Comment by clay_the_ripper | Hacker News Reader

Comment by clay_the_ripper | Hacker News Reader

clay_the_ripper

Personally, I would love to use high speed rail. Between the crappy airlines and the TSA and horrendous traffic on the roads (I live in California) high speed rail seems very attractive. As a taxpayer in California, I am seriously concerned about the costs. Too bad we didn’t invest in building this network before when things were maybe cheaper to build with less red tape. All things considered though, high speed rail is one thing that seems like it woood be a huge benefit to California, and I would be happy to have tax dollars go to that rather than to some of the other nonsense we spent insane amounts of money on. At least we get something out of this.

Of course you're assuming that TSA won't be involved with rail travel if it became more popular.

Why should it be?

The primary impetus for modern TSA was a group that figured out modern jets were useful weapons if diverted off course. While train diversions are still dangerous and catastrophes, they are nowhere near the same level of useful weapon in the hands of terrorists.

The primary impetus for the TSA was that people were afraid and it made them feel safer. The TSA actually accomplishes virtually nothing to prevent hijacking compared with the addition of armored cockpit doors and cockpit approach monitoring procedures.

The TSA does theoretically screen for bad actors and explosives, both of which are still relevant to rail travel, even if they're potentially less threatening there.

I thought the purpose of the tsa was to make people feel less safe / have more reminders to fear - thus making people less likely to demand we slash the military / police / other security budgets. I suppose they do add to the expense of moving drugs, and make it harder to move large sums of money - so people who control other routes are able to extract higher prices for them, but I don't think that in of itself actually makes people feel safer.

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