TSA

In the ever-evolving war against airline passengers, the Transportation Security Administration continues to develop new weapons of mass dysfunction. Travelers have long been harassed with x-ray machines, metal-detecting wands and inscrutable verbal vetting like "Did someone put something in your luggage when you weren't looking?" Then in 2006 the TSA began quietly testing two new anti-personnel weapons. One is sort of an automated lie detector, a booth that interrogates suspects with damning questions ("Did someone put something in your luggage when you weren't looking?") while software analyzes feedback from biometric sensors busily monitoring blood pressure, pulse rate and nervous tics.

In the ever-evolving war against airline passengers, the Transportation Security Administration continues to develop new weapons of mass dysfunction. Travelers have long been harassed with x-ray machines, metal-detecting wands and inscrutable verbal vetting like "Did someone put something in your luggage when you weren't looking?" Then in 2006 the TSA began quietly testing two new anti-personnel weapons.

In what must be one of the few fun-filled functions in the otherwise beastly boring lives of bureaucrats, undercover operatives try to sneak weaponry through airport checkpoints to test how good Transportation Security Administration screeners are at finding guns, bombs and knives. At half a dozen airports around the country, TSA employees were so uncharacteristically successful that it naturally triggered an investigation to see if they were cheating on their tests. Sure enough, they had been tipped off by their buddies that the fun-filled functionaries were coming. People were shocked. Who knew that the TSA was supposed to find guns, bombs and knives?

In what must be one of the few fun-filled functions in the otherwise beastly boring lives of bureaucrats, undercover operatives try to sneak weaponry through airport checkpoints to test how good Transportation Security Administration screeners are at finding guns, bombs and knives. At half a dozen airports around the country, TSA employees were so uncharacteristically successful that it naturally triggered an investigation to see if they were cheating on their tests. Sure enough, they had been tipped off by their buddies that the fun-filled functionaries were coming. People were shocked.