Interview With TSA Screener Reveals 'Fatal Flaws' 582
OverTheGeicoE writes "Jonathan Corbett, creator of the video showing that TSA's body scanners can't see metal objects on our sides, has a new video out. This time he's interviewing an experienced TSA screener identified only as 'Jennifer,' and her allegations point to 'fatal flaws' in TSA and its procedures. Worse, TSA's screeners are well aware of these flaws. According to Jennifer, body scanners frequently fail to detect objects on passengers, and this flaw is well known to the screeners on the job. People with visible items in their pockets can pass through scanners without detection, even when the items are simulated weapons or explosives. Jennifer also alleges that training for screeners is severely lacking. Screeners are directed to operate body scanners, even the X-ray scanners, without any training whatsoever. The manual of standard operating procedures often can't be found at the checkpoints, let alone read. Jennifer was so alarmed by what she experienced that she wrote her congressional representative to complain. She was ultimately fired as a result, effective yesterday."
Re:She's missing the point (Score:5, Informative)
TSA's real reasons for existence:
1) Get citizen accustomed to life without the fourth amendment.
2) Provide government union jobs to re-elect incumbents.
3) Preserve the culture of fear, again to re-elect incumbents.
4) Discourage would be rabble raisers form assembly; can't have more than just local Occupy protesters showing up wherever the G8 is being held.
Re:Firing in US (Score:4, Informative)
How come people in the US can get fired for reasons other than incompetence or stealing? Why can a person get fired simply by raising an issue? I never hear about this here in Europe. It's in fact very difficult to fire a person here if he is a good worker.
Don't know what part of Europe you are in, but in Spain it's quite easy. Not free, but unless the worker belong to specially protected groups (such as pregnant women) you can fire anyone you want.
And since the conservatives are in power, termination fees halved. It's one of their first things they did.
Re:Firing in US (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Firing in US (Score:5, Informative)
this is a good post. I am an american living/working in europe as well and went through trying to get somebody out of an EU position with cause. Even with a pretty good paper trail, we ended up having to pay him several months salary to go away or deal w/ unfair dismissal claims. terjeber put it well so I will only add my qualitative feeling.
In the US, i feel like the burden is on me to show my employer why i should receive a paycheck
in the EU, it feels like the burden is on my employer to show why I shouldn't receive a paycheck
it feels drastically different and alien to my US way of thinking. As terjeber points out, making it easy to fire someone makes it easier to hire someone and the 'creative destruction' is beneficial for an economy.
Re:Firing in US (Score:4, Informative)
France and Italy != "most of Europe"
Most European nations have decent laws around job safety. Firing employees is not usually a problem at all, unless:
- mass firings often require some form of "social plan" (i.e. help them a bit getting a new job)
- it's obviously abusive, as in this case
Also not entirely sure what you mean about innovation, development and other "important functions" not working well in Europe, as there are almost always European nations that perform better than the US around innovation, education, stability, credit ratings, GDP per capita, etc.
Re:Firing in US (Score:5, Informative)
That's not what *LIFE* is about... but it is what *BUSINESS* is about.
Theatre and Focus (Score:5, Informative)
It is all theatre.
The threat theatre cast by the politicos creates the market for the TSA theatre.
You are not likely to die by terrorist act. You are more likely to die by automobile accident, heart attack, stroke ......
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lcod.htm
* Heart disease: 599,413
* Cancer: 567,628
* Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 137,353
* Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 128,842
* Accidents (unintentional injuries): 118,021
* Alzheimer's disease: 79,003
* Diabetes: 68,705
* Influenza and Pneumonia: 53,692
* Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 48,935
* Intentional self-harm (suicide): 36,909
Official 911 death toll : 2,996 - and that does not happen every year.
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr60/nvsr60_04.pdf
The 15 leading causes of death in 2010 (Table B) were as follows:
1 Diseases of heart
2 Malignant neoplasms
3 Chronic lower respiratory diseases
4 Cerebrovascular diseases
5 Accidents (unintentional injuries)
6 Alzheimer’s disease
7 Diabetes mellitus
8 Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome and nephrosis
9 Influenza and pneumonia
10 Intentional self-harm (suicide)
11 Septicemia
12 Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis
13 Essential hypertension and hypertensive renal disease
14 Parkinson’s disease
Re:Firing in US (Score:5, Informative)
> The US has, by a very significant margin, the best health care system in the world
News for you: Nope.
http://www.oecd.org/document/11/0,3746,en_2649_37407_16502667_1_1_1_37407,00.html
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/12/58/49084319.pdf
http://www.rwjf.org/qualityequality/product.jsp?id=47508 (I like the part where they state "And while evidence base is incomplete and suffers from other limitations, it does not provide support for the oft-repeated claim that the “U.S. health care is the best in the world.” In fact, there is no hard evidence that identifies particular areas in which U.S. health care quality is truly exceptional."
Have a look at http://apps.who.int/ghodata/?theme=country and show me the "very significant margin".
>> "Europe is hardly in the forefront of pharmaceutical development"
Novartis etc. ?
Re:Firing in US (Score:5, Informative)
Everything you said was false. US is ranked 38th in the world in healthcare. The ER is not socialized medicine. You get a bill. Our expensive healthcare goes to the pockets of rich people, its not an efficient or an ethical system. The drug companies exploit the American consumer on drug prices, we don't subsidize anything. The for profit system makes sure we pay the most the market will bear. The socialized system negotiates prices with drug companies. Stop making shit up.