Police Raids Kiddieporn Ring, Embarrasses the TSA
According to the Boston Herald:
Cops snared 55 Massachusetts men in a sweeping, multi-agency child pornography crackdown — including a Transportation Security Administration officer assigned to Logan International Airport who is just the latest embarrassment for the troubled federal agency.
TSA agent Jose E. Salgado, 59, of Chelsea was suspended from his job after his employers learned that local law enforcement agencies are pursuing criminal charges against him for the possession and sharing of pornographic images of children.
The TSA has been plagued with so-called “sex charges” against their employees for some time, and this is just the latest scandal to embarrass the agency. Serious doubts and questions have been raised in regards to the agency’s ability to properly screen their own employees – the very ones tasked with maintaining and improving the security of air travel in the US, and the very ones who daily pat down passengers and workers at airports and ports.
While a few “bad eggs” is hard to avoid in any place where a lot of people work, the number of them inside an agency that is a part of the federal system in the US is nearing farcical levels. Human error and oversight is one thing, but this seems almost to be error put into system, where every few months or so, a new scandal surfaces, shaming the much-loathed agency further.
NECN.com has a little more on the story:
With the help of the Feds, state and local police in Massachusetts tried to get men who share images of young children off the streets and in jail.
“By putting these images out there, what may happen is somebody might say, hey, that guy is a coach, that guy is my neighbor and the kids are always over there. And I always wonder, it’s always creepy, or it’s always this or it’s always that,” said Detective Daniel Fagan, of Boston Police’s Crimes Against Children Unit.
These are the faces in front of the computer screens, accused of viewing the innocent children on them.
More than 30 men were arrested in the past week in Operation Corral, the largest child pornography sting in MA history.
“These people are your next-door neighbors. These people look just like everyone else and they’re doing these things under the cover of their own homes,” said Col. Marian McGovern, the superintendent of Mass. State Police.
This certainly leaves both passengers and appalled security professionals with two simple questions; what next, and when will it end?
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There have been 12 TSA screeners arrested for child sex crimes in the last 16 months. Overall there have been 85 TSA workers arrested in that same period. Another TSA screener was sentenced last week for child pornography in Maryland.
TSA has become a magnet for sex offenders and criminals yet remains in control of our airports and given access to passengers’ bodies and property. John Pistole is responsible for imposing this wholesale assault and molestation on women and children and must be held accountable for this perversity.
TSA have used fear mongering and arrogance to rob travelers of their dignity and humanity long enough and its time that the people demand sensible security that doesn’t involve fondling children and strip searching grandmothers.
Hi Bill. Quick question: you mention the women and children a lot – is molestation of a man better/less of a transgression, then?
The senseless, knee-jerk reactions of the TSA is an undisputed evil, however, and it’s obvious that it needs to change. The first step, as far as I can see, is the re-privatization of the security, meaning that the airports need to kick the TSA to the curb and replace them with private security companies.