TSA Makes $400K Annually In Loose Change 289
Hugh Pickens writes "NBC reports that airport travelers left behind $409,085.56 in loose change at security checkpoints in 2010, providing an additional source of funding for the Transportation Security Administration. 'TSA puts (the leftover money) in a jar at the security checkpoint, at the end of each shift they take it, count it, put it in an envelope and send it to the finance office,' says TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez. 'It is amazing. All that change, it all adds up.' Melendez adds that the money goes into the general operating budget for TSA that is typically used for technology, light bulbs or just overall general expenses. Rep. Jeff Miller (R-Fla.) has introduced legislation that would direct the TSA to transfer unclaimed money recovered at airport security checkpoints to the United Service Organizations (USO), a private nonprofit that operates centers for the military at 41 U.S. airports. The recovered change is not to be confused with the theft that occurs when TSA agents augment their salary by helping themselves to the contents of passengers' luggage as it passes through security checkpoints. For example in 2009, a half dozen TSA agents at Miami International Airport were charged with grand theft after boosting an iPod, bottles of perfume, cameras, a GPS system, a Coach purse, and a Hewlett Packard Mini Notebook from passengers' luggage as travelers at just this one airport reported as many as 1,500 items stolen, the majority of which were never recovered."
Re:I suspect there is an additional handling charg (Score:5, Interesting)
I, for one, am happy that the TSA is staffed by people who seem to hate their job as much as we do. The alternative, that an arm of totalitarianism is entirely staffed by people who are ideologically committed, would be far worse.
Also alcohol (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Just lock your bag (Score:5, Interesting)
You solve that by getting as little as the receiver to a firearm. Put it in your bags. Declare a firearm when you arrive at the airport ticket counter. Your bag is searched in front of you. Then a lock only you have a key to is put on your bags. Rest assured you will receive the bag as is when you reach your destination. Also a great way to assure your bags actually get to your destination. As bags with declared firearms get special treatment.
Re:I suspect there is an additional handling charg (Score:3, Interesting)
I grew up with a guy that didn't have a lot going for him, not a lot of ambition, who finally decided it was time for work, and became a State Trooper. He told me that once when he was searching a crime scene he found a box with almost $300 thousand in it, and none of his fellow officers saw him find it. I asked him if he kept it, because it's the kind of thing I would do: There was plenty of other evidence, the money was not stolen and had no rightful owner to which it could be returned.
No, he turned it in.
Re:I suspect there is an additional handling charg (Score:4, Interesting)
As a teenager I worked at Six Flags Great Adventure on the Great American Scream Machine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_American_Scream_Machine_(Six_Flags_Great_Adventure) [wikipedia.org]
The way the seats were deep bucket seats and at the end of the night we would look under all of the seat pads and would find about $40 daily in change in the three trains. We would divide it up among the 8 people working the ride and it was enough to buy some drinks and snacks.
Re:Never put cash or valuables in your suitcase. (Score:5, Interesting)
Never leave anything valuable in your checked bags. Take it as carryon, leave it at home, mail it, or check it with a gun since those bags are inspected in front of you then kept locked and tracked for the whole trip.
Or you can do as Bruce Schneier does [schneier.com], and many others have reported: Include a starter pistol in your luggage, and declare it. It seems the TSA's rules include starter pistols as "weapons", and if you have one, they'll inspect your luggage before your eyes, lock it, and store it in a separate part of the airplane. Bruce and others have reported that this not only works; it also reduces the "loss" of luggage (or valuable contents like cameras and computers) to around zero. In effect, for the cost of a starter pistol, you are using the security folks to lock and guard your luggage and guarantee delivery.
I see that another reply deals with New York's stringent gun laws. Does anyone know whether a starter pistol (or stage pistols that just fire smoke) are considered "weapons" in New York or other states? If so, it might be interesting to push for Federal registration of such pseudo-guns, to avoid the hassle of trying to register them with the bureaucracies of N different states.
Anyway, if you try this gimmick, you might want to write up your experiences. And you might want to thank the TSA "agents" for their assistance in making the flight safe for you and your belongings. ;-)
There is no honor... (Score:3, Interesting)
There is no honor among thieves.
They care not a whit about you or your possessions.
Whether they Love, like, dislike, revile, or hate your, what you represent, or their own life will not change the fact that they robbed you, and got paid for it, and will still probably get a raise and eventually a retirement.
