A small amount more accountability for the TSA

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Unit74 said:
Also, the stats above are wonky and don't add up. Raw data required. It would appear the Pilot deaths are from gross stats, not actual working pilots. When they lump in bugsmashers getting hamburgers or doing aerobatics in Icons, the numbers sky rocket to those stats. But not commercial operators. We are talking about dangerous jobs, not dangerous hobbies.

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Wrong year and data. Here’s the source for 2017. Not sure those are all bugsmashers.

https://www.bls.gov/iif/oshwc/cfoi/all_worker.xlsx

Air transportation workers 59

- Airline pilots, copilots, and flight engineers 9
- Commercial pilots 50

Don’t get me wrong, Law enforcement is an admirable role, but there are many other workers that “kiss their spouse goodbye, perhaps for the last time, every time they go to work.”

With worse odds. Not including pilots.
 
mryan75 said:
Which is another way of saying that private airlines, given responsibility for airport security, do the absolute minimum required. Which is why airport security should not be the purview of the airlines, but rather government.
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I think there is another alternative than the two which appear to be considered there. Make airlines responsible for the consequences of their decisions, which they aren’t now.

They and their insurance companies will then decide how they want to balance the costs of increased security measures against the risks. The actual costs and risks in a real world situation are only known with a certain level of accuracy and it is often quite difficult to judge. When the parties making the decision are economically responsible, they are incentivized to make the best decision possible. And if they fail, they pay the price and perhaps go out of business.

Government regulators, by contrast, only have a set of incentives which are disconnected from the actual costs to everyone else of their decisions. While a feature perhaps to some, this does not tend generally to result in good outcomes. See the book Bureaucracy by von Mises for a long discussion of this. Link previously provided. It is a free download.
 
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PeterNSteinmetz said:
I think there is another alternative than the two which appear to be considered there. Make airlines responsible for the consequences of their decisions, which they aren’t now.

They and their insurance companies will then decide how they want to balance the costs of increased security measures against the risks. The actual costs and risks in a real world situation are only known with a certain level of accuracy and it is often quite difficult to judge. When the parties making the decision are economically responsible, they are incentivized to make the best decision possible. And if they fail, they pay the price and perhaps go out of business.

Government regulators, by contrast, only have a set of incentives which are disconnected from the actual costs to everyone else of their decisions. While a feature perhaps to some, this does not tend generally to result in good outcomes. See the book Bureaucracy by von Mises for a long discussion of this. Link previously provided. It is a free download.
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It is my experience that any time security reform is discussed and someone rebuts those ideas with the initial argument of “well 9-11” I routinely find the individual has not taken the time to become informed about what actually happened that day regarding security failures.
 
Tarheelpilot said:
It is my experience that any time security reform is discussed and someone rebuts those ideas with the initial argument of “well 9-11” I routinely find the individual has not taken the time to become informed about what actually happened that day regarding security failures.
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This is exactly what TSA agents say as the justification for their job. It must be in their training manuals.
 
denverpilot said:
I don’t think the self defense thing is anywhere near as important as not taking statistics from a city or a police department that tops the homicide lists for decades, very seriously. Clearly there’s a systemic violent crime problem at play there and law enforcement is either really bad at their job or hampered by politics.

Nuke the high crime politically hampered PDs from the death lists, and the job looks even safer. Not perfectly safe, but still safer than whole bunches of other jobs.

Even just being assigned to suburbia in these cities raises your chances back to where you can probably buy life insurance. Many professions can’t. :)
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Because it's just easier to ban things than it is to fix the problem. Or to encourage responsible use of tools.

Ban, ban, ban. And the dirty secret is that it doesn't solve the problem but looks good in campaign literature.
 
wsuffa said:
Because it's just easier to ban things than it is to fix the problem. Or to encourage responsible use of tools.

Ban, ban, ban. And the dirty secret is that it doesn't solve the problem but looks good in campaign literature.
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The other side of that coin is prohibition has never worked and there is no government fairy dust that will make it work.
 
mryan75 said:
Which is another way of saying that private airlines, given responsibility for airport security, do the absolute minimum required. Which is why airport security should not be the purview of the airlines, but rather government.

