Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Late last year while trying to fly out of LAX a TSA employee thought I was carrying a throwing star. They called the police, who correctly identified as a toy in seconds.
I thought the whole ordeal was over until I got a "notice of violation" in the mail from TSA 45 days later.
Now I'm banned from pre-check for three years, even though I have global entry and even though the fine was thrown out. It's a kangaroo court were the only two options are you pay the fine or they convert it to a warning.
Some shit head got a gold star for "finding a weapon" and I get fucked.
Please defund these 0-terrorist-catching losers.
One of the vendors from the League convention I put on gave it to me as a token of thanks just before the event ended. I dropped it in my bag and forgot it until flying a few weeks later.
Bonus: My business partner was given the same one and the same thing happened at BUR. TSA asked if she wanted to mail it home, she said "toss it" and never heard another word!
Bonus 2: Cop asks me "who do you main?" (as in, what champion do you mainly play in LoL)
Free business idea!
UPS/FedEx/USPS packaging site at the end of the TSA line. When they say you can't take your cologne, knife, or toothbrush because it's too dangerous, you can immediately give it one of our helpful agents and they'll instead mail it your home!
[1]: http://static1.eclypsia.com/images/lol/champions/Sivir_Splas...
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Rotatable-LOL-League-of-Legends-Sivi...
I can imagine that looking really scary through the x-ray but it's definitely not a weapon.
I'm not indignant about being stopped with it - just about being treated like a criminal instead of someone who just made a mistake. It was like my 30th flight of the year and I had (real) status with 2 airlines, and I was in a tiny little PreCheck screening wing with maybe 6 other passengers and 10 TSA at 5:00 AM.
It just seems like everything lined up for this to be a simple process that would have been easily determined to be inadvertent and not a danger to anyone, but I still got hosed!
A grown man carrying a "throwing-star" toy through pre-check SHOULD BE banned from this privilege and feel the scorn of other pre-check folks who just want to go through smoothly.
"Did you know what you did was a felony? Did you know it's illegal to possess one of these?" - that's what I had to endure until the police arrived. For the crime of forgetting an item in my bag even existed after running a convention.
Of course it's my fault for not checking my bag before I left the house, if I was a weapons collector I'm sure I would've thought twice but I'm not.
It is sad that TSA is just a bunch a phony-baloney security theater, but that's not going to change anytime soon. In the meantime please be careful about what you put in your bag so that you don't delay others. Airports are stressful enough already.
http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=pen&gr...
The police, who are local and have at least a basic understanding of California's laws, immediately knew it was not a throwing star. I'm not sure if TSA is allowed to touch weapons, but they refused to attempt to handle this item even after police arrived.
If this sounds stupid it's because it is. Someone threatened me with jail time and then came back to haunt me even after the police said there was no weapon. I retained an ex-TSA attorney, learned the laws and fought hard to understand the process.
In the end I just got on the phone with my case agent who quickly Nerfed my violation soon after I sent the email. Nothing that can be done about the PreCheck ban though.
The TSA is not allowed to touch weapons, and the police are not allowed to perform the sorts of pat-downs that the TSA provides[0].
Incidentally, packing a gun in your checked luggage is supposedly the best way to make sure nothing ever gets stolen. If you pack a gun (even a flare gun will do), you are required to lock it with a lock for which only you hold the key, and the TSA cannot open it without calling the police in case they need to look inside. Not to mention, the penalties for them losing a piece of luggage that has a declared firearm inside it are way worse than the penalties for when they steal something from your luggage[1].
[0] Jurisdiction-dependent, of course - but police have to meet a much higher bar to pat people down than the TSA do.
[1] Which is to say, 'nothing', because there are essentially no penalties for TSA employees who are caught stealing, even repeatedly. It's absurd.
> As used in this part, a "shuriken" means any instrument, without handles, consisting of a metal plate having three or more radiating points with one or more sharp edges and designed in the shape of a polygon, trefoil, cross, star, diamond, or other geometric shape, for use as a weapon for throwing.
Could maybe qualify as a replica weapon regardless?
The second time through security, they said they saw a blade on the x-ray.. turns out they were right. I forgot I had left a multi-tool in my bag.
Thankfully, they just trashed it and let me continue on my way. The story still flabbergasts me, though.
But of course you can break the plastic knife and fork they give you and still stab someone in the jugular.
You could even sharpen the headphones connector.
Post 9/11 passengers are not going to allow a guy with a razor blade hijack a plane, or even several guys with razor blades. Passengers and crew members now fight back and have the advantage of numbers.
Yeah, but what if _everyone_ on the plane were a hijacker?
Wait...
Only in the days when we didn't lock the cockpit doors. Now that the cockpit doors are locked, even an actual gun wouldn't be sufficient to hijack the plane (the cockpit doors are essentially impossible to open from the outside, at least not without equipment that would be impossible to bring on a plane and would be rather conspicuously slow to use during a flight).
So noone is looking at the toolbox that I'm standing right next to. I could easily have grabbed a knife or two if I had wanted to.
And once they finished patting him down, he grabs his tools and walks on.
And I'm just standing there, gaping at the stupidity of it all.
I do know that flying _back_ to the US on my last few international flights, there was a second security checkpoint I had to go through. Very silly. I had filled my water bottle at a fountain at the gate and then had to empty it right out 5 minutes later.
Based on travelling in south America, south East Asia etc, this is sometimes correct.
There are lots of times when with domestic -> international flights (or even domestic -> domestic, in some cases) there would be terminal transfers required that would leave the secured zone and thus require passing through security again incidentally, even without a specific policy.
Several airports where I know this was an issue have been redesigned to alleviate this, but I'm sure there are some where it is still an issue.
These events caused me to put together a pre-TSA personal checklist, since I can't count on getting lucky again, and I really like that multitool. (:
After feeling around in the bag we discovered some fabric cutting shears had apparently been accidentally been sewn into the lining by someone on the factory line (they looked something like this if I remember correctly: http://imgur.com/ZKlsjJw).
We just cut them out, handed them over and went on our way. Was a really strange experience though.
On the other hand, I remember when I was a kid in the 90s and accidentally took my pocket knife (3" blade) through screening, and they found it but let me bring it on the plane...
I was flying out of Beijing, you know... that country with terrible human rights... To be clear: there are multiple human rights issues in China, many of which are far worse than the US. Just not everything.
Do you have a source for that? Because for as long as I can remember they have had to be checked, including in the 90s.
You always could, and still can, check a firearm into luggage on a flight.
I told her "we need to check those bags, otherwise they'll make you throw them out". She said it would be fine. And guess what? It was. Almost 4L of liquids in her carry-on and no one said a thing.
I think it's more of a roulette of circumstances more than a pattern of compliance/negligence, but it is curious to have 2 MIA data points.
I also flew Oslo->Lisbon->Sao Paolo->Rio de Janeiro->Lisbon->Oslo about five years ago with a 7" soldering iron in my hand luggage.
Then there was the time when I had my bag very thoroughly searched flying out of Geneva because of a highly suspicious loaf of bread.
Really not cool. Probably justify it by saying it takes a lot of time to process paperwork (that they created the requirement for in the first place...)
Did you know that it also now costs $2350 for someone to renounce their US citizenship?
It also takes an undefined amount of time (typically 12+ months) and they publish your name online on a State Department shame list of ex-Americans.
A decade ago, it was free to renounce your US citizenship. Around 2009 they started charging $450, and then suddenly raised the fee to $2350 in 2014.
Not that it matters to the price/cost of doing it, but what do you think are the most common reasons for forfeiting US citizenship? I suspect it's tax-evasion.
There's a business model! Claim someone is a citizen, boom they owe taxes!
The neck comes off and it packs into a case that's small enough for carry-on. It has often struck me that a guitar neck with six metal strings attached would make a fairly effective weapon (at least, by TSA standards!) but I've never had any trouble getting through security, apart from occasionally having to put it together.
The wait times must be reduced regardless.
There are 2 kinds of people: those who think that more money will somehow fix everything (them), and those that think more money will only exacerbate the problems that have brought us to the current point of the debate (me). As a matter of fact, as I write this, I think that may be the single most significant distinction between "conservativism" and "liberalism," as practiced in the US.
