Epic Paul Blart: Airport Cop Fail

You know that Transportation Security Agency, the one supposed to protect our airlines?  Seems it's just impossible to get rid of Bush-era incompetence.

In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) inadvertently posted online its airport screening procedures manual, including some of the most closely guarded secrets regarding special rules for diplomats and CIA and law enforcement officers.

The most sensitive parts of the 93-page Standard Operating Procedures manual were apparently redacted in a way that computer savvy individuals easily overcame.

The document shows sample CIA, Congressional and law enforcement credentials which experts say would make it easy for terrorists to duplicate.

The improperly redacted areas indicate that only 20 percent of checked bags are to be hand searched for explosives and reveal in detail the limitations of x-ray screening machines.

The bottom line is while making a presentation this spring to one of the companies contracted to handle TSA duties, the manual's redacted parts were posted improperly, meaning that cutting and pasting the supposedly redacted manual into a new document resulted in a completely unredacted one.

Which is now loose on the internet.

And that's good enough to earn calls for a major Congressional investigation.

Criticism from Congress was scathing. Sen. Susan M. Collins (Maine), the ranking Republican on the Senate homeland security committee, called the document's release "shocking and reckless."

"This manual provides a road map to those who would do us harm," she said.

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.), the panel's chairman, called the breach "an embarrassing mistake" that impugns the judgment of managers at the TSA, which is still without a permanent administrator 11 months into the Obama administration. Nominee Erroll Southers, a Los Angeles airports police executive, is awaiting a confirmation vote in the Senate.

House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Bennie G. Thompson (D-Miss.) and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.) also wrote acting TSA Administrator Gale D. Rossides, saying they are were "deeply concerned" about the disclosures and calling for an independent government investigation.

In its defense, the TSA says six more versions of the manual have been created and they were aware the day of the breach.

It's still well into EPIC FAIL territory.