WTF? TSA Spends $50 Million on New Uniforms, $1,000 Per Employee, More Expensive Than Marine Corps!! And Will Permit Knives, Golf Clubs on U.S. Planes Again!!

The U.S. Transportation Security Administration will let people carry small pocketknives onto passenger planes for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, along with golf clubs, hockey sticks and plastic Wiffle Ball-style bats.The agency will permit knives with retractable blades shorter than 6 centimeters (2.4 inches) and narrower than 1/2 inch at the widest point, TSA Administrator John Pistole said today at an aviation security conference in Brooklyn. The change, to conform with international rules, will take effect April 25.Pistole, the former No. 2 official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, has stressed the use of intelligence and “risk- based” security during his tenure leading TSA. The agency is moving away from uniform procedures that apply to every passenger and toward efforts to perform background checks on passengers before they arrive at an airport.

Overseas passengers will no longer have to check the qualifying knives as they pass through the U.S. The agency will still prohibit some knives, including those with locking blades or molded handles, Pistole said. Box cutters, like those used by the Sept. 11 terrorists, and razor blades will still be banned.

TSA Sealed $50-Million Sequester-Eve Deal to Buy New Uniforms

(CNSNews.com) - The impending sequester did not prevent the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)  from acting in late February to seal a $50-million deal to purchase new uniforms for its agents–uniforms that will be partly manufactured in Mexico.

Soon after this new investment in TSA uniforms, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano warned Americans that the lines are already lengthening at airports due to the sequester.

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The TSA employs 50,000 security officers, inspectors, air marshals and managers. That means that the uniform contract will pay the equivalent of $1,000 per TSA employee over the course of the year.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/tsa-sealed-50-million-sequester-eve-deal-buy-new-uniforms

TSA uniform perks more expensive than Marine Corps

Under their new collective bargaining agreement, Transportation Security Administration officers get to spend more taxpayer money on their uniforms every year than a United States Marine Corps lieutenant can spend in a lifetime.

“TSA employees will see their uniform allowances nearly double to $446 per year,” the House Transportation Committee noted in a press release on the TSA’s new collective bargaining agreement.  “By comparison, a combat Marine Lieutenant receives a one-time uniform allowance of $400.  The cost of the increase in TSA uniform allowance is an estimated $9.63 million annually.”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/tsa-uniform-perks-more-expensive-than-marine-corps/article/2513111