The raise and retirement are also probably on your dime.
Re:Lost property (Score:3, Interesting)
WRONG.
The are supplementing their budges with property seized/stolen from EVERYONE.. Including the innocent.
They don't have to convict to keep the money. The don't even have to CHARGE them with a crime.
They only have to SAY that is was 'drug' money, and then they keep the cash.
The charge the PROPERTY with a crime, and then you, the rightful owner, have to sue and PROVE that the property is 'innocent' of any crime to get it back.
It's called Asset forfeiture and Civil Asset forfeiture.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2010/02/take_the_money_and_run.html
http://reason.com/archives/2010/01/26/the-forfeiture-racket
http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/looting-of-america.html
http://www.fear.org/whatodo-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asset_forfeiture
Now, there were changes to the law in 1999 that in theory should stop some of this abuse, but in reality cops are completely ignoring it.
All of this stems from ancient common-law dating back to Rome iirc.. The idea being that if a bull were to get loose and go on a rampage and kill someone, the State can kill the animal and not compensate the owner because there was a crime committed by the property.
The owner would have to prove that it was not his animal that caused the death to get compensation from the State for the loss of the Bull.
Fair enough.
But currently in the US people are stopped, cops find cash, even a completely 'normal' amount of cash, and then just fucking take it, say it was GOING to be used to buy drugs, and then tell the person to be on their way.
No charges, no probable cause, nothing. The just say.. "$500? I bet you were going to buy drugs with this. Thanks, I'm keeping it. Fuck you."
And you have to get a lawyer and sue to get it back.
Usually the lawyer costs more than the value of the property stolen by the police, so people just have to bend over and take it.
Cops know this, their raises and fancy SUV's are funded by the stolen $$, so their incentive is to steal as much $$ and property from as many people as possible.
They have even taken peoples HOUSES using this.... Even when they found nothing criminal and no charges are filed.
It's so sick that prior to 1999 you had to post a 'bond' of 10% of the property they stole just to fucking FILE.
What is even sicker is that many states passed laws where the owner had to be found guilty of a crime and the property must clearly be related to it.
What happened?
The police set up 'asset sharing' agreements with the FEDERAL goons.
Now when they know they can steal something juicy, they just call up the local feds, do a 'joint task force', have the feds file the paperwork, and still steal all the money and property since Feds are not bound by state law, and then get a big cut of the money back from the Feds.
It is unconstitutional, immoral, and just plain sick. And it happens every day in USSR of America.....
Police can be just as dirty (Score:5, Interesting)
Local Police can be just as bad. We had an employee stealing things from work, from simple plumbing fittings to electronic controls. A few thousand worth of gear. His roommate turned hi in, police took everything for evidence. We were told once the evidence was not needed they would let us know. We called a few weeks later since we hadn't heard anything - He pleaded to some charge, no trial, they sold the stuff at auction. We couldn't even get the money they got for selling out things.
So we were robbed, twice.
Re:Never put cash or valuables in your suitcase. (Score:4, Interesting)
Buying the instrument a ticket makes a lot of sense for the larger instruments. I've taken a few small instruments in my carry-on bag.
One of those cases produced a fun anecdote. I had a pennywhistle in my carry-on, and the guy at the X-ray machine was very suspicious. He took it out and asked me what it was. I took it out of his hand, and started playing a nice, lively jig. Everyone around broke out into smiles, and a couple of people started doing Irish jig steps. They waved me through, with smiles on their faces.
It occurred to me afterward, though, that if you look at a pennywhistle closely, it's a small tube of thin steel (or sometimes brass, or tin-plated other metals). It would make a serviceable stiletto, and you could do a lot of damage to someone if you used it to "take a core sample" (as a forest biologist might say). Of course, you might not want to play it afterward, until you've cleaned it up well. But I didn't mention this to the airline people.
There have been a few funny stories about people on an airplane realizing that they'd brought along serious weapons without the security folks noticing. One I read a while ago was a physician who used obsidian blades in his scalpels, and had a packet of them in his pocket. These are among the sharpest blades that exist, good for making fast, clean cuts, and a person comfortable with handling them could kill a lot of people very quickly. Of course, he used them professionally, to save people's lives. But they were still a serious violation of the rules, since they're much more dangerous than box cutters l. He also didn't report himself to the airline security people. But he blogged about it, and NPR interviewed him.