TSA Agent Stealing Electronics from Passengers

Nelson Santiago
Photo: Broward County Sheriff's Office

TSA Agent, Nelson Santiago, was arrested on July 4, 2011 after he was caught taking an iPad from a passenger's luggage and stuffing it into his pants. It turns out that Nelson Santiago had made stealing from passengers at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport into a lucrative side business to supplement the money he normally made from his TSA job.

Santiago would steal iPads, computers, GPS devices, cameras, etc. from the luggage he was supposed to be screening, and he would sell the stolen items over the Internet. He would sometimes manage to sell the items before his shift was over. Police say Santiago managed to steal around $50,000 worth of electronics over the past six months. Of course, the TSA did not catch Santiago. The TSA does not care about your valuables and theft. It took an observant Continental Airlines employee to catch the thieving federal employee.

So, when you take your valuables on a flight, please know that they may be stolen by federal employees who have been granted nearly unlimited access to your personal possessions. That smart phone that contains loads of important personal information, that camera that holds your vacation photos, the computer that contains sensitive business information, and that GPS that can provide your home address to a thief who happens to know you just left for a vacation could just vanish from your luggage and be sold over the Internet before your plane lands. These TSA employees should be looking for explosives and weapons, but how can we possibly expect them to focus on that task when they are busy digging for treasure in your luggage?

NSA Listens in on Phone Sex of Troops and Other Americans

The NSA has long been conducting warrantless eavesdropping on innocent American citizens, but things have taken another uncomfortable turn. According to ABC News, NSA whistleblowers are saying NSA employees are using recordings of intercepted phone calls as entertainment.

When travelers, journalists, contract workers, US troops, etc. call their families and friends in America from overseas, the NSA may listen in on the phone call. Sometimes the phone calls are about everyday matters like paying the mortgage and family illnesses, but sometimes the calls are of an intimate nature. Sometimes, couples who have been separated for months miss each other and engage in steamy intimate phone play. Apparently, these calls can get quite entertaining, because NSA employees are allegedly passing recording of these calls around like virtual trading cards.

Imagine if you were overseas and called home to engage in an intimate conversation with your spouse. How would you feel to see a group of NSA employees sitting around laughing about your intimate moments?

This is yet another offense in a long line of government intrusions into the private lives of honest Americans. This abuse of privacy also reveals that the work of the NSA must not be as critical as we are told. If the NSA is diligently monitoring the communications of terrorists, how do they have the time to sit around listening to Americans having phone sex? Every minute those voyeuristic perverts at the NSA spend listening to meaningless ear candy is another minute they cannot be spending listening to terrorists.

NSA Is Tracking Domestic Phone Calls

Leslie Cauley of USA Today is reporting that the National Security Agency is collecting the domestic and international phone call records of most Americans. AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth are voluntary participants in the program and are federally compensated for surrendering the call records of ordinary Americans, even if those not suspected of any crime. At this point, Qwest is refusing to turn over call records to the NSA without a court order.

The NSA claims to want the information to build a database that will allow them to perform highly detailed analyses of America’s calling habits. The NSA contends that the measure is to increase national security.

Unless you are a Qwest customer, the NSA probably knows the time and date of every phone call you have made from your home, cell phone, office, etc. for the last few years. They also know the number you called and the number you called from. With that information, a simple query of public records can reveal your name and address as well as the name and address of the person you called.

You can read the entire article here.