Ugh.. no it's not. That's a massive mischaracterization of liberalism. Liberals, by and large, do not think that throwing additional funding at things (for the sake of additional funds) will improve systems. It's an unfounded and cartoonish view of liberal policy.
The situation for travelers is worse, not better, if the TSA is understaffed but still present.
As Israeli security experts have said time and time again, if the terrorist gets to the airport it's already too late. Brussels is an unfortunate demonstration of this principle.
A sufficiently resourced-starved TSA might "succeed" at preventing attacks on passenger air travel by eliminating passenger air travel altogether. Once lines approach 4, 5 hours people will just drive.
There's nothing even close in the air travel world. Even Nexus people have to endure the occasional cavity search.
It's gotta be killed. Immediately. It's a horribly bad idea that's just sinking its claws in further with each passing day. In fact, the politicians have probably already figured out -- we're stuck with them forever. I just wish they'd come out and be honest about it: infinite money sink, longer and longer lines, security theater, and more bullshit stories. Year after year.
Everything about security and law enforcement has some level of perverse incentives. People learn to game the system and their supervisors don't care as long as there's a benefit to them. I'm certain this guy knew it was a toy, but he wanted that gold star and his supervisor wanted a report showing all the gold stars that month were from his guys.
This is a classic problem in management. The real question is who can fix this? In government, perverse incentives eventually become the norm, not the exception, as everyone eventually gets in the game and there's no reason for anyone to upset the cart. Especially when the higher ups are riding the pension/public sector union bus and anything that could risk that or cause a political issue is just ignored. They're not going to be the fall guy here. The shitheads outnumber them vasty. More than likely these managers are just ex-shitheads who played the game better than the other shitheads in the past and got promoted.
If airport security was run by a private company, the government could fire these guys and go with a different vendor if there was enough political pressure (or threaten to to get needed reforms), but because the TSA is the government, we're stuck with them.
As far as "connections" go, Theranos is imploding right now even with its deep government and military connections.
All this because I had a box of poptarts that apparently looked like a bomb.
Your having LEOs violate your rights and go thru your belongings - for someone thinking your box is a bomb - is no different than a cop stopping a driver for thinking the driver's Coke can is a Budweiser and searching their car.
It's not exactly airport style - at least in NYC and Philly they swab you for explosives and check your ID. No X-Ray or nude-o-scope. You're free to not go through the checkpoint (but you won't board your train).
1. Or literally the TSA: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyo...
Our small satchel bags and bodies did not get x-rayed, but the large suitcases did. I forgot I had a pocketknife in there (as it's fine usually for airport security as a check in bag). Somehow, when my suitcase got scanned, they mixed up the order and the person behind me got stopped for having a knife. By that time, I was making a quick getaway to the platform as I didn't want to lose the knife.
I could have just had a knife (and bomb?) in my satchel bag, so was pretty confused by the whole x-ray suitcases only situation.
(Also, of course, there is a semblance of due process with traffic stops)
the TSA smurfs are NOT an LEO! They are roughly the equivalent of desk clerks dressing in clothing designed to confuse people about this. They neither have the rights nor the competence of an LEO.
Took me all of 5 minutes to resolve. Guess some tsa agents are just not very good at their job.
Probably depends on the metric you're using to evaluate that.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/tsa-fails-95-percen...
The supervisor and the girl came back and I laughed and said 'clearly you have spotted my giant chocolate bar', and volunteered all the standard answers (yes I packed this myself, it's been with me the whole time, etc) and they calmed down. I was worried they were going to want to open the package which was a gift and I didn't want them all riled up.
We all learned something that day, they learned that big ten-pound chocolate bars are a real thing and I learned that terrorists can probably carry bombs on board as long as they are sealed in a Ghirardelli box. TSA didn't even bother with the swabs or sniffer dog.
Bottom line is that TSA agents have no skin in the game, if they miss dangerous items it's the passengers who suffer the loss, not the agents standing safely at their posts on the ground at the airport.
do what you must. bite the bullet on 1h plus for security, and opt out of the undocumented scanner.
your country thank you.
I always feel bad for the poor dude who had to feel up my junk with the back of his hand, but it's my tiny little bit of civil disobedience.
Its absurd the profiling going on with the TSA. If I dress well, I get rushed through the lines quickly. If I dress like a slob, I get subjected to additional baggage checks and pat downs on a regular basis while TSA agents bark orders at me like I'm incompetent. This article makes it sound like they are trained to do this under the guise of "behavior detection". Once I got precheck, I started getting treated like a human being.
Fuck the TSA. If we need to provide jobs to dropouts, give them something meaningful to do without subjecting the rest of the population to their "authority".
Curiously, I haven't had a TSA line longer than 45 minutes flying from places in NY, CA or FL (I mostly flight late evening/disgustingly-early morning though) in the last few months.
PS: laxatives, you mention being treated like a human. Why not help by not referring to TSA employees as "dropouts"?
Yeah you're right its not fair to call them dropouts.
Having said that, these rules are usually not strictly enforced.
One lighter on a person means a problem will be relatively small and quickly noticed.
https://www.faa.gov/about/office_org/headquarters_offices/as...
Edit: Ok, maybe not miles, but seriously, had to run to every plane.
Case in point: if I want to to fly from Zurich to Lima I have essentially two choices: I can connect either in Amsterdam, or in Madrid. Madrids legal connection time is 55 minutes max (on Iberia). In AMS on KLM it's a maximum of 50 minutes.
Another option would be to fly via an US airport. For example Miami. Only that I would have to be crazy.
Start with the fact that I can't check my luggage through to Lima. I must go through immigration in Miami, pick up my luggage, go through customs, re-check my luggage and then endure the security hassle.
Even if the US connection would save me a couple hundred $ I would have to be crazy to chose the hassle, the annoyance and the risk of missing my connection.
And I don't think I'm alone with such thoughts.
Edited: Added actual legal connection times for AMS and MAD
The hoops they had to jump through, and the stories they told. 99% vowed they would never again board a plane to the USA.
* about 10h travel time via MIA and/or JFK for $240 (+ $50 for ESTA)
* 4.5h via Panama City to Punta Cana plus 8h on a bus for $800
* 17h via Curacao, Aruba, Saint Martin to Santo Domingo and then 5h on a bus for $320 (+ $70 for night in a hotel on Curacao and transfers to/from the airport, + $20 Curacao Airport ripoff fee)
Curacao, here I come!
It is very hard to book such flights, and if booked as 2 single hops I've once before missed the connection due to being in security and United argued that the second flight was not a connection and so they didn't have to put me on the next flight. My baggage of course had gone ahead.
* MCT D-D: Minimum connection time, from one domestic flight to another domestic flight.
* MCT D-I: Minimum connection time, from a domestic flight to an international flight.
* MCT I-D: Minimum connection time, from an international flight to a domestic flight.
* MCT I-I: Minimum connection time, from one international flight to another international flight.
These are set per airline per airport, and in many cases there are more fine-grained MCTs for flights depending on origin/destination or categorized by flight number. The airline will not let you purchase tickets for an itinerary which violates the relevant MCT, and if delays cause you to dip below the MCT you're possibly going to be rebooked (though no guarantee of it).
For completeness' sake, here's what the information looks like in raw form (this is the MCT for American Airlines at its hub in Charlotte):
STANDARD.D/D...D/I...I/D...I/I.
ONLINE .40 1.00 1.00 1.00
OFFLINE .40 1.00 1.00 1.00
** OR * ARE ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
EQP ALL - E70 PUERTO RICO - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
EQP ALL - E70 VIRGIN ISLAND US - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
EQP ALL - E75 PUERTO RICO - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
EQP ALL - E75 VIRGIN ISLAND US - ALL
AA-AA ID SUP FLT 1 - 9099 - FLT 1 - 9099
CANADA - CANADA
AA-AA ID SUP FLT 1 - 9099 - FLT 1 - 9099
MEXICO - MEXICO
AA-AA ID .50 FLT 1 - 6099 - FLT 1 - 6099
IRELAND - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 1 - 2754
PUERTO RICO - ALL
AA-AA ID .35 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
PUERTO RICO - ALL
AA-AA ID .30 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 1 - 2754
VIRGIN ISLAND US - ALL
AA-AA ID .35 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 2755 - 6099
VIRGIN ISLAND US - ALL
AA-AA ID 1.15 FLT 1 - 2754 - FLT 1 - 6099
GROUP3 - ALL
AA-AA ID 1.00 FLT 1 - 6099 - FLT 1 - 6099
**-AA ID 1.15 ALL - FLT 1 - 6099
**-AA ID SUP ALL - FLT 6100 - 9099
AA-** ID 1.15 FLT 1 - 6099 - ALL
AA-** ID SUP FLT 6100 - 9099 - ALL
USE T*GRPN FOR CITIES IN A GROUP. WHERE N IS THE GRP NUMBER.
