Report: TSA To Take Over Subway Bag Check From NYPD

The city's overall budget cuts are apparently hitting the NYPD right in the subway bag check area. MyFoxNY reports that with few police officers available, "Transportation Security Administration bag screeners from Kennedy, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty airports will be replacing most NYPD cops in the subway that screen bags for explosives." The TSA wouldn't confirm the plan (but did say taking TSA screeners from airports and putting them underground wouldn't effect air safety) and the NYPD says these are just talks. However, sources tell MyFoxNY it's likely to happen—and it'll work this way: "About 30 TSA screeners a day will be pulled from the three area airports Monday through Friday to inspect bags at various subway locations throughout the city. At each location they'll be teamed up with one police officer instead of the two or three officers you currently see at inspection sites." Naturally, the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association says this is a terrible idea and says budget crisis or no, the NYPD needs more cops.

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By Jen Chung in News on April 29, 2009 9:57 AM

Comments [rss]

jt10000

TSA? Way lower average skill/training of staffing than the NYPD. This is not good in terms of security or relations with the public. NYPD in general have a better understanding of the law than TSA. People in the subways won't put up with ignorant screeners wasting their time.

chinadarkness

I am a little older than many, younger than some, and have to speak my mind regarding the TSA (Too Stupid for Assignment) personnel manning checkpoints on train and subway station terminals is even more frightening than the prospect of them working our nation's airports. If you have ever had even the most brief contact with these people it becomes evident that they are (by and large) a lazy, pretentious, overbearing, and completely unqualified for the posts to which they are assigned. Statistically (they hate to see this figure) over 69% of these TSA baggage inspectors has less than a High School eduction. The same statistics show that nearly 26% of them have a High School Diploma (which doesn't mean much these days). This brings us to 95%. The other 5% are amazing. They break down with less than 2% having a University Degree and the others having vocational or community college education of unspecified duration. I find this more than a little frightening. Granted, the loss of my freedom to travel unmolested has been a major imposition rather than a mere inconvenience, and the degree of improvement of safety is infinitisimally small. Is it worth it? Hell No!

ides_of_march

This is about the federal government spreading its ever growing tentacles into the lives of ordinary people.

They don't give a rat's ass about stopping a subway attack. They just like poking their noses into your stuff at every opportunity.

mx0

effect / affect

"...wouldn't affect air safety" rather than "effect"

felixthecat2

there is no sense in checking bags, it is only used to keep the masses in fear so they obey the man Bloomberg. We have no real security, look at the recent low-flying plane,.again this city was caught unprepared and non-responsive. Bloomberg received the memo about the flight but he states he people didn't advice him of it. So even if someone send an alert to the city, it will be ignored and we will be bombed anyhow. so let gain back our freedom at least.

Toby von Meistersinger

I rather have a more competent NYPD officer do this than some mouth breather federal employee who couldn't get a job as a mall security guard.

GoToHell

Arrogant asshole. Got a beef with federal employees? Register as a Republican why don't you, and start voting accordingly. They would like to see as little federal employees in this country as possible.

S.D.

"Arrogant asshole"?

Dude! Your nom de guerre is "GoToHell" and Toby is Arrogant?

C'mon...

Duffy

I got stopped one morning while I was late for an 8AM meeting.

It was around 7:30 and I was looking stressed and rushed, so it's no wonder they pulled me aside. They didn't even open my bag, just swiped the straps and ran the swab through a machine. The entire ordeal took MAYBE 20 seconds, and they were pretty nice about it.

felixthecat2

then you aren't black.

NannyState

The polite thing to do is leave all your explosives and detonators at home when you travel, even on the subway.

KiljoyWasHere

I rarely see the subway bag checkpoints, and I have certainly never seen them looking through anyone's bag. Why are they there again?

JacqueMehoff

I see them often at the Columbus Circle stop.

AM rush hour. but then there's quite a few cops there anyway stopping people, folding table or no folding table.

KiljoyWasHere

I rarely see the subway bag checkpoints, and I have certainly never seen them looking through anyone's bag. Why are they there again?

jaycjay

I've passed them a couple of times at one station. Same thing both times: they were chatting amongst themselves, and I just walked briskly past, swiped my card, and went through.

fleshtone

So, the NYPD is needed for actual policing that is effective and needed, and is therefore being pulled from subway bag duty. Did I get that right?

sharpshoota

Next thing you know they want to look in your anus.

sharpshoota

Fuck the TSA. I will also walk to the next station. Fuckin retard dropouts are too dumb to be lookin through my shit.

sweatyelectric

Wouldn't that violate the Posse Comitatus Act? Uniformed federal agents performing a local police function?

jaycjay

Nope. The Posse Comitatus Act applies only to the "federal unformed services," which is defined in US Code as the armed forces plus the commissioned corps of the Public Health Service and of NOAA.