Former TSA Employee: Airport Security is a Farce

According to Jason Edward Harrington, among the folks who hate TSA the most are its own employees. He of course used to be one of them. In an article originally published at Politico but currently reprinted at The Week, Harrington recounts tales of bitterness and regret working for an agency he calls “a farce.” He speaks of the dreadfully low employee employee morale, the Orwellian bureaucracy that always seemed to have ulterior motives, and the many issues that irked airport travelers, in particular the full body scanners he says everyone in TSA knew were useless.

“Officers discovered that the machines were good at detecting just about everything besides cleverly hidden explosives and guns. The only thing more absurd than how poorly the full-body scanners performed was the incredible amount of time the machines wasted for everyone.”

Harrington explains that the invasive machines would take embarrassing photos of travelers which were then “analyzed for threats” in a secure room where uncouth TSA employees would gawk and crack jokes (among other things). He also talks about how a “random” search of a passenger would automatically occur if their passport had been issued by one of 12 nations, including Syria, Algeria, and Lebanon:

“The selectee list was purely political, of course, with diplomacy playing its role as always: There was no Saudi Arabia or Pakistan on a list of states historically known to harbor, aid, and abet terrorists.”

Take a look at the whole article by clicking the link below. It’s a fascinating and frightening look at one of the U.S. government’s most inept agencies. Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

Read more at The Week

Photo credit:trekandshoot / Shutterstock