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Comment by MichaelCollins | Hacker News Reader

> major TSA delays.

This infuriates me. Last week I was stuck in line for TSA for an hour and a half at Sea-Tac. The TSA clowns had one guy looking at the X-rays of luggage at the speed of molasses. Am I to believe that the TSA, FAA and airlines can't coordinate to determine when gluts of incoming passengers are expected? Bullshit. Why didn't they have more TSA workers on shift? Because they don't give a shit, nothing in the structure of the system gives the TSA an incentive to give a shit and do their job well. What do they care if people miss their flights? They don't, those smug pieces of shit don't care at all.

They even have signs plastered all over their checkpoint threatening you with federal charges and huge fines if you "verbally abuse" the TSA workers. In this country it is legal for me to call a traffic cop a fascist pig, but I can't say the same to a TSA agent? I hate them so much.

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It strikes me as remarkable that, in a pandemic which killed several hundred airliners worth of Americans, a lot of fuss was made about mask-related impositions, while TSA-related impositions that save a number of lives that's close to zero have become entirely normal. All War On Terror and no War On Viruses.

People objected to the TSA, but the political climate in 2002 was too much in favor of it.

Sure, but that was then and this is now. I guess it's simply not possible to get it back into the "discourse" as a thing that should be changed.

It's a worldwide thing. EU airport security is even stricter and they're not going to let go now.

The airport security in Europe and South America is not even close to how it is in USA.

My sample size is two - one departing flight each from LHR and DUB - but they were way less painful experiences than any airport I've flown out of in the US.

The few times I was in the US I definitely did not have the feeling that EU is more strict.

Aside from the shoes and scanner thing (absent TSA-Pre) in the US, as someone who has traveled a lot in both Europe and the US, is seems pretty much a wash. I've had silly things like a bladeless corkscrew confiscated in Spain but I seem to have the same generally low rate of hand inspections etc. (usually related to having a bunch of cables/electronics jammed together in a bag) in both areas.

Yes so strict that we don't even do the shoe thing or the crotch grab thing here.

While I agree that the US is stricter, the EU has gotten strict as well. There are millimeter-wave scanners in many airports (usually mandatory with an opt-out pat-down, but in some airports you have a chance to just go through the metal detectors), sometimes they make you take your shoes off, X-raying takes ages. The US is stricter only in the sense that the TSA is everywhere all the time, whereas in Europe it's only some places some of the time. At least in Europe you don't have some highschool dropout rifle through your luggage and leave your suitcase open, though (that's happened to me in the US).

It used to be that you'd go through a metal detector and be done with it, and that's still the way it is in, for example, Greece. My local airport (second largest in the country, but still no SFO) gets you from the entrance to the gate in less than ten minutes.

I don't know why we've accepted this bullshit. It's not as if some malicious actor couldn't just hit a train or bus instead and kill just as many people, yet we accept all this hassle and invasion of privacy for exactly zero benefit.

> At least in Europe you don't have some highschool dropout rifle through your luggage and leave your suitcase open, though (that's happened to me in the US).

No but the people putting the suitcase - that you had to take apart yourself - through the scanner will steal things from you - my credit card and powerbank went missing during the process this summer.

What do you mean take apart? When taking your laptop out? I just close it again, that limits opportunistic theft by a lot (though you're the first person I hear having stuff stolen from).

Yeah, I took it out, closed the suitcase and send the boxes on their way. Then they forced me to open it up again and take out my camera, chargers and some cables etc too, I guess they took it during this.

We don't? So the officers groped me just for fun this summer? And my GF's bra had to be undone just for fun too?

> So the officers groped me just for fun this summer? And my GF's bra had to be undone just for fun too?

Probably yes. But for their fun, not yours.

They didn't look like they were having fun, tbh. If I had to grope 300+ people, some of them really not appealing, I wouldn't have fun too.

Then why do you think they do it? It's obviously not for security.

Because they were ordered to do it.

In most European countries this is done by private companies and they are really efficient. Rarely waiting time is more than 5-10 minutes in.

The problem is we have a culture that often overly accepts protectionist and defensive systems and is highly averse to any risk what-so-ever. When these sorts of systems are put in place, they become far more difficult to remove than erect, even if they're shown to be ineffective, wasteful, or actually add to risk.

You're not going to see many politicians vote against such systems because the second some incident occurs, their stance against protectionism will be crucified by opponents and gobbled up by the general public. This is one reason why the US defense budget continues to balloon. Anyone who pushes to reduce spending can easily be painted to the masses as someone who doesn't care about or want to secure your safety. This dynamic also plays into use of fear for power, so those in power drum up fears and explode risk in their own interest.

> protectionist and defensive systems and is highly averse to any risk what-so-ever

... like masks.

But seriously, a lot of the same people that objected to the TSA madness also objected to the mask mandates.

