TSA: Scanners Cost $93.34 Million Per Find -- And Zero Terrorists Found
Bill Fisher at TSANewsBlog writes about the TSA waste and fraud and the TSA's success rates:

To date, there have only been three "weapons catches" directly attributable to body scanners, and none found from groin-groping. These include a "Tactical Spike" (a martial arts weapon) that was found in the sock of a passenger in Pensacola after he was screened by a body scanner, a .380 Ruger that a Detroit passenger had in an ankle holster, and a plastic knife in the hem of a woman's shirt, again in Detroit.

The TSA claims that airport screeners found 1,306 guns in carry-on bags in 2011 and that passengers continue to try getting prohibited items onboard, by hiding them in their shoes or using hollowed-out books. (Never mind the fact that guns are metal and are therefore detected by -- er -- metal detectors.) Based on three weapons out of 1,306, the scanners account for a dismal 0.07% of gun finds.

When scanners are evaluated on the basis of all items found that the TSA classifies as contraband, including knives, tools, and snow globes, the record becomes even more abysmal. The TSA reports that it confiscates an average of 5 million contraband items each year, yet only 3 items were found in 2011 via scanners and none by invasive pat-downs.

...The cost per "catch" on the scanners is currently at $93.34 million per find. While no data is available on the total number of x-ray belts in use in airports, the amount spent on scanners so far would have purchased 13,334 x-ray belts. Enough to install 3.5 additional x-ray belts in each of the 377 airports in the US.

As for the invasive pat-downs inflicted on travelers as a byproduct of the TSA's forcing scanners on us, these have an even more pitiful return on investment. To date, there have been no reports of a weapon or any other banned item being found by the TSA through pat-downs.

Given that the TSA claims to do 60,000 pat downs per day - a number that may have decreased as resistance and bad press have mounted but in any case is impossible to verify -- these require on average five minutes of screener time each. Based on a media pay rate of $35,000 year and 1,920 working hours per year, each hour costs $18.23. The cost for each five-minute pat-down is $1.52, working out to a total cost per day of $91,145.

That's $91,145 every day spent on what are proven to be statistically futile searches of passenger's bodies.

Ron Bonner writes at TSANewsBlog about the vast security holes ignored by the TSA while they are busy degrading the people who keep the airlines in business:

In the news recently was a story of San Juan, Puerto Rico airport employees being arrested for moving large amounts of drugs through the airport to the mainland United States.

From the report, the drugs were introduced by airport/airline employees who routinely enter airport secure areas without any TSA screening. These employees brought in large amounts of drugs, handing them off to ticketed passengers who had already been screened. Other airport/airline employees brought suitcases of drugs in by vehicle and other means and loaded these bags directly onto planes, again bypassing all TSA screening.

Now, it's not the TSA's job to interdict drug trafficking (in fact, TSA screeners have no right to search for drugs, or illegal immigrants, or cash, etc.). But this report demonstrates a glaring security hole that the TSA has refused to address. And the problem is not limited to San Juan.

Who knows what else these people might have placed aboard airplanes? The TSA doesn't know since TSA policy doesn't call for the screening of all people who enter the sterile areas of airports.

Every day thousands of people enter the terminal and flight line areas of this nation's airports without any screening of any kind. They walk or drive in and the TSA is nowhere to be found.

So while the TSA is fondling children and other innocent people who don't present any danger to airplanes, thousands of people who could present a danger are allowed unrestricted access to those airplanes. (Let's not even mention that most of the cargo still goes unscreened.)

The TSA: Obedience training for the American public to be docile in the face of having our rights yanked from us.