And the (obvious) answer to my question was "no".
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I don’t know, but if it’s important wouldn’t you want someone with a track record of success to handle it? And if so how does goverment fit on that short list, I mean look at the average low yield investment vs social security, look at the TSA, look at the processing times for the FAA, look at your average DMV, look at your average cost for a road vs private sector, look at the cost for a bus vs private sector, I could go on all day. Outside of waging a massive war or a few other things goverment is usually the most incompetent of the vendors, and their track record shows this.
 
James331 said:
Lol, “The numbers who remember 9/11............. Are getting smaller and smaller“
BA HA HA HA!

Dude, I can’t go 24 hours without hearing some Elmer Fudd type going off about the “terrorists” or some nonsense and how if we all give just a LITTLE BIT MORE of our rights, ya know for the children and all, everything will be sunshine and lolly pops


How about NO, if anything we need a push back against big goverment and it getting it’s nose where it has no business.
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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi approves this message***
 
Small thing worth noting.
I have my pp on account of the tsa pat downs so I can skip them forever.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
I think there is another alternative than the two which appear to be considered there. Make airlines responsible for the consequences of their decisions, which they aren’t now.

They and their insurance companies will then decide how they want to balance the costs of increased security measures against the risks. The actual costs and risks in a real world situation are only known with a certain level of accuracy and it is often quite difficult to judge. When the parties making the decision are economically responsible, they are incentivized to make the best decision possible. And if they fail, they pay the price and perhaps go out of business.

Government regulators, by contrast, only have a set of incentives which are disconnected from the actual costs to everyone else of their decisions. While a feature perhaps to some, this does not tend generally to result in good outcomes. See the book Bureaucracy by von Mises for a long discussion of this. Link previously provided. It is a free download.
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That's a legitimate argument, but I disagree. I like the fact that the institution in charge of airport security has one motivation, which is security.
 
James331 said:
This is what I was looking for

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Stuff like this doesn't impress me. People like whining and getting on TV. I've been through TSA checkpoints plenty of times, I've always been treated professionally, and frankly it's generally been pretty if not very efficient. I remember pre-TSA, you didn't even need a ticket to get to the gate. Security was non-existent. We used to take schedules off the info rack and hold them up at the security checkpoint at Washington National like they were tickets so we could get to our favorite bar beyond the checkpoint (the schedule was the same color and size of a paper ticket folder back then).

I'll take TSA, thanks.
 
mryan75 said:
That's a legitimate argument, but I disagree. I like the fact that the institution in charge of airport security has one motivation, which is security.
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But concretely in terms of regulation, what standard do you think the government should use to balance financial priorities. Resources are finite, even for the government, so regulators will have to choose between a stricter standard of security and cost. They can't actually operate assuming the resources are infinite, because they are not. What sort of standards should they use?

For example, with the TSA, it has been estimated that if the government wants to spend money to save lives, the TSA is the wrong way to do it, by about a factor of 100. See the book "Terror, Security, and Money" which goes into this in great detail. So if there are more effective ways to spend finite money to save lives, shouldn't the government choose those over the TSA?

It is a serious issue because the TSA spends about $8.1 Bln per year on security theater which does little to nothing to actually improve the safety of the traveling public.

BTW, I will add that I understand the desire to achieve good security and safety. It is an admirable goal. But I think if we care about saving lives, the TSA is really the wrong way to approach this.
 
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mryan75 said:
I'll take TSA, thanks.
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In a private system, no-one would stop you from making that sort of choice. You would be free to choose whichever airline offered you the type of security you want. And you would be free to pay the price, in terms of money and inconvenience for that. Even as a professional airline pilot, if you thought the procedures were inadequate you could first complain to your airline and then find another job if you wanted.

In a private system, however, you would not be able to force your choice on everyone else.
 
mryan75 said:
Stuff like this doesn't impress me. People like whining and getting on TV. I've been through TSA checkpoints plenty of times, I've always been treated professionally, and frankly it's generally been pretty if not very efficient. I remember pre-TSA, you didn't even need a ticket to get to the gate. Security was non-existent. We used to take schedules off the info rack and hold them up at the security checkpoint at Washington National like they were tickets so we could get to our favorite bar beyond the checkpoint (the schedule was the same color and size of a paper ticket folder back then).

