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posted by martyb on Wednesday May 25 2016, @05:23AM   Printer-friendly
from the security-theatre dept.

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."


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  • (Score: 2) by Marand on Wednesday May 25 2016, @05:54PM

    by Marand (1081) on Wednesday May 25 2016, @05:54PM (#350884) Journal

    I don't know if supercenters also count as supermarkets, Merriam-Webster has distinct entries. I'm leaning towards "yes, it's a prerequisite."

    I look at it as a sub- and super-set thing. Supermarkets are grocery stores and supercenters contain supermarkets, but the supermarket being part of the supercenter doesn't make the whole thing a supermarket. The supermarket is inside the supercenter in the same way the McDonalds and the bank inside is (if that Wal-Mart had them), but that doesn't mean your bank sells groceries and big macs.

    Wal-Mart sells certain things in all stores. Wal-Mart supercenters sell those things but also contain supermarkets. Maybe that's a useless distinction, but it's how I've always thought of it.

     

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  • (Score: 2) by JNCF on Wednesday May 25 2016, @07:01PM

    by JNCF (4317) on Wednesday May 25 2016, @07:01PM (#350903) Journal

    I totally get what you're saying. We're talking about arbitrary object heirarchies now, so nobody is really wrong; if I am my foot, I am the sun. That being said, I think that the different sections of a Wal*Mart may be more integrated with each other than they are to Wal*Mart's symbiotes (McDonalds, banks, etc.). The definition I saw for supermarket seemed open-ended enough that I don't feel comfortable saying that supermarkets can't have sporting goods sections. I can think of very small grocery stores that had toy aisles with wiffle ball bats, so sporting goods seems like a matter of scale. There may be other parts of a supercenter that are less integrated, and not part of a large supermarket (Wal*Mart's mechanics might be a good example), but I'm probably grouping sporting goods in with the large supermarket subset.