Carrying Security Efficiency Too Far

I rarely carry a topic over to a second post but after writing yesterday's about the lack of privacy due to over zealous camera surveillance, I had to chuckle about the TSA firing five and suspending scores more for not properly screening passengers in a Florida airport.

Supplemental screenings were not performed on 300 to 400 passengers during a time in 2011.  It makes me wonder if those passengers got through and nothing happened on any of their flights if we're not being told something no matter how subtle.  All the screening isn't necessary!  Just multiply it out to all the airports and how many more passengers may have been spared the hassle if other agents, too, had been lax.
 
On the other hand, maybe the wrong people are being screened!  Forget sending the drones to focus on the sanitary habits of cattle, just focus the cameras on the TSA workers!  Okay, the diatribe on the cattle was meant to be tongue in cheek playing on the mental image of cows being spied upon.

The TSA worker issue is another matter.  Quite often there are tidbits in the news about people having items stolen from their checked luggage, but when your carry on luggage completely disappears while you are being scanned it's quite another.

A writer for The Financial Times lost her luggage between the time she put it on the belt at JFK and the time she exited the body scanner. A search of the area turned up nothing except the irritation level of security personnel.  Certainly the cameras would show what happened to it.  But no.  Cameras are only placed where they can see you place your luggage on the belt.  There are none on the other side of the x-ray machine so if you're off being scanned it can disappear without a second glance. The article didn't say, but I'd like to know if this is the case because it's less expensive and more efficient to have only one camera?

It also made me laugh because this is a government entity that is proving to be extremely expensive considering the return on our money.  More passengers have been robbed by TSA employees than terrorists caught.

I'd suggest sticking with the drones and the cattle but what if some errant drone operator decided to take out a poor cow because it was defecating too close to a water source?  Of course they are highly trained and professional at what they do, but cattle aren't like people.  They can be herded, but they are not sheep!