TSA Moves On From Your Underwear to Your Starbucks
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Call me childish, but I would like nothing better to but to make this system such a cost drain that it's dropped. Once airlines have to start rebooking people due to flights being missed by many, many paying passengers, en masse, the corporate pressure that makes the government wheels turn will do the rest.
Most people put up with this fucktardery only because they have somewhere to be and don't want to miss their flight. And the security theater actors know this.
Yes, the idealist in me wants to believe the system can be changed. But I am getting close to 30 and I haven't bought any new Bad Religion CD/MP3 since I was 22 to fuel the idealist in me.
But realistically, politicians want the largest amount of money over time - crowdsourcing couldn't affors to pay off a politician every year. Not to mention, they'd likely just ignore the crowd sourced payoffs - there's money, and then there's money + power.
One the goal is achieved the funds can be distributed to another cause, redirected towards another goal, or kept as is with the goal and preventing future legislation from erasing the gains.
Instead of contributing to one politician perhaps we should be contributing to an army of lobbying pools that match our desired policy outcomes?
Maybe, maybe not.
Lobbying is very expensive, I suspect some times it would be cheaper to lobby, other times it would be cheaper to sabotage the system.
Which is cheaper could depend on many things, like is anyone lobbying against you, vs. is the system designed in such a way that it could potentially adjust itself to defends itself or not.
http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/industries.php?cycle=...
It looks like the going rate for a Congressman who is a powerful committee chair is around $100K.
A rank-and-file Congressman can usually be had for $10K or so.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/01/06/144737864/forget-s...
I wish this were true, but it isn't. I know a number of people who genuinely believe that the TSA procedures are necessary to make sure a terrorist is not going to blow up the plane they are boarding.
Isn't this what polls do?
Need every single bloody point be scientifically rigorous?
It's a great ideal to have for any discussion.
I'm told that polling people can be done accurately and scientifically.
Need every single bloody point
Yes.
If you're going to make a claim like that, you should have some data.
If you don't then preface it with 'I think that' or 'people I know'.
If you don't or can't be bothered to do that then you should shut your pie hole.
Usually I'm all for citing, but your persistance in this argument is inconsequential.
And that last line is uncalled for.
I replied, he replied, I replied to his reply. That's not persistance. Where I come from we call that a conversation.
Replying to you ... now _that_ is persistance.
I'm guessing that it's comments like this ("shut your pie hole") that are creating the sense that the quality of discussion at this site is in decline (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4396747)
And you believe that?
The way you phrase your poll often determines the answers; the only "accurate" and "scientific" thing you learn is how people answer the questions the way you phrased them.
One of Kahneman's and Tversky's work asked Medical Doctors how they would react in a situation (From memory, can't find the reference right now)
There is a pandemic. With no treatment, everyone will die soon. You have the resources to produce a perfect cure for just 1/4 of the population, or a cure that works with probability 25%, but you can make enough of it for the entire population (expected number of people saved is the same).
Now, half the doctors are asked to decide between:
.... a treatment that deterministically saves 25% of the population from the epidemic, and a treatment that probabilistically saves 25% of the population from the epidemic.
The other half were asked to decide between:
.... a treatment that would let 75% of the population die from the epidemic (deterministically), and one that would probabilistically let 75% of the population die.
The whole test was built so that on average, there's no "right" choice. You just get to choose whether or not you want to determine who lives - but either way, 25% will live, 75% will die.
No, if people were rational (and doctors are supposed to be rational with respect to treatment policy), the way the question is phrased should not make a difference - but it made all the difference.
(K&T have many similar examples, and so does Dan Ariely in "Predictably Irrational").
Now, if the TSA phrases the questions, you can be certain the poll would indicate 95% of the people support the TSAs procedures. If Schneier did, the results would be very different.
Scientifically and accurately portraying the fact that most polls shouldn't be trusted because the person doing them has an agenda.
> And you believe that?
Yes.
What you have done is cited people who have shown polling can be done incorrectly. This is not a surprise.
Polling can be done in a correct way and will produce valid results. It costs money, and not everyone _wants_ a poll that is accurate but there you go.
Are you sure you're on the right web site?
http://www.inquisitr.com/281009/naked-guy-wins-court-case-af...
Almost every time through, there are no more than 1-2 other people opting out at the same time. And usually prior to my opt out, there aren't any at all.
