Cozumel Airport Security WARNING

[Mossman]

Back in the good old USA, I took issue with TSA frisking down this poor nun who was on our returning flight through IAH. My friends were petrified that I would somehow be detained in TX for taking the pictures. No such luck. I was hoping to stay for some BBQ brisket.

Why take issue? She's a religious fundamentalist. Would you take issue if she were an imam instead?

My nephew stood in the giant immigration hall in Dallas I think under the giant sign that says you will be drawn and quartered for taking pictures and..... wait for it..... took a picture. There was no one around but the one agent watching him taking the picture. He gave him a dirty look and he deleted it.

I noticed the absence of the no cellphone signs this last time through Houston immigration. Formerly, I would observe the many posted signs and also observe the many people talking on their phones with no enforcement, so I guess they just gave up.

 

[azscubadude]

I think his point is that it was a rogue airport employee who was ripping people off, not the government.

I didn't accuse "all" the others of anything other than what they do do.. confiscate shampoo and nail clippers.

There was no need to try and flame me with his remarks. They didn't pertain to anything I had written or anything in the thread. Both sentences were just snide remarks I didn't appreciate.

 

[ggunn]

I didn't accuse "all" the others of anything other than what they do do.. confiscate shampoo and nail clippers.

But there is no connection between the TSA security measures (whether you approve of them or not) and someone who is stealing items from luggage. Your remarks implied to me that there was.

There was no need to try and flame me with his remarks. They didn't pertain to anything I had written or anything in the thread. Both sentences were just snide remarks I didn't appreciate.

Welcome to the internet.

 

[ameneon]

A scuba tool should not be able to make it through any airport security.

Right after the security control you walk past tax free shops etc which are begging you to buy big glass bottles of whatever which takes one second to convert into a big knife.

 

[Mossman]

Right after the security control you walk past tax free shops etc which are begging you to buy big glass bottles of whatever which takes one second to convert into a big knife.

Possibly. However, the duty free items aren't given to you until you board the plane. You're not permitted to drink alcohol that wasn't served to you by a flight attendant. Hopefully an attentive flight attendant would notice in time when you took out your bottle and tried to smash it. Then you have to find something to smash it on. Most airplane cabin surfaces are soft plastic or padded fabric or carpeted floor/bulkhead, in case passengers smash their heads against something. Trying to smash a heavy liquor bottle against the armrest would be futile. You could open an overhead bin and try to smash it against the ridge of the open door, but that might not even work. Best option would be a lavatory which has metal sinks and faucet that might work, or do it in the galley area with lots of metal surfaces, but that would be tough without a flight attendant noticing. Plus, if it doesn't shatter right, you're left with a big mess, no usable shards, and a lot of explaining to do when they take you in custody.

Also, it probably takes more than that to hijack a plane nowadays. The only reason why terrorists were able to use box-cutters to take over a plane is because the passengers and crew presumably thought it would be a typical hijacking: "take me to Cuba!". Cooperate, and you merely have a schedule deviation. No one gets hurt.

Today, it's a different world. The second you try to break that bottle or light your shoe on fire, other passengers will be fearing their impending death if you're successful in taking over the plane, because they know you're going to fly it into a building. That's a lot more motivation for someone to stop you, even if an armed air marshall (or other carrying LEO) isn't aboard the flight.

 

[azscubadude]

But there is no connection between the TSA security measures (whether you approve of them or not) and someone who is stealing items from luggage. Your remarks implied to me that there was.

The guy doing all the stealing $50,000.00 worth (this time) of passengers valuable equipment was a TSA inspector on the checked baggage line. That is the connection. It has nothing to do with upstairs, downstairs.. he was hired, screened, approved and working on the job for the TSA while he was doing this. The TSA didn't catch him (or follow up on all the complaints from the people that had the equipment stollen) and say.. "gee, something is wrong here", it was someone else that by chance saw him stuffing an iPad down his pants that turned him in.

Read on...

Houston, you’ve got a problem. Every airport does, and it goes by a familiar name: TSA theft.

In the case of Houston, the problem was Transportation and Security Administration agent Karla Renee Morgan, who decided to augment her salary by helping herself to the contents of passengers’ luggage as it passed through her security checkpoint.

