Anyone who follows the TSA blog, run by “Bob”, will know that from time to time the agency attempts to offset the ballooning negative public opinion directed towards it, and the openly criminal behaviour of its employees, by bragging about “dangerous” items that it has discovered and confiscated from the luggage and persons of those traveling through the nation’s airports.
Another of these pathetic bragging blogs appeared this weekend, listing the discovery of a can of chicken soup as a success story.
You read correctly, billions in taxpayer dollars and unfettered power handed down to illiterate minimum wage thugs is resulting in the prevention of Americans from smuggling tasty broth aboard airplanes.
Among the list of small knives, knuckle dusters and various other items cited by the TSA was the following post:
Chicken Soup for Your Pants? – Officers found a can of soup in a Las Vegas passenger’s carry-on bag. When told that it couldn’t go through because of the liquids rule (it was more than 3.4 ounces), the passenger said they would put the soup in their checked baggage. But when the passenger returned to the checkpoint, officers saw that the passenger had tried to hide the soup in their pants. No soup for them.
The same post also notes that when someone jokingly told a TSA employee searching his bag “Those are my explosives”, it delayed other passengers trying to get to their flights.
The post prompted a tirade of comments from angry Americans who are fed up to the back teeth with the TSA’s security theater antics:
“way to go, you stopped someone from taking soup on a plane…..the skys are safe again.”
“omg thanks SO MUCH for keeping the world safe from chicken soup!!!! WHEW! Billions of tax dollars well spent.”
“I love how the TSA tries to inject these descriptions with pithy humor, only to follow up with the fact that under no circumstances should travelers try to be humorous. It’s serious business or it isn’t… pick one.”
“All of these items appear to be discoverable using the technology available on 9/10/01. Why exactly are we spending billions on your agency again?”
“How again is chicken soup dangerous to an airplane?”
“Would any of these items actually have been useful to terrorists/malcontents/nincompoops? Americans learned ON Sept 11 to fight back. We don’t need your baby-sitting over ineffectual toys.”
“So what did the extra 1 billion dollars you spent on the naked scanners get us then? All of these could be found with metal detectors.”
“And you really count a can of soup, a non-functional decorative grenade and a one inch knife as wins? Really?”
“Congratulations on removing these items from non-terorists, preventing no terrorist attacks, bombings or other dangers to passengers. Especially with that soup. My my. Also, congratulations on spending so much money to do it! I wish I could get paid so much while delivering so very little. Nice work, if you can get it.”
“I’m glad we’re spending billions to keep airplanes soup-free.”
And so on.
The post encapsulates in just a few words the point made last week by former TSA chair Kip Hawley, who slammed the agency saying “it is a national embarrassment that our airport security system remains so hopelessly bureaucratic and disconnected from the people whom it is meant to protect.”
In a piece penned for the Wall Street Journal, Hawley said the agency requires a complete overhaul, and that it has spent years standing behind a “wrongheaded approach to risk.”
Hawley described airport travel as “an unending nightmare” and said that airport security had been reduced to an ‘Easter-egg hunt’ as officers look out for low-risk prohibited items, such as lighters, rather than focusing on disrupting terror plots.
“It is time to end the TSA’s use of well-trained security officers as kindergarten teachers to millions of passengers a day” Hawley stated.
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