Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

nbcmiami.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 97 posts

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#81

Post by tonymet »

a_bonobo wrote: post #70
tonymet wrote: post #63

Low status, meager pay, moderate authority, high opportunity. Almost a guarantee that the theft rate is very high. Public awareness of this theft would be very damaging so there’s also a great pressure to cover it up. I’m guessing 75% of actual theft is marked as a “legitimate banned item”. I’ve had TSA agents claim high value items were not allowed so they could be stolen ( the encounter was outside the main securit…

>Low status, meager pay, moderate authority, high opportunity. But isn't that the same for other countries' airport security workers too?

Who says they aren’t stealing?

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#82

Post by tonymet »

a_bonobo wrote: post #70
tonymet wrote: post #63

Low status, meager pay, moderate authority, high opportunity. Almost a guarantee that the theft rate is very high. Public awareness of this theft would be very damaging so there’s also a great pressure to cover it up. I’m guessing 75% of actual theft is marked as a “legitimate banned item”. I’ve had TSA agents claim high value items were not allowed so they could be stolen ( the encounter was outside the main securit…

>Low status, meager pay, moderate authority, high opportunity. But isn't that the same for other countries' airport security workers too?

In poorer countries like Vietnam it’s expected that you will have to bribe airport security & customs

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#83

Post by tonymet »

Trencin wrote: post #71
tonymet wrote: post #63

Low status, meager pay, moderate authority, high opportunity. Almost a guarantee that the theft rate is very high. Public awareness of this theft would be very damaging so there’s also a great pressure to cover it up. I’m guessing 75% of actual theft is marked as a “legitimate banned item”. I’ve had TSA agents claim high value items were not allowed so they could be stolen ( the encounter was outside the main securit…

I don't think it is fair to tarnish the reputation of all airport professionals across the world like that.

We’re just talking about a single role at the airport . And there’s crime in this world whether you want to discuss it or not.

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#84

Post by skeaker »

Filligree wrote: post #53
c0nducktr wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No we don't, and we never did. We prevented future 9/11 style attacks by locking the cabin doors

And enabled pilot suicides. I think what's really preventing future 9/11 attacks is the attitude of the passengers.

I've been into blogs on aviation accidents recently and can confidently say that it's both the attitudes of passengers post-9/11 and locking the cabin by default that has prevented most hijacking attempts. Pilot suicides are a threat, yes, but they are much much much rarer than attempted hijackings, so they're less of a risk than the alternative (which is leaving the cabin unlocked for anyone to just waltz into and beat the captain up: https://admiralcloudberg.medium.com/the-dead-mans-gambit-the...).

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#85

Post by hedora »

justinclift wrote: post #46
hedora wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to the way surface tension works, many fewer than 1 in 1000 water molecules are wet. There’s a kids science experiment where you coat your hand in the right powder, dip it in water, and it comes out dry. I can’t find a link to it though.

Errr, what's the definition of "wet" that you are using? Isn't the common definition of "wet" that it has water on it? So, by that definition... 100% of water molecules would be "wet".

The standard definition of wetting doesn't mention water. (For one thing, other liquids can make stuff wet.)

The first few paragraphs on wikipedia are a pretty good summary, and the article also includes a picture of a water bead failing to wet a surface:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#86

Post by stonogo »

dataflow wrote: post #24
stonogo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes.

Any links or anything? I don't recall hearing this any time in recent memory.

https://www.travelstatsman.com/03082020/the-great-tsa-robber...

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge...

https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/recent-tsa-arrest-a...

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/beware-your-gadgets-at-risk-of-...

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#87

Post by dataflow »

stonogo wrote: post #86
dataflow wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any links or anything? I don't recall hearing this any time in recent memory.

https://www.travelstatsman.com/03082020/the-great-tsa-robber... https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%205-y&ge... https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/recent-tsa-arrest-a... https://www.cbsnews.com/news/beware-your-gadgets-at-risk-of-...

None of those is the case of passengers' carry-ons being robbed as they go through security, AFAICT. They're stuff like lost-and-found wallets being stolen. And what you're posting is from several years ago (mostly from a decade ago). If anything you're making it clear the type of incident we were talking about doesn't seem to be common nowadays.

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#89

Post by alphabettsy »

olalonde wrote: post #57
alphabettsy wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does this mean?

It seems pretty straightforward. The TSA doesn't focus on competence when hiring, resulting in a less competent workforce. They have an entire department dedicated to prioritizing characteristics unrelated to competence, such as skin color, sex, etc.: https://www.tsa.gov/civil-rights-diversity-and-inclusion . This is not the case of most countries and in fact, it's illegal in many places to do so.

Tbh, I knew what he likely meant. Just prefer people say what they mean.

The link you’ve shared doesn’t support the assertion you’ve made.

Re: TSA officers accused of stealing from passengers

#90

Post by justinclift »

hedora wrote: post #85
justinclift wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errr, what's the definition of "wet" that you are using? Isn't the common definition of "wet" that it has water on it? So, by that definition... 100% of water molecules would be "wet".

The standard definition of wetting doesn't mention water. (For one thing, other liquids can make stuff wet.) The first few paragraphs on wikipedia are a pretty good summary, and the article also includes a picture of a water bead failing to wet a surface: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wetting

From that:

    Wetting is the ability of a liquid to maintain contact with a solid surface ...
There's no solid surface for our purposes here, so that doesn't really seem to apply all that well?
Post reply on HN