Comment by jdreaver | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jdreaver | Hacker News Reader

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So we waste billions of dollars per year to "force terrorists to up their game." My main issue with the TSA, besides the fact they violate my rights, is they are a non-solution to a non-issue. The fact is, TSA screening is a joke, and TSA screeners are largely incompetent. Furthermore, if a terrorist wanted to kill hundreds of Americans, they need only set off a bomb in the main terminal entrance, before screening takes place. Locking the cockpit doors and having more aware passengers are what keeps us safer from hijackers than before 9/11.

I wish airlines had a choice to use the TSA or not, because then we could vote with our wallets. But no, we are being forced to be groped by imbeciles who think that patting down frightened five year olds is worth it. While the finer points of your analysis are correct, the most compelling argument against the TSA lies outside the scope of your analysis. The idea that you can have absolute safety is a farce. Whenever we want more safety, we have to ask ourselves at what cost it's worth that safety. The TSA is a political response to an anomaly, and somewhere along the line we forgot that we are giving up our freedom by chasing ghosts.

   So we waste billions of dollars per year to "force terrorists to up their game."

So you would rather make it easier for them ?

  TSA screeners are largely incompetent.

Evidence please.

  they need only set off a bomb in the main terminal entrance

They could set off a bomb anywhere. A plane is unique in that you could fly into a large skyscraper and kill tens of thousands of people.

  groped by imbeciles who think that patting down frightened five year olds

Equating someone doing their job with a paedophile is a much, no ?

>>>> So you would rather make it easier for them ?

False dichotomy. You can make it harder for them, or say it is already hard enough, without TSA. TSA is not the only way ever not to make it easy for terrorists.

>>>> Equating someone doing their job with a paedophile is a much, no ?

"Someone doing their job" should know better than that, or don't get this job. "Just doing my job" is not an excuse of bad behavior, that thing was settled in a little town called Nuremberg. I wouldn't go as far as saying TSA workers derive sexual pleasure from groping children, but they should know a lot of what they are doing is wrong, and if they do it, they bear moral responsibilities for the abuse. Each time TSA worker does something repulsive and justifies himself with "I'm just following instructions" - he's committing a moral crime, even if not a legal one. And this should be told over and over so everybody would know what is being done - so that when TSA worker has a beer with his neighbor, the neighbor would say "TSA? The guys that pat down five-year olds? How that's working out for you?"

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