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Comment by mrcrassic | Hacker News Reader

I met a TSA airport agent a few months ago and, naturally, asked him exactly this. Apparently, the TSA purposely does not release accurate statistics as a security measure and that he and his colleagues have definitely stopped a lot of potential, but minor, scenarios from happening.

I could be wrong and uneducated about this, of course.

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I worked for the TSA for about 6 months a few years ago. They convince employees that catching a knife from some traveler who forgot to put it in their checked baggage is a huge win and that somehow we saved the day yet again. Happened on a daily basis.

Our biggest catch while I was there: one day we caught a guy with a sword. The guy obviously didn't know what he was doing, apologetic, and confused. Of course, our managers talked it up as a big win for TSA security. Can you imagine a terrorist trying to take over a plane with a sword?

Without statistics it's hard to say what "potential" meant, doesn't it? The TSA reports that they find 4-5 guns each day. People forget that they have their gun one them or in their luggage.

These incidents are reported. Are these part of the "potential, but minor, scenarios"? It's hard to say without knowing the statistics. But it's safe to assume that "minor" means "not terrorism related."

I can't come up with any scenarios where the release of accurate statistics would cause a security problem, except to lower the security of the TSA's own existence. To take it up a notch, are all of the accurate statistics from 2010 still so sensitive that none of them can be revealed? I don't think so. But I don't think those have been released at all.

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