> But seriously, a lot of the same people that objected to the TSA madness also objected to the mask mandates.

But this time a lot of people who didn't object to the TSA objected to masks.

Taking off your shoes once (maybe twice) a year vs putting on a mask multiple times every day.

I’m not surprised more people actually objected to the latter.

That's the danger with putting measures like this in place as a reaction to a shocking event. Once done it's nearly impossible to undo (Patriot Act, NSA Surveillance Act, etc., are more good examples).

It reminds me of Norway's response to the Utoya massacre. IIRC in a speech at the time the gov said they weren't going to change their system because of one terrorist. (I might be remembering wrong but that's what stuck with me.) The US on the other hand took the opportunity to ram through as many "security" provisions through as possible which are with us to this day and can no longer be questioned as to whether they are indeed necessary or helpful.

Even if it was in the discourse, nobody wants to be blamed as the person who got rid of the TSA when the next shoe bomber or whatever pops up.

We must do something!

This is something, I will do it!

Fill in useless mask mandates or shoe removal as you see fit.

Everyone is against government security until a bunch of guys fly airplanes into buildings.

> while TSA-related impositions that save a number of lives that's close to zero

Are there any good estimates of the total economic costs of this security theatre?

I don't know about the cost but the benefit is close to zero, if not zero. I am positive that the net benefit (because cost is surely positive) is negative accounting even for the number of jobs it creates.

> The source did not give an exact number, but said the failure rate was close to 80 percent. Members of Congress called the results "disturbing" in a public hearing following a private, classified briefing to the House Committee on Homeland Security.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-11-0...

archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20221116171835/https://www.usnew... https://archive.ph/hzA1y

You can make one yourself: How many hijackings of US airlines where there in the 20 years before, and after. The number was higher before, but it was very small.

Locking the airplane cockpit door, along with awareness that hijackers will kill you (as opposed to fly you to a different country and you are free in a couple days if you stay quiet) are also factors. I don't know how to separate them from anything the TSA does, but I have to believe those are both more important.

> Locking the airplane cockpit door

A change which contributed to the complete loss of an aircraft and all aboard when the pilot left to go to the toilet and the copilot locked the door to crash it into a mountainside. The law of unintended consequences in full effect. Had such a change not been enacted that flight likely would have survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

I long ago concluded that TSA is mostly a jobs program, not a security program.

I’m not against government jobs programs. Just wish it was something useful day to day, like healthcare, versus security theater.

I'd rather just provide UBI. Pay them to do nothing instead of paying them to make everybody else's lives worse.

This is payment and structured days, which ensures that people have a good reference for applying to other jobs.

It's somewhat better than a UBI

It'd be better than UBI if they weren't making everybody's lives worse in the process.

Who is them?

A UBI is going to normalize condition and make “them” see there’s even more to participate in.

Sounds like you still prefer maintenance of a steerage class, assuming you’ll be a bit higher on the totem pole. But I mean, real talk is you’re still just one of billions. How you feel the world as-is is a meaningless measure for how you would fit into a UBI world. And I have no particular obligation to your sensibilities. shrug emoji You’re a “them” to me is not an unreasonable statement.

I think you're overthinking it and "them" here is the TSA employees. UBI by definition means everyone.

Also I have no idea what "normalize condition" means?

Oh I meant something like equality of condition.

"Them" is TSA employees, as the other user explained. The rest of this is a lot of pretty aggressive assumptions about me that are entirely unfounded.

Or at least something useless but harmless, like smashing rocks into gravel with hammers. That would be much better than harassing and hassling everybody trying to go on a vacation.

The problem fundamentally with the mask debate is that surgical masks barely make a difference in transmission. If we were serious about mask wearing to prevent respiratory viral transmission, we would be wearing well-fit N95s like 3M Auras, which are virtually impossible to fit improperly and are way more comfortable than surgical masks. They are also far more effective at preventing airborne/droplet viral transmission. This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest mistakes the CDC (and other institutions) made, and it had dire consequences: millions of people died and a majority of Americans lost trust in this institution for its poor recommendations.

In the beginning everyone thought COVID is only droplet transmission and in that case regular masks work really well because it prevents someone carrying the virus from spreading dropdlets. It doesn't even have to be very tightly fitting because droplets will get attached to the fabric. Later there were some evidence that it can become aeresol in some high concentration situations like hospitals, but for all practical purposes in everyday life its droplet.

The problem is not that they are ineffective but that people followed them poorly. I've seen countless people wearing them super ineffectively like leaving their nose completely out, and many people when they wear surgical masks they don't bend the metal bar to fit to their nose and instead basically have like a canopy instead of a mask which of course doesn't do much.

> Later there were some evidence that it can become aeresol in some high concentration situations like hospitals, but for all practical purposes in everyday life its droplet.