It appears that "most people put up with this fucktardery" because they don't know/care otherwise.. none even question it.
I document my experiences via Twitter using the #fuTSA tag if you'd like to follow along. ;)
I opt out by not flying any more. Can get just about anywhere I want to in one day of driving (with the convenience of my own impromptu schedule, take as much as I want, and have a car when I get there).
Am surprised 4A suits haven't been filed en masse. Would be great for rights restoration if some lawyer could whip up a "filing suit over right X violations without a lawyer" guidebook, keeping it simple & cheap and leveraging sheer numbers in doing so (rather than trying to concoct the perfect case, just overwhelm the system with enough conflicting verdicts that the Supreme Court has to resolve it, with enough range in cases that nuanced narrow verdicts are impossible).
http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/politica...
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/331811
HN completely bans his name being mentioned in topic titles apparently.
Is this actually true?
But even that isn't the whole picture - for example this thread has over 100 points and has magically disappeared from the front page in only a few hours while topics with far fewer points stick around. So there must be an invisible gravity switch.
http://news.ycombinator.org/item?id=4487658
Even though its title also mentions the Unnameable Politician.
Even worse all that and they MISS another terrorist?
Will they then get more funding or less? Move the searches into our homes?
Tell me where exactly we draw the line.
More and yes. See the War on Drugs.
It's not about drawing the line, it's about holding an uncooperative government to it. They're willing to go so far as shoot you if you don't let them cross that line and examine your coffee; you're not willing to pursue similar means to hold them to that line.
http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty...
Some states are considered to lie completely within a "constitution-free zone": Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont.
The border, however, has always been an exception. There, the longstanding view is that the normal rules do not apply. For example the authorities do not need a warrant or probable cause to conduct a “routine search.” But what is “the border”? According to the government, it is a 100-mile wide strip that wraps around the “external boundary” of the <?XML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 />United States.
(I left the XML error in there just for the lulz.)
You can disagree with their analysis, but it's pretty clear that their position is that normal 4th amendment rules are being superseded merely because of a rather wide proximity to the border.
There's a lot of TSA crap and the whole agency should probably be zero'd out, but this isn't the right measure.
If a metal detector at an airport never stopped a gun, that wouldn't mean the metal detector is useless for keeping guns off planes.
It's a classic problem in computer security that, if it actually works, people say "why do I need security since there are no incidents?"
Metal detectors, even if not completely perfect, stop people from bringing serious weaponry onto airplanes because people don't bother bringing serious weaponry in the first place. The chances of getting caught are too high. People who simply don't bother will never show up in your direct measurements of the effectiveness of the metal detector.
We have no idea if they miss any guns, nor if the guns they stopped were going to be used on the plane.
But TSA will point to the 20 or so guns they fund each week as evidence of effectiveness.
EDIT (after a bunch of comments): I should make it clear that I'm not defending TSA, I think they're mostly lousy and pointless security theatre.
So either people got more violent after 9/11 and therefore brought more weapons, or people were always bringing guns onto planes. I’d bet on the latter, and yet how many terror attacks occurred? Hmmm…
Here is a nice debate with Bruce Schneier.
"In the entire decade or so of airport security since the attacks on September 11th 2001, the TSA has not foiled a single terrorist plot or caught a single terrorist. Its own “Top 10 Good Catches of 2011″ does not have a single terrorist on the list."
Found a better list here:
* American Airlines Flight 63 The "shoe bomb", a failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt in December 2001.
* China Northern Flight 6136, a 2002 flight brought down by a passenger who had purchased life insurance, who set a fire in flight with gasoline
* 2004 Russian aircraft bombings Islamist terrorist attacks on two domestic Russian passenger aircraft flying from Moscow. The bombs were triggered by two female Chechen suicide bombers. Shamil Salmanovich Basayev militant leader of the Chechen terrorist movement claimed credit.
* 2006 transatlantic aircraft plot al-Queda terrorist plot to detonate liquid explosives carried on board at least 10 airliners travelling from the United Kingdom to the United States and Canada. It followed the same general plan as the Bojinka plot.
* Northwest Airlines Flight 253, the target of a failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt in December 2009
* 2010 cargo plane bomb plot, failed al-Qaeda PETN bombing attempt on two planes in October 2010
ETA: I want to note that my issue is only that you stated a factual incorrectness: that no terror attacks have occurred involving airplanes in the past 11 years. You can denigrate the TSA all you want; just do it based on factually correct statements.
