By ANN Correspondent Kevin O'Brien

No one expects any government agency to be the model of efficiency. Sometimes a government agency can be effective -- one thinks of the military -- although usually it's still too wasteful to be efficient; it's just doing something that had to be done. "whatever it takes." But of all the government agencies, certainly the most incompetent, the most stumbling, the most corrupt is the 1970s disaster movie known as the Transportation Security Administration.

A little history is in order here. The TSA was created because of a post-9/11 outcry over the incompetent workers and managers endemic to the private "lowest bidder" security firms like Argenbright that airlines were using to meet, intermittently, the barest minimum of the security FARs. (The undoubted ineptitude of these security firms had nothing to do with the attack, but the terrorist strike constituted a hint that tightening things up might be a good idea). The security firms employed people that most travelers knew all too well: ignorant of the English language, surly, stupid, often illegal aliens or other criminals, in short, the worst dregs that could be stuffed into something like a uniform and put to work for minimum wage.

The public outcry created a new Federal agency. But the agency immediately lost sight of why the public was upset. and reproduced the problems it was created to address, while adding a few more. In the first months of the new security agency, it:

Spent lavishly on offices worthy of Caligula, professionally decorated conference rooms, original art, and other trappings of a massive headquarters. This trend hasn't abated. None of this unproductive overhead needed to be carried by the old system.

Hired a good-old-boy network of retired generals, colonels, and other senior executives to double-dip (in digs appropriate to Caligula's proconsuls) at the individual airports. None of this unproductive overhead needed to be carried by the old system.

Most outrageously, when establishing the new, Federal screening system, they required their applicants to (drum roll please) have experience working for the former security contractors -- ensuring that the TSA screeners are by and large the same ignorant, surly, stupid, dregs with whom travelers were hitherto familiar. In other words: same old screeners, we just pay 'em more (and give them some Federal job-security benefits, too). This has predictable consequences, as recounted below.

In its defense, the TSA responds that there has not been a repeat of the 9/11 attacks, boastfully claiming the credit that rightly belongs to the roughly half a million soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines that are far away from their homes chasing terrorists and terrorist wannabees, while the TSA proconsuls snooze in their leather armchairs.

Since the dawn of the TSA, travelers have complained about the way the criminal element so thoughtfully re-recruited into baggage screening have been stealing their property. Lawyer and pundit Ann Coulter even wrote a column about it. The TSA, which has not neglected to spend lavishly on its public relations also, has been a veritable fountain of denials. On 1st July, however, they had to admit that they had indeed stumbled across four light-fingered screeners at FTL who were so inept as to boast about their thefts on tape. Let's quote from UPI:

"The four men were arrested by federal agents after they were tape recorded as they boasted about stealing jewelry, cash and other items while inspecting baggage that had been checked."

That also explains how some of the stuff that has slipped through, until honest passengers who mistakenly brought the prohibited items (things like guns, Jungle Jim killer knives, and granny's nail clippers) turned 'em in: the screeners were looking for portable, fenceable commodities, not weaponry.

They arrested the alleged thieves on Tuesday, but made sure not to slip the press release till the dead of night Thursday, by which time the employees were at home -- still employed. Of course, the TSA takes this very seriously, so the accused employees are suspended from duty. (I mean, what if they get convicted... thieves in security?) For the employees, though, it might as well be a vacation: they're suspended WITH pay. And their names? I guess they're secret, you might say, for "security reasons," 'cause they ain't in the story.

I bet you're feeling really secure, now. If we make it to the end of the year without getting nuked, be sure and thank a Marine or Coast Guard member, because it sure wasn't any thanks to the TSA.

FMI: www.tsa.gov