Oops?
While most of Washington is appearing on the TV to warn that not letting American agencies collect vast quantities of data about everyday Americans is going to doom us all, it turns out that some of our more concrete protections against terrorism
need a bit of work.
An internal investigation of the Transportation Security Administration revealed security failures at dozens of the nation’s busiest airports, where undercover investigators were able to smuggle mock explosives or banned weapons through checkpoints in 95 percent of trials, ABC News has learned. [...]
According to officials briefed on the results of a recent Homeland Security Inspector General’s report, TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints.
Oh, good. Glad to know all the shoe untying and dumping of liquids has been such a boon to our national security. Hooray.
The TSA's acting administrator is being reassigned in the wake of the investigation, and Homeland Security chief Jeh Johnson has ordered more training for TSA officers. Again.
Note that the TSA has been confiscating record numbers of weapons from airplane-boarding Americans of late. It puts an entirely different spin on things to hear that for every gun confiscated in an airport security checkpoint, nineteen other weapons are getting on the plane with you.