A former Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Agent confesses… that what you experience in airports is nothing but security theater. The TSA agent reveals how the body scanners don’t work:

Our instructor [on the Rapiscan Systems full body scanner] was a balding middle-aged man who shrugged his shoulders after everything he said, as though in apology. At the conclusion of our crash course, one of the officers in our class asked him to tell us, off the record, what he really thought about the machines.

“They’re shit,” he said, shrugging. He said we wouldn’t be able to distinguish plastic explosives from body fat and that guns were practically invisible if they were turned sideways in a pocket.

We quickly found out the trainer was not kidding: Officers discovered that the machines were good at detecting just about everything besides cleverly hidden explosives and guns. The only thing more absurd than how poorly the full-body scanners performed was the incredible amount of time the machines wasted for everyone.

And while the passengers are assuming the position in the scanners (hands above your head, feet spread apart), the TSA agents in the back room are ridiculing you.
It doesn’t matter to the TSA that the machines don’t work. The vast majority of passengers are so ignorant that they believe the TSA charade is making us safer. Anything in the name of safety, right?

One Comment

  1. Don 02/15/2014 at 12:15 am - Reply

    Remember, radiation-generating scanners and aggressive body groping are only a small price to pay for the illusion of security.

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