Was there any financial bonus for the screeners to find the fake guns and bombs? For example, would a screener get $100 if they found one of these planted items?

I would think that would be a good way to reduce the failure rate. Or does the failure rate have more to do with limitations in equipment, rather than screening being a mundane job?

You start from the assumption that it's in anybody's interest that these machines do actually work. It isn't.

The real interest is for well-connected companies to sell equipment; for the approving bureaucrat to get his kickback while not being seen as abusing his position; and for the low-level unskilled TSA employee to keep quiet and keep cashing his salary.

The suggestion you give would mean the above-mentioned bureaucrat should spend additional money (which would require a lengthy fight with his superiors in order to get additional budget, possibly even triggering a review of previous expenditure) in order to push his underlings to point out flaws in the equipment he bought, so that... he can be made a fool of ?

So you see why it isn't going to happen any time soon.

"Was there any financial bonus for the screeners to find the fake guns and bombs? For example, would a screener get $100 if they found one of these planted items?"

In about 5 seconds after such a bonus program was initiated, screeners would be offering kickbacks to the testers in return for being given advance notice of the test.

Surely the TSA screeners do not know who the testers are, or what they look like. That would defeat the purpose of the test.

Then the testers should be given a financial incentive to get the items through.

Then long wait times would be increased dramatically by screeners trying to be as thorough as possible.

I doubt it, minimum wage jobs don't usually have bonuses. Have you ever worked in one? Walmart has no bonuses either.

If it is a random 25% or so, that might be sufficient deterrence. say, you plan an attack. Would you run a 75% chance of it being thwarted before you enter the plane, or do you start looking elsewhere?

I read on here the other day from someone who studied Al-Qaida and was a part of the terrorist watch group with the FBI that when they plan something it has to be 100% that the plan will work before they attempt it. He was saying they wouldn't dare risk it even if it was a 75% risk. Which is interesting. Just thought i'd throw that in here.

Al Qaida (and similar groups) want to be seen as always successful. If there's regular news about their plots failing, their backers quit backing them and move on to a group that fails less.

I guess if you're a group planning an attack, training and equipping 4 instead of 1 attacker isn't an insurmountable obstacle.

Capable staff is perhaps the largest challenge facing terrorist organizations. If Al Qaeda could have sent four people with shoe bombs or underwear bombs, you'd better believe they would have. And if explosives were the limiting factor, that would mean Richard Reid and Umar Abdulmutallab were the most capable of agents on hand. And that simply doesn't paint a picture that suggests they have a very large pool of capable, dedicated terrorists to work with.

Despite what the fear-merchants would have us believe, all indications are that there simply aren't that many intelligent, capable people who are willing to give their own lives to lash out at Western civilians.

The more people you get involved, the better chance the FBI has to break up the operation before you get to the airport.