And there’s no more famous - or larger - security body than the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) in the US. This is what really goes on there.
• We could mangle your luggage
The TSA’s security mandate allows screeners to open checked bags, and even to cut the locks on a locked bag; in all, about 5 per cent of checked bags are opened during screening, says agency spokesman Ross Feinstein.
Travellers complain that TSA rummaging often leaves their luggage in disarray, with fragile objects broken, items spilt and — a big complaint at the holidays — presents unwrapped and haphazardly rewrapped.
Over the 2014 holidays, a number of travellers began posting photos of gifts that got this treatment:
Passengers have also complained that the organisation has left their carefully organised bags in disarray.
A commenter on the TSA’s blog writes: “it would be nice if they would put things back where they were found such as placing breakable items back in the middle of the bag between the clothes rather than on top of a soft-sided bag so that they can be broken by the baggage handlers,” and another writes that their bag was “quite obviously rummaged through.”
The TSA notes on its website that it is “not liable for damage caused to locked bags that must be opened for security purposes.” Feinstein points out that “if a bag is inspected, the screening is done in view of the public or under closed-circuit television”. Sometimes, of course, when a bag is a mess, it is the fault of airline staff or of a passenger who didn’t pack carefully.
• We miss plenty of security threats
Recently, when the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which oversees the TSA, sent undercover agents into some of the nation’s busiest airports armed with banned weapons and faux explosives, it found that TSA agents let those items through security 95 per cent of the time, according to an exclusive report from ABC News.
In fact, TSA agents failed to detect the items in 67 out of the 70 tests conducted. In a statement, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson notes that “the numbers in these reports never look good out of context” and that he has directed TSA leadership to “immediately revise its standard operating procedures for screening” and to conduct more training.
And this isn’t the first security test TSA agents have failed: In 2013, they let an undercover agent through security at Newark Liberty International Airport with a fake bomb. At the time, the TSA noted that it often makes these covert tests “as difficult as possible” in order to “push the boundaries of our people, processes, and technology.”
• We’ll show your weird belongings to the public
Travellers are sometimes a little sketchy and weird — and they prove it with the odd and sometimes illegal things they try to take through airport security. The TSA inspects roughly 1.5 billion bags a year at airports, and confiscates tonnes of contraband. And lately, as a way of engaging the public, the agency has shown the world some of its weirder finds — via Instagram and Twitter.
The TSA’s Instagram feed has recently featured photos of confiscated items such as a curled-up live snake (someone stuffed seven of them in their pants); utility knives concealed in a Scooby-Doo greeting card; a toy bunny rabbit stuffed with a gun; a pair of red and pink cat-shaped brass knuckles; and a Taser designed to look like lipstick. (One silver lining for folks with weird tastes: The TSA doesn’t release the names of the passengers toting them on its Instagram account.)
Of course, some weird smuggling efforts get plenty of publicity without the TSA’s Instagram help. Last year, a man tried to pass off “cocaine-chip” cookies as chocolate chip cookies at Newark; another stuffed some of the white powder into goat meat chunks and tried to bring it into New York; and still another tried to hide his drugs in bags of custard mix and slide through undetected.
Then there was the woman who tried to bring a human skull — complete with hair, teeth and skin — through airport customs in Miami; the man who tried to smuggle a severed seal’s head to Boston; and even a woman trying to go to Melbourne wearing a specially designed apron filled with 51 tropical fish.
• Some of our employees have sticky fingers
A 2013 report from the Government Accountability Office, a federal watchdog agency, found a 26 per cent increase in misconduct among TSA employees from fiscal year 2010 through 2012 — and a significant portion of that misconduct involved theft.
The report documented 56 cases of TSA staff stealing during that time, and that, in turn, is part of a long-term problem. The TSA acknowledges that between May 1, 2003, and September 2012, a total of 381 agents were terminated for theft. In 2012, two ex-TSA agents pleaded guilty to stealing $51,000 from a passenger’s bag. A year before that, a TSA employee pleaded guilty to charges that he regularly stole cash (totalling between $12,000 and $38,000) from flyers while screening their bags. A number of TSA agents have been caught stealing iPads, and passengers have recently accused agents of stealing everything from cash to jewellery — sometimes right in plain sight as the belongings were going through screening machines.
