Posted on 01/11/2005 7:17:31 PM PST by MissouriConservative
Police released new surveillance video of a Spokane TSA Screener convicted of stealing drugs out of passenger's luggage. Screener Wendy Swason's co-workers turned her in for swiping pain killers out of the bags she was supposed to be searching for explosives.
A hidden camera caught her in the act of stealing and even swallowing a passenger's pills.
Now the airport is bringing in explosive detection machines that search for compounds to power bombs, which mean fewer bags will have to be opened by screeners.
Spokane International Airport Spokesman Todd Woodard says, "it's the same technology you see in places like New York, Dallas, Miami, and some of the largest airports in the country and we think that using that technology will provide a safer environment for our travelers as well as providing a much more efficient system."
The airport plans to have five of the detection systems up and running by the busy Easter travel season.
Hasn't ANYONE heard if a Citizen's arrest???!!!
I worked, very briefly, for a company in Kansas City that was contracted to work KCI for the TSA. Some of the people that trained with me, I kept wondering how they got the jobs to begin with. Turns out, most of them were previous screeners, you know, the ones the government said couldn't handle the job?
Not too long after being on the job, most of them went back to the old ways of doing things....like they were not supposed to do. Airport screening is a joke and I believe the skys are about as safe now as they were on 9-11-2001.
I learned this during Christmas Vacation Travel Hell:
If your boarding pass has a "SSSS" code on it (at least with United Airlines), you've been "randomly Selected" for more intense TSA scrutiny.
-PJ
My last trip to Hong Kong ended up with ALL the meds I had packed being pilfered somewhere. Bottle of Aspirin, various packets of ZEE medical stuff(lozenges, alleve, you name it) and my emergency bottle of 10 Bactrim which is enough to stave of most infections till I get stateside. I got sorta sick with a sore throat and I ended up having to buy 25MG aspirin from a local chemist. Yeah, 25MG, in other words, 14 of the damn things per 1 normal aspirin. They were about 1/4 the size of a piece of chicklet gum each. Real annoying. I was afraid I might sprout an extra limb taking that Chinese garbage.
It is a hassle of the worst kind. As I was leaving, they were implementing the extra screening for certain passengers. Most of the criteria used was people flying one way, last minute purchase, and paid with cash. Ya wanna know who we screened the most under that criteria?
US ARMED FORCES PERSONNEL. That is what finally made me quit. Screening the very men and women fighting the war on terror were being treated worse than terrorists. We were not allowed to screen based on nationality, oh no, but we could hassle fighting men and women of our country.
Made me so sick, I quit.
Put your meds in your carry on. Don't let 'em out of your sight.
That garbage? What are you talking about? Elephant tooth powder on an infected gum works like magic.
And when you have a toothache, why wait two days in pain, doped up and praying the antibiotics will finally start working. Toothaches are gone - literally - as soon as you walk out of the dentist office (same in Australia). Not sure why the U.S. dentists do not use the same thing.
Except for aspirin (the best medicine), I will take Chinese medicine for most common ailments.
Oh that's nice. I'll have to mention this to my daughter's fiancee's mom. She's out for a visit and has a lot of medication. I wonder if she can carry it with her?
Yes, I learned. I've been to Asia quite a bit and never had an issue. I figure this stuff was looted at JFK since in HK we got our luggage coming out about the time we walked up to the claim area, being business class your luggage goes out first. Never again will I pack that stuff in my check baggage.
Also of note, my company hires seasonal people every year. These folks are slightly more competant than people on work release from Jail. They make minimum, they work like they make minimum and last august, we're standing at the terminal in Newark, and there goes TWO of them decked out in TSA uniforms. Sad.
That's not unique to United. It means you've either been randomly nabbed, or something about you or your itinerary has caught the attention of "the system"... such as flying one-way (which persists in being a red flag for some inane reason).
I guess this means the TSA employees don't have to pass a piss test like the door greeters at Walmart.
I wouldn't get too upset about it. ID cards and uniforms aren't impossible to fake, so no sense allowing someone through more easily because you think they're in the Armed Services.
I fondly refer to SSSS as the 'Super Special Strip Search' and 'Mark of the Beast.' Even the TSA employees laugh.
It's all airlines, not just United.
Absolutely--this has been the rule of thumb for as long as checked luggage has been getting lost, and flights have been delayed (forever).
Sea, you were right all along, Spokane's TSA employees are crooks!
We pay huge bucks for new machines that these twits won't be able to run effectively so they don't have to be tempted to steal and consume the passengers' drugs. What a country!
"Hasn't ANYONE heard if a Citizen's arrest???!!!"
Go ahead and try that at the screening table. They'll probably hold the plane for you and say thank-you, have a nice day.
/sarcasm.
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