White House Deletes TSA Petition

Most people believe the TSA is effective and is keeping us safe from terrorists. You'd need a way to convince everyone that it's not true to avoid the backlash.

I was wondering the same thing. If there is some sort of conspiracy to keep the TSA alive no matter what, what would be the point. What's the end-game here?

Perhaps the government has some sort of investment in Pepsi Co. and that's why you're not allowed to liquids on the plane anymore.

I've got a similar question from a slightly different position. What would happen if the government dissolved the TSA? There would still be airport screening, it would just go back to the airlines or individual airports. And some would be better, some worse, than the TSA. And there would still be regulations on what the individual screening groups must do (so we would still probably have the body scanners, enhanced pat downs, etc). And all that would be absolutely necessary, since the reason the TSA (and enhanced security) was put in was to keep the public confidence up so that they would continue to fly. Because not enough people flying, airlines go under, and we would really be in trouble with limited travel options. Most point-to-point routes would be eliminated, and you would have to get to your destination airport, rent a car, and drive another several hours to get to where your are going.

The political motivation for keeping the TSA intact is that if you abolish the TSA and there's a terror attack or high-profile crime involving an airplane or airport, your political opponents can say "Sen. So-And-So put us at risk by being soft on terrorism."

(Please keep in mind the truth of such a claim has little bearing on the political calculus, and that we can't count on an arbitrary politician to correctly calibrate the likelihood of an airborne terrorist attack post 9/11.)

To be productive, your question should be about the political costs of being seen to destroy the TSA. This will also answer the question about the political motivation for keeping it.

Consider also the reasons it was created (the real reasons) and the context in which it was created

It could be an economic reason, as in increasing the sense of flyer 'security' (despite being an utter failure). Consumer thinks, "I exposed myself so that I can feel safe thinking everyone else was also exposed." Consumer is invested.

It could also be a political barometer to our collective response to an increasing police state.

If the TSA went away it wouldn't lead to more terrorism, contractors would resume TSA duties as they do in some airports already. However, since the TSA in now unionized and the private contractors were not, it's a big deal for Obama because he counts on union contributions for his campaign.

It has nothing to do with security. The TSA hasn't caught a single terrorist or attempted terrorist during its entire tenure. Blaming the private screeners for 9-11 is a bit unfair because, if the TSA were operating under the same pre-9-11 rules, those guys would have made it on the plane as well.

The TSA is also Janet "Big Sis" Napolitano's most visible way of exerting her own need for power. She obsessed with her fiefdom and the perks it provides. Obama also wouldn't dare cross Napolitano as it's clear she'd be able to body slam him without a second thought.

> one Board Patrol Agent died as a direct results of their actions.

What happened to "guns don't kill people, people kill people"? Are you saying that ATF shot the Border Patrol Agent?

Oh. I see. The mistake was that some Mexicans got guns. Obviously, without the ATF there is no way that Mexicans would be able to get guns. Right.

But under that logic, failing to enact gun control makes the US government responsible for almost everyone killed with a gun in the US, since the relative lack of gun control both directly and indirectly results in more guns in hands, and therefore more guns in use, and therefore more people being shot. (For the record: I am against gun control, I just think your logic sucks)

You ARE allowed to petition, but that isn't the same thing as whatever your complaint is about whitehouse.gov ... petitions vastly pre-existed whitehouse.gov.

You seem to have forgotten the good old days when Reagan set up the Enterprise (an unaccountable shadow government with its own funding sources) and sold arms to our enemies, violating a US arms embargo, in order to fund a dirty war in Central America (another action violating US law).

What great democracy that was!

Let's not resort to ad hominem now.

Anything on the presidents site is an easy target. Remember, in politics the facts don't matter. Perception does. All either side has to do is take any position, policy, or whatever and frame it any way they want. The opposition in this case isn't losing any sleep over this "ammunition" being taken from them (if they even noticed to begin with).

Besides, the TSA was something dreamed up and put in place by the Republicans. It wouldn't be smart to go out and make a stink over a Democratic president ignoring a petition having anything to do with changing anyone about the TSA when Republicans would love to double down and try to convince people that the TSA is keeping the US terrorist-free. In fact, I'd argue that the Republicans would actually love for Obama to do something rational about the TSA so they can call him weak on security. It doesn't make sense for this to be a defense against Republicaj criticism.

It most likely really was just a blooper.

Different parts of the government have different capabilities. For example, the CIA may have more resources than the post office. And perhaps even more highly trained employees.

But many conspiracy theories are just silly...