AA-AA ID SUP FLT 1 - 9099 - FLT 1 - 9099
CANADA - CANADA
You can spot other fun things in there, like the shorter time to connect on a flight from Ireland to a domestic flight; AA flies to Charlotte from Dublin, and Dublin has US Customs preclearance facilities, so passengers arriving from Dublin don't have to clear customs in Charlotte and can make a tighter connection.
Also, what a shit prize naming a airport after someone is. No one likes airports. de Gaulle deserves better.
This is very unusual. Paris might make security a hassle, but they won't look at their passport.
You just picked the worst airport in Europe as the example.
The AM flights run from Mexico City to Narita (a third-tier city in Japan) and Shanghai, usually on 787s. They may add Peking.
Similar services are available connecting through LAX, SFO, or DFW and those are often faster if you're going to other Asian cities or connecting into MEX on the way.
But somehow those AM flights usually carry ticket prices 30-50% higher than the equivalent service through US airports. That's often a $500+ premium. And the flights still fill up. AM catering may be a bit better in economy than on US carriers but the service is mostly identical.
Turns out, that's what it's worth to avoid US airport procedures. The value in the market for avoiding TSA, the lack of sterile transit, US customs and immigration, intrusive slow humiliating US embassy visa operations, and the random nightmares passengers are treated to once in a while is about $500.
A bargain, really.
Anyway, I would imagine there are a lot of travelers (business, in particular) sensitive to time but not so much to price, for whom a direct flight is worth a few hundred $ - there was a solid market for the concord, remember.
Anyway saving the connection, and a "normal" customs/security experience is probably the bigger factor.
Incidentally, compare prices for flights to Vancouver and Seattle sometime.
Haneda is right next to downtown Tokyo.
---
The price difference persists for connecting flights from airports outside MEX and to destination airports outside NRT and Shanghai so it isn't based on direct flights.
Though SkyTeam partnership connections in Asia are much less useful now that Delta has abandoned the NW network and most of its own intra-Asia network.
Only US carriers seem to mostly not get Haneda slots but they are decreasing capacity in Narita as well as they now offer less connecting flights via Japan than they used to. There are currently negotiations and the Japanese authorities have agreed to assign more slots to American carriers. The problem seems mostly Delta, who would like to move their complete hub to Haneda which would take a large share of available slots there. Delta is lobbying hard (including loud in public which is a big no-no in Japan) for not increasing capacity for their competitors. [1]
In 2013 the US was allocated Haneda slots but they could not agree on a distribution among their carriers, so they remained vacant.
The problem at Haneda seems to be as much US-internal fights as Japanese protectionism.
(Sure, Japanese carriers have more than 2/3 of all slots of Haneda. Personally, I think it's fine that a country's carriers are given preferred access where capacity is limited.)
[1]: http://centreforaviation.com/analysis/delta-air-lines-our-wa...
It seems a little disingenuous to quote the taxi price when there are numerous train services available, of which the fastest still only costs ~$25.
I'm not disputing your wider point, but it's not helped by throwing in misleading facts like that.
So I strongly endorse your advice to any travellers reading.
It's ~60mins to Tokyo station, compared with ~30mins from Haneda. And depending on where you're going that difference can disappear quickly. The time to Ueno is ~40mins either way.
https://www.google.com/flights/?hl=en_GB#search;f=HND;t=SIN;...
Switch destination to LAX I see Delta and Korean Air flying out of Haneda as well
Do we really need to keep widening the gap between the haves and have-nots?
The cynical and nihilistic me says 'yes'. Let's push it to see at what point it crumbles.
That is what the U.S. is all about.
I can certainly understand that the family of four who only gets to travel once per several years might find $85 per person to be a burden, but I still can't believe that for most people who travel it's that much of a problem. I mean, a US domestic transcon flight is going to run you at the cheapest $300 round trip (and that's only by shopping around like crazy, having super flexible travel dates, and taking advantage of travel deals). Do that once a year, and your $300 flight becomes $317 with precheck. I know many Americans are frankly terrible at personal finance, but... c'mon. Even something shorter like a SFO<->LAX trip is going to run you at least a hundred.
The only way this fast lane can function is if it's exclusive to a small segment of flyers.
If there's only one fast lane, sure. My hope would be that as more people enroll in precheck, they'll be able to turn more and more "regular" lanes into precheck lanes, keeping the efficiency (or lack thereof) of both lane types the same.
It makes it personally more convenient for you, while simultaneously ignoring or condoning the waste of millions of person-hours without consent, which basically equates to mass murder if you squnt hard enough at the math.
That's why first/business class tickets cost so damn much - to blind the traveler into believing that they're actually paying for something worthwhile. As it turns out, for many of them, it is worthwhile just to have shorter lines.
Theme parks do the same thing: pay more for shorter lines. Many attractions, such as the Sears Tower (still can't bring myself to use its official name) Observation Deck, do the same thing.
It's a money grab for sure, just not by the TSA. and why should the TSA give a shit about it if the first class passenger gets the same screening?
Wait, what? I am always frustrated at seeing the folks in those shorter lines (though I settle down at roughly the point of view others have expressed in this thread, that paying for shorter lines is a fact of all parts of life and doesn't seem to abrogate any fundamental right of mine), but it has never occurred to me to think that someone in one of them is lengthening my wait time. If anything, then he or she is shortening it by not being in my line.
Maybe your point is that the screeners for those short lines could be re-deployed to relieve some of the pressure on the longer ones, if the shorter lines didn't exist at all; but, given that they do exist, no-one's use of them seems to me to have any effect on my wait time.
On a side note, I've noticed that, given the speed that the first agent checks your ID and boarding pass, it's clear to me that they're only looking for three things: 1) you physically have your ID (not that it matches), 2) you have your boarding pass looks vaguely legit, and 3) if you have a precheck or priority marking on the pass that lets you go in a different line. That's really it; they're not really doing anything security-related. #1 and #2 are really more about making sure you don't get in the security line, wait who knows how long, get to the front, and have to get kicked back out for lacking your ID and BP.
I can't imagine why everyone isn't leaping at the opportunity...
It's supposed to be within the US, though, just like in Schengen. That's due to law, not some magical "right", though.
edit: what is a "basic right" supposed to be, anyway? I missed that day in philosophy class.
You might think it would be arguable but John Gilmore discovered you can't even argue it -- the law is secret and cannot be discussed in open court, thus he had no standing to sue over it: https://papersplease.org/gilmore/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilmore_v._Gonzales
The wikipedia entry is slightly misleading on one point: the ninth circuit said he could travel without ID (this case came about because I had been flying without ID and discussed it with John) -- his suit was that he had no choice due to a law he was not permitted to read (yet ignorance of that law is no defense!) and he argued that that was a violation of free speech + free assembly. Without being able to discuss the law in open court, the justification for the decision was a fig leaf.
Fundamental rights that are inherent to all humans by birth and cannot be justly alienated. It's a major philosophical topic you've probably seen reflected in the universal declaration of human rights, american declaration of independence, french revolutionary declaration of the rights of man etc .
There's a terrible and anglocentric wikipedia page devoted to this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights
"If the government ever gives you the chance to bribe them, do it immediately and with a smile. Pay double if they'll let you. You'll always come out ahead in the long run."
Precheck/Global entry is clearly unrelated to actual security; instead, it's an obvious shakedown, plain and simple. The TSA has given you a chance to pay them extra to be harassed less. From this perspective the GP is correct in practice - you'd be dumb not to pay up.
