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Ron Nixon reports at The New York Times that facing a backlash over long security lines and management problems, TSA administrator Peter V. Neffenger has shaken up his leadership team, replacing the agency's top security official Kelly Hoggan and adding a new group of administrators at Chicago O'Hare International Airport. Beginning late that year, Hoggan received $90,000 in bonuses over a 13-month period, even though a leaked report from the Department of Homeland Security showed that auditors were able to get fake weapons and explosives past security screeners 95 percent of the time in 70 covert tests. Hoggan's bonus was paid out in $10,000 increments, an arrangement that members of Congress have said was intended to disguise the payments. During a hearing of the House Oversight Committee two weeks ago, lawmakers grilled Mr. Neffenger about the bonus, which was issued before he joined the agency in July. Last week and over the weekend, hundreds of passengers, including 450 on American Airlines alone, missed flights because of waits of two or three hours in security lines, according to local news reports. Many of the passengers had to spend the night in the terminal sleeping on cots. The TSA has sent 58 additional security officers and four more bomb-sniffing dog teams to O'Hare.
Several current and former TSA employees said the moves to replace Hoggan and add the new officials in Chicago, where passengers have endured hours long waits at security checkpoints, were insufficient. "The timing of this decision is too late to make a real difference for the summer," says Andrew Rhoades, an assistant federal security director at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport who testified his supervisor accused him of "going native" after attending a meeting at a local mosque and that TSA's alleged practice of "directed reassignments," or unwanted job transfers were intended to punish employees who speak their minds.. "Neffenger is only doing this because the media and Congress are making him look bad."
(Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Wednesday May 25 2016, @07:12AM
That said, the processes definitely need a major overhaul and some airports need more staff and aisles, a LOT more in some cases, along with better AC in the queueing areas as the systems in place were clearly never designed for the numbers they are now dealing with; I'm actively avoiding several airports because of this. A review of the attitudes of staff towards passengers wouldn't go amiss too; there's a marked difference in the attitude the TSA staff have towards the passengers in general between the states too, so it seems unlikely there's a policy on this - although being confrontational would tend to raise the stress levels in actual security risks to the point they would be more likely to give themselves away. That, too, is dictating which airports - and as a result which airlines - I'm likely to use, so that presents the US with an interesting dilemma - chasing the almighty buck or pandering to paranoia, and so far at least the latter seems to be mostly winning.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anal Pumpernickel on Wednesday May 25 2016, @07:23AM
The TSA doesn't merely need an overhaul; it needs to be abolished. The government has no constitutional authority to force everyone who wants to get on a plane to submit to searches merely because some people are terrorists any more than it has the constitutional authority to bust into everyone's houses (warrant or no warrant) simply because some people are criminals.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by digitalaudiorock on Wednesday May 25 2016, @01:39PM
It all really is fucking nuts. The fear on the part of politicians of being the one in office when something bad happens "on their watch" (and when you think about what would happen to them you can hardly blame them) has causes the "war on terror" that's completely devoid of any risk assessment. Pure insanity.
Oh...and FFS...it's been 15 years since 9/11...can we go back to calling it a "terrorist attack"?...a "terror attack" still sounds like something to take Prozac for.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2016, @04:26PM
a "terror attack" still sounds like something to take Prozac for
I found that amusing so I did a quick search just to see what would pop up. Found some resources for helping with phobia of terrorism or whatever one would want to call it.
- Hypnotherapy and NLP [justbewell.com]
- Advice from Dr. Cox of the National Anxiety Foundation [healthyplace.com]
- Hypnosis recordings for sale [hypnosisdownloads.com]
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 25 2016, @03:18PM
God Bless you for saying so, Anal Pumpernickel. Once again, I must overcome my abashedness with your username to do so, but it's gotta be said, it's incredibly refreshing to see your clarion call for freedom & courage. "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave" lies at the very core of my identity, and the trend of the last 20 years toward supine surrender of liberty has been distressing to no end.