JERRY: Just give me some idea of what you think it could be.

GEORGE: I don't know if you're ready for it.

JERRY: Please.

GEORGE: I believe that I am about to become the target of a systematic process of intimidation and manipulation, the likes of which you have never -

JERRY: Hold it, hold it! You're right, I'm not ready for this.

And the amount of heed the administration pays to those petitions is still none.

I've actually signed a previous TSA petition, and gotten a letter from the white house brushing it off (available here: https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/abolish-tsa-and-us...). Same with the legalization of marijuana petition I signed, and the support same-sex marriage one I signed (later they changed their position on this one), and the... I forget now which other ones I signed, but they have all gotten eventual responses from the white house that are basically polite brush-offs.

My understanding is that a lot of the "responses" to those petitions end up being, "We considered it. The answer is no." There's no requirement that they do anything.

Given that, it seems unlikely there was some nefarious hidden agenda behind this TSA one being taken down.

It's not worse, but it's also not better, since these petitions achieve nothing of consequence.

The point I am making is that if a web site has a feature "post something for 30 days", it is fairly reasonable to implement that as "expires = now() + '30 days'::interval" in your database, and then to display a simplified timestamp like "'expires on ' || date_trunc('day', expires)" when telling people about the deadline.

Yes: it might be nice to say "expires at exactly 16:25:43.642109 UTC on Aug 9 2012", but for most use cases "expires on 8/9/2012" is considered fine. With this interpretation, even if the website said "August 9th", you can still argue that it was being fair and even correct, albeit confusing and bothersome in a way that will certainly have caused some people to think there was more time when there wasn't.

The Wayback Machine only displays sites after 6 months have passed.

Under Bush it didn't seem so bad because our expectations were so low.

Objectively, perhaps slightly. It's not hard to find quotes describing this administration as the worst yet at responding to Freedom of Information Act requests. For example:

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73606.html

Subjectively, it feels much worse - because the administration ran on a platform of transparency and openness, which they failed to deliver on:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOp...

By an objective tally of bullshit occurring under each administration's watch, I think we can safely say that, yes, it is.

At least W didn't try to pretend he was something he wasn't.

Bush turned us in a bad direction, Obama stepped on the gas.

The Bush policies that were most detrimental to the long-term health of the US have been embraced and championed by Obama. Namely, the suspension of habeus corpus. Obama and Bush both abduct people they don't like and ship them to prisons in war zones and strip them of all their civil liberties.

Obama, in section 1012 of NDAA 2012, signed into law the right of the US military to detain US citizens indefinitely, without trial.

Of course there are lawsuits and challenges to NDAA 2012, and states have signed their own legislation into place that says, "no, really, the constitution and bill of rights mean something still".

But that stuff isn't stopping the US from abducting and imprisoning its own citizens.

I didn't say anything about the transparency, because I got worked up. Oh, well.

Big difference though, Obama promised the most transparent administration in history. Admittedly, it's a low bar, but Fast and Furious documents, press restrictions, including a prohibition on live tweeting anything Biden says. Obfuscation of the Solyndra scandal.. it goes on and on. The Fast and Furious scandal is the big one though. Allowing gun walking in order to then use the resultant violence to make the case for anti-gun legislation, resulting in the death of Brian Terry as well as hundreds of Mexicans. In Watergate all you had was a burglary, with this, people were killed. And yet, those documents are covered by Executive Privilege even though the President denied knowing anything about it? His lack of press conferences, restrictions on press at campaign events, colluding with the media to squash stories while leaking others.

We can debate policy all day long, but there's really no way anyone can argue that Obama's administration is the most transparent in history. Even Obama himself is obscured. Every presidential candidate has released college transcripts -- except Obama. There are all sorts of questions about his past that remain unanswered, yet he claims to be transparent?

We knew George Bush's elementary school grades, the cars he owned and drugs he did -- yet with Obama there are so many questions that he refuses to address both in his personal history and current White House administration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXWTdTnhebs

No, there are only a million Japanese in America. Also, I highly doubt any Koreans would support removing a monument dedicated to Korean victims of WWII.

At 1.3Million, sure, it's possible, but I don't personally think there are enough right-wing revisionist history Japanese-Americans to have generated this much response.

Anyway, the facts support my assumption directly from the petititon. The vast majority of Japanese names on the petition do not list their location, while a handful directly report they are from Japan: Taizo H - Tokyo, Kuniko N - Fukuoka.

Having to create a separate account, just to sign, probably discourages people. If the petitions needed 25k likes/pluses/etc I think more would reach the goal.