Terminally Stupid Asses...aka TSA

Gotta love the TSA. I can honestly say I hate that agency with a passion. It is run by morons, staffed by the dregs of society and couldn't protect a tree fort from a terrorist attack. Recently they elected to make my life and the life of commuting pilots considerably more difficult. For the past year there had been a rule that all commuting pilots or crewmembers attempting to jumpseat on a flight at an airport which their airline did not serve, needed to have a boarding pass or gate authorization in order to pass through security. With this rule there were exemptions that allowed airports to follow this rule or not. Most airports chose not to follow the rule. As of Monday July 10th, this rule became permanent and without the exemptions. This now means that all airline pilots and crewmembers must now wait in line at the ticket counter and get a boarding pass before going through security. This is a gigantic pain in the ass and adds unnecessary time to our commutes.

As pilots, we have to pass a 10 year criminal history background check. Our ID badges are proof that we have passed this check and we pose no threat to the flying public. Muhammad Terrorist buys a ticket, checks in online and proceeds to go through the same security checkpoint and screening that we do. Since he bought a ticket and prints out his boarding pass, he gets directly to the security checkpoint without ever seeing a ticket agent or going through the so called "additional layer" of security that the ticket agents are supposedly providing. Pilots, on the other hand, must go wait in line, talk to a real live human and get our boarding pass before we can go through security.

It just doesn't make any sense. Why are the TSA going after pilots and crewmembers who have passed an FBI background check and have the ID as proof? This rule is a complete waste of the paper its written on. If they want to keep our skies safe make rules that will actually enhance safety.