I'll take TSA, thanks.
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I'm sure all that could have been "fixed" without creating the TSA. In fact, KSFO police implements the TSA security program. Not the TSA.
https://www.flysfo.com/about-sfo/safety-security
KACY, KFSD, KSEA, KSFB and KMCI are some of the other airports that don't use the TSA for screening.


As for the TSA, I've run into a few fools. And I've seen some stupidity too. Recently at KORD, they had one check point operating and a long line. They had another check point available, that they could have used, but one agent was just standing around, and the other was yelling at people to just pick up their bins and move. If they operated the other station, they would have processed twice as many people. I've had no problems at the airports that don't use the TSA.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
I'm sure all that could have been "fixed" without creating the TSA. In fact, KSFO police implements the TSA security program. Not the TSA.
https://www.flysfo.com/about-sfo/safety-security
KACY, KFSD, KSEA, KSFB and KMCI are some of the other airports that don't use the TSA for screening.
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Yes, those are part of the Screening Partnership Program. That is the first step toward privatization as recommended at http://realairlinesecurity.org. It seems to improve customer responsiveness of the screeners, though they still have to screen to standards specified by the TSA.

Of course the union representing TSA employees is completely opposed to this sort of thing.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
But concretely in terms of regulation, what standard do you think the government should use to balance financial priorities. Resources are finite, even for the government, so regulators will have to choose between a stricter standard of security and cost. They can't actually operate assuming the resources are infinite, because they are not. What sort of standards should they use?

For example, with the TSA, it has been estimated that if the government wants to spend money to save lives, the TSA is the wrong way to do it, by about a factor of 100. See the book "Terror, Security, and Money" which goes into this in great detail. So if there are more effective ways to spend finite money to save lives, shouldn't the government choose those over the TSA?

It is a serious issue because the TSA spends about $8.1 Bln per year on security theater which does little to nothing to actually improve the safety of the traveling public.

BTW, I will add that I understand the desire to achieve good security and safety. It is an admirable goal. But I think if we care about saving lives, the TSA is really the wrong way to approach this.
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First, I didn't say the government could spend an infinite amount of money. Second, let's stop with the "security theater" nonsense. That's your opinion. TSA has shortcomings, as any organization does. But I'll see your "security theater" and raise you a 9/11. Your statement that TSA "does little to nothing to actually improve the safety of the traveling public" is simply nonsense and not necessary to refute. Then you say with a straight face that insurance companies running security would be an improvement.

Let's face it: probably the biggest hinderance to our providing truly exceptional security cannot be circumvented. It's called the Constitution. We simply can't do much of what El Al does.

So yes, it's a balance. Between cost, people's rights, and politics. Don't forget, it's the people who love freedom and hat government at gave us TSA. Thankfully one thing we don't have to concern ourselves with is profit motive. If anything we should spend more.

That's my opinion.
 
mryan75 said:
First, I didn't say the government could spend an infinite amount of money.
...
Let's face it: probably the biggest hinderance to our providing truly exceptional security cannot be circumvented. It's called the Constitution. We simply can't do much of what El Al does.
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I agree there is also an important tradeoff between security and freedom to be considered. But let's leave that more political item alone for a minute.

So would you agree that if resources are finite, and what the book "Terror, Security and Money" says is true, namely that there are 100X more effective ways to spend the money we spend on the TSA to save lives, would you then agree that the government should stop spending it on the TSA and focus on those other ways to save lives?

Seems to me that a 100X difference strongly suggests it is fairly irresponsible of the government to spend money on the TSA. One could deny that what the book maintains is true, a different question, but my question here is what if it is true.
 
mryan75 said:
Stuff like this doesn't impress me. People like whining and getting on TV. I've been through TSA checkpoints plenty of times, I've always been treated professionally, and frankly it's generally been pretty if not very efficient. I remember pre-TSA, you didn't even need a ticket to get to the gate. Security was non-existent. We used to take schedules off the info rack and hold them up at the security checkpoint at Washington National like they were tickets so we could get to our favorite bar beyond the checkpoint (the schedule was the same color and size of a paper ticket folder back then).

