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Comment by dragontamer | Hacker News Reader

> 3. Profit!

The Department of Homeland Security (of which the TSA is a part of) has a budget and its priorities are set in Congress. There is no "profit" motive here.

The US is throwing money at this problem, and money that only creates inconveniences for us.

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There is definitely a personal profit motive for the people involved, i.e. promotions and raises, having more reports (huge in the government sector), not to mention to crony pork handed out to companies providing the xray/detection and other equipment.

How does avoiding xrays and registering in pre-check create more reports and support pork-barrel contracts to x-ray scanner manufacturers?

They're two separate concerns but they both contribute to the bloat and scope creep of this farce of an agency.

The 2nd US Secretary of Homeland Security and co-author of the Patriot Act is the founder of a lobbying front for the the manufacturers of the body scanners.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff

Apologies to all for posting this 5 times. Each time I hit reply it was giving me an error.

I'm still not seeing how registering for pre-check benefits this guy.

Over a long enough time frame, all bureaucracies become institutions whose only goal is the continued growth and accumulation of resources ( to be used for the continued growth of the bureaucracy itself), not for the original purpose of the bureaucracy.

Yup. Be it government or business, no difference there. Of course, in both cases a cleanup is possible- and occasionally happens. But then you need a proper market for business or a working democracy for government and those are frequently missing.

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