TSA officer charged in boy's kidnap attempt

[FormerOstrich]

the people hired to protect us........

Authorities in Idaho say they aren’t sure of the true identity of a Transportation Security Administration officer charged with attempting to kidnap a 10-year-old boy because they found personal identification documents — including Social Security numbers — for five separate individuals in his possession.

KTVB-TV, NBC’s Boise affiliate, reported that the TSA officer was charged with second-degree kidnapping Tuesday under the name of Robert Joe Harrison Jr. Fifth District Magistrate Ted Israel set bail at $500,000.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12302041/

[Marie26]

1. First DHS, now TSA officials

What's going on here?

[MercutioATC]

2. Employ a large enough population and you'll get some bad apples.

Not a big deal (politically), IMO.

[Jane Austin]

6. Not a big deal?

Politically or otherwise, I think it's a very big deal when an employee of the agency that was set up to insure safety at airports isn't who he says he is.

The attempted kidnapping may not be a big deal, politically speaking, but the lack of background checks sure is - - at least in my opninion.

[FormerOstrich]

7. I think it's a big deal...

TSA maintains the "no fly" list. TSA purportedly cares about peoples background. They are the ones that care if you are who you say you are before you are in close proximity of our aircraft. Yet, the agency charged with peeking into others backgrounds has an Officer, yes, Officer, which authorities cannot identify.

It's not a matter of bad apple, because yes that does occur. It matters that the agency charged with the task of securing our airports, apparently can't even perform adequate background checks on their own officers. Why is that?

[Marie26]

13. Maybe

Yeah, there are bad apples in any large group. What puzzles me about this case is that this TSA officer had 5+ different identifications, and they still don't know who he is. That's odd. The TSA runs the no-fly lists, & has hired Bush crony companies (Dyncorp, ChoicePoint) to create extensive background checks for its employees. Supposedly, this system "red-flags" any applicant w/a criminal or shady background. Right now, the TSA has the most extensive database in the country on US citizens & employees. Yet, it never flagged this employee, can't identify who he really is & apparantly had no checks to stop him from creating numerous other false identities. I just think it's odd.


ETA - Here's a Washington Post article on this (from way back in 2003). The Inspector General found that the TSA was hiring dozens of officers w/serious criminal records, in spite of the expensive "background checks" that were done by private contractors. Three years later, it looks like the TSA hasn't done much to solve the problem.

"TSA's Hiring Practices to Be Probed - Homeland Security Office Questions Background Checks"

The Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General said it will begin a probe into the Transportation Security Administration's hiring process, after dozens of security screeners on the job were found to have criminal records.

The inquiry, which will be conducted by the agency's inspections division, will look into "clearances of personnel hired in TSA," said Nancy L. Hendricks, deputy associate inspector general for audits. "This is self-initiated by the inspector general."

The probe is the latest sign of the growing scrutiny of the new agency's hiring process. The TSA was created after the September 2001 terrorist attacks to improve airport security, in part by hiring thousands of federal airport screeners.

The inquiry comes after The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times reported earlier this month that dozens of airport screeners in Los Angeles and New York had serious criminal histories. At Los Angeles International Airport, six TSA screeners said they had been convicted of felonies in answers to questions on an application for an airport security badge.

Meanwhile, several private contractors who conducted background checks for the TSA are being questioned in a widening probe by the House homeland security appropriations subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Harold Rogers (R-Ky.) In its scheduled hearing June 3 about the agency's background-check process, the committee plans to question ChoicePoint Inc., an Alpharetta, Ga., firm that conducted initial name-based criminal and employment checks; NCS Pearson, an Eden Prairie, Minn., human resources firm hired to recruit and assess thousands of screener applicants; PEC Solutions Inc., a Fairfax firm that collected fingerprints from screener applicants; and DynCorp Systems and Solutions LLC, a Reston company that adjudicated applicants who had questionable background checks. The Office of Personnel Management has also been called to testify.

ChoicePoint, which was paid $19 million for conducting criminal, credit and other background checks on airport-screener applicants last fall, said it assigned a "green" flag to 39,578 TSA applicants who appeared to have clean records. The company said it assigned 216 applicants a "red" coding, indicating that the person had committed one of 28 serious crimes or felonies that would prohibit applicants from working at an airport. It assigned 47,662 applicants a "yellow" code, meaning that the person either had committed a less serious crime or the company could not verify a reference or a previous employer.

TSA spokesman Johnson said the agency might have hired some screener applicants in the "red" pool, but they would not have been able to work until their backgrounds were cleared through an adjudication process. "In many, many cases, the colors change because the process of adjudication helped us sort through those issues and told us indeed the employee was fit," Johnson said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A46180-2003May27

[MADem]

3. It's called INCOMPETENCE

Good ole TSA...too busy searching Grandma and slapping kids fresh off the plane, in uniform, from Iraq on the NO FLY list, to bother doing the simple things, like check the CARGO HOLDS of AIRCRAFT, or examine container ships coming into our ports!

[shanti]

5. god complex

that's what's going on.

[saigon68]

15. Be careful with painting some of these patriotic

government Employees as what they are -------Thugs, Hoodlums and Criminals

Its only a FRAT PRANK.

</SARCASM>

[Jane Austin]

4. Oh, this is swell.

A Transportation Safety Administration employee with fake identities?

Wonderful.

Not much of a stretch to imagine Al Queda operatives getting jobs in airports.

[FormerOstrich]

8. Yep, true that...

I think that's what really pisses me off. Here are all these liberties and freedoms we are to sacrifice in the name of safety. There are huge amounts of resource expended for spying on us, checking us out, running rough shod over us. Yet, there apparently isn't enough resource and common sense to know who your officers in charge of security agencies are. This is a security breach that should have never happened. The sure focus on the wrong things.

[Jane Austin]

14. That's really a great way to look at it.

I knew I was disgusted with this story, but you've put your finger on what's so galling about this.

We sacrifice our freedoms, treasure and kids and this crowd of criminals wastes our money, spends our kids' lives like they were toy soldiers, and doesn't even try to make the country safer.

They are simply criminal.

[jwirr]

12. Wonder if he was selling ID to people who did not have it

when they wanted to fly?

[NorthernSun]

9. Background check

I wonder which "identidy" they did the background check on. You have to have a background check to work at a school, yet this guy gets through?

[LostinVA]

10. You have to have a background check to work with the Girl Scouts

And you should....

[formercia]

11. Not just background checks

but personality profiles by competent examiners. Unfortunately, it would weed out a good percentage of their employees.