https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/366998-the-tsa...
You don't get that by hiring the best and the brightest but by lowering the bar so far that as long as you're semi-literate and don't have a record of violent crimes, you're hired.
I've flown ~100k miles each of the last few years and they're getting more arbitrary and few can point at the actual rules they're enforcing.
And it's worth noting that they are agents and not officers which places them closer to bureaucrats than law enforcement.
https://www.thisamericanlife.org/647/ladonna
Even if we were just erecting pure security theater, it'd be great if we could not build a refuge for pervasive sexual harassment or psychological abuse at the same time.
The basic purpose of the TSA is to prevent a collapse of the air travel market, and now it seems that a few related business interests are also part of that picture. What is or is not allowed through the checkpoints is as much determined by what the public is afraid of as by what will work well for airport businesses and airlines. The shoe rule is slowly but surely going away (it does not apply to anyone who participates in the various pre-screening programs that have been developed; I am guessing it will be gone in general a few years from now), but the equally pointless liquid rule remains in place for everyone. The only difference is that one of those rules boosts sales for airport businesses while the other only makes the lines to get through the checkpoints longer and discourages flying. The proposal to have all laptops go into checked bags was killed almost as soon as it was thought up, even though there was some legitimate concern about attacks strategies involving laptops (it seems to be more realistic than the liquids plot), simply because airlines said it would have too negative an impact on their ticket sales (especially for business class seats, which are the most profitable per square foot of cabin floor space).
> one of those rules boosts sales for airport businesses
This is pub talk, essentially the broken window fallacy. Making travel unpleasant is unlikely to have helped the airline industry.
It is also a fact that after the 9/11 attacks the airline industry nearly collapsed because people were afraid to fly; the TSA was created for the sole purpose of calming those fears, which restored confidence in flying (and therefore increase ticket sales). You may not be afraid but a lot of people do believe that the checkpoints are keeping them safe while they fly, and a large fraction would probably think twice about flying if the checkpoints were reduced in scope (or eliminated entirely).
Correlation is not causation. I could simply have been a time where the fear of flying grew staler than the need to fly/benefit of flying.
This is meaningless without mentioning time ranges. The TSA was created one month after 9/11, so there was no opportunity for any alternative course to ever take place.
Why didn't the airline industry "collapse" in other countries lacking the TSA? And what does "collapse" mean, exactly?
> the TSA was created for the sole purpose of calming those fears, which restored confidence in flying
And the PATRIOT act is for patriots. It is not worth mentioning that GW Bush said we're going to do X because of Y.
If anything the TSA made things more difficult for airports who were hemorrhaging revenue despite whatever magic safety rays you feel the TSA was projecting into the populace. (What are the properties of these safety rays and why even years after they began eminating did we still see airlines in bankruptcy, flights canceled, and dependence on federal loans? If in fact they were meant to increase passenger counts they didn't seem to do a good job, and just look like an unexpected added cost to contend with along with declining income -- some lost income directly due to security measures like preventing non-travelers from giving business to any shops beyond the security checkpoint. Liquids weren't even banned for years, after a slew of attempted liquid explosion attempts, almost like the TSA is an entirely reactive force ever since its creation.) On the more tangible side of things the airports had to pay the costs of the new security measures, which weren't trivial -- e.g. just the explosives detection systems for checked baggage cost billions to be rolled out. How much for the body scanners some years later?
No that it is not a "fact." The airline industry in the US was already experiencing financial problems prior to 9/11. There was also a bad recession at that time which translates to lower demand for seats. Additionally all flights were grounded for 2 days after 9/11 resulting in huge financial losses for the airlines. The combination of these things resulted in large layoffs by the airlines, potentially sending the airlines into a death spiral. The industry was then stabilized by a 15 billion aid package from congress. A near collapse was not caused by people being afraid to fly.
Noticed those in the hotel after I landed and they most definitely went in my checked bag on the trip home.
Once you drink half, refill it at a fountain (or lukewarm water from a bathroom sink if you can funnel it in) to have more cold water.
There are exceptions for medications and baby food.