I'll take TSA, thanks.
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I didn’t hear any whining, just a sound and factual layout of the stupidity of the TSA, and who cares if you can get to a gate, I have seen zero evidence they we are one bit “safer” with those blue gloves heros.

Frankly if I could I’d happily sign a waiver that I’ll take the one in a million chance of one of them “terrorists” getting me over having to deal with all this nonsense and erosions into my rights.
 
Kinda like the Air Marshall program..... nobody has hyjacked a plane or blown that ****er to pieces since 9/11 either on US soil or originating from it. No results are viewed as a waste of money. Nothings happened, right? What a waste. Get rid of that ****.....

What most fail to understand is air travel is a critical element of US economics. As such, the bureaucracy is going to protect it. Their solution is TSA. They do fail a lot, but what we almost never hear is what has done. How much stuff do they actually catch? Much, much more than you could ever realize.

I argue that while you think it’s a violation of your rights, it’s not. You don’t like the TSA package check, take the ****ing bus your drive your sorry ass there. Airlines don’t want their tail number in a smoking pile of HAZMAT more than you do. TSA could be a premier security organization, but travelers wold **** themselves at the cost of payin* for it. You want cut throat tickets, you are gonna get junk juggling TSA candidates. You want too self security from TSA.......put your money where your ticket booking but button is at. Don’t want all that TSA ********.....go move to Botswana.
 
Unit74 said:
How much stuff do they actually catch? Much, much more than you could ever realize.
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Well, they have never been able to document a single terrorist attack which they have prevented, not even to classified committees which have asked about it.

Their are many reasons to believe this type of mass screening just can’t work to prevent very rare events. The odds just are against them. It is statistically similar to the problem of trying to screen the population for a very rare disease.

Overall, no credible evidence they prevent terrorist attacks. I’d be happy to see some, but the studies that have looked at this say the TSA is not an effective way to save lives.
 
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Unit74 said:
Kinda like the Air Marshall program..... nobody has hyjacked a plane or blown that ****er to pieces since 9/11 either on US soil or originating from it. No results are viewed as a waste of money. Nothings happened, right? What a waste. Get rid of that ****.....

What most fail to understand is air travel is a critical element of US economics. As such, the bureaucracy is going to protect it. Their solution is TSA. They do fail a lot, but what we almost never hear is what has done. How much stuff do they actually catch? Much, much more than you could ever realize.

I argue that while you think it’s a violation of your rights, it’s not. You don’t like the TSA package check, take the ****ing bus your drive your sorry ass there. Airlines don’t want their tail number in a smoking pile of HAZMAT more than you do. TSA could be a premier security organization, but travelers wold **** themselves at the cost of payin* for it. You want cut throat tickets, you are gonna get junk juggling TSA candidates. You want too self security from TSA.......put your money where your ticket booking but button is at. Don’t want all that TSA ********.....go move to Botswana.
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If they did catch a credible threat, I'm quite sure they would crow about it.
Like the video said, they didn't stop the shoe bomber, nor the underwear bomber. They also fail to catch most test weapons. when they stop a credible threat, it would be posted here: https://www.instagram.com/tsa/
 
Cap'n Jack said:
If they did catch a credible threat, I'm quite sure they would crow about it.
Like the video said, they didn't stop the shoe bomber, nor the underwear bomber. They also fail to catch most test weapons. when they stop a credible threat, it would be posted here: https://www.instagram.com/tsa/
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Agreed they would be crowing.

In fairness, the shoe and underwear bombers were on flights originating from outside the US so the TSA could not have caught them. The mass screening programs used in foreign countries, similar to that used by the TSA did FAIL to catch them however.

What did work, if people will recall, was the interception of the printer cartridge bomb. This was based on old fashioned police work and sources, nothing to do with a mass screening program.
 
Nothing but conjecture....... you ain’t got a thing but conjecture. Too funny.
 
Unit74 said:
Nothing but conjecture....... you ain’t got a thing but conjecture. Too funny.
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Conjecture is defined as inference without sufficient proof or evidence. Is their any actual evidence the TSA has prevented a terrorist attack? Please post a link - otherwise I am afraid the assertion that the TSA has done so would be a conjecture.
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Agreed they would be crowing.

In fairness, the shoe and underwear bombers were on flights originating from outside the US so the TSA could not have caught them. The mass screening programs used in foreign countries, similar to that used by the TSA did FAIL to catch them however.

What did work, if people will recall, was the interception of the printer cartridge bomb. This was based on old fashioned police work and sources, nothing to do with a mass screening program.
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Yes, you are correct.

Unit74 said:
Nothing but conjecture....... you ain’t got a thing but conjecture. Too funny.
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Show your evidence? I can just as easily say the TSA stopped elephants from charging in airports and it would be just as valid.
Mastercard and Visa were more effective for that problem...
 
PeterNSteinmetz said:
Conjecture is defined as inference without sufficient proof or evidence. Is their any actual evidence the TSA has prevented a terrorist attack? Please post a link - otherwise I am afraid the assertion that the TSA has done so would be a conjecture.
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How blind you must be. Seriously. Name one terror event perpetuated on the intermodal system since 9/11.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Yes, you are correct.


Show your evidence? I can just as easily say the TSA stopped elephants from charging in airports and it would be just as valid.
Mastercard and Visa were more effective for that problem...
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Nothing but a few blow hards stroking each other off in this thread... you guys fail to understand anything about how the system works. More emotional grand standing than actual facts.
 
Unit74 said:
Nothing but a few blow hards stroking each other off in this thread... you guys fail to understand anything about how the system works. More emotional grand standing than actual facts.
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We've given facts, but you've ignored them. And you reply with ad hominem attacks now. You haven't described how the system works.
-Private security screening works very well, we don't need to government to provide it.
-TSA misses many weapons (here's yet another link for you to ignore: https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/a...a-screeners-missing-many-test-weapons-n819191 )
-They fail to stop airline employees from smuggling...no reason that bag of grass couldn't be a bomb. ( https://www.foxnews.com/travel/9-dallas-airport-employees-drug-smuggling-plot )

The TSA only provides a veneer of security.
Unit74 said:
How blind you must be.
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Who's the blind one here? Not I.
 
Unit74 said:
How blind you must be. Seriously. Name one terror event perpetuated on the intermodal system since 9/11.
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An ad hominem attack. Not only is that a logical fallacy, but in public fora, rude.

I’m afraid that focusing on the personal characteristics of the speaker and ignoring the actual points of a discussion won’t lead anywhere interesting to me.

I will note that ad hominem attacks are often a sign that the person making the attack is unable at that time to address the points of an argument.
 
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Unit74 said:
Name one terror event perpetuated on the intermodal system since 9/11.
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This is correct. However, as I have documented in another thread, the rate of such attacks was so low prior to the inception of the TSA in November 2001 that one cannot reject the hypothesis that the rate of such attacks was the same before and AFTER the TSA was put in place.

So that fact does not provide real evidence that the TSA has prevented such attacks.

All the other evidence which strongly suggests the TSA is not effective in improving public safety thus argues for its discontinuance.

This question had been looked at fairly seriously. See for example the book Terror, Security and Money.

I am not aware of a serious study presenting evidence and statistical reasoning which would show that the TSA is a cost effective way to improve the safety of the traveling public. There is actually reasonably good evidence that the TSA is indirectly responsible for 300 excess traffic deaths per year.
 
Unit74 said:
How blind you must be. Seriously. Name one terror event perpetuated on the intermodal system since 9/11.
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You are still overlooking the elephant in the room. This conversation is rather tiring.

Regarding 9-11 tell me this information:

What were the security failures that day?

What was causal in actually allowing the terrorists to carry out their plan?

Was the TSA necessary to fix those failures? If you think the answer is yes please justify your position.

To be clear the lack of terrorist activity since 9-11 is not evidence for or against the TSA. I informed myself regarding the above questions and quickly came to the conclusion that the TSA is a huge waste of money and not necessary for my safety. Oh and I am on airliners more than half of almost every month.

You assertion the lack of attacks justifies the TSA is just as absurd as some saying it doesn’t.
 
:popcorn:

Absolutely LMAO..... a trio of fiddles so easily played in harmony. Beats whistling Dixie I suppose.

:rollercoaster:
 
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