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Comment by mcantelon | Hacker News Reader

>That's some pretty obvious and epic fail on the part of the Agency. Why hasn't it been eliminated or reformed by now?

My guess is the TSA's long-term purpose is not to prevent terrorism, but to provide the federal government with a means of visibly asserting authority over the travel of citizens (and the opportunity to intervene in the travel of dissidents). Otherwise it makes little sense.

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I'm a bit cynical, but I don't think that it's anything quite that sinister. The TSA is just another agency that gives budget dollars and a corresponding amount of power to the bureaucrats and government representatives who run it and a lot of contract dollars to the crony companies that supply it.

Because Americans are so terrified of "terrorism", they don't even have to prove efficacy of their methods in order to continue existing.

It's a whole lot of easy money for a bunch of pigs with their snouts in the trough.

As the bankers have well-established over the past few years, money == authority.

But the key thing is there is a difference between de facto functions of an organization (DHS is, de facto, an organization which seeks to control the populace) and the intended functions of an organization (DHS is intended to keep us safe. It does this by seeking to control the populace....).

The first is the domain of the structuralists in Anthropology. The second is the domain of the politicians.

I was visiting friends near the Mexican border in Arizona and we passed by a compound with literally hundreds of parked border patrol vehicles. I was amazed and said "In order to staff these, they must have thousands of field agents", to which the reply was "they have nothing of the sort - that compound is simply there for the TV cameras, to show 'how serious' they are about border patrol. Very few of those vehicles ever get driven"

Note: I've never seen anything of the sort near the US-Canada border, but Canadians illegally sneaking into the country isn't as big of an issue (or as large of a political hot-button) as Mexican illegal immigrants.

While it can certainly be used for that, Adam Smith had it right a very long time ago. The purpose of the TSA is to purchase millions of dollars worth of useless equipment, lining someone's pocket. Oh, the unions get a little slice too. Oh, and "Homeland Security" gets to expand and have more clout. Like businesses, government loves expansion. Everybody gets a cut and we have to pay for it.

Unlike businesses, the government doesn't contract (as in shrink) or 'fail.'

That plus, with the ability of the scanners to see anything and everything you are carrying, the near-complete ability to turn the continental USA into one big lockdown, a sort of free-range prison. Gold, silver, jewelry and other forms of portable wealth will not be able to be taken out of the country.

> Gold, silver, jewelry and other forms of portable wealth will not be able to be taken out of the country.

Does the TSA assist with customs now?

No, but they do assist with drug enforcement now.

Some people might want to make a "slippery slope" argument.

And the TSA will call the police if they find drugs while they're scanning for explosives. Apparently people think that cannabis can be hidden inside jars of peanut butter, but the TSA say that peanut butter looks like some forms of explosive when scanned, so they normally check it, especially if it has some inconsistency.

There are links on the TSA blog, but I can't post URLs with this new account.

The public demands that Something must be Done. The TSA is Something, therefore it is Done.

I personally assign blame straight on the general public. The general public is a bunch of scared nitwits who can't stand any possibility of any risk when flying on an airliner, even though they literally stand a higher chance of dying on their trip to the airport than on their flight. This irrationally frightened public demands that their elected officials protect them from the imaginary monsters under their figurative beds. Government simply complies with their wishes.

I don't know anyone in the general public you describe. I know a bunch of people wondering what the hell is going, or worse, don't care.

In fact, the only place I've heard of the "general public" proclaiming "something must be done" is in the media. But the media isn't the actual general public.

It is the same general public that causes shit like this:

http://www.wmctv.com/Global/story.asp?S=13392236

http://www.sharonlbegley.com/the-latest-trouble-with-racial-...

http://www.ummah.com/forum/showthread.php?291386-Nun-forcibl...

Seriously? "Frodo Baggins"? (Check your third link...)

Seems sourced from here:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jalees-rehman/catholic-nun-for...

I see parents lobbying to remove playground equipment that causes occasional scrapes, I see a proliferation of ridiculous warning signs, I see people freak out deeply and in large number over a heavily trafficked "dangerous intersection" that's seen one crash, non-fatal, in years.

People don't seem to like the TSA in general, but they like it more than not having it.

I believe this may be a vocal minority. Just like all of the "children aren't allowed to pray on their own in schools because it might make another student uncomfortable" people. I doubt that a large portion of the population even cares, but a couple of vocal people and a lawsuit makes it a political hot-topic.

They are scared nitwits, but only because they don't demand that the government's unprecedented expansion of surveillance be stopped and reversed. The TSA is, for the most part, despised by anyone travelling. On top of making you show up hours earlier than you would have, they grope you. No one demands that.

That's exactly it. As another example, witness the internet porn censorship debate in the UK at the moment. No-one in government cares about porn. Jacqui Smith MP even buys her porn using her parliamentary expense account! What it's really about is putting the machinery in place for real censorship and control later.

The TSA is about establishing the infrastructure for real restriction of movement, using terrorism as a mere pretext.

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