So while it is easy to beat, the TSA screens do succeed at enforcing the most obvious violations to current regulations. Whether the signal (things that seem like they reasonably should be confiscated) to noise (toothpaste, water, nail clippers, pocketknives) is acceptable, I don't know.
There was no epidemic of "plane knife fights" or "accidental pistol discharge in planes". Catching incidental weapons that weren't going to be used for harm is basically zero value.
All of the value comes from stopping people with bad intent from having weapons. If 95% of them can get through, then that's a very bad system.
In other words, I don't think you've correctly identified signal vs noise.
There was no epidemic of plane hijacking, either.
I have no data on the intent of people taking loaded firearms or black powder on planes (or knives in teddy bears,
Saying that 95% of people with bad intent can get through is unsupported by the statistic OP linked.
My point here is not that the TSA is great (I personally think it is pretty useless), but to suggest that single statistic is insufficient to demonstrate that the TSA is useless - you also need something indicating probably nothing bad would have happened had the TSA not confiscated all the currently banned stuff.
That's the system that was in place up until 9/11, and it was run by private airport security. The TSA was a response to that.
But it wasn't the only conceivable response. Changes to private security screening rules would have been another option. The TSA isn't just there in a vacuum. And if people who try to sneak items past it can succeed, then its mandate isn't very effective.
Part of why another 9/11 hasn't happened is that terrrorists know that people know that hijackings can be very deadly. So people wouldn't be so passive anymore. The 9/11 hijacking was done with box cutters. That feat couldn't be repeated again, even with box cutters on the plane.
https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-e...
We only care about trying to take these things from people who are hiding them. Inconveniencing innocent travelers is a cost of the TSA, not a benefit.
I don't see how sane plays into it - either they are sane and accidentally have a gun in their bag, or they are insane. How can you filter by sanity?
Point is, probably most of the people with guns, swords, etc are not malicious, but I haven't seen any statistics on that, only this 95% cited over and over again.
I'd recommend reviewing the link though, as that number includes things you might not think are deliberate attempts to hide stuff (swords in canes?).
Lockpicking is relatively easy, and there is always brute force.
Anyone who knows anything about the Germanwings crash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525) knows this. The pilot used an axe on the door for minutes while knowing he was going to die. He didn't get in. Everyone died.
The risks of hijacking are slim to none, unless you're going to hack the plane. If you're going to hack the plane you just need a laptop.
The TSA is a federal jobs program. A nice joke I heard is to disband the TSA and have them be the workers building the wall. Sure it would be useless, but at least it wouldn't inconvenience law abiding citizens just trying to go about their day, treating them like criminals.
I like this idea.
1. Open the door and the person uses the plane as a big bomb.
2. Don't open the door and the person uses a smaller bomb.
You die either way. What's the choice here?
I mean surely you think that flights AA 11, ua 175, and AA 77 were materially different than UA 93. So I really don't get your point.
Like, sure, if that’s success then ok...again I’m just saying i think there are alternative ways to improve security, and while a locking door is one of them, the TSA is probably another great place to look for improvements. It feels like the US airport security situation is stuck in the world of “look busy and sound strict, people will behave and respect the security of planes”, but really it’s just a giant pain in the ass for most people and meanwhile mostly ineffective at stopping actual risks from passing through to the aircraft.
Real question: do you work for the TSA or airport security in some way?
If you want to just kill a lot of people there are far cheaper and more effective ways. Check out the concerts being attacked.
So the door is all you need.
What do you mean? Without access to the controls of the plane, they hijackers cannot accomplish their goal of using the plane as a big bomb. They are deterred because it costs a large amount of operational resources to only fail the mission. If they wanted to simply kill people, they have simpler means (much cheaper means) to hit soft targets.
Not only that, the complex, involved missions involve more people which raises the risk of failure, of being caught ahead of time, and of unwinding the clues up the stack. If they are going to take those risks, they want a certain chance of success * size of outcome.
The TSA is just a pacifier for people who buy that they’re effective.