It's a difficult decision, one that I've been wrestling with for a while.
Imagine if everyone (and I mean everyone) collectively said "This is bullshit." and refused to pay for PreCheck. The TSA would have no choice but to stop the program. This is probably the only way they would stop it (beyond legislation, ha.).
Unfortunately this will never happen. People don't want to stand in line. Corporations have the money to shell out to give their travelling employees special treatment. Many will refuse step back and see that the only way to stop this shit is to make some personal sacrifices for the eventual reward of getting another lane back for everyone to use.
Perhaps others and I are "dumb" to not want to pay up, but we do so in the hopes that others will follow suit. We refuse to be a single drop in the rain on the TSA's fields. Perhaps one day those fields will dry.
What we're seeing with the hours-long lines right now is that this simply isn't true. The TSA has no particular incentive to reduce the number of hoops you have to jump through: if anything, a summer like this will probably increase their budget.
So, indeed: pay up for PreCheck and smile because they've given you the opportunity.
You miss an important concept (that I used to see all the time from administrators in India): Divide and Conquer. They will target some groups of people individually, and dangle some carrot/stick (Free/ Extra Harassment/ you don't have to stand in line with "them"). That's how "everyone" stops calling bullshit.
I personally believe that we have the TSA and the pre-check program because the majority of Americans want something like this, just like a near-majority of Americans really think that putting a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigration is a good idea.[1]
Pre-check, or some way of harassing "them" without harassing "Us," I think, is rather a lot like what Americans wanted when they gave George W. Bush a second term.
I think we have the government we asked for. I mean, certainly, it's irrational, and of course, the profiling ended up being a lot less race based than expected, and, of course, it's now unionized, so some of the people who originally asked for it are now opposed to it, but that doesn't change the fact that this is what America demanded, that the man who gave us this got two terms.
[1]http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/ques...
(yes, yes, bias. But according to Silvers, we're talking under 5% bias, which still gives us some pretty scary numbers.)
I'm not sure if that's true. So much of security is statistical (this is where profiling and stuff comes in, racial or otherwise). If you can spend some time doing a more thorough check beforehand[1], then you can (stochastically) assume that there's a lower chance of them being a threat and thus a lower need for screening each and every trip. The idea being that you're far less likely than average to get radicalized and hijack a plane if you're [insert features like type of job]. Frankly, I find it uncharacteristically intelligent of the TSA.
[1] My global entry interview required me to go in to the airport and show a bunch of documentation proving my place of residence, place of employment, etc.
You are also free to travel without body searches, just not on a subway, at least in NYC where they often setup mandatory checkpoints before you enter the platform.
Also more and more COBRA teams are swooping through Amtrack and yes they do search your property.
You are also free to travel without body searches, by a car; unless you are in a border zone of 150 miles, which currently covers the entire state of Forida, for example.
Once you get through all means of transportation, you can always walk without body searches. The problem is you won't get further than your local cigarette store, as the most highways are closed to pedestrians traffic and there is practically no other way to travel through cities/states, unless you okay with transpassing someones property along the line.
I took Amtrak on a weekly basis for about 3 years and I was never searched nor did I ever see anyone searched.
I have driven up and down the west coast from Canada down to Mexico and have never been searched.
Yes, I know my anecdotal experience doesn't mean anything but the picture you paint makes it seem like you can't go anywhere without being searched, realistically the only form of travel where you will be searched is when you fly. Anyways, that's not my point. My point is that we as a society have agreed to give up certain liberties in exchange for safety. For example, we don't allow people to drive without a license. We don't allow you to carry invasive species from one state to another. We don't allow random people to walk through your property. These laws exist for a reason and they weren't created to solely impede on your rights. Sure, we may disagree on where we draw the line but it doesn't help the discussion if you act like we still live in the 1700s where you can hop on your horse and not worry about being searched when you cross the border.
Usually 4 cops and a little table setup with some device they enter tiny paper samples in. NYPD cops. They profile as some people are not stopped.
EDIT: Okay I found the picture for you although this is not station I refer to:
http://cdn.newsday.com/polopoly_fs/1.10508690.1433457042!/ht...
I remember this because I'm thin and a belt keeps my pants from falling to my knees while I'm holding my boarding pass, ID and raising my arms above my head so my body can be scanned with questionable technology.
Last year I was flying home, and there was a sign in the security line saying they we don't need to remove our shoes or belt, I cannot remember which. When I got up to the front of line, I was told, yes, I need to remove both.
I also always get a patdown and hands run on the inside of my pants waistline. I think this is because I have long hair and the scanner operator punches the wrong button for sex.
I don't think this makes sense, unless in your airport the PreCheck line is sometimes empty and the staff there are waiting around. Otherwise, they can allocate fewer staff than in every other line yet process more travelers due to the faster process. This speeds up security for everyone, not just those with PreCheck, as without PreCheck all of the travelers would have had to go through the longer process which would delay security for everyone behind them.
They used to divert non pre check travelers to the pre check lane (I've been diverted before) but the article says they don't do that anymore.
Now it's gone because they miss 95% of weapons that the auditors bring through. 95 percent! That means that, in the normal line, they're usually missing stuff. So what do they gain from stopping the free pre-check? Only saving face.
Argh.
Only thing I can think of is perhaps people live far enough away from an airport to make the interview requirement a burden... though in that case you can try to schedule your appointment for a couple hours before a flight, when you're already planning to be there.
(Of course, more people joining isn't in my best interest since I doubt they'll expand pre-check staff all that much...)
Sure, for an individual it reduces the chances they'll miss their flight. But if everyone does it, there's obviously no change. The only way showing up earlier would help with throughput is if there are periods of time where the security is under-utilized with absolutely no queues. Which, from my experience with US airports, is a laughable idea.
Short lines are nice, but it's also not bad the have direct flights to Europe and many US cities, and pretty low ticket prices.
Due to the frequency of travel, I do have Pre-Check, but I hate that I had to pay extra money to get what I think should be the normal experience for all domestic travelers.
It's nicely described by the Prisoner's dilemma.
If there were no Pre-Check, normal lines would still be long—they'd just be slightly shorter.
I'd much rather pay for dramatically shorter lines than to save that money and have slightly shorter lines in normal security.
EDIT: It would be good both for this conversation and HN in general if the downvotes were explained. The parent states several things that in my opinion are not completely true (such as all people arriving earlier don't having effect on anything, or the need to have absolutely no queues at some times for throughput to be improved, or that that never happens) and pointing some things out doesn't seem to me like a punishable action, but if it is, some explanation would be good.
In particular, my experience with for example the Frankfurt airport is that you get lots of security lines but more than half are closed, with up to 8 employees per line. They require that no one starts unpacking and preparing things until the area is cleared. They request a chemicals test if the metal detector jumps on you (?). They do random things like what vincefutr23 points out in another comment: > still having to take belts and shoes off even with a full body scan
The effect of all this is that you get more "latency" than "throughput" problems, as each particular line clogs a lot, and you could open more lines if you wished, and it takes you a lot of time to be serviced even with few people.
But then again: it only is the problem of the airport if they are affected by it - but they don't seem very keen on improving it.
Now you change that, asking people to show up 24 hours before their flights. At 9:00 on Monday, the airport holds all people with flights departing between 9:01 Monday and 9:00 Tuesday -- 24 hours' worth of people, eight times as much.
Airports can't hold 8x as many people without being in violation of the fire code.
Unless everyone is abandoning the line and going home since they're going to miss their flight (unlikely).
Show up earlier, and if they process everyone earlier, everyone will get through in time.
Of course, this does not help you get to your connection on time.
Shrug, I've seen this plenty over the course of my life in the US, and I've only ever really flown big-city airports. It's not ubiquitous, but it's not like, super-rare or anything.
If the actual mission of the TSA was preventing terrorist acts, then they would have done something about this massive and completely obvious vulnerability.
My opinion, however, is that the TSA has become an arm of the DEA and the "war on drugs". They make a big security theater production in the name of stopping terrorists but 99% of their daily activities are centered on seizing drugs.
EDIT: According to one story [0], the TSA cooperated as, essentially, an "informant" for the DEA, flagging those with large quantities of cash, for the DEA to then seize or investigate.
