So far, we, the American people, have spent somewhere in excess of sixty billion (yes, with a "b") dollars on a "security" farce that results in mind-bending idiocy such as this:
The TSA’s bungling reached a new low yesterday when a JFK Airport terminal had to be evacuated and hundreds of passengers marched back through security screening all because one dimwitted agent failed to realize his metal detector had been unplugged, sources told The Post.
The stunning error led to hours of delays, two planes called back from the runway and infinite frustration for furious passengers.
“The truth is, this is the failure of the most basic level of diligence,” a law-enforcement source said.
Apparently TSA agent Alija Abdul Majed is even stupider than your average employee of that particular disaster of a governmental agency – which is no mean feat, given their long, long list of failures and not a single "success" to their names – and somehow managed to not realize that his metal detector was not plugged in.
Seriously.
How can you be that stupid and remember to breathe? I have seen the backs (and fronts) of metal detectors, and while I cannot say as though I spent a great deal of time examining them in tremendous depth, I can say, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, that all metal detectors not only have lights indicating whether or not someone has metal on their persons, but also lights indicating whether or not the bloody thing is actually on. Simple lights. Lights that would be on if it were plugged in. Lights that would be off if it were not.
This is not rocket science folks. This is something that damned near every electronic or electrical device has and has had for about as long as we have had electronic and electrical devices. And the morons the Thousands of Sexual Assaulters hire are so moronic they could not even figure that out.
In some other situations, this kind of idiocy would be cause for a hearty round of pointing-and-laughing, but given that (a) Alija almost unquestionably will not be fired, (2) arguably millions of dollars was lost in terms of people’s time, aircrafts’ time, fuel expenditures, and the efforts necessary to evacuate an international terminal of one of the busiest airports in America, and (iii) this is not exactly unusual job performance for an "agency" that has become the laughing-stock of the world… Well, it is not so funny any more, is it?
The TSA is a product of the fears and phobias of the American people, and it will remain in place, screwing up everyone’s lives and molesting elderly women, until such time as we, the American people, decide we have had enough and inform our duly-elected representatives that it is time to get rid of this waste of money and space. Unfortunately, even with incidents such as these becoming more common, I do not see that happening any time soon…
To compare the TSA to Mall Cops is an insult to Mall Cops. I’ll not fly, if I can drive.
Its obvious that we’re screwed. Question now is how badly we’re screwed?
@ MAJ Mike: I would not even insult bottom-dwelling algae by comparing the TSA to it.
@ Dragon: Very, very, very screwed.
[...] They Are Keeping Us Safe!!! July 29, 2012 be smarter than the equipment you use | walls of the city. The TSA’s bungling reached a new low yesterday when a JFK Airport terminal had to be evacuated [...]
Passing this along – our government in action!
gfa
Every Detector I’ve ever seen in over two decades of flying commercially have run on a simple “Red Light/Green Light” system along with the audible tone. Plug the machine in, and it goes Green until metal passes through the gate, then it goes red and sounds a tone.
Life is filled with such protocols. Gunnies check their chamber and magazines for live rounds before they set out. People look at the gas gauge and warning lights before they drive their cars. Pilots have their per-flight checklist, skydivers and paratroopers pack their chute. Hell I check my cellphone battery just before I leave my house!
The list goes on. The fact that a TSA goon is too fucking stupid to look up and see if a damn light is on before they usher the first person through the metal detector, and they aren’t watching the light interface on the unit just to verify that not only there wasn’t a tone, but the machine didn’t register metal visually is BEYOND incompetence.
Literally a child could do it, but these incompetent goons can’t? Yeah these are the EXACT people I want cupping my testicles when I refuse to let them irradiate me.
They probably can’t even read the scanner images properly.
In any contest between those who try to idiot-proof equipment and idiots, I’ll put my money on the idiots.
@ guffaw: Thanks!
@ Weer’d Beard: And on top of the on/off indicators, most metal detectors have some kind of indicator on the back of them showing how close someone came to having “too much” metal, or how far over the line they went; generally it is just a series of bars or something. The fact that this dumbass did not figure that no one so much as twitching that display was somewhat unusual is truly a testament to the idiocy of employees hired by the TSA.
@ AuricTech: Like Einstein said, two things are infinite – the universe and human stupidity, but I’m not too sure about the universe.
“Alija Abdul Majed”
Stupid? Or crazy like a fox? Sorry, I’ve read too much history, there’s too many defenses that have been compromised by a door left deliberately open, for me to not raise the obvious.
Profiling? Damn straight. After all, the bastiches whose actions brought the TSA into existence in the first place weren’t name Jacques, Jurgen, Lee/Li, or Guiseppe.
Alija probably is your garden variety tax-payer funded idiot, but that’s something I would confirm if I were in the position to do so, rather than simply assuming.
Hanlon’s Razor isn’t a universal law, rather, it is a warning.