The Humiliating History of the TSA | Hacker News Reader

The Humiliating History of the TSA

theverge.com

17 pointsTomte12 comments

>There’s no evidence two decades of pat-downs and shoe removal have made travelers any safer — so why does the theater of airport security persist?

I, and everyone I know who travels, asks this all the time. Other than the TSA being an employment scheme, I don't have an answer to that question.

Originally it was created to make the Bush administration look good for "doing something"

This is a really common effect in government and even companies. If it's important to be seen as doing something, something will be done, even not very effectively. It is far better to be seen as genuinely trying but not quite succeeding than to not even have showed up.

I doubt the employment program aspect of it is relevant at all, except in the sense that once a program is created, it is hard to get rid of it.

You and I might very well be smart enough to see it's a waste, but there's over 300 million Americans, and a lot of them vote, and a lot of them don't have the habit of thinking that critically.

So that's what the TSA is there for.

PS: Out of curiosity, are you old enough to remember 9/11? I hypothesize not since I hypothesize it would be obvious to someone alive at the time why TSA exists despite being ineffective, but I may be wrong. Just curious. Making me feel old!

I was around when the TSA was founded, though I'm not American. And I recall all the rationales for this (what seemed at the time) hastily created organization. Still, it's been a lot of years and little to show for all the expense and time wasted. Security theatre indeed.

The article is mostly propaganda attempting to humanize agents who are "just following orders."

I give them hell and I don't care that they are following orders. Refuse to work for them. Make them short on staff. Cut the theater time and cost down. If you work for the tsa, quit.

My favorite is when going through the line with a group of people who have pre-check and I don’t. I usually beat them through security every time. It seems that for certain times of day, more people have precheck than don’t and for whatever reason don’t go through the obviously shorter line.

Don’t have to take off your shoes with pre-check and I’ve found that the probability of being groped during a secondary screening is far lower with pre-check.

That’s why you wear flip-flops and sweat pants.

That's a rare beast at most airports. Precheck lines are usually faster even if longer, because Precheck holders are more experienced fliers (they know the drill) and have less rigmarole to go through (shoes, belts, etc.).

Is it? In my experience in racing friends, coworkers, and family, that’s not the case 90% of the time.

The scanners they put people through have not been independently reviewed by any scientist. Joe Pistole (yes that's his real name) blocked that in order to rush the deployment of them.

Hopefully one day TSA will be sunsetted, but as mentioned, it's a jobs program now.

Obligatory reading to understand how useless the TSA is: https://takingsenseaway.wordpress.com/

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