In a letter sent Wednesday to TSA administrator John Pistole, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has called for an undercover investigation of the TSA to address the problem of agents stealing from passengers' luggage, The Hill reports.
“Traveling these days is stressful enough without having to worry about being robbed by those who are paid to keep us safe,” said Schumer in a press release.
The senator suggests that the operation be carried out by "undercover agents acting as travelers, and include property with embedded location tracking devices."
In the letter, he also suggests that the TSA "should also engage in random screenings of agents at the end of their shifts to ensure that they are not removing passenger property from the airport."
The most recent case of supposed TSA theft involved an iPad that was tracked to the home of a Florida TSA officer, as ABC News reports. TSA-watcher and journalist Christopher Elliot recently wrote on HuffPost Travel that the problem may be far bigger than ABC suggests.
According to one convicted TSA officer from Newark Airport, theft was "very commonplace" and "very convenient."
Back in 2011, a TSA officer was indicted for stealing $23,000 worth of watches from LAX passengers, a supervisor at Newark Airport was charged with stealing roughly $30,000 over a 13-month time span and two TSA agents at JFK airport were arrested for stealing $39,00 from passengers.
In February 2012 alone, a TSA agent stole $5,000 from a passenger's jacket as he was going through security at JFK airport. An agent at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport was accused of taking multiple iPads over the course of a year and a passenger had his Rolex stolen Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Here's a look at look at other, recent TSA gaffes:
