Why is the TSA unable to get employees to enforce simple rules
consistently?
By ANN Associate Editor Juan Jimenez
On my way back home
after S-N-F 2004 ended, I experienced a situation at Orlando
International Airport that made me realize, with utter clarity, why
it is that terrorists will once again find a way to attack us deep
inside our borders. It is not a question of "if," but rather a
question of "when." When it happens, we will only have ourselves to
blame for it.
In the past few months I have travelled nationally and
internationally -- Texas, Wisconsin, Florida, California, Puerto
Rico, Canada, Holland, Switzerland... The one common denominator in
all the trips was the presence of TSA employees.
During every one of those trips I carried a little plastic case.
Inside the case was one of my most trusted companions: six
different screwdriver tips and a two-inch extension one quarter
inch in diameter. This harmless tool set saved my butt more than
once in situations where I would normally have to either wait hours
for someone to show up with a screwdriver, or find myself unable to
do my job because I forgot to bring one. The plastic case was maybe
two inches wide by three inches long and fit perfectly in my fanny
pack.
During all but one leg of those trips, my trust toolbox caused
the TSA to inspect my fanny pack, find the case, open it, look at
it, and realize the obvious -- it was a harmless gadget that
presented no danger to anyone.
That is, until I passed through Orlando International Airport
(MCO) on April 19 at 7:00pm on my way to catching an American
Airlines flight to Miami. All of a sudden, lo and behold, tools
were not allowed, and nobody cared what any other TSA employee had
done in the past. Never mind that the little toolbox was still as
harmless as ever, or that there were other "tools" in the pack,
such as my set of jeweler's loupes.
Now it wasn't just
tools, it was "the tools we think are 'tools.'" Of course, the
words "web site" were invoked in a place where no one could check
any such claim, and that seemed to justify everything, no matter
how ridiculous.
Just then it dawned on me... More than two years and seven
months after 9/11, our government has been completely unable to
enforce consistency within its own ranks on simple things like
this. If this is the case, and given the universal rule that
governmental incompetency increases at an exponential rate as the
complexity and importance of the task grows (see
Google:intelligence/CIA/Saudis/Flight Training), what else is the
government unable to do? What doors are they leaving wide open for
terrorists to exploit the next time they want to get their point
across to the tune of thousands of innocent lives?
Is the security of our country truly "rocket science"? Is
anything approaching a semblance of consistency in the application
of rules governing the funnels that all commercial air travellers
in this country must squeeze through an impossibility?
Why in the world is the TSA and the Department of Homeland
Security spending money on creating secret lists of people banned
from flying comercially, when they have yet to accomplish the
simple task of publishing a set of rules and teaching their
employees how to enforce them the same way every single time they
are called upon to do so?