I feel so much safer in my person and possessions

According to the New York Daily News for September 27, as reported by the Ledger-Enquirer (Columbus, GA),

[p]rosecutors and Port Authority police are probing whether a federal supervisor at LaGuardia's Continental Airlines terminal may have allowed a conspiracy by Homeland Security screeners to routinely harvest Rolex watches, Gucci bags and Dell laptops from checked luggage.

And the case may be the tip of a nationwide iceberg. ...

Last month, three bag screeners at LaGuardia and one at John F. Kennedy International Airport were arrested after Continental and American Airlines sought law enforcement help when each airline detected spikes in customer complaints. ...

In April, the airlines bought video surveillance cameras to let cops snoop on federal workers hired to examine checked luggage for explosives.

Detectives watched as several uniformed Transportation Security Administration screeners used their private work area "like a candy store," as one source put it.

To cover their tracks, screeners switched tags on bags from which they stole with tags on untouched bags, sending suitcases jetting to wrong airports in pairs. They even swapped one tag from a baby's travel crib, sending it to O'Hare in Chicago for a day while mother and child spent a restless night in Mexico. ...

And when search warrants were executed at the homes of the four screeners, police were stunned at a department store of goodies amassed in an operation that had clearly spanned many months. Among other items they found were laptops galore, computer projectors, cuff links, designer clothes and gold chains. ...

The recovered loot covered 12 large folding tables.

And what is the TSA's response to this? Why, it

vigorously defended the vast bulk of its labor force. Spokeswoman Ann Davis labeled the defendants as "a handful of individuals who have made a bad choice."

Handful...bad choice.... Where have I heard those lame excuses before? Oh yeah: Abu Ghraib. Ain't it amazing how the "few bad apples," the "handful" of poorly-choosing individuals, always seem to wind up in one place?

But it doesn't matter, I suppose, because when they hear this news, I bet every terrorist in the world will avoid the US for fear of losing their Gucci bags, which seem to be the sort of thing most at risk of detection.