The Difference Between Newark TSA and a Sommelier...

A sommelier never loses track of a bottle of wine.
The crack TSA team at EWR come through again. What appears to be wine bottles requires secondary screening, but only if the unescorted passenger goes to the screening themselves. Otherwise the TSA loses track of the passenger,the wine and shuts down part of the airport for a while. One has to figure that instead of a security alarm, the Newark International TSA team just plays Yakety-Sax over the PA system.

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Dirty Bomb? Nah.... Just Clean Hands

The TSA is taking the show on the road and this time they have declared war on fancy soap. Specifically, the TSA's explosive detection machines are at the center of this. These are the pieces of hardware located in the security lines that a TSA officer feeds a piece of paper into, that has just been wiped over the luggage of randomly selected passengers. The machine sniffs the paper looking for trace elements of explosives, or the components of explosives. The TSA will now be putting this hardware on carts and roaming the airport with them. Random tests of people will be conducted at random locations within the airport. Boarding gates, concourses, waiting areas are all possible screening locations- although one can likely expect a higher incident of screenings around the Sbarro or Cinnabon.
So where is the fail?
Fancy soap is made with glycerin. Explosives are also made with glycerin. Not many people wash their luggage with fancy soap. Many people do wash their hands with fancy soap.
The TSA is now about to go roaming airports, testing peoples hands for explosives and/or soap.
That is a clean, delicately scented, moisturizing fail.

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New Feature: Failback Position

The TSA provides endless amounts of fail to keep us all entertained- and by entertained we mean horrified, confused, outraged, befuddled agog, etc. (although never surprised). But sometimes one fail a week just doesn't feel like enough. That's why TSAFail will now bring you the Failback Position- a collection of great TSA failures from the past, to help you get your fill of fail.
Think of it as a blooper reel for an organization that knows no other kind of film.

Todays Failback Position comes from January 2003 and provides a bridge between the past and the present, a way to see that the world of 2003 is not so different from the world of today. In other words, 7 years on... same fails. In this case, a TSA officer asleep at his post, leaving the exit lane of SeaTac occupied but unguarded. On a quaint note, the article does state that this is the first TSA officer to be fired for sleeping on the job.

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Philadelphia TSA Keeping the Skies Safe From Disabled 4 Year Old

This is a fail that comes from being completely unencumbered by common sense, which will likely get the Philadelphia TSA thrashed by Jerry Lewis the next time he is in town. The Philadelphia TSA not only has the backflip of fail in the event itself, but they add in a half twist of additional fail by suggesting in the apology to the family, that the child in leg braces should have been sent to a private screening area to test for explosives. Truly a gymnastic TSAFail.

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Philadelphia TSA Keeping the Skies Safe From Words

Does locking someone up for carrying Arabic language flashcards count as profiling? Hard to say, but it certainly counts as fail. From now on, Berlitz and Rosetta Stone will be releasing their Arabic language learning systems in TSA friendly 3oz sizes, with the Arabic sections written in Tagalog.

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Fargo TSA Hires Jack Bauer

Either that or someone needs to unplug the coffee pot at Hector International. Mistaking a power converter for a bomb is fail enough. Honey, Play-Doh, luggage, iPod chargers, toys and cookies are just some of the things that the TSA has previously mistaken as threats. So then, why not be all jittery and call in the bomb squad over a power converter in the equipment of a photographer? But the paranoid fail in this story is the statement from Fargo's senior TSA official (at the end of the Full Story).

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From Within It's Glass House, the TSA Can't Stop Itself from Throwing Stones

So what keeps the TSA officers at the nations 276th busiest airport busy all day? Obviously there is keeping the country safe by screening all 126 daily passengers that pass through Plattsburgh International. Perhaps there is also high-fiving each other over the fact that they screen 9 more passengers per day than the Pago Pago International Airport. Still got time? How about reporting on how other members of the airport staff are lax in following the same rigorous security standards that the TSA holds itself to. For example, making sure their security badges haven't flipped over in the wind. Day not over yet? Why not write up $260k in fines? Now that is a full day of fail.

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Orlando Cincinnati Air Marshals- The Classy Division of the TSA

Not wanting to be outdone by Orlando, the TSA's Cincinnati Federal Air Marshal program calls the discrimination and raises some bribery and threats.
Ron Burgundy folds, leaves the guys in the white hoods to play out the hand.

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Orlando Air Marshals- The Classy Division of the TSA

The Federal Air Marshall program is under the aegis of the TSA, so you can be sure that the undercover people riding on your plane with a gun are the best of the best of the best.
Or you might just get a more unpleasant version of Ron Burgundy who enjoys belittling his co-workers.

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You Don't Need to See My Identification...

Either the TSA can't tell the difference between a law enforcement agent and someone impersonating one, or the TSA just fell for an old jedi mind trick.
There is a lesson in this for the flying public. If you are traveling with the Village People, you will have a much easier time navigating a TSA checkpoint if you are dressed as the cop.

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