EDIT 2: In fact, the TSA policy is to keep dangerous materials off aircraft, but they have no real enforcement authority. Law enforcement gets involved when, for example, narcotics are found. "While TSA works to keep dangerous items off of commercial aircraft, when contraband is found, it must be reported to local law enforcement. Here are a few of the more notable narcotics discoveries:" [1].
0: http://dailysignal.com/2016/01/21/how-the-tsa-and-drug-enfor...
I'll admit that the original statement was basically a guess. If the TSA isn't stopping terrorism, or making reasonable steps to prevent it, then what exactly are they doing?
In the US, it has seemed that if you can't immediately tell the source or purpose of a law enforcement effort, then "drugs" is a pretty good guess.
Since the TSA is obligated to report such finds to local law enforcement, and that law enforcement is routinely a radio call and 45 seconds away, it appears that the TSA is responsible for arrests and seizures when, in fact, they have no authority to do so themselves, but rather the obligation to report illegal goods.
Don't get me wrong, the TSA's involvement in the "war on drugs" isn't in question. They're an informant. But when they find a gun in your bag, they're still an informant. They inform law enforcement, who comes to question and/or arrest the passenger. Other than the deflection of liability should something dangerous get through the screening checkpoints, I personally think we could do without the TSA.
Thoughtful terrorists... and thank goodness, a lot of them really aren't... would not choose an airport line, just because it's an airport.
It's also why when we hear about the TSA claiming they need to secure trains, it's a sign that politics has 100% overtaken their supposedly-core mission; trains don't have any of these characteristics that make them any more dangerous than any other large groups of people.
The airport itself is a distinct target. A successful attack at an airport would disrupt travel and commerce for weeks, as we just saw in Belgium.
Nothing immediately comes to mind to mitigate this. We can only push so far upstream. We can move the screening to empty fields a mile away from airport structures and require that passengers walk themselves over lest the shuttle bus be appropriated...
Process people instantly. If there are no lines at all, then there is no target.
If people are used to effectively walking straight onto the plane, they aren't hanging around for several hours clogging up the system. And, anyone hanging around automatically becomes suspicious and worth a casual conversation.
That problem was solved on 9/11 the instant the public realized the possibility. Before people wouldn't fight back because they would rather be ransomed than killed. Now that everyone knows their choices are fight or die, every person on the plane would fight to the death to prevent a terrorist from taking control over it, which solves the problem more effectively than anything the TSA could ever hope to do.
It actually makes everything the TSA does entirely counterproductive, because it's no longer possible to hijack a plane using a knife, but allowing all the other passengers to have knives would make it easier for them to fight back. The entire TSA is a farce that should be disbanded and replaced with nothing.
The lack of toilet sorta ruins the whole design. There's still a critical window where the door is open to the cabin, even though blocked by a food cart. But I suppose you'd need to be Bruce Lee to jump over it and get into the cabin while taking out two pilots and a FA.
They have that now; it resulted in a pilot deliberately crashing his own plane into the ground while the co-pilot banged futilely on the door outside. [0]
Unintended consequences and all that.
[0] http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/1149...
It's TSA checkpoints all the way down...
Detonating a makeshift suitcase bomb in a security line, you'd be lucky to kill 10 people.
Crashing an airliner in the proper fashion, you can kill hundreds or thousands.
Maybe. I feel like you're underestimating how many people a bomb in the security line could take out. But, I'm no explosives expert, so you may be correct.
And yes, the worst-case scenario is worse for the airplane, but if you're Joe Terrorist, you don't have to achieve the worst-case scenario to be successful. Terrorists commit all sorts of acts that only kill / maim 10s of people. Apparently terrorists believe those acts further their agenda nonetheless.
A plane with a hole in it crashes and kills all on board.
God no, that's far from certain. [0] Aircraft are designed to function in the face of all sorts of failures.
It's similar to incentives for long-term contraception. The government can't fine you for not taking contraception -- that would obviously be monstrous -- but they can raise taxes and then offer rebates to people who submit to it. It's lunacy.
https://www.aclu.org/norplant-new-contraceptive-potential-ab...
NEXUS uses iris scanners [1] for biometric identification. In fact, pretty much anything that is reported as using a 'retina' scan is probably not, and is also an iris scan. Retinas are pretty useless as a biometric, and are quite hard to scan without opthamological equipment. Irises have the dual benefits of being unique to the individual, and visible on the outside of an individual.
[1] http://usa.immigrationvisaforms.com/travel/nexus-iris-scan-l...
I have a Nexus card (just got it last month) and if I only use it to enter Canada by land, sea, or private aircraft, I can skip the iris scan.
However, I draw the line at biological data. That is permanent, irrevocable, unchangeable personal information that no one really has a right to. It's not like you can just go unlisted, change your number, or move to avoid the heat. It's a basic component of your being. That data should be closely guarded. It creeps me out that some gyms have started using the little fingerprint scanners to verify access. I don't travel that frequently, but I wouldn't get PreCheck because I want to keep that personal biological information private.
I've already been fingerprinted multiple times for the armed services, for background checks for financial services jobs, for pilot authorization to fly into the DC SFRA and land at the MD/DC-3 airports, and maybe a few other reasons. My fingerprints are already in multiple databases and I don't have particular concern about giving them one more time.
They recently consolidated the checkpoints from 4 down to 2. No one knows why, but they did. Security immediately went from 30 minutes to 2 hours. They blamed everything from funding (which they received $91 million more than they asked for in 2016) to people's bags (which somehow changed overnight). When the local government and our fed reps complained, one of the people they sent to respond was a promoter/marketer specifically for pre-check.
https://www.minnpost.com/dc-dispatches/2016/04/what-s-really...
My pro tip is to fly sun country - you go from the international terminal in SFO to the HHH terminal in MPLS, both of which are nice, clean, modern and underutilized.
Such a monumentally wasteful jobs program.
"Increased delays and added costs at U.S. airports due to new security procedures provide incentive for many short-haul passengers to drive to their destination rather than flying, and, since driving is far riskier than air travel, the extra automobile traffic generated has been estimated in one study to result in 500 or more extra road fatalities per year." https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/09/excess_automo...
Its crazy that the US doesn't have true high speed rail on the northeast corridor and the other high speed rail corridors identified such as between Chicago and St. Louis. Many other counties have HSR so its obviously a matter of priorities.
I know the current California HSR project is a bit of a mess but instead of abandoning HSR altogether we should find out why it's a mess and try to streamline projects like this going forward.
Hyperloop will be cool once/if its built, but for now HSR is the only game in town for fast ground transportation that moves a lot of people.
Example itinerary:
Flight leaves at 6:00pm, gotta be there bare minimum 1 hour early, preferably 2+, going to split the different and say 90 mins.
Leave home at 4pm, drive 35 min to airport. Wait in line 15 mins to check bag. Allocate generous 20 mins for a quick security scan (this can blow up to 60 mins+ if it's a busy day and/or your airport sucks, but 20 mins is about the fastest you can really get through including time to walk to the checkpoint and be scanned). It's now 5:10. Sit around for 20 mins until your plane starts boarding. It's now 5:30. Sit on horrifyingly uncomfortable plane for 30 mins awaiting takeoff/other passengers to board. It's now 6. Your plane takes 10 mins to taxi and 45 mins to fly from point A to point B. It's now 6:55. Plane takes 10 min to taxi in (though I've waited 45 min+ before, especially at LAX). It takes 10 min for everyone to deplane. It's now 7:15. Once off plane, go wait at bag claim. We'll say it takes 20 mins to get there, wait for your flight to be unloaded, and wait for your bag. Now it's 7:35. Now you have to get from destination airport to actual destination, and you're probably looking at another 30 mins. That's 8:05. 4 hours and 5 minutes since you left your house.
So it takes 4 hours to do a 45 minute flight, and that's assuming everything is running quickly at the airport, which is often not the case. We also didn't include any time involved in arranging rides to/from the airport and/or parking, carefully reviewing your bag to make sure you didn't accidentally pack any liquids or gels that are larger than 3oz, etc.