The day I saw metal detectors, guard dogs, and thugs with guns awaiting anyone who wanted to take the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty on Liberty Island, I realized that the Masters of the Universe had successfully turned our national raison-d'etre into a cruel joke.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2016, @07:45AM
15 years later and you're still talking about 9/11. The terrorists have won, because of you. The TSA exists, because of you. Because you won't shut the fuck up about it. You are the problem here.
(Score: 4, Informative) by isostatic on Wednesday May 25 2016, @11:02AM
15 years later and you're still talking about 9/11
This year there'll be people voting who don't remember a time before the TSA, or before 9/11, or before the "war on terror".
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2016, @12:14PM
And so the public has adjusted, they're now familiar with the state of things. Now we're ready for yet another deprivation of liberties. Up next: privacy!
(Score: 2) by http on Wednesday May 25 2016, @07:56PM
That was two years ago.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2016, @07:28PM
This year there'll be people voting who don't remember a time before the TSA, or before 9/11, or before the "war on terror".
What do you mean? We've always been at war with Eastasia.
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Saturday May 28 2016, @11:12PM
Heh. I win 1 xkcd
http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/feel_old.png [xkcd.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Wednesday May 25 2016, @12:29PM
That's not surprising, though: There are people that still won't shut up about the Kennedy assassinations either, even though they happened decades ago.
The thing is, we've already made 2 policy changes that will ensure that 9/11/2001 will never happen again:
1. Strengthened (or in some cases installed for the first time) cockpit doors so random people can't bust in and disrupt or kill the pilots.
2. Changed the doctrine of responses to hijackings from "Sit tight, go to Libya like they asked to save the passengers' lives." to "Fight back with whatever you have."
But what is true is that running around being scared of terrorism is the worst possible response to terrorism. One thing I always blame George W Bush for on that day was giving the wrong speech at the end of it. What he needed to say was "We will of course mourn our dead, but we will keep doing what we normally do. The risk of terrorism is the same tomorrow as it was any other day, but that risk is so small as to not worry about it." Of course, that wouldn't allow him to demand that US troops go on that little sightseeing tour of Iraq, like a cabal within his administration had been planning on doing since the late 1990's.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday May 25 2016, @03:25PM
Yeah, I agree with that 1000%. We had a shining moment to assert the strength of our national identity and show the world why freedom and the good will of men will always triumph over evil, and the evil people in office utterly failed that test. Jesus, we had the chance to set a golden tone for the next 200 years, and instead we got Halliburton, Blackwater, ISIS, and all its children.
We ought to "extraordinary rendition" W and Cheney to the Hague to answer for their crimes against humanity. And of course, thanks to the tone they set, we also must do the same to Obama with his drone strikes.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mhajicek on Wednesday May 25 2016, @08:22AM
Yes, it's all bad. How many thousands of lifetimes have been lost to this useless process?
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2016, @12:34PM
Lost? No, we know where the lifetimes went: they were stolen at the point of government guns.
Anything I don't have the authority do myself, I can't delegate to a government of to do on my behalf.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 25 2016, @05:33PM
> it's not their fault they have to do these dumb things
No. It literally is their fault, they signed up for it. What did they think the job of security screener would be?
You can argue that they need the job more than they need to be decent to strangers. And since most flyers are at least middle-class and many TSA peons are underclass, it might be fair in the way a starving man stealing a loaf of bread is fair. But it is still a choice.
(Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday May 25 2016, @09:08PM
And since most flyers are at least middle-class and many TSA peons are underclass, it might be fair in the way a starving man stealing a loaf of bread is fair. But it is still a choice.
Yeah, we're all guilty. I don't know a single person who doesn't wear sweat shop clothing. We all pay the taxes that the government uses to build bombs for oil wars. We do it for fear of violence, because we're cowards, but we still do it. We're monsters.
(Score: 2) by legont on Wednesday May 25 2016, @06:16PM
There is a good book [amazon.com] out there that explains how the US bureaucrats are quite literally mad. I mean really medically insane.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.