Boston Globe: TSA moves to fire 6 bag screeners, suspend 14 at Logan

Boston Globe: TSA moves to fire 6 bag screeners, suspend 14 at Logan

The Transportation Security Administration has moved to fire six bag-screening officers at Logan International Airport for violating inspection procedures for checked luggage and suspend 14 others for inattention to duty, agency officials said. The action was triggered by a routine audit that showed some officers weren’t paying close attention to computer monitors that display the contents of each bag as it is screened by an explosive detection machine, TSA officials said. The screeners were distracted by their cellphones and other electronic devices, according to the TSA.​

 

But the TSA Mexicutioners only get 4 hours of extra training.

 

No kidding? I wonder how much it's cost them to determine something that anyone who's ever seen a TSA employee in uniform at the airport could have told them for free.

I'm still surprised I haven't yet seen a TSA clerk try to juggle someone's junk with their own personal cellphone still in hand trying to Tweet something about how TSA thugs deserve respect.

 

Exactly why do TSA screeners need cell phones or other devices while working? Seems the right answer is to require all electronics to be left in their lockers, vehicles, or at home. Before anyone calls out how unfair that is BOP federal employees cannot take cell phones past the sally port.

 

To coordinate their thefts, of course.

 

Oh, duh! You're right...why didn't I think of that??
(Mike, where's the smiley slapping its forehead with its hand?)

 

No dangerous materials got through the detection system as a result of the agents’ behavior, the TSA said.
How the (expletive deleted) do they KNOW that? Because a plane didn't blow up? If TSA employees are busy on their cell phones or talking to their co-workers and not checking what they should be checking nobody knows WHAT got through.

 

Who knows how many water filters got past the brave baggage screeners.

 

New England Cable News: Logan Airport TSA agents face termination

​

According to the TSA, the detection machines can alarm due to the density of an object. Something like cheese or a book could be a cause. Officials say workers, who were sometimes distracted by their cell phones, did not always pull aside bags that should have been investigated. ​

"It's something you take for granted in a sense," passenger Deborah Lindsey said of workers monitoring bags, "because you don't ever see them, so you are just hoping that they are doing what they're supposed to be doing." ​

The problem was discovered during a routine audit in November of 2011 and those workers were placed on non-screening duties until now. That 10-month timeframe raises some alarms for passenger Jim McKinley. ​

"If they were overlooking things like checking the bags thoroughly enough, there could be other areas they were slacking in as well," McKinley said.​

Perhaps that's true, but it sounds as though for the last 10 months slacking has been their job assignment, a task for which most smurves are eminently qualified.

 

As slowly more tidbits of the story come out ... It seems they are canning employees, who perhaps never would have slacked off if management had been truly on the job, but merely suspending two managers who were reading papers and yacking on the phone. When anyone is being fired in a situation like this, the errant managers should be the first ones out the door.

CNN: TSA reprimands bag screeners over job performance at Boston airport

The 14 workers, including two managers, who the agency proposed suspending allegedly did not pay complete attention to the screening machines. They allegedly read newspapers or talked on the phone while they worked, or did not report the behavior.​

 

Seems to me it was the managers in the racial profiling report that told their screeners to profile in order to meet their quotas, yet from all we have heard those same managers are not being retrained or suspended. The underlings are being punished for the misdeeds of their masters.

 

While I believe the managers are equally culpable, I see absolutely nothing wrong with punishing these idiots for "just following orders."

 

The difference as I see it are that managers are the ones calling the shots. If a manager tells workers they want more referrals then that is what they will get. In general terms managers are usually more educated or have fought their way up the ladder and know what is acceptable or not. That alone makes them more accountable in my book.

TSA managers should always be held accountable for the failings of their staff.

 

Especially when we're talking about not one errant employee, but a dozen.

 

Like I said - I think they're culpable, but when you have TSA employees FOLLOWING those orders, they need to be held accountable for it.

"Just following orders" is not a valid defense for performing illegal acts.

 

Management sets the tone for workgroups, whether it is a large corporate structure or something much smaller like a fast food joint. Strong managers can either make or break an operation. If something is wrong the first place to look is managment.

In the case of TSA the problems start at the top. TSA employees aren't blind and have seen that their boss, TSA Administrator John S. Pistole, has no problem lying to Congress, ignoring orders from Federal Courts, or ignoring the massive corruption going on in TSA. These employees will further set the tone for individual TSA workplaces. Area managers, FSD's, AFSD's, TSM's and so forth will heed their appointed leader and do his bidding. We can all see the result of this leadership, an outright attack on the United States Constitution by TSA and its employees.

Yet these people apparently have so little personal character that they willingly report each day to assault America.

 

I'd say if they had ANY personal character, they'd refuse.

But there is no honor among TSA employees. They're a stain on humanity.

 

+ 1,000!