It's faster to drive than to fly if your destination is within 4 hours' drive, and it's generally a no-brainer to drive due to the greater comfort it provides within 8 hours' drive. Flying is really only necessary once you get past that 8 hour drive barrier, and the only reason we tolerate flying being what it is is because it can turn a 24-hour+ drive into a 3 hour flight.
Except if you don't have a car - which, in some cities, isn't unheard of even in the US.
Renting a car, possibly across state lines, is a good bit of hassle too.
> "The agency charged with overseeing security at the nation's airports was given a $7.4 billion budget, which was $211 million more than it had in 2015 and $93 million more than was requested. The money, Klobuchar said, needs to be spent to hire more screeners."
http://www.klobuchar.senate.gov/public/2016/3/relief-at-msp-...
Worse, the general inefficiency of the whole thing pisses me off too. I flew 3 legs on an international trip recently, and had to go through security 4 times even though I either never left the secured area, or in the case of Dallas the international arrival dumps people outside of the terminal rather than into it.
Like really? I'm safe enough to fly a 15 hour leg into the US, but i'm not safe enough to fly a 1/2 hour domestic flight from Dallas to a little town?
two words: "Jobs Program"
Only I wish the result of said jobs program was better infrastructure, even if its just stone bridges on hiking trails ala the WPA/CCC.
>Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina recently said it had experienced three-hour wait times. [...] (T.S.A. officials denied that the wait had ever been that long, telling local reporters that it had been 75 minutes for a short time.)
Will someone, anyone, please write the simple app that you punch in as you start the line, you punch out as you leave screening, with some simple checks with GPS so we know you are really in one location for that time? Aggregate the data and let people coming to the airport have an idea of how long the wait will be. Use the data as political leverage so the TSA cannot claim "well, the wait wasn't that long". Tell people in line to install the app while they wait, and assure them that their politicians will see the data.
Probably not much money in this, but your app will go viral this summer, apparently...
All the info could easily be in one conventionally-scrolling page, but scrolling is completely disabled, forcing mouse clicks to scroll down, up(!?), and left (!?!?) from the landing page.
I do not enjoy being treated like cattle at the airport.
In Asia, where there are more bullet trains, I often pick the trains over flight if it is within 3 hours time difference. (Factor in the wait time and the distance to airport) Bigger seats, leg room and you don't need to off your electronics during "takeoff"!
At this point, I make sure to budget lots of extra time to get through their nonsense procedures in order to make my flight.
[0]: http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws.english/News/1.2645825
My theory on planes hijacking is rather that if you have a bunch of arabs taking over a plane today (after 9/11, the Paris attacks, etc), the passengers will think that doing nothing will lead to certain death, and therefore it will be impossible for the terrorists to contain the passengers. The only rational reaction for the passengers is to over power the terrorists at all risks.
Not if you just _carry_ it it won't. Everyone knows you have to wear it.
If your assertion is that security checks prevent no attacks, then you're implying that no attacker has been discouraged from making an attack due to the presence of security screening. This strikes me as absurd.
There are good arguments to be made that many aspects of security screening are useless, and even that the useful aspects aren't worth what they cost. I would tend to agree with many of those arguments. But to argue that the security screening process as a whole does not prevent any attacks is taking it way too far.
Just look at how incredibly frequent hijackings were in decades past, and how rare they became after basic screening was instituted. It does work to an extent. If you want to attack it, attack it on a cost/benefit basis or attack the more ridiculous bits of it, like banning liquids or screening shoes.
Each scanner has 6 pods where you can pack and unpack your stuff; you've got a dedicated person assigning you to the pod. The process felt much more parallel rather than serial.
Edit: managed to find more info on it http://airlines.iata.org/analysis/smart-security-getting-sma...
Unfortunately this is not as quick anymore because more of the security people have now been diverted to do border checks. E.g. Ferry to England, highway checks, etc. Less people, bigger queues.
Yes, they have that pod system (although it's a glorified serial security scanner so I'm not sure of the benefit), and then they herd you through the full body scanner. The line was as bad as any I've seen on this side of the pond.
That seems to sidestep the issue neatly. As a passenger, security is not a discrete part of the process. I'm actually surprised that airlines haven't done more to make the security experience more streamlined.
Really? I always just figured it was a blatant disregard for human life.
Go figure.
It seems like adding some direct private funding and influence would help alleviate some of these issues. Of courses that would affect ticket prices, but an extra hundred per passenger wouldn't be such a bad thing if it drastically improved the situation.
I remember several years back when the shoe-removal policy has just been relatively new, and I was flying out of Israel. The security personnel there had someone devoted solely to going around telling people NOT to remove their shoes, in order to make sure the lines keep moving.
TSA just could not care less whether people actually make their flights, or whether terrorists get through, as long as they don't get blamed for missing something they should have caught.
Swab my clothing, dump my backpack, open my laptop up and mess around with it, rub up and down my arms and legs, rough up my privates, the whole shebang.
I can imagine I'm probably on some list somewhere so I have to go through this "random" and time consuming screening every time.
I was once asked why I had a laptop with me, and why such a device was justifiable and necessary for a young male who works in this industry.
Seriously though, it's common knowledge that "SSSS" on your boarding pass means you're going through advanced security screening. What's the point of this if a malicious person can simply see the label and decide not to go through with the flight afterall?
I haven't quite experienced a 3-hour wait in Newark but I did have a ~1h30m line earlier this year. I know for a fact a bunch of people in line with me (many who complained about showing up at the airport 2+ hours ahead of time) missed an international flight to India that day.
I immediately signed up for Global Entry after that.
For the most part they will try to accommodate, but it's not a sure thing and I wouldn't rely on it.
I once wore a glitter sweatshirt through airport security. It made the backscanner machine go crazy and mark my entire shirt area as suspect, back and front. TSA was like "oh, it's the glitter on your shirt." As a result I was subjected to the most ineffective "pat down" ever. The TSA agent ran her hands across my shoulders and clavicle area and that's it. I could have hidden a small arsenal of weapons inside my bra, strapped to my arms, or strapped to my belly. It would be funny if we weren't paying millions for that "security."
High false positive rate can lead to a lot of unsafe situations.
Why has Congress not shut it down? I don't think anybody really likes the TSA, so I can't imagine there'd be too much opposition to a bill abolishing them. It affects so many people you could probably get elected just on this issue alone.
Good luck finding someone who wants to be the anti-airport-security candidate.
Even though you have to take it as a fact that the status quo is a powerful force in politics, it seems like there is room for someone who wants to get elected on a populist platform to make this a banner issue.
Yes. By some counts that group would include the majority of Americans. Personally, I've heard the words, "it makes me feel safer" come out of the mouths of what appear to be otherwise competent adult humans.
This is why no one will back off the light pollution from Chicago's streetlights. If you're the alderman who made that street dimmer at night, and someone gets murderered there, your career is over forever.
But what about the alternatives? In this day and age it's just not thinkable to let people enter a plane without a security check. So you need some entity performing it.
I think one factor on providing successful and to the passenger acceptable (they will never be pleasant) security checks is adequate funding and employing adequately compensated professionals.
It's weird that my wait time on any European airport I ever use is literally always below 10 minutes and usually much less than that. And it's not that checks are less thorough around here.
It really just seems to be a funding issue.
Why is it 'unthinkable' to let people enter a plane without a security check? We let people get on a bus without a security check. If you're worried specifically about someone taking over the plane and crashing it into a building, you can protect the pilots separately from the people.
International flights are a little different, because someone already needs to verify a passport. Even there, I don't think the security checks are actually necessary.
I'm definitely opposed to classifying this as a 'funding issue' and giving the TSA even more money.
Air travel is in that sense special that you and up to 500 of your fellow passengers are in a metal tube in 12'000 metres height, which makes it conceptually a bit different from a bus, or even a train.
Cockpit doors are already re-inforced, but the cockpit is not the only sensitive part of a plane when a passenger wants to cause mayhem with a high powered rifle, or a - pistol.
In addition I, for one, prefer to take a flight without a bunch of open carry zealots believing that they have a god given rigth to take their guns everywhere and which would surely wind up armed on commercial flights.
But again, we seem to have a completely different opinion here and I have no urge to try to convince you why I don't think it's a good idea to abolish security checks for flights.
There's still room for disagreement even after all of these, though.