That's not true. There are good studies, followed up with full contact tracing in the environment it happened in, that show aerosol transmission in everyday situations (such as planes and restaurants)

Additionally on the poor fitting masks, triple layer surgicals are more effective (not effective enough) when double masking (which that situation is surgical first, cloth second.. this is the same as using a mask brace to ensure a tight fit)

However, the findings from Aaron Collins found that yes, they are better with a mask fitter.. but they still fail to qualify at the same level as an N95, KN95, or KF94 level of protection. (Those are the levels of protection you require when dealing with airborne based contaminants) On top of that it made it more difficult to wear.

That was later yet. At least in the public mind - some leaders who should know better were saying things that they should have known were false.

Are you suggesting that less than N95 masks do not reduce COVID-19 transmission?

Yes. Surgicals are not meant for protection against airborne contaminants.

While that is true, surgicals do provide some protection. They cut your risk down significantly when worn correctly, though proper N95 (and other similar standards meant for airborne contaminants) will reduce risk a lot more.

I am surprised to see this type of reply in 2022. When I Google "do masks reduce COVID-19 transmission?", I get huge number of hits for peer reviewed published scientific papers. And most of the papers are focused on less-than-N95 masks. For the ones that I reviewed, the answer is overwhelming "yes", and a statistically significant reduction.

So we have a few issues with that query.

Do they reduce COVID 19 transmision is basically the same question as does a book stop a bullet. Yes. Is if sufficient? No. (Safe vs Safe-er)

With aerosols, it's a lot out there, they're light, move from low pressure to high, and they float. (You need better protection, and you have to ensure that the filter does it's job, surgical don't and can't do that.. although the CDC tried to hack their way through that with "fit adjustments")

With droplet, it requires those being projected, more affected by gravity, and it requires an entry point into entering you. (They're heavilier particles, and typically this is less likely to spread)

All of the masking in the US is regulated by OSHA for the work world. (And is only for the working world.. no N95s for children) That's why N95s are required in hospitals (with workers, and only for workers are N95s required to be fit tested) in this case. Unfortuantely with a lot of the papers you see .. they tend to minimize what other country's population standards. I think they (KF94s, FFP2s, KN95 [if you have a trust worthy regulation body] etc) would be a better fit for the general population.

Someone decided to make masks a partisan issue. TSA enjoys pretty much bi-partisan support from politicians.

Outside the USA, especially at smaller airports, xraying all the bags is something thats only done to meet the rules. The staff don't care what you have in your bag - if security has a queue, they'll just pick 100 random people and tell them to skip security and go straight through to departures.

Likewise, if there is only 2 people on duty to search bags identified that need searching, and they're busy, then any liquids etc. in other bags will be 'not noticed' so as to not overload the people searching bags and cause queues.

Such things make me always deliberately choose small airports - they're just so efficient compared to airports where security theater is done 'properly'.

Domestic flights in New Zealand are incredible. Single X-Ray machine, toss your bag on the conveyor, and it goes through just as fast as you can walk to the other side. No body scanners, no metal detectors.

The security 'theater' is what we pay for a high level of freedom in the US, especially in conservative states. You may reach the end of the queue faster, but what if there's a bad guy with a gun there? Where will the good guys be?

Presumably standing around outside, waiting for the SWAT team, and not letting anyone else enter the building. How the Uvalde PD didn't all get charged with aiding and abetting is beyond me.

xraying all the bags is something thats only done to meet the rules. The staff don't care what you have in your bag

I wish this was true.

In Spain recently something in my bag tripped the Xray alarm. I had to unpack my bag and take "something metal" out for inspection. It turned out it was an empty food packaging with a shiny foil bit on the side. Over all, it's not so big a deal, but they certainly cared about it.

Spain has had an actual terrorism problem in recent years, so they are likely to have better standards. Other EU countries don't really have that problem and so will have less strict standards. there are different standards for flying into Spain than other countries (or at least there were last time I flew to Spain, but that has been a long time)

Never seen anything like it anywhere. This might be a European thing?

I used to work in the same building as the TSA. They were some of the rudest people I have ever been around. They would smoke in the stairwells and literally anywhere other than the smoking areas.

They have the same problem as BMVs, they have literally no incentive to improve. There is no competition.

And now they are like other bad organizations (e.g., police departments that have a history of shooting unarmed people) in the respect that nobody wants to be associated with them, so they can only recruit from the bottom.

They also don't get paid when we have budget legislation. Who would want to work in a place like that?

Paying more for a job already designed to attract terrible people will still attract the same terrible people, it will just make them richer. Again, see police departments.

You can see a different sort of example in teaching: teachers put up with terrible pay for a long time, but now they're quitting in droves because of terrible work conditions and lack of emotional fulfillment.

