Hacker News Reader

Comment by maccio92 | Hacker News Reader

You don't think screening for bombs has any potential to be dangerous?

The TSA has never found a bomb.

Most underrated comment.

I don't think that statement, by itself, tells us much about the TSA's efficacy. Because their mere presence could be an effective deterrent.

We know at least two made it through. Underwear bomber, shoe bomber.

We also know pre-9/11 how common it was (non-existent).

We also know that they consistently fail audits. Though they've gotten better! Most recently they only failed ~75% of the time at detecting things auditors were trying to smuggle in, instead of the prior 95%!

So, yeah, by itself it doesn't. But we have enough data to make a pretty solid eval.

Both the underwear bomber and shoe bomber boarded flights overseas (Amsterdam and Paris respectively) -- so no TSA involvement.

Underwear bomber was Saudi intelligence/CIA, for the reader's info.

The TSA has operated overseas before, but probably not in these countries.

If they see a country isn't up to their standard, I think they either show up to implement it for flights headed to the US or at least consult with the nation.

But the parent comment wasn't regarding the efficacy of the TSA, it was regarding the dangers of being a TSA agent

All the parent wrote was:

> The TSA has never found a bomb.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but I don't understand how that supports your statement.

They were replying to a comment which implied that the main risk of working for the TSA is dealing with bombs. But the TSA has never dealt with any bombs, so clearly that's not actually a risk of working there.

...that was reported. Question is whether whose interest it would be in to not publicly report on the number of bombs found by an agency. I can understand NSA and CIA not revealing much but am confused about TSA’s motives since they are much more public facing than anything in the intelligence community.

At what scale? I would argue a taxi driver has a more dangerous job (in terms of probability of injury).

I believe I read that taxi drivers have a very high fatality rate in the United States, but definitely higher than law enforcement.

Do you think searching Key West for rabid wolverines to be a very dangerous job, because, like, wolverines are pretty dangerous?

You may as well say that construction workers, electricians and pizza delivery drivers are out there, putting their lives on the line

Construction is a dangerous job as well. You can be hit by falling things, there can be heavy equipment failures, you can fall off the buildings if you're not sufficiently harnessed. Electricians too - there's a chance, however small, of receiving a lethal shock. Delivery drivers could get killed in car accidents, it happens every day (car accidents, not specifically involving pizza drivers but given they're on the road more often it's a statistically higher probability for them)

Yes, these are all much more dangerous jobs than TSA - yet they wouldn't describe themselves as 'putting their lives on the line'- that's my point.

https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2018/01/29/tsa-year-review-record-a...

> A realistic replica suicide vest and claymore mine were discovered in a traveler’s checked bag at the El Paso International Airport (ELP). The traveler was an explosives ordnance disposal contractor and the items were used as training aids.

I can't believe he'd be dumb enough to try to bring this on an airplane. It'd make way more sense to ship them to w/e destination.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com