What was essentially added was prohibitions to take a nail clipper onto a plane (which, of course is utterly ludicrous), the rules regarding liquids and the whole cowboy attitude (apparently mostly in the US).
Reinforcing the cockpit doors was actually one of the better ideas. Unless, that is, you have a psychotic, suicidal first officer. But that's a whole different story and anyway couldn't have been caught by airport security.
The TSA was created solely to transfer liability from the airlines to the government in order to prevent the airlines from being sued into oblivion after 9/11. As nice side effects, it trains the population to accept the trappings of the police state and to disregard the sanctity of the 4th Amendment while proliferating bureaucracy.
But the main purpose is corporate welfare for commercial passenger aviation.
Airports are generally productions of municipal governments and badly mismanaged, money-losing construction projects. I don't anticipate county-managed security programs being any less awful than federally-managed security programs.
Few would suggest that. But the security measure that were in place in the US prior to 9-11 took far less time and cost much less, and in my opinion provided a similar level of security.
> And it's not that checks are less thorough around [any European airport ].
Really? Do they require you to remove shoes and belts, plus all items (even scraps of paper) from your pockets? Do they require you to stand motionless, hands raised for 1-2 mins to be scanned by a millimeter wave or backscatter x-ray machine or submit to a 15 min careful patdown and swabbing?
> It really just seems to be a funding issue.
I disagree -- I think it is largely an issue of what security measures they choose to utilize.
> Really? Do they require you to remove shoes and belts, plus all items (even scraps of paper) from your pockets? Do they require you to stand motionless, hands raised for 1-2 mins to be scanned by a millimeter wave or backscatter x-ray machine or submit to a 15 min careful patdown and swabbing?
"Intrusive" is not the same thing as "thorough". You are describing how intrusive the US measures are. How thorough the measures are depends on their effectiveness at actually detecting what they set out to detect (all the information that has come out about the tests of the US system in that regard have shown that, while intrusive, it is absolutely not thorough.)
The alternative is returning the responsibility and the accountability to the industry. The nationalization of air travel security wasn't done to improve security, it was to done to save the airlines by removing the potential drag of liability for future security incidents from them by nationalizing a function for which they had been responsible.
This hasn't improved security, but it has meant that the screening process is now provided by a cost-insensitive bureaucracy with the excuse of national security to avoid transparency and accountability.
I can't see Congress abolishing the TSA. Just bringing up the idea will give a representative's opponents tons of ammunition to paint them as "soft on terror" and endangering Americans. People are fearful of this stuff. To the extent that people dislike the TSA, it's only because they're more annoying and slow than necessary, not because people think the whole concept is bad. If a member of Congress could come up with a way to improve the TSA then I imagine that would pass pretty easily, but of course that's a harder job.
In my experience flying domestically & internationally every month for the past 6 months, plan to get there 2 hours early for domestic, and 3 hours before for international, and you'll make it on time. This also depends greatly on the time of your flight and the airport, as both have peak times. When flying early, there is no rush. Red-eye, it can be stressful as some people are trying to make the last flight. When flying at more "convenient" times, expect the abbatoir line.
And when you have to make connections and they may be the last flights of the day, remember that the super-cheap internet-deal ticket you got probably does not include any refunds for delays. Certain airports are _constantly_ delayed, so check all your connecting airports and the connection times before you buy.
Would you rather sit in a car and have it drive itself 6 hours to a city while you nap, eat, or read?
Or take two hours at each end of a one-hour flight and deal with the airport.
... and you have your car there to use once you get there if you take the car.
1) Set up a large booth where people can sign up for the TSA pre-check program inside the airport, while they are waiting for their delayed flight, etc.
2) Institute fees for carry-on baggage and reduce fees for checked baggage to reduce the number of bags being screened.
3) Have a separate line for passengers with no carry-on bag that moves 5x faster.
4) Publish statistics about security checkpoint failures, and the overall ineffectiveness of the program. Allow public outrage to result in the TSA being shut down.
5) Offer a free, high throughput lane guaranteed to take under 10 minutes, and a slow lane where passengers are given a $10 meal voucher for putting up with the wait, which could be up to 2 hours.
6) Claim victory over terrorism, and drastically scale back the TSA and the foreign wars/occupations.
In other words, private jet passengers are not covered under their mandate because their ability to cause harm is limited by the diminutive size of their aircraft.
We learned on 9/11 that as soon as word got out about the possibility of terrorists using aircraft as a weapon, the passengers are ready to tackle anyone who appears to be doing this, so the threat was already gone months before the TSA was formed.
Similarly, the military would now shoot down an aircraft in similar circumstances. This does not address the loss-of-life concerns, but does redundantly prevent the use of an aircraft as a weapon.
Also, since it is easy to get weapons through TSA security (it's done often by other government agencies as part of various audits)... There is no reason to believe that the TSA line makes anyone any safer (though the above points do make people safer).
And, as Bruce Schneier points out, one could simply put explosive liquid in a tomato sauce container and attempt to go through security. If it's found, it would be thrown away and the passenger would board without being caught. If it's missed, the system has been thwarted and an attack can occur.
So aside from the initials in TSA reminding of us the concept of security, the agency does little to actually make anyone safer. I'd argue that we have a false sense of security against all but the most unsophisticated attacker.
Also, the main reason the TSA was created was to shield private firms from risk if a banned item got through security and did result in an attack. There was a big restructuring of the terrorism insurance market post 9/11, and the government now "owns" much of the risk. This was thought to be necessary to keep planes flying after 9/11, since the market price of insurance (and flights) would go through the roof if an airline would be held accountable for a 9/11 style attack if one of its minimum wage employees missed a box cutter in someone's bag.
So now we have the TSA and an absurdly regulated public/private partnership that fails in every measurable way and as others have pointed out wastes a tremendous amount of time and resources.
I apologize for the rant, I'm sure you have heard this argument before.
Seems like a good target
Nope.
My congressmen and senators go through the line twice a week, and yours probably do, too. Billionaires can influence them more than you or I but personal experience beats any outside persuasion.
TSA owns them. If anything ever goes wrong, TSA gets to blame them. If they've played along on every vote, TSA instead defends them from responsibility. That's everything to a congressman.
However, I think locked cockpit doors and air marshals have solved most of the airline problems (versus security screening). Also, pre-9/11 most people assumed those hi-jacking planes had some demands and then everyone would be let go without harm. No one thinks that anymore, so passengers will fight.
I'm quite nervous about what time I need to get to Denver airport tomorrow morning. :(
One thing I did notice EU side is that procedures differ wildly not just from airport to airport but also from day to day. e.g. Last flight they took particular interest in my DSLR - switched it on & wanted to look through the viewfinder to make sure the lens is an actual optical lens. Flight before they didn't even make me take it out the bag.
Here's an idea why don't we give all Americans a free TSA screening instead of charging $85.00. Then we can reduce their work force even further and actually make some progress in reducing wait times.
What's amazing is that in the 15 years since this agency was created there has been no visible innovation in expediting this process. None. The only innovation I have seen is someone in the agency did took the initiative to sell advertising spots on the inside of the gray bins.
This agency seems to have completely forgotten their mandate. Their job was to look out for us no make us miss our flights and humiliate us.
I also like that they claim its due to an increase in air travelers. Really? Is everyone just flying more because money is just burning a hole in their pocket. The TSA is really the most absurd bit of theater.
If time were money to them, this crap wouldn't happen.
In all cases the process (including queues) took less than 15 minutes. What is the problem in USA? If some of your checking procedures are unreasonably long or require more workforce than you have, then change those procedures.
Arriving for an international trip (either from outside of from another plane) an hour before takeoff is sufficient if airport can organize things properly.
The Internet allows everyone to see every one of the small percentage of cases that take longer, with nobody noticing how many still aren't that big a deal.
It is the cheapest of the generally available programs at $50 for 5 years, versus $85 for Pre-Check and $100 for Global Entry. It is also the most privileged, affording all of the benefits of Global Entry and Pre-Check, and additionally allows expedited entry into Canada. It is available to citizens and permanent residents of the US and Canada.
The only downside is that the interview must be conducted at one of the enrollment centers that are in US/Canadian border cities (e.g., Seattle, Vancouver, Detroit...) or major Canadian airports, so you'd have to make a trip if you're not nearby.