In 2009, a TSA screener at Newark Liberty International Airport by the name of Pythias Brown was sentenced to three years in federal prison on multiple counts of grand larceny. Known to eBay buyers as “Alirla,” Brown had run the largest one-man theft ring in the short history of the Transportation Security Administration, netting an estimated $400,000 via the resale of stolen high-priced electronics.

And even Brown represents just the tip of the iceberg. According to TSA records, press reports, and court documents, Brown is just one of some 500 TSA officers who have been fired or suspended for stealing from passenger luggage since the agency’s creation in November of 2001. The airports servicing New York City—John F. Kennedy, LaGuardia, and Newark Liberty—harbor the most flagrant offenders, but virtually no city in the nation is safe from the TSA’s sticky fingers.

In 2009, a half dozen TSA agents at Miami International Airport were charged with grand theft after boosting an iPod, bottles of perfume, cameras, a GPS system, a Coach purse, and a Hewlett Packard Mini Notebook from passengers’ luggage. Travelers passing through the airport’s checkpoints reported as many as 1,500 items stolen, the majority of which were never recovered.

In May of this year alone, TSA agents were arrested on the suspicion of theft at airports in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Chicago

So what’s the TSA’s response? That the ratio of crooks to non-crooks within the agency is minuscule..

...(would it matter to you if your iPad got stolen if the number of thieves were minuscule)..and, how about the supervisors watching over the peon's ...

The man in question, Michael Arato, had previously pleaded guilty to charges of theft by a government officer. ..(then why was he working for the TSA ??)..

While on the job at an airport security checkpoint between September 2009 and October 2010, Arato looked the other way as a subordinate helped himself to between $10,000 and $30,000 in cash from travelers. In exchange for his cooperation, Arato received a portion of the stolen loot.

Video surveillance captured Arato taking approximately $3,100 in bribes from the subordinate, Al Raimi, who himself pleaded guilty in February. Raimi’s sentencing is scheduled for September.

In addition, Arato confessed to having regularly stolen directly from passengers traveling through his checkpoint.

and the list goes on and on, I could fill up 5 thread pages with just the headlines.

I'm just sayin...

 

[redacted]

But there is no connection between the TSA security measures (whether you approve of them or not) and someone who is stealing items from luggage. Your remarks implied to me that there was.

Are you saying that just because there is one bad apple in the bushel that all the apples should not be throw in the garbage????

I suspect there are some folks who are just not going to buy into that idea. Especially if they would just like to condemn all apples.

 

[azscubadude]

Are you saying that just because there is one bad apple in the bushel that all the apples should not be throw in the garbage????

Emmmmm.... When it comes to the TSA.. YES !!!

 

[Leejnd]

Are you saying that just because there is one bad apple in the bushel that all the apples should not be throw in the garbage????

I suspect there are some folks who are just not going to buy into that idea. Especially if they would just like to condemn all apples.

Okay, it's my last day in Cozumel and I don't have the time to prepare a post on this topic the way I'd really like to...but I feel compelled to point out a few truths that may give some food for thought to the "anything-for-security" types:

1. The TSA hasn't caught ONE SINGLE TERRORIST, or stopped ONE SINGLE TERRORIST ACT. Not one. Believe me, we'd know if they had - they crow loudly every time they find a penknife in a dude's shoe, even though he had no intention of using it to bring down a plane. If they found a weapon on a guy with actual ties to terrorist organizations, they'd shout it from the rooftops.

2. The only two attempted acts of terrorism on our air transportation system since 9/11 weren't even stopped by TSA - they were stopped by PASSENGERS. There are two reasons why nobody can hijack an airplane with a sharp object any more: reinforced cockpit doors, and aware passengers. It simply can't happen the way it happened on 9/11 again - no matter how many sharp implements slip past TSA agents.

3. The TSA spends 6 BILLION dollars a year...thats 'BILLION' with a B, folks. And how many terrorists have they caught or stopped? Not one. In fact they fail their own tests more often then they pass, allowing guns, knives and fake explosives past their checkpoints on a regular basis.

4. They are not making us safer. It's all just a theatrical show to make us THINK we're safer. If a terrorist really wanted to take down a plane, he could easily stuff enough explosives up his anus to do so. So what's next - cavity checks? Is that the point when you will say "enough already"??

