TSA - Morons Embarrassing Soldiers Now

Started at SayUncle, you can follow the links.

Appears the TSA has an issue with honor guards that have come back off the tarmack. Jerks.

Officials at Sea-Tac Airport are scrambling to find out why it happened.

Congressman Norm Dicks is working to see that it never happens again.

My commentary on how TSA screeners handled two Fort Lewis soldiers escorting the body of a combat colleague home for burial has outraged a lot of people.

Brief recap: Escorted to the tarmac where an honor guard waited, the soldiers stood at attention as the casket was placed on the plane.

A uniformed police officer then accompanied them to the screening area where their combat medals and ribbons helped set off the metal detectors.

They showed their military ID.

The police officer showed his ID.

Told to put down the American flag they were carrying, a TSA screener then had the soldiers strip to their tee shirts, pants and socks in full view of everyone in line.

More than anything else, it was that public spectacle and the soldier's humiliation that I find most disturbing, most disrespectful and most offensive.

It was the complete absence of any common sense from TSA, and the disregard shown to those men, that provoked such strong reactions.

Ok, Why are you screening people that you have already let in unscreened? If you're that clueless about security then you might as well let them leave. Anything dangerous they may have brought in isn't on them any longer, morons.

This doesn't even come down to the problems with the War on the Unexpected that Schneier writes about.

Watch how it happens. Someone sees something, so he says something. The person he says it to -- a policeman, a security guard, a flight attendant -- now faces a choice: ignore or escalate. Even though he may believe that it's a false alarm, it's not in his best interests to dismiss the threat. If he's wrong, it'll cost him his career. But if he escalates, he'll be praised for "doing his job" and the cost will be borne by others. So he escalates. And the person he escalates to also escalates, in a series of CYA decisions. And before we're done, innocent people have been arrested, airports have been evacuated, and hundreds of police hours have been wasted.

It is similar though. Instead of engaging their brains, they just fell into lock step with procedure. That is the real indicator of when a government shouldn't be involved. If you think, you're probably wrong.