Thread: The TSA Meets “Raiders of the Lost Ark”

The TSA Meets “Raiders of the Lost Ark”

Written by Gary North on May 11, 2012


Every bureaucacy wastes money. If it can spend money, it will. It doesn’t matter much on what.

The TSA (Transportation Security Administration) has bought screening machines. It stores them in warehouses. It paid $184 million.

There are two ways of looking at this. One way is to say “let’s get them installed.” The other wa is to say, “Keep them right where they are.”

Is it better to have the equipment installed, thereby reducing our liberty, or stored in warehouses, wasting space.

Do you remember the closing scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark? The one where a crate with the Ark of the Covenant is wheeled around the corner of a huge warehouse?

I say, “Keep the Ark in the warehouse.” Keep it next to the TSA’s screening equipment.

It turns out that the machines didn’t work right.

I would have sent them back for a refund. But that’s not how the TSA works.

The TSA denies everything, of course. But a Congressional committee is looking into it.

Do you think any senior official will get fired at TSA because of this $184 million snafu?

Neither do I.

Eighty-five percent of the equipment has been stored for more than six months, and more than a third for more than a year. One piece has been in storage for six years, more than half its useful life, the report says.

The report estimates that the depreciating value of the equipment during its time in storage cost the agency $23 million.

This is not the first time this has happened.

The fate of the new screening machines is the latest in a long line of TSA procurement failures, said Rep. John L. Mica, Florida Republican and chairman of the Transportation Committee.

Between 2004 and 2006, he noted, the agency spent more than $30 million buying explosive-trace-detection portals, known as “puffers,” for use at passenger screening checkpoints.

“Where are the puffers?” Mr. Mica asked, adding that only half of them were ever deployed and the agency found they didn’t work.

And so it goes.

So it will always go.

This is how bureaucracies work.

Do we really want them to be efficient? If they were more efficient, how many freedoms would we lose?


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Report: TSA wasting money on screening machines - Washington Times


The TSA Meets “Raiders of the Lost Ark”


Oh they have evolved from pedophilia to screwing the public....

Congressman calls for immediate resignation of TSA head, calls agency 'bloated, broken bureaucracy'

Friday, May 11, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes



Congressman calls for immediate resignation of TSA head, calls agency 'bloated, broken bureaucracy'

Friday, May 11, 2012 by: J. D. Heyes

Learn more: Congressman calls for immediate resignation of TSA head, calls agency 'bloated, broken bureaucracy'



(NaturalNews) The phrase, "bloated, broken bureaucracy" could apply to a number of federal government agencies, but without question there is no more apt description of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). In fact, one could add a few more adjectives, such as inept, arrogant, self-serving and - did I say inept?

So bad is the agency's performance and reputation that more and more lawmakers are calling for this sad experiment in government-run airport security to come to an end. The latest call comes from Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., who says that, for starters, TSA chief John Pistole should step down immediately.

Citing thousands of complaints about the agency in recent months, along with a litany of outrageous "searches" and behavior - all in the name of "just doing our job" (the same excuse the Nazi guards used in the Nuremberg trials) - Broun has basically pointed at the hulking 800-pound gorilla in the room in stating the obvious.

"It is clear that the TSA has become nothing more than a bloated, broken bureaucracy which uses its extensive power to violate traveling Americans' civil liberties while doing little to ensure their safety," Broun said in a letter to Pistole.

Can't even deploy its equipment on time

It should be noted that in November 2010 alone, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) received 900 complaints from travelers, surprisingly not long after new invasive screening procedures were implemented.

In addition to Broun's letter, the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee has released a new report detailing the agency's abuses and accusing the TSA of "wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars by inefficiently deploying screening equipment" at the nation's 463 airports. The report mentioned that a good portion of the TSA's newest, state-of-the-art screening equipment remains in storage, though that's probably good news to millions of Americans who travel, since much of that gear is comprised of high-tech x-ray machines that are far too revealing, if you follow.

"Americans can no longer tolerate the flagrant violations of their civil rights which are occurring at airports nationwide in the name of 'security,'" Broun said.

"More importantly, the corruption and continued lack of security among TSA's own personnel puts our country at extreme risk of another terrorist attack. The time has come for serious action to be taken," Broun continued.

"As such, I request your immediate resignation from the position of TSA Administrator. The safety of our country's travelers requires drastic change, and the time for that change is now."

In late April, Broun said in an interview with Politico that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) chief Janet Napolitano should step down as well; TSA falls under DHS. And he has called on Attorney General Eric Holder to resign over the "Fast and Furious" gun-walking scandal.

Others have called for TSA's demise

Broun is not the first lawmaker seeking to end the travel tyranny of the TSA.

Long-shot GOP presidential contender and current Texas Rep. Ron Paul has labeled the agency a "bureaucratic monster" that needs to go.

Criticizing the agency for detaining his son, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, during a recent trip, the elder Paul says the agency reminds him of a walking, talking Fourth Amendment violation.

"It totally voids the concept of the Fourth Amendment, searches and prodding and poking, you know, with no permission," Paul told CNN a week after the January incident.

"They trap us into it," he said. "There's no way you can travel if you don't do it. So I've said, you know, when you look at some of these pictures of probing groin areas and breast areas and all this, and old women having to take their clothes off, if we as a people are so complacent that we can look at that and say, oh, that's OK, they're making us safe."

"It doesn't make us safe. It undermines our liberties and there's a much better way of giving us security at the airports than accepting the bureaucrats and the politicians in Washington. That is totally unacceptable from my viewpoint," he said, adding that the agency should be abolished and airport security privatized.

Sources for this article include:

Committee On Oversight & Government Reform

The Daily Caller

Blogs - Houston Chronicle

Learn more: Congressman calls for immediate resignation of TSA head, calls agency 'bloated, broken bureaucracy'