5. Terrorist ARE NOT TARGETING OUR AIR TRANSPORTATION in the US. How do we know that? Think about it - if a terrorist wanted to make a statement (which is the reason they do this), all he'd have to do is walk up to a crowded TSA checkpoint and blow hisself to smithereens. He'd obliterate several hundred infidels and get his 72 virgins, and he wouldn't even have to have his junk touched.

6. Ask yourself this: if terrorists are so hellbent on blowing us up, why are they not targeting buses, subways, nightclubs? The answer is - because our REAL intelligence agencies are doing their job, discovering cells and terrorist activities quietly the way they are supposed to. The TSA is NOT intelligence. They are NOT law enforcement. You don't even need a highschool diploma to become a TSA agent. They advertise on pizza boxes for cripes sake! The TSA is the biggest make-work program in the US since the Great Depression. BILLIONS of dollars spent on Wallmart rejects groping grannies and pawing babies.

7. What the TSA is doing to many of us is sexual assault. I'm sorry, but in any other setting, if a stranger jammed her thumb up my vagina, rammed her hand on my labia and pressed on my pubis the way the TSA agent did in LA on my way here to Cozumel, I could have her arrested for sexual assault. Yet we allow them to do this to us...why? Most of these TSA agents have never held a job where they had power over anyone - and now we hire them off the street with little background checks (several have turned out to be pedophiles or sex offenders, and dozens have criminal records) and we let them touch us in places that nobody but our spouses should be allowed to.

I'm sorry but anybody who is okay with this simply hasn't thought it through.

 

[azscubadude]

Okay, it's my last day in Cozumel and I don't have the time to prepare a post on this topic the way I'd really like to...but I feel compelled to point out a few truths that may give some food for thought to the "anything-for-security" types:

1. The TSA hasn't caught ONE SINGLE TERRORIST, or stopped ONE SINGLE TERRORIST ACT. Not one. Believe me, we'd know if they had - they crow loudly every time they find a penknife in a dude's shoe, even though he had no intention of using it to bring down a plane. If they found a weapon on a guy with actual ties to terrorist organizations, they'd shout it from the rooftops.

2. The only two attempted acts of terrorism on our air transportation system since 9/11 weren't even stopped by TSA - they were stopped by PASSENGERS. There are two reasons why nobody can hijack an airplane with a sharp object any more: reinforced cockpit doors, and aware passengers. It simply can't happen the way it happened on 9/11 again - no matter how many sharp implements slip past TSA agents.

3. The TSA spends 6 BILLION dollars a year...thats 'BILLION' with a B, folks. And how many terrorists have they caught or stopped? Not one. In fact they fail their own tests more often then they pass, allowing guns, knives and fake explosives past their checkpoints on a regular basis.

4. They are not making us safer. It's all just a theatrical show to make us THINK we're safer. If a terrorist really wanted to take down a plane, he could easily stuff enough explosives up his anus to do so. So what's next - cavity checks? Is that the point when you will say "enough already"??

5. Terrorist ARE NOT TARGETING OUR AIR TRANSPORTATION in the US. How do we know that? Think about it - if a terrorist wanted to make a statement (which is the reason they do this), all he'd have to do is walk up to a crowded TSA checkpoint and blow hisself to smithereens. He'd obliterate several hundred infidels and get his 72 virgins, and he wouldn't even have to have his junk touched.

6. Ask yourself this: if terrorists are so hellbent on blowing us up, why are they not targeting buses, subways, nightclubs? The answer is - because our REAL intelligence agencies are doing their job, discovering cells and terrorist activities quietly the way they are supposed to. The TSA is NOT intelligence. They are NOT law enforcement. You don't even need a highschool diploma to become a TSA agent. They advertise on pizza boxes for cripes sake! The TSA is the biggest make-work program in the US since the Great Depression. BILLIONS of dollars spent on Wallmart rejects groping grannies and pawing babies.

7. What the TSA is doing to many of us is sexual assault. I'm sorry, but in any other setting, if a stranger jammed her thumb up my vagina, rammed her hand on my labia and pressed on my pubis the way the TSA agent did in LA on my way here to Cozumel, I could have her arrested for sexual assault. Yet we allow them to do this to us...why? Most of these TSA agents have never held a job where they had power over anyone - and now we hire them off the street with little background checks (several have turned out to be pedophiles or sex offenders, and dozens have criminal records) and we let them touch us in places that nobody but our spouses should be allowed to.

I'm sorry but anybody who is okay with this simply hasn't thought it through.

Amen !!!