It continues to blow my mind how ineffective the TSA is. Back in 2015, the TSA failed 67 of 70 tests that were conducted around the nation, which involved undercover officers smuggling banned items through security. That’s right, they have a ~95% failure rate. At least up until recently, the TSA has been consistent. In July a similar test was conducted, where 16 of 17 tests were failed, which is a similar failure rate.
I simply can’t wrap my head around how this is acceptable. Earlier in the year we saw the federal government imposing ridiculous (and dangerous) bans on electronics for flights from the Middle East to the US, while for flights departing the US, 95% of weapons go undetected.
Information is now coming out about the latest tests conducted by the Department of Homeland Security, in which undercover agents brought weapons through TSA checkpoint. This time around they’re not revealing exact numbers, but rather are only giving ballpark figures.
The DHS has said that the TSA failed over half of the time in the most recent tests. CBS News reports that the TSA failed over 70% of the time, while ABC News reports that they were informed that the failure rate was in the ballpark of 80%.
Hey, if the TSA only failed 70-80% of the time, that’s a significant improvement over failing over 95% of the time, no? The chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee is quoted as saying that he found the briefing disturbing. It’s disturbing to me that after years of even worse results, this comes as any sort of a surprise, and that nothing has been done about it up until now.
The committee is pushing for the implementation of new scanners that would create 3D images of bags, though widespread implementation of these would require the TSA to get an increased budget (or maybe allocate their budget differently, but I don’t have high hopes of that being done effectively).
I hate to say it, but to me it’s a miracle that nothing major has happened after security at US airports since 9/11…
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