The TSA (and to a lesser extent, the DHS) is a COMPLETE JOKE.
We haven't had 9/11-type attacks in this country because of pretty good intel and the work of LE/Mil (and a lot of luck), not because of anything DHS or TSA has done.
The ridiculous policies/procedures of the TSA haven't done anything to make us safer since 9/11. They (and their policies) are laughable. Anyone that fly's knows this.
This proves my point:
State police and airline ticket agents whisked a Rockland man who claimed he had a gun around TSA security checkpoints at Logan International Airport, putting him on a plane after he flashed a Chatham assistant harbormaster’s badge and claimed he was a federal agent, an FBI affidavit said.It happened almost two years ago, but we're just now learning of it.
Federal prosecutors yesterday charged Stephen Grant, 48, of Rockland with impersonating a federal agent. Grant is a medical supply salesman who worked summer weekends in Chatham monitoring boaters.
Grant told the Herald last night he is innocent, claiming a misunderstanding, and said the situation was settled nearly two years ago after he admitted to mistakes and paid a $4,000 fine. He said at no time did he carry a gun.
A state police spokesman declined to comment about the apparent security breach last night, referring calls to the U.S. attorney’s office. Transportation Safety officials declined comment.
The affidavit states that on a January 2007 trip from Boston to San Diego, Grant told American Airlines [AMR] ticket agents he was armed and worked for the Department of Homeland Security. He filled out a flying-while-armed form in which, the FBI says, he listed his occupation as DHS. In reality, the salesman volunteered on the Cape and Island Homeland Security Subcommittee. On two flights, crews following federal regulations identified for him everyone who was armed on the plane, including two air marshals. On one plane, he was taken into the cockpit.
The affidavit says the error began when the ticket agents at Logan, asking for Grant’s identification, were satisfied with his harbormaster’s badge, and a trooper only looked at Grant’s form and his badge before signing Grant in the TSA log book and letting him board his flight via an exit door. Though required by federal rules, at no point did Grant show them a letter from the Department of Homeland Security, his supposed employer, stating the reason he needed to carry a gun, the affidavit said. A gate agent in San Diego spotted the error, and the FBI met Grant at Logan.
Grant, insisting the matter had been resolved, said last night, “I put everything behind me. This call comes back again today. I have nothing to hide. . . . Somewhere along the line there’s been a mixup. Why now? Why after two years when all this stuff was settled with a fine? It was a stupid thing to have happened.”
H/T: HotAir
We took the kids to NYC for the Macy's parade. We rode Amtrak from Union Station in DC to Penn Station in NYC and back. Not a single security step in place. No metal detectors, no sweeps, no bag checks. In DC they had one cop with a dog that would randomly sniff a bag. We were a party of five and no one got sniffed. I could have been wearing a bomb suit and boarded the train. And I bet nothing will change unless there is a tragedy. Startling.
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