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93
> After the hijackers took control of the plane, several passengers and flight attendants learned from phone calls that suicide attacks had already been made by hijacked airliners on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Many of the passengers then attempted to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers. During the struggle, the plane crashed into a field near a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township
And if that hadn’t worked, before the crash the military was already authorized to shoot down that flight. So the system adapted quickly.
I think we should give up on the TSA theater, but most people seem to want it. Makes them feel better, even if their rational minds know it's a lie.
I'd say "especially if" rather than "just because".
With any advanced system, we use automation to decrease the complexity of a task by which to act as a throughput modifier by decreasing barrier to entry for safe pperatiom.
If you start throwing in computers which fight the operator at every step, you'll start seeing people (1) move away from the system, (2) subvert the system, (3) start trying to make a buck off of selling systems they claim will fix everything, while not really dealing with the issue.
Plus, computer vision just isn't there yet.you're talking about giving a machine the ability to integrate a whole lotus different streams of data and reliably making a decision to veto the pilot's instructions.
You have to admit it does make good "Theater for the Masses" when you see them stripping down an 80 year old in a wheelchair or dragging an 8 year old off to the side for additional screening.
This is what happens when "The People" lose control of the Government.
That seems doubtful. Nearly everyone agrees that TSA checkpoints are irritating and slow, how many would actually vote to abolish them? Even just returning back to pre-9/11 security?
I think we have exactly the government most of us want. That's the uncomfortable truth. If the majority of voting citizens wanted the TSA gone, it would be.
Offer flights with TSA screening for $10 extra or flights with no screening.
If there is serious, broad outrage about an issue that lasts through an election, then change may come for that issue under our current system. As is, stuff that most of the voting public objects to happens daily, but these actions are shielded by our current system.
We have a President who was the second highest vote getter, and a Senate where the majority party was elected with a minority of the votes (counting across the most recent elections for each seat.)
So, no, we don't have “the government most of us want”, independent of the TSA.
> If the majority of voting citizens wanted the TSA gone, it would be.
Look, if the majority of the voting public wants a particular Presidential candidate elected, at the time of voting, that still relies on them not having an unfavorable geographic distribution to work out.
A policy that is more distant from a single candidate election, and which must compete in any voting decision with other policy preferences for importance and which requires action by both the President and the Congress to effectuate is far from guaranteed.
But... it's not. The TSA and the rest of our various police forces stick around because while a few loud people complain about the threat to liberty, the vast majority of people quietly vote for more safety.
Or they don't want to see the impact of nearly 100,000 government mandated jobs lost. It's an assumption to think "the vast majority" are looking to the TSA for safety.
It's like adultery, still a crime in many states, including a felony in a few (and in others, is a crime only a female can commit). Despite no prosecutions in decades, it's still on the books, not because it should be, but because no politician wants the backlash of "non-family-friendly" that'd come with "decriminalization".
You do know that expression uses “prove” in the (otherwise uncommon in modern English) sense of “test”, not the (more common in modern English) sense of “establish the truth of”, right?
And which of the multiple examples I cited is supposed to be the singular exception? (And, certainly a Senate that is minoritarian but for conditions of either supermajoritarian popular alignment or fortuitous geographical alignment of the majority isn't an rare exception, it's a fundamental and conscious design feature.)
The United States isn't a majoritarian government by design, and very commonly does not (and certainly does not now) have the government most voting citizens want. It's even less the case that it is majoritarian on any single issue; there are many issues you can find where there is a durable majority opinion not reflected in government policy. (In part because it's not the sole issue and multiple issues compete in electing representatives, in part because candidates manipulate voters with false positions which they find reasons to blame other people for having fail, but in large part again because even a majority voting solely on one issue, for politicians honestly pursuing the voters' preferred position, doesn't guarantee winning control of either House of Congress or the Presidency, much less winning all three or winning both Houses of Congress with a veto proof majority, and so does not guarantee ability to legislate the desired goal.)
What information does the TSA collect?
I can't think of anything the airlines don't already collect when you buy your ticket.
There's no inherent reason your identity is more relevant for a plane ride than it is for taking the bus.