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Comment by smhinsey | Hacker News Reader

The TSA already seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for their screeners. Given the tremendous discrepancy in the number of airports in Israel vs. the United States, how are we supposed to come up with enough people who are as qualified as the ones Israel can handpick for their airports?

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The number of airports is consistent with the number of people. But who in his right mind would want to work in TSA if they can find a respected job elsewhere? Israeli screeners, on the other hand, are respected.

To be clear I didn't mean that there are not literally enough people to hire to do the job. I should've been a bit clearer but what I was really getting at was the massive scope and cost of such an agency with staffing requirements like that. We're talking about something on par with or larger than the FBI.

There is only a $1 billion difference between the two agencies budgets (2010).

TSA is $8billion, FBI is $9billion, DHS is $55billion.

As the US military uses less air conditioning in Afghanistan, that should free up at least a couple billion.

Wow, I should've looked at that, that is stunning, considering that the FBI actually regularly solves crimes.

I imagine if you paid what it really cost to have screeners with that level of training we'd be talking about a pretty hefty increase over the FBI. Mind boggling.

But where is the other $47 billion going to? It is not the FBI's or CIA's budget.

[edit]

Probably to ICE for government provided IP protection and enforcement without due process.

The DHS is huge now. It covers everything from stuff like ICE to the Coast Guard. If you ask me, TSA is the tip of the DHS iceberg. The whole thing is suspect, top to bottom, and probably ought to be scrapped and done over.

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