After covert tests revealed major security failures, the acting director of the U.S Transportation Security Administration has been reassigned. The inspector general found that] TSA agents failed 67 out of 70 tests, with Red Team members repeatedly able to get potential weapons through checkpoints, according to officials briefed on the report.

In one case, agents failed to detect a fake explosive taped to an agent’s back, even after performing a pat down that was prompted after the agent set off the magnetometer alarm, according to officials briefed on the report.

In a statement, a spokesman said that the results of the tests were classified (aren’t they always. Ed.) However, he says, the department takes these results “very seriously”. He goes on to issue a series of orders, including the retraining of all transportation security officers and an immediate change in some screening procedures, the testing found to be problematic. (ABC News and NPR. June 3, 2015)

Here are some problematic items for him: taking our shoes off at screening (one single man tried to fly with a bomb in his shoes. It’s called “legislating for exceptions”). Then we travellers have to deal with all the other things they want us to do: get rid of water bottles, take off coats and belts, take out computers and i-pads, fish out money, perfume bottles, keys, money, etc. By the way, during all this don’t even dream of making a joke. Thus have they made flying an unpleasant experience. And Epicureans should search out opportunities for pleasant experiences. Those with metal body parts are now checked in sophisticated new machines, but are still frisked like criminal suspects. Since most people with, say, metal hips, tend to be old, this procedure seems particularly irrelevant. And apparently all this is ineffective and a waste of time. They hardly catch any evil-doers. But the latter have the intense pleasure and excitement of having made the traveller’s life just that little bit more stressful, all in the name of god. Thanks, guys!