA’s website calls this a “restructuring”), so they’ll be charging you another billion dollars per year anyway.
Feel free to browse the “Homeland Insecurity” category here if interested in other reasons we should not be paying for or subjected to this.