More TSA Nonsense.....

CollinLeon said:
Requiring people to report for their flights 3 hours in advance would kill quite a few routes since it would be just as quick to drive as to fly.
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I already take other travel means (car, train when available) for short trips. Not worth the brain-damage at TSA.
 
Bob Noel said:
And that would actually help airlines reduce bleeding money, wouldn't it? ;-)
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Maybe for some... Southwest Airlines has made a good business model of doing short hop flights. They fly numerous flights between Houston and Dallas each day. I seldom take them since I can make it to Dallas in 4 hours of driving and once you figure the hour to get to the airport, an hour for checking in, going through security, the time to fly there, and the time to get your luggage and get to your destination, you're pretty much at the 4 hour point also.
 
Wolverines!!!
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Obi Heed Kenobi said:
This is from wikipedia, so it obviously has to be taken with a grain of salt. I've bolded what is the same as the United States, and italicized what is significantly different.


El Al flies between 3-4 million people per year. The US flies about 100 times that per year.

How well are individual interviews, putting every bag through a decompression chamber, etc., going to work here?

So, it's a nice thought, but given the massive differences in scale, it's just not particularly feasible here.
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Well I have read that the average screeing preformed by Airport Security in Israel takes 30 seconds for most travelers no taking your belt off, no taking your shoes off, take a full bottle of water on the plane if you want. I am sorry I don't have the site now. I do however have first hand experience and would agree with this assessment. The screening in the US even prior to the full body scan / enhanced pat down era Takes way longer than 30 seconds, taking you belt and shoes off go through scanner and put shoes and belt back on hold up line etc. Of course security there involves profiling and the answers to questions asked can prompt a longer and more indepth screening.

Also we may have more air travelers in the US but we also have more airports and more facilities and assets to conduct the screening. So the screeing in the US would not be done with the number of security staff they have in Israel it would involve many more screeners

Greg Bockelman said:
I was made aware of a quote from Helen Keller that I think is appropriate here.
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Hellen Keller was one smart lady

sba55 said:
Not you or Adam! Just don't care for spin zone stuff here :)
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I don't either but this is airport security were talking about not politics.
 
Personal Experience: DTW; Westin Hotel checkpoint; last Wed morning ...

Detroit TSO (Ms. Roberts) was apologizing for the L3 machine being so slow to
'clear' people, by explaining ... that the image viewing "is out-sourced to China."

I sauntered down to the TSA office. The 3-striper & suit who took my
report were visibly angry.
 
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rainsux said:
Personal Experience: DTW; Westin Hotel checkpoint; last Wed morning ...

Detroit TSO (Ms. Roberts) was apologizing for the L3 machine being so slow to
'clear' people, by explaining ... that the image viewing "is out-sourced to China."

I sauntered down to the TSA office. The 3-striper & suit who took my
report were visibly angry.
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Note to TSA - leave the semi-lame jokes to Southwest. It's part of their culture, not yours.
 
rainsux said:
Personal Experience: DTW; Westin Hotel checkpoint; last Wed morning ...

Detroit TSO (Ms. Roberts) was apologizing for the L3 machine being so slow to
'clear' people, by explaining ... that the image viewing "is out-sourced to China."

I sauntered down to the TSA office. The 3-striper & suit who took my
report were visibly angry.
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TMetzinger said:
Note to TSA - leave the semi-lame jokes to Southwest. It's part of their culture, not yours.
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Considering all the jobs in Michigan that did go to China, I actually kinda laughed at that.
 
Obi Heed Kenobi said:
This is from wikipedia, so it obviously has to be taken with a grain of salt. I've bolded what is the same as the United States, and italicized what is significantly different.


El Al flies between 3-4 million people per year. The US flies about 100 times that per year.

How well are individual interviews, putting every bag through a decompression chamber, etc., going to work here?

So, it's a nice thought, but given the massive differences in scale, it's just not particularly feasible here.
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And El Al operates out of one airport - Ben Gurien in Tel Aviv. I've been through there a couple of times. Their security is thorough, careful and not the lease bit embarrassing. Professional is a word I would use to describe it. And arriving 3 hours before flight time has been overkill, but my departures have been in the 5 AM to 6 AM range, and 2 hours before flight time in the US for departures that time of day is overkill, too.

The key difference is tha El Al's process works and doesn't look like "security circus". TSA's process just annoys people to no end.

TMetzinger said:
Note to TSA - leave the semi-lame jokes to Southwest. It's part of their culture, not yours.
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TSA is a lame joke. Their culture? I don't work there, but their web site was worse than lame the one time I had the stomach to look at the self-congratulatory garbage they had posted.
 
Armageddon Aviator said:
Wait, it gets better...

"Napolitano considering allowing Muslim women to pat themselves down at Airports!"

