The Human Factor

Every once in a while you’ll hear someone talking about how all of the new security we’ve been seeing since 9/11 is just window dressing; not only are the borders still as open and the ports (air and sea) just as vulnerable as ever, but the actual TSA security, which manages to defy multiple Amendments from the Bill of Rights, manners and (frequently) sanity is accomplishing nothing. Now, I’m as security-minded as the next guy, and more patriotic than most; I want to be as sure as possible that no one is going to slip a bomb onto the next airplane I ride on, and I’m perfectly okay with whatever our government decides to do to anyone who does. Nevertheless, you have to wonder if the pessimists are correct when you hear stories like this one from the CBS affiliate station in Boston …

If you don’t want to hit the link, the story is pretty straightforward: TSA agents testing the security procedures in Charlotte managed to get a package onto a Jet Blue flight to Boston by the time-honored method of slipping a $100 bill to the agent at the front counter. Yes, you heard that correctly; for a measly $100 an otherwise sane adult was willing to place a package containing who knows what onto an airliner. I’m not sure if I’m more appalled as a consumer (I expect better from the private sector!) as a reasonably ethical human being (how could ANYONE risk over a hundred human lives in such an idiotic and reckless fashion for mere personal gain?) or as a business teacher (you risked a life sentence for $100? Really? You’re okay with being paid the equivalent of $2 a year for the next fifty years? Assuming they don’t just execute you for being a terrorist or an idiot?) Nor do I find assurances by the TSA or the airline that all packages going aboard are screened for explosives in any way reassuring; the desk agent was willing and able to commit forgery, perjury, and accept a bribe that put over a hundred people in mortal danger – do you expect me to have any faith in his or her adherence to safety protocol?

I should also point out that this is a plot element from a movie that was, unfortunately, released the same week as the 9/11 outrages: two minor criminals are able to get tickets for themselves and a hostage out of the country simply by offering the desk agent several large bills. They’re also carrying an atomic bomb with them in the mistaken belief that it’s really a case full of diamonds, but that’s not point; 9/11 itself proved that you don’t need to get a bomb onto a plane to destroy it – or to kill several thousand people on the ground at the same time. My point here is that as long as the people working for the airlines and TSA remain fallible human beings there will always be some chance of this happening – and if these individuals are underpaid and overworked (or even believe that they are) they will be able to justify such misdeeds in their own mind for long enough to cause another set of catastrophes…

Of course, this time there was a happy ending; this time the mysterious package was just a test article and the sender was an undercover TSA agent. But as long as our entire airline security system is based on everyone who works at every airport doing the right thing regardless of temptation, resentment, or personal feelings, then it’s only a matter of time before this sort of outrage happens for real – and another airline destination joins us on our Race to the Bottom…