Maybe they ought to be frisking their own

A TSA agent at New York's JFK International Airport has been charged with grand larceny after lifting five thousand dollars out of a passenger's pocket.

This kind of thing seems to be getting to be a habit:

— Last month, an agent who worked searching checked luggage at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport was suspended after the owner of a stolen iPad used the tracking feature on the device to locate it at the agent's home. Police found seven other iPads there.

—On Jan. 10, former TSA agent Paul Yashou pleaded guilty to stealing a $15,000 watch from a passenger's belongings at Los Angeles International Airport in May. He is awaiting sentencing.

— Two other former TSA agents at JFK were sentenced on Jan. 10 to six months in jail and five years' probation for stealing $40,000 from a piece of luggage in January 2011. The agents, Coumar Persad and Davon Webb, had pleaded guilty to grand larceny, obstructing governmental administration and official misconduct.

— Also in January, authorities charged an agent at Miami International Airport with swiping items and luggage and smuggling them out of the airport in a hidden pocket of his work jacket. He was arrested after one of the items, an iPad, was spotted for sale on Craigslist. Another TSA employee was arrested in July at nearby Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport after an airline employee reported that the man slipped an iPad into his pants.

— In December, police charged a TSA screener at New York's LaGuardia Airport with lifting a laptop after a Detroit-bound passenger left it behind at the security station.

— Earlier last year, a TSA supervisor and one of his officers pleaded guilty in a scheme that lifted $10,000 to $30,000 from passengers' belongings at Newark Liberty International Airport. A federal judge sentenced the supervisor, Michael Arato, to 2½ years in prison and his subordinate, Al Raimi, to six months of home confinement.