If this is true http://www.greeleygazette.com/press/?p=6687 it really is a new record in terms of absurdity and nonsense...

Sic Transit Gloria Mundi....

What a shame...
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Not exactly true. What she said was a very vaguely worded response to a question asking if hijab wearing women would be excempted from the pat down. This was because a Muslim advocacy group has submitted a request to the US Government to exempt Muslim women. Napolitano's response was politicalese weasel words that showed they really had not even thought of this case yet.

Here is her actual response about the patdowns:

"This is being done in recognizing that we all have a collective role in our security and we all know and can recognize that there are threats and risks that have been articulated by those who seek to harm the United States, particularly in the aviation environment. And, so, you know, what we are doing is designed to really be risk based, to be intelligence based, to be layered like I said, when you get to the airport at that screening center, that's really – these TSOs are really the last line of protection we have for the aircraft and that's the way we're going to evaluate things."

A whole lot of nothing.
 
LearDriver said:
It makes sense if you really think about it.
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I guess you are being cynical here...

Let me explain how it's going to work...

Hey officer, give me a minute to pat myself down...

Damn...I think I just detected something suspicious under my robe...

Uh, officer I think I might be carrying a bomb - I'd like to turn myself in...

Yeah right....:D
 
Okay, legal eagles, would sovereign immunity protect the TSA from an 'emotional distress' lawsuit in this case?
 
chucky said:
Okay, legal eagles, would sovereign immunity protect the TSA from an 'emotional distress' lawsuit in this case?
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I do very little Federal statutory law, this is off the top of my head - but, almost certainly.

The US has waived its sovereign immunity to the extent that, if the gov't were a private person, it would be liable. Except for certain things, including "discretionary functions." Google the "Federal Tort Claims Act" for a little more information.

Anyway, what this means in practical terms is that if a TSA employee were to, say, drop something on your foot, the gov't might be liable.

But, for a "discretionary function" - which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like, and I'm pretty sure it includes almost all TSA activity at both the regulatory and ground levels - sovereign immunity isn't waived.

Meaning that 99.9% of all claims just aren't gonna happen. You'd have to turn to something like 42 USC 1983 (lawsuit for a violation of constitutional rights), and the chances of something like that working are slim to quite slim.

Also, according to the Wikipedia article, the "FTCA" was passed following the B-25 crashing into the Empire State Building. I guess that crash was the catalyst that allowed citizens to sue their government for certain injuries caused by the gov't. You can almost taste the irony.
 
That was more or less what I figured, without knowing any of the actual terms. Thanks.
 
Does this immunity apply to private contractors, for example at airports that opt for non-TSA screening? If not, that would provide additional protections to the public when private companies do the screening.
 
dropping off my kids and grandson at the airport tonight for a trip to Chicago. My grandson (3) is in a wheelchair, cannot stand unassisted, and cannot speak. I have a sick feeling in my gut about tonight's screening. I really hope I'm wrong, but I dread the trip for them.
 
Palmpilot said:
Does this immunity apply to private contractors, for example at airports that opt for non-TSA screening? If not, that would provide additional protections to the public when private companies do the screening.
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Off the top of my head, I'm not positive, so take the following with a huge grain of salt.

But, gut instinct says that immunity applies to the government's agents as much as it does to the government itself. Basically, it's the idea that "an attack on the king's men is an attack on the king himself."

If you're acting as someone's agent, your action is imputed the principal (traditional employer-employee relationship, it's why the employer is liable when the employee injures someone - employer doesn't get the benefit without the burden). In the same way, any privileges that the principal has are imputed to the agent. So, if the principal is protected from suit by law, so is the agent.

At least, so long as the agent is acting within (1) the law granting the privilege and (2) the scope of the agency agreement.

This concept also extends beyond business relationships. For instance, the gov't can't hire a private citizen, have that person break into your house to gather incriminating evidence, and then say that the 4th Amendment isn't implicated because "it wasn't the government that did it." So, with that in mind, if I'm dead wrong on the applicability of the 4th Amendment, the gov't won't be able to get around it by hiring private security companies to do airport security.

I do know that for military contracts (Bell Helicopter, for instance), the contractor gets the benefit of sovereign immunity so long as it complies with what the gov't tells it to do. I think that's known as the Ferens Doctrine, and I don't see any reason why that wouldn't be extended to non-military-contract settings.
 
gkainz said:
dropping off my kids and grandson at the airport tonight for a trip to Chicago. My grandson (3) is in a wheelchair, cannot stand unassisted, and cannot speak. I have a sick feeling in my gut about tonight's screening. I really hope I'm wrong, but I dread the trip for them.
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I'm very happy to report that everyone got through security without incident at DEN tonight.
 
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