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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: 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.