You have to change the nature of the job from something designed around theater and blustering to something actually useful. The pay is never the problem, it's that the jobs are bullshit. Although once the jobs are no longer bullshit, we should probably pay them better.

Airport security was much better when it was private security not government security. At least privately security had alignment with airport customer service. Airports just have to deal with TSA BS now.

I like to remind people, especially kids that don't know different, that the TSA was imposed on us and air travel used to be so much better.

Better in that it was more effective?

More cost effective and answered to the business serving travelers. TSA answers to nobody and customer service is not even a priority. Private security that harassed, berated, and abused patrons would not be working private security for very long.

You will have to define effective to tell if TSA or private security is better. TSA is an effective hinderance on travel, jobs program, and public money funnel for scanner companies. Private security was more effective at scaling security for the risk and trying to be a minimal hinderance to travelers.

It's actually one of the reasons I'm hesitant at being pro-public transit.

Last thing I need is a TSA equivalent pat down for entering a bus or metro because the government decided it wants to.

Have you ever travelled to and taken mass transit in Israel? This is common.

No, I don't live in or have visited Israel, but it's obvious why Israel would have such precautions compared to many other parts of the world.

> Am I to believe that the TSA, FAA and airlines can't coordinate to determine when gluts of incoming passengers are expected?

Same with the Customs and Immigration Services (the passport checkers) at SFO. I have seen lines going out to the walkway (leading into the big room). I can't even imagine traveling with a couple of little children; there's no restroom in that big hall.

By law, these people get full passenger manifests, arrival times, etc. before the flight even lands. They know, down to the passenger, everyone's status, nationality, etc.

AND STILL THEY ARE OFTEN SHORTHANDED!

This is the reception we give to visitors to the country. SMH...

Perhaps they're trying to hire, but either the labor market is tight or they're not able to offer enough to get people to take the job.

GP's desire to berate TSA agents, for example, suggests that job-satisfaction might not be real high.

My friend that worked TSA for a few years said it was the worst job he has ever had.

It's tough to live near SFO on a Customs and Border Protection salary. I'm not surprised they have trouble with staffing.

SFO's airport security is actually run by a private firm:

https://www.flysfo.com/about/airport-operations/safety-secur...

The parent comment by @1024core was about passport control, not security screening. All passport checks at SFO are performed by government employees.

Airports also have an incentive to keep the TSA lines as variable as possible.

If the line can sometimes take 5 minutes and sometimes take 2 hours, you need to arrive 2 hours early. And then if it actually takes just 5 minutes - that’s 1:55 left for buying food and shopping.

It's not TSA, but I was particularly dumbfounded at Heathrow Airport when security exited straight into an extended shopping corridor of champagne, jewelry, and caviar.

It's not quite the same situation as it used to be, but this stuff used to be ideally suited to the dual purpose of buying gifts to take home and burning all your remaining foreign currency.

> threatening you with federal charges and huge fines if you "verbally abuse" the TSA workers

It's probably unconstitutional, but no one has tested it in court yet as far as I'm aware.

I don't think anyone wants to be detained by the TSA and put on the no-fly list to call a TSA agent a fascist

I expect they would detain you, force you to miss your flight, but not actually fine you. Without actually charging you with anything despite the threats, they avoid having their bullshit rule challenged in court.

If I ever come into possession of fuck you money, I intend to set up an organization whose mission is to buy cheap plane tickets that people are not intended to fly on, and then pay and instruct people on how to screw with the TSA completely legally.

It would probably be more effective to fund a few senators and congress people on the condition that they amend the The Aviation and Transportation Security Act.

He said fuck you money, not Jeff Bezos money.

Last year I made the mistake of flying up to visit family on Christmas Eve. The TSA line wrapped around the entire airport. Luckily I made it just barely in time. I was already delayed when a nasty accident shit down the interstate and added an extra hour to my airport trip.

That's what you get for not arriving at the airport six hours before your flight /s

Sad thing is that the system constantly says that unsarcastically.

Airlines, TSA, and airport messaging constantly remind me to be hours early and to anticipate long security lines.

Real question / Zero trolling: For your travel situaton, is it possible to not fly?

edit: misread your question

I will go out of my way to not fly, since I've found flying (more specifically, the logistics _around_ flying) to be a displeasurable experience, and driving is much easier and affordable.

I can drive, spending 20 hours on the road, and 2 nights in a hotel - each way. Hard to say if that is better or worse than flying. The above trip is taken with my family so flying is more expensive than gas+hotels. However last time I took the trip we missed our connection (weather) had to take grey hound there as they couldn't get everyone there. Driving is not fun, but at least we can be sure to arrive on time.

There is little to no incentive for the TSA or FAA to provide better service to the public. you can't exactly go with a competitor, The best you can do is file a complaint or email your congressman. (source 15 years of federal work experience for multiple agencies)

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