Ranting to /dev/null

The TSA rules aren't the problem

Well, not totally anyways. Read this story and you're likely to believe that TSA is a complete and utter waste of resources. That may be the case, but the problem is less the rules that the TSA promulgates and more the people they hire to interpret and enforce those rules.

These positions require almost nothing in the way of education, so surprise surprise, the people who fill them have almost nothing in the way of education. There isn't a list of educational qualifications, but there is a lengthy list of disqualifying criminal offenses. Why? Because the people who are likely to apply are likely to have problems with that. Salaries start at $24k/year, full-time. Many positions are part time. Many of the people who pass through airport security--and many who read this blog--probably make more in a month than the screeners do in a year. The highest level supervisor makes less than $60, and there can't be more than one of those per airport. Basically, you're looking at the kind of marginally employable people who occupy a significant percentage of the lower end of the federal payroll. They suck just as much at the local DC police department as they do at the airport, believe you me. And because they're federal employees, they're just about impossible to fire, regardless of their competence.

Any wonder why they're completely incapable of any flexible thinking? Why they go completely buck wild when given a badge and the ability to make the affluent people who frequent airports jump? This is what happens when you put uneducated people on the border of poverty in positions of authority from which they cannot easily be removed.