Pilots Criticize "Idiot" TSA Workers [rdbrewer]

Pilots speak their minds in online forums.

When pilots do talk, the comments tend to be circumspect—with the notable exception of Michael Roberts, the ExpressJet pilot who refused to go through a full-body scanner in Memphis.

There is, however, a place to get an unfiltered view from the cockpit. That’s at the online discussion boards where pilots hang out and air their views, safely anonymous behind electronic nicknames. At sites like AirlinePilotForums.com and PPRUNE.org, heated discussions about the screenings rage on.

Some of the things they have revealed online: A few pilots feel TSA screenings are necessary. They generally agree that profiling should be used. Drug mules have long known about security gaps that scanning and pat-downs could not detect (body cavities). And TSA workers are idiots:

If there is one theme that emerges clearly time and again in pilots’ online discussions, it’s disdain for the TSA checkpoint worker. They are “the government equivalent of being a Wendy's burger flipper,” according to one typical comment from AirlinePilotForums.com. “Barney Fife is more suited for their job,” writes another. Anecdotes frequently portray TSA workers as mindlessly hewing to procedures at the expense of exercising the judgment needed to sniff out the evildoers.

Many other concerns of pilots are addressed in the article. For example, the TSA is apparently doing nothing about threats posed by airport workers who have access to planes beyond security checkpoints. The fact that they're not patting-down baggage handlers or emptying and X-raying the contents of food delivery trucks outside the view of the traveling public is further proof current security measures are merely Security Theater.

posted by Open Blogger at 12:00 PM

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