Actually we know for a fact that they miss guns.
2) suggests 1) is not the case. If the TSA knew or even suspected the guns were going to be used on the plane, wouldn't they point that out alongside the "number of guns confiscated per week" number? There seem to be a lot of dogs not barking.
As for your other question, it will keep getting bigger budgets, because "mission creep". What do you think this, and those cases where they went to subway and bus stops was? They are testing the waters to see how the people are reacting to them expanding their scope. If no one says anything or the outrage is not big enough, they'll most likely propose the Government to allow them to set-up check-ins in other places as well, and of course increase their budget.
Does anyone know the current state of the TSA, as far as upcoming funding, plans, or improvement goes? Is it Homeland Security making these things mandatory or what?
I just constantly hear insane stories like this and never hear any good coming from the TSA. How do we change this? Or is that even an option?
How does that work? You can't just waive your rights. I wonder what would happen if you said no. They may not let you on your flight but if you just landed and buying coffee there's noting they can do if you refuse.
Glad we got that scenario covered.
Realize that while they may have a badge and a fun little uniform, these agents are people just like you and I. Sadly, in most cases, they're of a lesser intelligence too (yes that's mean and discriminatory but it's true). When something is wrong, call it out. Otherwise this sort of absurdity will continue to get worse. Civil liberties are more important than your meeting.
Don't be afraid of this crap.
The complaints about security theater are loud and frequent, but aside from bitching and moaning, what can be done?
Hundreds and hundreds of travelers told me they would happily spent $1k extra on flights next time simply to avoid the United States. They don't want to go there ever again.
2012: 14,195,321 [1]
2011: 12,839,980 [2]
2010: 12,635,880 [3]
2009: 9,762,932 [4]
2008: 11,388,763 [5]
2007: 9,871,406 [6]
2006: 9,045,854 [7]
Quite simply, people aren't voting with their feet. In fact, any declines in people flying into the US seem to trend with the general economic climate.
The reason I picked the first quarter is because we already have the first quarter's data for 2012 and I couldn't be bothered to deal with the second quarter because this is only a quick glance at the data. :-)
[1] http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2012-I-001/table1.html
[2] http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2011-I-001/table1.html
[3] http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2010-I-001/table1.html
[4] http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2009-I-001/table1.html
[5] http://tinet.ita.doc.gov/view/m-2008-I-001/table1.html
I will admit I haven't separated the entries by land/air/sea, as I didn't have that data readily available. The general trend still holds even excluding Canadians and Mexicans who may be more disposed to cross a land border. On the surface it just doesn't appear as though people are so turned off by the TSA that they're refusing to fly to the US.
It's quite amazing what people will tolerate in order to travel to and from the US. America's borders are sadly the most unfriendly I've encountered to date.
They run between Mexico City and Toyko and between Mexico city and Shanghai, with a fueling stop one way in Tijuana. The flights are operated by Aeromexico.
There are many, many airlines that want to sell you a connecting flight between Asia and Latin America through LAX or SFO. The two flights that don't pass through the USA charge a $5-600 average premium over the flights that connect in the USA for the cheapest tickets.
So that's what avoiding the USA customs and TSA procedures is worth in the market: $5-600, round trip.
Sure, but when they're traveling in/through the US, they're subject to US law, and that can't change.
> These ridiculous practices spread to other countries too; it's a global issue.
Well, yes, if you want to talk about the US exporting its law and enforcing it outside its jurisdiction, infringing on other countries' sovereignty, there are plenty of examples of this practice - the TSA debacle is unfortunately barely a blip on that radar.
Wow, who are these people trying to convince? A random sampling make absolutely no sense here. To have a 95% chance of catching the offending substance, you'd have to "randomly screen" 95% of passengers.
And that's assuming that the screening technique would actually catch a determined individual, which it won't, because he's a terrorist and he's thought things through.
This is the real head scratcher. Say someone did get an explosive liquid through the initial security screening. Why would they then be drinking it later while waiting for their flight?
At least there were no X-rays or pat-downs...
Not saying it's right, just that it's been going on forever.
What does this mean, then - will they just throw you out if you refuse? Or will they illegally detain you? My bet is on the latter.
/soapbox
More likely, you can refuse, but you'll be escorted out of the terminal (and refused reentry).
I doubt you'll "go to jail" unless you assault the TSA agent, become disorderly, etc.