Lisa Simeone's blog

Nadine Kay Hays is back in court. Hays is the woman who was arrested, handcuffed, strip-searched, and jailed after the TSA decided she was too uppity. Hays had been escorting her ill, 93-year-old mother through security at the Burbank airport in 2009 when the TSA decided to confiscate the applesauce and yogurt the elderly woman needed to eat during the journey. In trying to retrieve her stolen items, Hays was accused by the TSA of hitting an agent. Prosecutors later charged her with battery.

Ladies and gentlemen, now we have it. On December 20, 2012, Judge William Alsup ruled against the TSA.

Read the rest at TSA News.

A South Korean woman visiting this country and, of course, having no idea that she was required to undergo physical assault as a condition of getting on a plane, was arrested at Orlando International Airport.

Read the rest at TSA News.

A former New Jersey cop who, colleagues said, routinely disparaged blacks, Hispanics, Asian-Indians, and women found a hearty embrace by the TSA at his local airport.

Former Edison, NJ police sergeant Alex Glinsky retired last year on the taxpayers’ dime ($84,000 a year) after having spent a career abusing John and Jane Citizen. Then he looked for a second career — with the TSA.

A Merry Christmas to our readers, writers, and lovers of civil liberties everywhere! Thanks to you, TSA News is growing and gaining new readers daily. Thanks to you, more people are learning about the behavior of this criminal agency and how they can fight it. Thanks to you, we’re in a long line of crusaders in this country for social justice. So here’s hoping you have a happy day during this festive season, a season of light.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Matthew Mosk, Angela Hill, and Timothy Fleming write for ABC about gaping holes in airline “security,” thanks to the hamburger clerks working “security” at the airports, with test bombs and guns being missed by screeners 20 out of 22 times at Newark.

In a recent interview, TSA Administrator John Pistole acknowledged that his agency has been less than embraced by the public, and he again promised, as he has for two years now, to focus on improving passengers’ experience with TSA screening. In that interview Pistole said that it has become an adversarial relationship, “so what we’re trying to do through all these initiatives is change that paradigm and make this a partnership.”

Read the rest at TSA News.

While lawsuits continue to be filed against the TSA on a variety of fronts, generally the TSA has been successful in foiling any and all efforts to make it accountable or to even reveal its statistics. Also, generally, the TSA does this by sheer obfuscation and technicality. I must admit, that is a strategy. However, without the antagonist tiring and simply going away, that strategy usually eventually fails.

The TSA has once again been forced to respond to an instance of abuse because a video went viral. Not apologize, mind you, just respond.

Read the rest at TSA News.

This blogger has worked for the TSA for many years. So he has the inside scoop.

He’s decided to share his insider knowledge with the general public at his blog called Taking Sense Away.

Nothing will wipe a grin off your face faster than a squad of Navy SEALs rappelling into your anonymous compound from a Black Hawk. But while Osama Bin Laden is dead and gone, and unable to mock America’s clumsy efforts to protect its planes from our Homeland-fueled fantasies, his disciples are more than capable of laughing at us.

And laugh they do.

As we’ve reported many times, the TSA’s so-called explosive detection devices routinely alarm on ordinary, everyday things. Have you been working in your garden? Oops. You might have specks of fertilizer on you. Do you use hand or body lotions? Oops. There’s glycerin in them thar things. All those can get you hauled aside as a potential terrorist. Because fertilizer and glycerin show up as “bomb-making residue.”

Read the rest at TSA News.

As we’ve written at TSA News before, when your property is confiscated at TSA checkpoints, that property ends up being sold at state-run surplus stores.

But it bears repeating, because so many people still don’t know about it. At a more recent story about this practice on CNN.com, commenter Dev said:

Several months ago, we reported on the firings of two men from the Dulles Airport TSA staff.  These firings came after police charged the TSA employees with various crimes of sexual misconduct.

Read the rest at TSA News.

A TSA screener was shot and killed at Cleveland International Airport by her husband, who then turned the gun on himself.

Read the rest at TSA News.

One of the more interesting reactions to last week’s post arguing that the TSA as we know it is dead came from a publicist for one of the airline trade associations.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Yesterday we reported on the latest TSA theft. If it sounded familiar, in more ways than one, it isn’t just a case of déjà vu. The only thing more consistent than TSA thefts in recent years is the agency’s hollow statements about TSA worker integrity and agency standards.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Once again, a TSA screener has been caught stealing from passengers’ luggage.

As we’ve written now more times than I can count, this isn't the first time. And it won't be the last.

Read the rest at TSA News.

(Editor's Note: Sommer Gentry is a math professor at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.)

I was pleased recently to receive an email from Russell Wooten, the IT Strategy Branch Chief of the TSA. His email reached me through my membership in the Maryland chapter of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS). For the uninitiated, operations research is the discipline of applying advanced analytical techniques to help make better decisions. Mr. Wooten was soliciting input on these questions:

On December 29, 2012 Politico reported that Representative Michael McCaul (R-Texas) was chosen to be the next chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, succeeding Peter King (R-N.Y.), who stepped down in November.

Read the rest at TSA News.

There are those who might believe that anyone opposed to the TSA has a problem with authority. And/or they hate all law enforcement. Well, sorry to tell you, but that is simply untrue. I am here today to laud the actions of one Deputy Sheriff Stan Lenic of Albany, New York. 

Read the rest at TSA News.

If you don’t believe the TSA is doomed after watching yesterday’s House Aviation Subcommittee hearing, then you’ll have to at least agree that the agency as we know can’t continue to exist as it does.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Once again, TSA administrator John Pistole is thumbing his nose at Congress and refusing to testify.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Attack of the killer mushrooms:

Read the rest at TSA News.

Those of us who’ve been writing about the TSA for a few years are well familiar with security expert Bruce Schneier. He and others like him, people who actually study actual security, using data, risk assessment, statistical analysis, and empirical evidence, are a balm to our weary psyches, frayed and exhausted as they are from trying to correct the steady flow of misinformation, disinformation, and specious arguments put forth by the TSA and its apologists. 

To absolutely no one’s surprise, the mainstream media last week ignored a legitimate grassroots protest against the TSA’s allegedly invasive full-body scanners.

Read the rest at TSA News.

TSA Administrator John Pistole periodically conducts what are euphemistically called public relations campaigns. 

These PR onslaughts follow a predictable pattern: credulous reporters ask namby-pamby questions, take everything Pistole says at face value, don’t follow up, and gush their thanks when the interview is over.

Read the rest at TSA News.

Remember how we’ve been told for the past two years that the whole body imaging scanners are safe, effective, and can’t record and store graphic nude images? And remember how many of us never believed it?

A column by Charles Kenny has been reposted all over the web.

The TSA’s celebrated (cough, cough) “Blogger Bob” has responded to Amy Alkon's post about her most recent experience at JFK. Here’s the full text, with link below: 

Read the rest at TSA News.