I'm a noob to FTL and found the link via Drudge, and had to get this off my chest.
I'm not surprised about anything the TSA does. Back in 2004 I was attending a small community college studying Criminal Justice when my instructor asked a couple of us to meet him at his office after class. The TSA at the time was contacting CJUS programs trying to recruit students for part time work at Sea Tac airport. My instructor wanted to pass this along to his better students as a reward for studying hard in his class (we were all A students, on the National Deans List, Phi Theta Kappa, etc etc).
Five of us went to a branch community college located in a mall and took the test, that all of us finished before the allotted time. Afterwards we went to lunch and we commented how easy the tests were - they literally were 6th grade level. Knowing we had done great on them, we went home where all of us were notified via email that we failed. When we tried to inquire what part of the test we failed, they refused to tell us. We also noticed that others there taking the test ranged from borderline stupid, to even people who could barely speak English. I wonder if they failed.
Of the group, one later became a Washington State Trooper, one became a Deputy Sheriff, two went into adult corrections, and I went into state juvenile corrections. I every case the tests (mental, physical, psych), were a 100 times more challenging than anything the TSA gave us. My instructor checked with another CJUS instructor at college in the next county, who had also sent students- they too failed with no explanation as to why. I'd also like to add that two of us had prior security/military experience. One had served in the Army and worked in corrections. In my case I had over 9 years working privately in the security field that included both industrial, and corporate contracts.
We all came to the conclusion after talking with our instructor that we more than likely scored too high on certain tests, and that TSA had determined they wanted employees who were average to below average in IQ, and psychologically had authoritarian complexes. So as some have said the "dumb kid who got slapped around in school" is a spot on observation of most TSA employees.
Anyway that's my opinion why the TSA is screwed up, and I don't think its going to get any better.
PS great forum, I look forward to talking with you all.