On a flight last week I overheard the TSA agent joke about the "torture" procedure he was about to inflict on my son when he opted out of a body scan. I don't find anything about the TSA to be humorous.

But remember!

If you joke about carrying a weapon, about violence, or anything the TSA does not like...

Immediate grounds for (at best) a thorough pat-down. Or being added to a no-fly list. Or being tossed out of airport security. Or being detained away from your family.

Exactly....remember those two friends that got barred from the US for joking over Twitter:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3528138

Now the TSA makes an even more incendiary joke about "things that go BOOM" and it's all dandy from their perspective. Talk about hypocrisy.

I did too but not for the reason of the language.

The guy is substituting pre-deployment testing for on-going penetration testing by a diverse group of independent individuals. If this was Microsoft's attitude towards security, Windows 8 would still be as secure as Windows 95....

That language is intended to resonate with people who look at cat pictures on the internet and who are (obviously) the people whose clicks made the video in question go viral.

The TSA isn't Reddit, we're talking about people's real security at stake here. Them joking about "things that go BOOM" is just downright distasteful, especially when people are expecting them to confront the security concerns more seriously. Them joking about this makes them look like a joke.

> Whoever wrote or approved this post ought to be fired. Fast.

Thus solving the problem once and for all.

Of course I'm not arguing it's a complete solution.. but I would argue that a complete solution would include this. Also note that I didn't suggest that whoever wrote it be fired alone, I think anyone who had any oversight into this line of thinking should go.

It's indicative of a culture of arrogance, disrespect, poor decision-making, and anything but reverence for the value of the service that the organization is charged with.

On the contrary, this individual should be promoted to the head of the TSA and be required to make weekly public TV appearances.

"Things that go boom" must be official TSA terminology. I've heard it used by screeners on multiple occasions at different airports.

They're probably not permitted to use the "b-word" out of concern for spooking passengers, much as passengers are not permitted to use the "b-word" out of concern for spooking the screeners.

I hate the TSA as much as anyone, but this type of gallows humor is pretty common - in private, it's common for doctors to joke about dying patients, etc, because keeping things deathly serious all the time is emotionally impossible.

Yes, but that's the key - in private. There are jokes I use with my friends, that I would NEVER use in public situation.

But as you said yourself, there are situations in which this 'humor' is appropriate. The official blog of a government agency is definitely not the place. I would expect this type of language from a no-name blog by a person with the grammar of 16 year-old.

Nah, the humor wasn't the scary part. Their trust in pre-deployment testing and so forth..... That was the scary part....

Are you sure that's a reasonable comparison?

They are impossible to fire.

If no one slips a bomb past them, they've done their job; If someone slips a bomb past them, they'll only grow bigger and more menacing.

Worse still: If no one tries to slip a bomb past them, they must ignore the obvious and declare they need more power to catch the evil-doers. If someone is successfully caught by them, we obviously need to up security, because this display of effectiveness may not be enough.