Hacker News Reader

Comment by notRobot | Hacker News Reader

The TSA is anyway almost entirely security theatre: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/01/tsa-bus...

I agree that TSA is ineffective against any sophisticated attack, but couldn't it potentially be a great filter for the many run of mill crazy person? Not suggesting its an efficient use of funds in either case.

The run of the mill crazy person could bomb the TSA lines and easily get dozens or hundreds of people. The reason there aren't more bombings is because there largely aren't people who want to do more bombings.

Or more! I hesitate to write what you did because I didn't wanna end up on one of those lists, but you're absolutely right.

I remember often standing in line at Dulles. Backed up to the escalators, you look down and see the security line completely folded on itself(like the game snake), people filling the entire space logjammed by security. There were easily more people there than on any flight I took out of Dulles.

Every societies security model relies on people simply not wishing to act violently. Literally followed by a police team and still stabbed people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Auckland_supermarket_stab...

^^^ This, so much this.

Especially with how common we've seen violent outbursts on airplanes since post-pandemic flights have resumed. It's almost a daily occurrence. If those individuals had weapons during flight, the outcomes would be very different.

Leave the detection and prevention of sophisticated threats to agencies better equipped.

You're assuming that the people who are throwing tantrums on planes are premeditating enough to prepare by bringing weapons. Yet if they had those kind of planning faculties, they would realize that flipping out at flight attendants doesn't further their cause at all.

Alternative take: the people throwing tantrums have reached their breaking point from the stress of being in a totalitarian environment [0]. And all the security theater of airports is a major and needless contributor to that stress.

[0] Just to be clear here, I think masks are highly necessary and if I had to fly somewhere I would be wearing a full face P100. But the act of forcing people to wear them is still totalitarian, regardless of how justified it is.

That's the same way I feel about being forced to drive between the lines. I do it because I don't want to kill myself or other drivers, but forcing people to do it is clearly a sign of fascist dictatorship no matter how many lives it saves.

When I pass cyclists on single lane roads I'm generally more than halfway over the dividing line, conditions permitting. If someone gets a ticket for going over a line in a safe and reasonable manner, then yes it is quite appropriate to call that overbearing law enforcement.

Wearing something over your face is annoying. Loops around your ears are irritating. Confronting someone that they need to put something on their face creates an adversarial situation. These are facts that the (otherwise sensible) pro-mask political dogma has rallied around rejecting, rather than focusing on the more enlightened viewpoint that wearing a mask is indeed a burden but we all have the responsibility to do it.

Not sure if serious or sarcastic. If serious, I'd love to hear more about your world view here.

Run of the mill crazy you say - this happened in last 24 hrs

https://news.yahoo.com/american-airlines-flight-diverted-pas...

It appears the attacker didn't have a weapon, though, which is the TSA's job you're saying they didn't accomplish?

Yeah I've thought this too. Measuring TSA effectiveness by number of knives, guns, and TNT caught in backpacks seems insufficient, because the very existence of the TSA likely dissuades loonies from considering commercial aircraft as a viable option in their plans. But you can't measure the number of events that never happened, so we can't get a full picture of exactly how many attacks the TSA prevents by existing.

You could measure the number of incidents that didn't happen before the TSA was formed, though

Even the deadly hijackings it was formed to prevent wouldn't ever happen again, since the passengers would fight back now

Between 1968 and 1972, over 130 commercial aircraft were hijacked in the US. No hijackings have been reported in the US since 2001.

https://www.datagraver.com/thumbs/1300x1300r/2016-03/hijacki...

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/29/hijackings-ra...

.... what happened between 1972 and 2001?

Take a look at the graph in my first link. Looks like dozens and dozens of hijackings.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com