Raise your hand if you're surprised...

[pecunium]

The rules put in place to "stop" terrorism have been exploited by thieves.

LAX Tops the Nation in Stolen/Missing Baggage.

Since one is no longer allowed to lock one's bag (unless one is possessed of a TSA approved, which is to say a lock for which they have a master key) the scheme is simple; someone who can see the contents of the bag as it passes through x-ray, informs a confederate; in handling, what the bag looks like, and what the contents worth stealing are.

The possibility of this is why my computer, and camera bag, always go onto the plane as carry on baggage. From the story:

Police say two baggage handlers did more than just carry your luggage. They allegedly helped themselves to what was inside.

LAPD officers recovered 272 stolen items, plus more than $10,000 in cash!

It was the biggest passenger theft bust in LAX's history. Police recovered dozens and dozens of purses, cameras, computers, designer sunglasses and currency from more than a dozen countries around the world!

The loot was recovered at the homes of Roman Jaime and Carlos Garcia.

We were there exclusively, as the two were arrested right on the tarmac at LAX on October 30th. Undercover LAPD officers were led to the pair because many of the flights they worked had reports of thefts from baggage.

Apparently the claims of stolen propery at LAX, sinc 2001, when the TSA was created, come to more than 300 million dollars.

Don't you feel safer now?

Comments

[fantasyecho.livejournal.com]

I once lost a small box containing two necklaces, once. And a friend lost an external hard drive, several cables, a new pair of sunglasses, and a bag packed at the bottom of her baggage.

JFK Airport. It doesn't help that our baggage was delayed because we had a twenty-minute stopover in HK which was spent running from one end of the airport to the other, and thus losing our baggage which couldn't have travelled as quickly as we did. In fact, that delay was probably what gave the thieves the time to sort through our shit. And the airport people never took any responsibility. We weren't even told how we could lodge a report.

[sunfell.livejournal.com]

Note to self: come in at Ontario, not LAX.

Good ol' Southwest...

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine, a fellow jewelry maker, lost $500 worth of merchandise that she had in her checked bag going to a con last year. This year, I offered to take her merchandise in the car with me -- an offer she accepted gratefully.

I still think this is one small thing (by comparison with, say, Iraq or the economy) that Obama could correct quickly and without much effort, which would make a tremendous difference in the lives of a lot of people.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

How do they know LAX tops the nation? Because it is notorious that you don't check your bags through Philadelphia if you ever want to see them again.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The only measure which can be used, complaints; in number and value.

Now, it's possible the odds of getting hit are greater in Philly (ratios are nasty that way), but in terms of dollar value stolen LA is, apparently, tops, and there are more specific (if I read the article correctly) complaints out of LA.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

They did the numbers; fair enough.

However, this sentence made me larf and larf:

When you pack your bags for a flight, you expect your belongings to be there when you arrive at your destination.

Uh, no. And neither do the airlines, or they wouldn't specify that the airline is not responsible for missing valuables.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

Actually, yes. Prior to all the TSA bullshit, the airline language was only legalistic CYA in the event of a piece of luggage being completely lost -- to the point of being not merely late, but unfindable -- and that was relatively rare. If your bags arrived with you, they normally arrived intact; and even if they were temporarily mislaid by the airline, all of your belongings were normally still there when you did get them back.

The TSA no-lock order broke that paradigm, and the finger-pointing refusal of anyone to take responsibility for preventing the thefts (TSA, airlines, and airports all say it's Someone Else's Problem) has effectively given anyone with access to checked bags a license to steal.

What we need are laws concerning airline baggage that resemble USPS anti-theft regulations, and an investigative body similar to the Postal Inspection Service. Failing that, an Executive Order directing the airports to get a handle on this (since baggage handlers are normally airport, not airline, employees) would at least assign someone specific and checkable responsibility for doing something about the problem.

[phonemonkey.livejournal.com]

The real bugger comes when you own property that is both irreplaceable and pointy.

[elf]

My husband flies RC airplanes, and the horror stories the modelers share about airport baggage issues are insane. Expensive, fragile electronic equipment? People spend hundreds of dollars shipping their planes across the country because it's now safer than carrying it with you on a plane.

I've flown once since 9/11. Don't intend to increase that number until the airport rules drastically change.

I am so not surprised.

[waterlilly.livejournal.com]

As far as I've noticed in the last several years of flying about once or twice year, the TSA are a bunch of jack-booted thugs. I have no respect for them and no patience for them.

We've had "TSA-approved" locks apparently just removed from luggage and thrown away or at least not on or in the luggage when we got it back. I don't think they bother with the master keys, I think they just cut them and throw them away if they want to search the bag. That kind of disrespect for both the customers and the rules leads me to think that there are worse kinds of disrespect for the customer and the rules going on.

They don't even have to abide by their own rules about what is and is not allowed in carry on baggage, they can make individual calls of what they want to tell something they can't have, and there is no appealing their decisions.

We aren't safer. We're just more uncertain, which really I think was the point. I don't think the current government gives a rat's ass about the safety of American citizens. I think they just want us uncertain and off-balance at the mercy of faceless officials who are answerable to no one.