NJR
New York, NY
Male, 29
I worked at the TSA, one of the most despised government agencies in the U.S., for approximately 7 years. Recently, I resigned, and started an anonymous blog about my experiences.
Those x ray machines that display nude images of passengers, the ones that some TSA employees view remotely (Rapiscan AIT full body scanners) are on their way out from airports, as the controversy and uproar about their intrusiveness forced the TSA to cancel their contract with the manufacturer, just last week. But there will still be dozens of them in operation at airports over the next few months. To answer your question: yes, we had fairy detailed images of passenger's private parts, to the degree that breast implants and mastectomies were clearly identifiable, as well as piercings, unusually-sized genitalia, etc. One of my blog posts, revealing the fact that I often witnessed officers laughing at nude images of passengers based on particular features, went viral earlier this month, forcing the TSA to officially respond in the L.A. Times, among other places. So yes, the images are pretty detailed, one of many reasons that the TSA is now backpedaling and sweeping those nude scanners beneath the rug as quickly as possible. They were a disastrous and outrageously expensive mistake.
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The TSA's mission is to prevent harm from being enacted upon the nation's transportation systems...blah blah blah, you've probably heard the official government statements. From a former insider: the TSA's interest in drugs varies from airport to airport, checkpoint to checkpoint, supervisor to supervisor. Since the very nature of terrorism acts make them extraordinarily rare, hence the likelihood that TSA will ever be able to clearly point at an instance of having directly foiled a terrorist plot, the agency does like to be able to point at any and every illegal activity that they claim as having shone light upon, such as the story of a TSA officer bringing to the attention of the police an intoxicated airline pilot a couple weeks back. So the TSA would love nothing more than to successfully uncover something such as, say, an attempt to smuggle a large quantity of illegal drugs. Personally, I had supervisors who instructed us, as officers, to report any and all instances of illegal substances found during a bag search to a superior. I've also had supervisors who told me, quote, "Please, do not even report a small amount of recreational drugs to me, because once you do that, then I have to call the police to the checkpoint, and it will result in a petty drug arrest and a headache for everybody, when what we're really here to do is to make sure that the plane lands safely, not prevent people from smoking a joint." So it all depends on the crew of screeners you come across. No, the TSA's mission has nothing to do with drugs. But if a bag smelled strongly of weed, as in it was so obvious that passengers and the entire checkpoint could smell it, well, then really , someone is probably going to report it or point it out to someone, TSA or not.That passenger would have failed by having been so obvious about it, anyway: there have been drug sniffing dogs hanging around most major airports for years, well before the TSA, after all.
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