Posted on 12/20/2010 6:42:53 AM PST by FredJake
Listening to Homeland Security director Janet Napolitano and TSA administrator John Pistole, one gets the impression that the pat-downs and body scanners are just the thing to keep us safe in the air.
Not so fast - ABC News reported Thursday that a loaded gun made it through a security checkpoint in Houton, Texas last fall.
That's right - a loaded snub nose "baby" Glock pistol stuffed in a computer bag got all the way through security, even though the computer bag that held it got x-rayed. TSA agents at the checkpoint never noticed the pistol.
"It's just impossible to miss it, you know. I mean, this is not a small gun," Iranian-American businessman Farid Seif told ABC News. "How can you miss it? You cannot miss it."
Seif noticed the pistol still in the computer bag when he arrived at his hotel.
According to the report, incidents such as this are not all that uncommon.
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 federal agencies have conducted random tests to determine just what can and cannot get through airport security. ABC News reported:
According to one report, undercover TSA agents testing security at a Newark airport terminal on one day in 2006 found that TSA screeners failed to detect concealed bombs and guns 20 out of 22 times. A 2007 government audit leaked to USA Today revealed that undercover agents were successful slipping simulated explosives and bomb parts through Los Angeles's LAX airport in 50 out of 70 attempts, and at Chicago's O'Hare airport agents made 75 attempts and succeeded in getting through undetected 45 times.
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
“...TSA administrator John Pistole..”
How did someone with a name like that get a job with TSA?
Open carry?
Try for a repeal, but I'll fight you over it.
If it’s really impossible to miss, maybe it really wasn’t there in the first place? No one saw it except him, and that was after he got to his room and opened his bag. Sounds fishy to me.
I want to know how the TSA found out he had a gun.
If I were to do this accidentally I’m not telling anyone. I’m quite certain they’d charge me with something because of their embarrassment.
It’s no fun for them to “pat down” a computer case...........
Former deputy director of the FBI.
And libtards have no sense of irony.
I want to know how the TSA found out he had a gun.
Clearly, this blockhead decided to blab this to ABC News and who ever else would listen (like his buddies back at the Mosque). Why he couldn't just shut-up and enjoy the satisfaction of enjoying his 2nd Amendment right at his destination despite the blatantly unconstitutional acts of the Fe'ral government is beyond me.
It would not surprise me in the least if he got charged with a felony carrying the gun into a restricted area as a reward for voluntarily surrendering his 5th Amendment right to the embarrassment of the idiots who make up TSA.
Maybe he’s one of those people that doesn’t like TSA, and he just made it all up? I would think if he were to get prosecuted for this, all he would have to do is say he made it up, then he wouldn’t get in trouble. No one saw him open his suitcase from what I read.
The long term goal for the TSA is to provide yet another union money stream into the DNC.
If they happen to stumble onto something illegal, well, bonus.
But, when they fail, that failure will be the excuse to enact more draconian hoops for people to jump through.
I tend to lean toward that scenario.
If its really impossible to miss,
Apparently it is possible to miss. There have been numerable studies on this phenomena and it boils down to the way the brain is wired. We see what we are conditioned to see, and block out the noise. Most TSA agents behind the x-ray scanner screen will never see a prohibited item pass through despite the thousands of hours watching hundreds of thousands pieces of luggage pass through, so when it does appear for that unlucky agent, he/she is unlikely to register seeing it.
“...why is this guy allowed to carry a gun anywhere near an airport in the first place?”
-
Pardon me?
Shirley, you jest?
Why do you say most TSA agents will never see a prohibited item?
I fly a lot, and it’s quite common to see people taken aside and have their bags opened.
Because of profiling. please note this guy is Iranian and probably Muslim. Therefor does not fit the profile of groups that need to be ‘super’screened. You know, Amish, Grandmothers, Vets in wheel chairs, Armed troops, Super models and the like.
May be a round in the pipe but the mag looks empty.
I am reminded of the late Judge Lawrence F. Feloney, of the East Cambridge District Court.
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