The TSA notes that it has a “zero tolerance” policy on theft and says the number of its employees fired for theft represents less than ½ of 1 per cent of the people employed by the agency over the period in question. Still, the GAO concluded that the “TSA could strengthen monitoring of allegations of employee misconduct.”
• Drugs aren’t our problem
If you’re worried about illegal drugs coming into your town on a plane, don’t look to the TSA to stop that influx. “TSA security officers do not search for marijuana or other drugs,” the agency explains on its website.
The reason lies in TSA’s mission: “TSA’s screening procedures, which are governed by federal law, are focused on security and are designed to detect potential threats to aviation and passengers,” Feinstein notes.
If an officer happens upon what looks like drugs in someone’s bag, “TSA refers the matter to law enforcement,” Feinstein notes. But experts say that given their other priorities, TSA officers may sometimes look the other way even when they suspect drugs are present. (There have been reports of TSA officers leaving warning notes for passengers carrying marijuana, rather than turning them in, even though the officers could face punishment for taking that approach.)
It’s ultimately up to law enforcement to determine whether to initiate a criminal investigation for someone suspected of smuggling drugs through an airport, says Feinstein.
• Some airport staff get a free pass on screening
Many passengers know the experience of languishing in a screening line while airport staff breeze through unchecked. Indeed, many airport workers — including some baggage handlers, mechanics and others with access to secure areas and planes — aren’t required to routinely go through metal detectors or body scanners.
The TSA says it pre-screens some of these employees before they’re hired, and vets many of them afterwards with random checks. But critics say the system leaves serious vulnerabilities.
In December 2014, for example, a ring of five men, including an airline baggage handler, were arrested on suspicion of smuggling guns through airports in Atlanta and New York City. In January, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) demanded that the TSA screen all airport and airline workers for weapons when they report to work each day. In response, the Department of Homeland Security says it has requested “an expedient and comprehensive review of the issues related to the security of the sterile areas at airports nationwide in order to identify all viable means for the Department to address any potential vulnerability.”
• We make you play by some strange do-not-pack rules
The list of items you can and can’t bring on an aeroplane to America — and the items that might require additional screening — baffles many consumers. When it comes to sharp objects, some are OK and some aren’t, even though all of them could hurt other passengers: You can’t bring scissors in your carry-on, but knitting needles are OK, and you can’t bring an ice pick but ice skates are OK.
Booze is another confusing area: While bottles of Captain Morgan Spiced Rum and Grey Goose are fine to bring in your checked baggage (up to five litres), Bacardi 151 and John Crow Batty Rum are big no-nos (This is thanks to their high alcohol content — beverages with more than 70 per cent alcohol content can’t go in checked bags because they’re flammable). And most chemical animal repellents are fine in checked luggage, with the exception of almost all bear repellents.
And just in case you were wondering: It’s fine to bring Grandma’s cremated ashes on board (as long as you’re OK with her going through an X-ray machine), but that pie you baked for Grandpa may require additional screening.
While these rules seem strange, the TSA does have its reasons for them — typically related to how much of a threat the items present to the safety of passengers and crew. And the TSA pointed MarketWatch to this “Can I Bring?” search query, which passengers can use to determine what they can and can’t bring through airport security.
• We’re underusing our best equipment
Most frequent travellers are familiar with AIT machines — the cylindrical, full-body screeners in which you stand with your hands above your head while a bar whirls around you.
They are among the “most capable technology.” But although the devices debuted in 2008 and are now in about 160 airports, only about 50 per cent of air passengers in 2013 passed through those machines or other advanced security technology. This sometimes happens when officials want to expedite the security lines, or when AIT machines aren’t available at the airport the passenger is flying from.
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