Just curious about what to expect...
People at TSA are doing their duty which is essentially completely pointless. Also it is the case everywhere. When I was in India I by mistake carried my wife passport and boarding pass and she carried mine when we entered the security post. The security guard carefully matched the boarding pass name with the passport name and let us pass!
They seem to just be following guidelines with ZERO common sense. E.g. most screw drivers ok, but not safety scissors. My biggest pet-hate is the ban on liquids over 100ml, anybody with a basic knowledge of chemistry knows that explosives (by their very definition) are volatile and you really do not want to start drinking any.
Dynamite will burn slowly and without any explosion. Other materials like C-4 are ridiculously stable under most circumstances to the point where there are stories of troops using it to light fires.
Without a proper initiator most explosives are basically safe. An initiator usually introduces a lot of heat, a large amount of shock, or both, which kicks off the explosion.
Likewise, many liquid explosives are totally harmless until the two components are mixed together, at which point it becomes extremely dangerous. I'm not sure what would happen if you drank either component, but my guess is you might become ill a few hours later. If your goal is more short-term in nature that is probably irrelevant.
My biggest gripe about the liquid limit is that dangerous explosives come in many forms, liquid is just one. You could probably smuggle a kilogram of thermite on the plane and nobody would notice, yet if ignited that would be extremely dangerous.
The explosive element of C4 is RDX, RDX causes seizures when ingested in small doses. Plus, a key ingredient is Nitric acid - I don't fancy trying any. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RDX#Toxicity
Interesting fact: The US produced 15,000 tons of RDX per month during World War 2, gives you some idea of the level of destruction during that period.
1. Blast-proof cockpit doors 2. Better passenger awareness
Let's put in perspective why this is: a terrorist with resources can easily get weapons on a plane. You blackmail and bribe a bunch of security people, tell them it's drugs, and you're in.
But then they run into problems. They can threaten passengers, but the passengers know that if they let the terrorists take over the plane they're dying anyway, so they're going to fight to the death: this realization was enough that by itself passenger awareness prevented whatever attack was intended with the plane that went down in central Pennsylvania.
And if somehow the terrorists kill all the passengers, they come up against the blast-proof door. It's probably possible to get past that if they smuggle some truly gigantic fireworks on board, but whatever they do to get through the door is probably going to take down the plane; not exactly a targeted attack.
So at the very worst, you're looking at them killing max 120 people on a plane? Let's be generous and say they kill 300.
Let's do some back-of-the-napkin math here:
There were 9,074,185 revenue departures on planes in 2015[1]. There were no crashes. So even if a terrorist hijiacking happened every year you'd have a 300 in 9,074,185 chance, or about 1 in 30,000 chance, of dying on a plane.
In 2013 there were 10.345 motor vehicle deaths per 100,000 people[2]. So just by living in a society where people drive, you have about a 1 in 10,000 chance of dying from a car. Not in a car, from a car. If you're in a car, your chances are probably significantly higher.
In other words, we could let a real hijacking attempt get as successful as one can get once a year and planes would be more than three times safer than cars. At that rate, we could probably get rid of TSA security completely and devote all that funding to car safety, and it would make us safer.
[1] http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/acts [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_motor_vehicle_deaths_i...
It's also not obvious how a government run tsa could be trusted any more than regulated private security contractors (overseen and kept accountable by a smaller government agency).
The GOP (including the both of W.'s campaigns, and his administration) has been beating the "smaller government" drum for decades (pretty consistently since at least Reagan's first campaign). Its not exactly a new rhetorical position (substantively, like the Democrats -- though virtually a mirror image on the specific programs -- there are areas of government that, in practice, they work to expand and areas that the seek to shrink.)
The fact is that Bush (and the US population) spent very little time or intellectual effort on matters of monetary policy during that election cycle, compared with where we are today. Bush, in 2000, ran on a platform of relatively progressive positions such as his 'no child left behind' proposal, tax breaks for small businesses, criticizing Clinton's several foreign policy gaffs, getting the US off of its foreign oil reliance, etc. The size and scope of government was not a major talking point for either campaign. Thus, the suggested 'irony' mentioned in the OP to which I was replying is misplaced.
No, there's a "smaller government" party. The quotes are important, as the reference is to a rhetorical position rather than a substantive one.
In fact, on the way back I had Precheck for reason, and I'm waiting in that line, looking at the completely regular security line wondering if the regular one would have been faster. (and even in precheck I get "randomly selected" to go through the body scanner...)
^^ Made the title more accurate ^^
Still waiting on him landing so I can get more details. What a dumb world.
wtf is wrong with people
my last plane flight was in 1999, I doubt I am ever flying again, not because of terrorists, but because of the other people flying and the TSA terrorizing people
Seeing that O'Hare picture in the article makes me so angry (as that's when I fly the most to/from). Last times it took 3 hours to pass the border.
Here's an idea: boo people who are in the "TSA pre" lines.
What does that solve?
Doesn't TSA pre cost $80 for 5 years? That's gotta be worth it if you fly even once per year.
Remember the large mass of people in front of you will, more than likely, resemble a bell curve of intelligence. This means some of these people are smarter than average, and shouldn't have much of any trouble with the process. This also means half the people are dumber than average, and will find new and innovative ways to mess things up because they didn't read, plan ahead, or are otherwise obvlivious to higher-level thought.
It doesn't help with the cause of the problem, but certainly helps with the symptoms.
I've noticed in MIA airport, one security line might be packed , then you walk 4 minutes to the next one and its nearly empty (same staff at both).
Toronto security heading back to the US is fascinating, tons of passengers, but the screening process is broken up into multiple human touch points. Felt more fluid.
When I fly out of Houston's IAH (Terminal A), I routinely get mixed into the same screening area as non-PreCheck travelers (after a shorter line for the travel document checks). I show my boarding pass on my phone or my watch with the little check mark when I enter the screening area to an agent that never scanned my boarding pass, nor have they been in communication to the agent who did scan my boarding pass. They visually check that the checkmark logo is there, then orally call out to the machine operators that I'm PreCheck, and I don't have to take out my laptop or take off my shoes/jacket.
I also got grandfathered with a tiny membership rate into the CLEAR program in its current (second) generation, a program that doesn't hide its commercial status at all, and says clearly "pay for this and you'll have zero wait". I get to IAH Terminal A, tell the CLEAR agent I'm a member, and they quickly computer-scan my pass and verify my fingerprint. They walk me to the TSA podium, flash their CLEAR ID badge, and tell them my identity and boarding pass was verified (and that I'm PreCheck, since my known traveler number is associated with my CLEAR account as well). One more quick scan of my pass and I'm through the longest part of the wait: waiting for them to check my ID. I'm through security even on the busiest of days in about 15 minutes, mostly in 5 minutes. I know the wait time would grow again if everyone had CLEAR, but the ID verification part would be super fast.
Security lines themselves only seem clogged up by people who don't follow the rules (because they aren't frequent travelers) or who object to them. I don't agree with the rules, I write my congressperson to object to them, and I'm embarrassed by them when I'm speaking with people who don't live in this country. But until my letters to my congressperson (the method by which "We The People" can actually influence our government) are joined with millions more, security theater will remain.
CLEAR showed me that ID verification with PreCheck (since they have your fingerprints anyway) could be quick and efficient. It isn't. Some US airports have security lines that move quickly even in the busiest times, because agents are helping passengers comply in advance with rules with which many travelers are unfamiliar. So it can be better there, too.
But to effect change in our government, we have to participate in our government, which goes beyond voting every four years; it means writing to the representatives you or your neighbors have voted into office.
I actually approve of the TSA making flying more onerous. Flying comes at a very high environmental and economic cost to society. We need more trains, more hyperloops, and more VR.
Flying emits less CO2 per passenger mile than a person driving a car without any passengers, but more than a car with one passenger in addition to the driver[1]. But if people can't fly then they probably just won't travel very far, which is even better.
> why don't the rest of us get together and punish your choices?
Perhaps you should, in cases where the GP's choices impose a significant cost on you. In general, it is absolutely in everyone's best interest for everyone else to fly less often.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_transp...