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Author Becky Akers has called the scene at U.S. airports "Security Theatre of the Absurd" in more than one column over on LewRockwell.com. In one particularly piercing column, she noted that the agency supposedly in charge of security at U.S. airports — the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) — should be "renowned for its Totally Senseless Actions by Tremendously Stupid Airheads." Of course, she’s correct and few reasonable people would argue with her assessment. Frankly, I rather think she was being kind.

My impression was reinforced as I read a piece linked in the latest issue of security expert Bruce Schneier’s Crypto-Gram. The event discussed in the link to CNN.com went something like this:

Gregory Scott Hinkle, 53, of Davis, West Virginia, went through a Transportation Security Administration checkpoint at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport about 7:30 a.m. Sunday, an airport spokeswoman said.

So far so good, but things soon went off track.

After the traveler evidently recalled having the gun, he returned to the checkpoint and disclosed the weapon, authorities said.

Our hero, Mr. Hinkle, was already beyond the security checkpoint when he realized he had a loaded gun with him. Being honest and interested in helping the TSA do their jobs, he went back to the checkpoint that had failed to detect his weapon. As the saying goes, "that was his first mistake." Maybe in this case, it was his second mistake, since he had mistakenly brought his gun with him!

The TSA contacted airport police, who charged the man with possessing or transporting a firearm into an air carrier terminal where prohibited, a misdemeanor, and released him. He is scheduled to appear April 2 in Arlington County, Virginia, General District Court.

Schneier asks the question that probably immediately occurs to us all: "What’s [this behavior] supposed to teach?" The citizen made a mistake, certainly, but he was carrying a gun for which he had a license. He willingly submitted to the search at the security checkpoint. The search yielded nothing — missing his loaded weapon — which, once one knows even a little bit about the TSA, is also not that much of surprise. When he realized their mistake, he returned to clear things up and was promptly arrested! Certainly this must be an episode of Ashton Kutcher’s prank TV show, "Punk’d." If only.

One might be inclined to excuse such behavior if the TSA didn’t make such a habit of being so mediocre. And apparently, everyone knows it. In fact, a recent Associated Press poll, concludes that TSA is as unpopular with Americans as the IRS. That’s certainly the "high cotton" of unpopularity!

According to Aviation News, this sentiment frustrates people like TSA chief Kip Hawley. Instead of being frustrated that U.S. citizens aren’t as easily fooled as he’d like, maybe Hawley should improve the security of his own organization. Don’t hold your breath.

Just last month Chris Soghoian, a graduate student at Indiana University, successfully illustrated, for the second time, the mediocrity of the security practiced by the TSA on its own systems. As reported at CNN.com, Soghoian found that the TSA website not only was not secure, but had obvious spelling errors as well. From the article:

The TSA created the site to give people who were wrongly on terror watch lists a means of redress. But one of the two links on the site was not secure, the TSA acknowledged in September.

Some 247 people submitted their information via the unsecured link before TSA responded to being shamed by Soghoian and plugged the security hole.

While putting up a non-secure website to allow for the transmission of such sensitive data is certainly bad enough, it gets worse. The contractor who developed the site was apparently hired because of a pre-existing relationship rather than because of technical competence. If that’s not conflict-of-interest, it certainly smells a little suspect. TSA’s "technical lead" on the project and the owner of the firm went to high school together. According to a report by Rep. Henry Waxman's House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, TSA has awarded the contractor — Desyne Web Services — almost $500,000 worth of no-bid contracts. That is certainly nice work if one can get it.

If you’re honest, the TSA has you arrested. If they’re mediocre the TSA gets more money. This all puts a different spin on the phrase "your tax dollars at work" does it not?

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