(NaturalNews) While thehas a history of paying off petty tyrants and thugs in its quest to keep America safe, no regular federal agency would purposely seek out and hire the dregs of society.Wrong.Enter the illustrious. Are you surprised?According to "Rob," a TSA supervisor-turned-whistleblower, in an interview with the, the agency's brass is directing staff to hire degenerates - people with criminal records who have exhibited violent tendencies and psychopathic behavior.How do you like air travel now?During the interview, Rob talked about his job, which entailed filing reports on TSA screeners who did not follow agency procedures. He said he was alarmed by the fact that the agency was hiring a number of criminals who he said exhibited the behavior of "psychopaths.""We have a program in the state of Rhode Island where we take prisoners who are out for non-violent drug offenses and everything else - basically sociopaths - and we're sending them to a ten-day course and getting them in uniform checking out people," the whistleblower said.He noted that people who presented themselves very professionally were often passed over in favor of applicants who had spent time in jail and who had megalomaniacal, power-trip tendencies."If they have a background and it's something like violence or abusing authority we put them right in, we put them guys on the floor first day," said Rob, who also said he was encouraged to hire veterans from the Iraq war who had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder."It's all about the power trip, it's all about having people bug their eyes out at the public and getting the public conditioned to the fact that the police state is coming," Rob said, adding that TSA screeners were instructed to stick out their chests in arrogance and "eyeball people."The TSA's bizarre behavior, as well as the agency's lower-than-low hiring standards, is getting noticed by more and more people. Fortunately for all Americans, an increasing number of those are people who can do something about it (let's hope they do).Take a recent report about the TSA by U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. In it she highlighted the fact that TSA agents engage in criminal behavior so often it's almost routine. She says that's no aberrancy, it's because of "TSA's hiring practices and insufficient use of background checks.""This report details highly disturbing cases where pedophiles and child pornographers wearing federal law enforcement uniforms are not only patting down unsuspecting travelers, but in many cases stealing valuables from their bags," she told a local news station in early June. "Enough is enough. It's time for Congress to step in and demand accountability from Administrator [John] Pistole."But what should Americans expect?The TSA's recruitment policy does not reflect its own mantra, which is that it was created as an "intelligent risk-based organization." The agency doesn't conduct criminal and background checks on many of its employees, Blackburn's report noted, and that it trolls for employees by advertising "for employment at the Washington Reagan National Airport on pizza boxes and on advertisements above pumps at discount gas stations in the D.C. area."Rob also told Alex Jones that TSA screeners were being ordered by supervisors to check bags of people who were only coming to the airport to pick up a traveler. He said he was once directed to search a diaper bag that belonged to a woman who had only come to the airport to pick up her husband.much?"We're doing patrols in the parking lot with dogs, we're even going as far out to the train station because the train station is connected to the airport here and we have guys walking around the train station, walking around the rental cars, we're inspecting cars coming into the parking garage, I mean we've fully expanded - we're no longer just at the gate and just at the security checkpoint," he said, adding that supervisors were firing agents who refused to grope travelers in certain areas.Rob, the report noted, was contacted by his bosses shortly after the interview and reprimanded, by the way.Sources: