TSA Agent Confession - POLITICO Magazine

TSA Agent Confession - POLITICO Magazine

"We knew the full-body scanners didn't work before they were even installed. Not long after the Underwear Bomber incident, all TSA officers at O'Hare were informed that training for the Rapiscan Systems full-body scanners would soon begin. The machines cost about $150,000 a pop.

"Our instructor was a balding middle-aged man who shrugged his shoulders after everything he said, as though in apology. At the conclusion of our crash course, one of the officers in our class asked him to tell us, off the record, what he really thought about the machines.

"'They're s[***],' he said, shrugging. He said we wouldn't be able to distinguish plastic explosives from body fat and that guns were practically invisible if they were turned sideways in a pocket."