TSA pretends that their screening catches weapons and bombs. We know from controlled experiments that they don’t catch bombs reliably. We also know from testimonials of friends that they let things like knives and live ammunition through their scanners because their staff can’t identify what they see correctly.
But it’s the TSA themselves that now supply proof that their efforts are arbitrary and likely unnecessary. They demand $75 for inclusion in a less intrusive checkpoint lane (“trusted traveler”), but also have a few random other travelers go through the same lane. While the less intrusive screening is appreciated, the practice of having random passengers screened the same way as “carefully pre-checked” passengers suggests that they aren’t too concerned about the difference between the two methods. One includes radiation treatment in pornoscanners, the other one doesn’t. It does appear that TSA is trying to get $75 per traveler plus a whole lot of additional personal information in exchange for not getting exposed to pointless attention of incompetent but intrusive blue-gloved checkers.
When people’s dignity and privacy starts mattering more to them than convenience, we’ll see change. I know it means that much to me.
Congress called it “security theater” in its 2011 decade review of TSA. The reason there has been no change is because people are willing to put up with it.
And Congress called ATF “jackbooted thugs” in 1986 — those creatures are still around as well.
I’m not. I have several reasons for not traveling, but this is one of them.
http://www.down-with-power.com/tsa.html
“The airlines must be forced to choose between respecting the Bill of Rights or going bankrupt”. Exactly.
Every time I go through TSA screening, I have to force myself not to say, “Two by two, hands of blue,” from Firefly. BTW, I believe that Bruce Schneier is the originator of the term “security theater.” He’s an ardent critic of useless (yet expensive and intrusive!) “security” measures. His website is at http://www.schneier.com, and his Crypto-Gram newsletter is highly recommended.
“The airlines must be forced to choose between respecting the Bill of Rights or going bankrupt”.
The federal government (TSA) asserts its authority to oversee the security of air travel. The airlines have no say in the matter. They can’t opt out.
Airlines fly airplanes. Citizens elect governments. The citizens of the United States are the ones who must choose between respecting the Bill of Rights or not.
They can’t opt out.
Actually I believe that airports can opt out of TSA by setting up their own security, as approved by TSA.
Yeah, I know. Hell freezing over and such.
OTOH, look what’s happening in Albuquerque.
“Actually I believe that airports can opt out of TSA by setting up their own security, as approved by TSA.”
So, they can opt out under conditions approved by the TSA? Well, that sounds like a definition of “opt out” that excludes the opting out part.
The point of the argument, and I agree with that, is that the TSA exists because the airlines are willing accomplices. Also, they are the ones who first disarmed the victims.
The TSA is a tool used to train the people to OBEY without question, any order. They learned the lessons of 1932-1945 well. What happens after we all learn to lay down on command passively, and never EVER talk back? To fear the ones that won’t “conform to the new order”? To lick the hand holding the whip? Why then the trains will roll to the showers once more. That is the ONLY reason to have a DHS or a TSA , to pass a patriot act ,an NDAA , to have “check points” civilian “gun confiscation” or a “militarized police”. To make the unthinkable a reality. The ones who send others to camps are in power at every level of federal and state government in America. It only remains to be seen who sews a mark on their coat, and who fights back. The mask of benevolence is slipping away and I believe that we will all se the true face of the “new order” soon.
And if the airlines do go bankrupt? They’re “too big to fail.” Obama will be more than happy to start handing out the blank checks, just like he did for Wall Street bankster gangsters, the United Auto Workers, and both Chrysler and General Motors. Money? Debt? Pffft.
The TSA is why I drive from Illinois to Seattle, New York, etc.
Well, TSA does stand for Teatro de la Seguridad del Absurdo.