After watching the corruption scandals of the Canadians and now the French, new allegations of abuse and theft at the Transportation Security Administration seem almost amatuerish and strangely unambitious. However, as CNN reports, it also demonstrates an agency that bloated almost overnight into a poorly-managed mess, with deep implications for national security:

A Transportation Security Administration official spent $500,000 on art, silk plants and other decorations for a new operations center and then went to work for the vendor after leaving the agency, according to a report from the Department of Homeland Security's inspector general. ...

The inspector general found that the project manager and other TSA employees routinely violated agency policies to buy furniture, leather briefcases, coffee pots and other items.

They concealed purchases of more than $2,500, including one for $47,449, by splitting them into several credit card transactions, the report said.

The report said that higher-ups at the TSA "quashed" efforts by procurement managers to exercise control.

Coffee pots? Leather briefcases? So these issues are what the agency cares about after 9/11. This kind of petty larceny occurs in all organizations, governmental or private sector, but the key difference is that management is supposed to stop it, not grease the skids for it. If this is what has occupied management's time, no wonder the auditors have found little or no improvement in transportation security since 9/11.

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