Stories about valuable items going missing at airport TSA checkpoints are worryingly common, but it’s not often you can prove your possessions have indeed been stolen by the people employed to protect you. Fortunately, Apple has made iOS devices easy to track when they go missing, and ABC News recently took advantage of this feature to catch a thieving TSA officer red-handed.
ABC’s production team visited ten major airports with a history of TSA theft problems across the United States, and they deliberately left an iPad lying around at a TSA checkpoint in each one of them. Nine of the ten devices were reported to the lost and found, but one was was not.
After tracking it for two hours, ABC discovered that their device had moved away from Orlando International Airport and into the home of TSA officer Andy Ramirez. Two weeks later, they went to collect it — here’s what happened:
ABC News reports that more than 380 TSA officers have been fired for theft — 11 this year alone.
This is yet another example of how valuable Apple’s Find My iPhone and Find My iPad feature can be. What’s more, it’s built into every single iOS device as standard, and it doesn’t cost a penny to use. There’s no good reason, then, why it shouldn’t be activated on all of yours.
Source: ABC News
Via: 9to5Mac
Killian Bell is a freelance writer based in the U.K. He has an interest in all things tech and also covers Android over at CultofAndroid.com. You can follow him on Twitter via @killianbell.
10 responses to “Find My iPad Catches Thieving TSA Officer Red-Handed [Video]”
Incredible! Only fired? He should be taken to court and Convicted
Lol that’s terrible! But bound to happen
White collar crime is the same as blue collar crime and should be treated and punished the same take them to court.
The other reason why they were caught was the iPad feature of find my iPad is so effective. I wish my Mac computer had a feature like this built in which didn’t require third party software. I think a MacBook pro would be more important than an iPad.
I’m not sure what you mean in that this *is* a blue collar crime.
I do think it’s silly though how they spend all this time and effort to ruin the life of some minor thief when the white collar guys on Wall Street steal billions and get off scott free. I think being fired is a suitable punishment for this particular case. He wouldn’t get any jail time for stealing a single iPad anyway.
This is in the latest version of OS X as “Find my Mac” in the iCloud control panel.
Yep! Had a netbook taken right out of a checked bag. Shame on me for ‘hiding’ it in there.
Jail for this bastard would cost the State. He should be fined a large sum of money, just firing him is not enough. This is probably not the first theft he has committed and should be punished severely for abusing his position of authority.
You’re dealing with the government here. Government officials lie, cheat, steal (i.e. tax) and murder (i.e. wage unjust war) every day and most of the time they do it with impunity.
The TSA is not only evil, it’s completely unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment (not that the Constitution even applies anymore to that criminal class who purports to rule over us from their marble palaces in Washington). See, a private organization can, if they so desire, require you to submit to any kind of screening before boarding their planes, BUT the government has no such authority. No random detainment and search is permitted under the 4th Amendment without warrant or probable cause.
That Americans submit to this wanton tyranny and hand over their children to badged and costumed goons to have their privates felt up is just one more indicator that when it comes down to it, we’re no different than the throngs of hopeful stooges who’ve cheered on every other dictatorship in history.
This agent is to blame, he needed to wrap the IPAD in foil almost immediately stop electronic radio tracking. Silly TSA guy…