A former TSA agent who spent three years in prison for stealing from passengers’ luggage says the practice is “commonplace.”
Pythias Brown admits to stealing more than $800,000 worth of cash, clothing and electronics over a four-year period at Newark Liberty International Airport. He was finally caught trying to sell a stolen CNN camera on eBay.
“It became so easy, I got complacent,” Brown told ABC News.
Though Brown says he might have been one of the biggest thieves at the Transportation Security Administration, he believes the agency has a culture of entitlement — and of looking the other way.
“It was so easy. One day I walked out of there with the video game, the Nintendo Wii. I walked right out of the checkpoint with the Nintendo Wii in my hand,” he said.
TSA agents on the take justify their actions, he explained.
“They aren’t paying me, they’re treating me wrong. They’re doing this and they’re doing that. And they just don’t care,” he said of some of his former colleagues.
Nearly 400 TSA officers have been fired for stealing since 2003, according to the agency, which is charged with providing security for passengers and freight.
But Brown says the fired TSA officers might be the tip of the iceberg.
Theft “was very commonplace. Very,” he said.
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7 Responses
The TSA Agents are the Lowest of the Low
although he is trying to justify his actions, it may be partially true. look at the intelligence level of the people they employ!
I guess we know now why they wear those gloves. So they don’t leave their fingerprints.
Maybe there is information that I do not know, but the entire TSA operation should be re-examined.
1. I honestly wonder how many instances have occurred in all the years of TSA screening carry on luggage, checked bags, and people in which contraband or weapons have been found. Are we spending millions without any indication of success? I know it is hard to prove, but I would like to know that my tax dollars are actually accomplishing something besides making the process of boarding a flight eons longer.
2. There needs to be a process by which TSA can be monitored for effectiveness. Suppose some other agency randomly sends an agent presenting as a passenger with materials to be discovered. These same agents can also assess the “bedside manner” of how the workers treat passengers, choosing those to scrutinize more carefully, etc. This might prevent the idiocies we read about in the news of handicapped children and elderly ladies being strip searched or put through ridiculous torture of the system.
3. There need to be security cameras on all areas where luggage is found so that thefts can be caught. Thefts are commonplace as this ex-con testified. Even locked luggage presents no challenge to the TSA thief. Search YouTube or Google for the how-to videos.
He only got three years?? Rubashkin got 27 years!! Where is the justice?
Any businessman knows, if you take care of your employees, they’ll be loyal & honest. If the TSA people would get paid a decent amount of money, they would do a better job & they won’t steal. The lines would probably move faster, too. If they take pride in their job, they will want to appear efficient. The amount their getting paid now, leaves them with a sense of “entitlement” and they feel like low class ‘shleppers’ and not upstanding security people.
#6, You can’t really be that naive. If you hire a lowlife he’ll remain a lowlife no matter how much you pay him. The TSA was a terrible idea from the beginning; it’s no surprise that it was the Democrats in Congress who demanded it as the price of their cooperation with Bush on the war. Republicans warned from the beginning that it would be a disaster, and lo and behold it came true, not because we’re nevi’im but because it was obvious.