TSA delays......

[GaryM]

The TSA, if only 25% effective, is better than nothing. The 25% also acts as a deterrent.

The TSA can only dream of being 25% effective. Periodic penetration tests by the Feds routinely show them missing 95%+ of weapons and explosives.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/6/tsa-failed-detect-95-percent-prohibited-items-minn/

https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-tsa-screeners-20150602-story.html

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...h-tsas-security-efforts-is-pure-theater.shtml

 

[Kritchlow]

The TSA can only dream of being 25% effective. Periodic penetration tests by the Feds routinely show them missing 95%+ of weapons and explosives.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/6/tsa-failed-detect-95-percent-prohibited-items-minn/

https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-tsa-screeners-20150602-story.html

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...h-tsas-security-efforts-is-pure-theater.shtml

I only skimmed your links, and I’m certainly not defending the TSA (although most on here will jump on me for doing so), but that test seems to be at one point in time, at one airport. Not sure that’s truly the best case study.

Regardless, TSA misses a lot. But they also catch a lot.

 

[MauleSkinner]

I only skimmed your links, and I’m certainly not defending the TSA (although most on here will jump on me for doing so), but that test seems to be at one point in time, at one airport. Not sure that’s truly the best case study.

Regardless, TSA misses a lot. But they also catch a lot.

yup…wasn’t it the TSA that tried to save the flight from Joe Foss and his Medal of Honor?

But hey, their predecessor saved our flight out of Aspen from the terrorist 10-year-old and his jar of giardia-infested pond water.

 

[Kritchlow]

yup…wasn’t it the TSA that tried to save the flight from Joe Foss and his Medal of Honor?

But hey, their predecessor saved our flight out of Aspen from the terrorist 10-year-old and his jar of giardia-infested pond water.

Seriously, do you have a better way to do it? I would like to see an alternative as well. Just saying “privatize it” is not an answer.

 

[MauleSkinner]

Seriously, do you have a better way to do it? I would like to see an alternative as well. Just saying “privatize it” is not an answer.

Not saying I have a better way…just demonstrating that @Johnbo’s idea that security is somehow better than it was pre-TSA isn’t true.

 

[Larry in TN]

I remember that well. I believe the chant was "You can't professionalize unless you federalize."

Thanks. I had forgotten that mantra!

I'd much rather have someone that has a sense of duty rather than a profit motive in that position.

Is that what you see when you interact with TSOs at the TSA checkpoints?

The alternatives of private security would be even more invasive imo.

Both SFO and MCI have private security. They look a lot like TSA TSOs but look closer at the insignias on their uniforms.

Having some airports with private security contractors was one of the conditions that the GOP put into the bill that created the TSA. The idea was that they'd be able to expand the airports with private contractors down the road but that never happened.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Seriously, do you have a better way to do it? I would like to see an alternative as well. Just saying “privatize it” is not an answer.

Well the first thing would be to convert all airports to the TSA’s own program for using private screeners. Is presently being done at about 17 airports.

See http://realairlinesecurity.org for a concrete set of steps to abolish the TSA and more discussion of why they really don’t help the safety of the traveling public.

They are well described as security theater put in place in a panicked reaction which costs $8bn per year in direct costs.

 

[Kritchlow]

Well the first thing would be to convert all airports to the TSA’s own program for using private screeners. Is presently being done at about 17 airports.

See http://realairlinesecurity.org for a concrete set of steps to abolish the TSA and more discussion of why they really don’t help the safety of the traveling public.

They are well described as security theater put in place in a panicked reaction which costs $8bn per year in direct costs.

In all do respect, your link offers no ideas of how to do it, but rather it should be done.
That is not an answer.

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

Yes, the perennial "but TSA makes me feel safe" arguments, as we dump $8 billion a year down their marginally effective processes.

Without even touching their dismal Red Team test results (not one point in time at one airport, but years of awful data), I sure feel safe queued up in long lines they forced to the INSECURE side of the airport....

Nope, nothing bad could ever happen there.

 

[Tarheelpilot]

Seriously, do you have a better way to do it? I would like to see an alternative as well. Just saying “privatize it” is not an answer.

Go back to the way it was prior to TSA. There wasn’t anything wrong with our security screening.

 

[Mikey B]

Go back to the way it was prior to TSA. There wasn’t anything wrong with our security screening.

Wow. Criticize the current performance of TSA all you want (and I agree), even say that it is worse than what we had before. But the statement above is rather famously false.

 

[ElPaso Pilot]

And the evidens

Wow. Criticize the current performance of TSA all you want (and I agree), even say that it is worse than what we had before. But the statement above is rather famously false.

Source please??

And if it is a famous event that you are referring to, remember that the feds allowed box cutters past security at the time.

 

[Palmpilot]

Well the first thing would be to convert all airports to the TSA’s own program for using private screeners. Is presently being done at about 17 airports.

See http://realairlinesecurity.org for a concrete set of steps to abolish the TSA and more discussion of why they really don’t help the safety of the traveling public.

They are well described as security theater put in place in a panicked reaction which costs $8bn per year in direct costs.

Are there data showing that screening is more effective at those 17 airports?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

In all do respect, your link offers no ideas of how to do it, but rather it should be done.
That is not an answer.

Well more concretely for step 1 the airports need to apply to the TSA’s screening partnership program with a proposal which includes at least one company willing to bid on the task.

It is not hard for local airport commissions to do this.

Step 3 requires the Federal government to repeal portions of an act granting immunity. I think the legislature knows how to do that.

Step 2 requires the airlines to figure out with their insurers how they want to handle security. Certainly they can’t do a worse job than the TSA and if they chose could simply adopt some TSA procedures. Competition in the marketplace has been shown in numerous cases throughout history to be a superior way to solve problems compared to central planning. See Adam Smith to start with.

Do you want some other sort of detail?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Are there data showing that screening is more effective at those 17 airports?

It has been a few years since I looked carefully at this. The data at the time suggested they were equivalent to the TSA itself in terms of catching contraband, somewhat cheaper, and better in surveys of passenger satisfaction.

The latter hardly surprises me given that the company can actually lose a contract versus unionized Federal employees.

 

[wsuffa]

The Passport office is quoting 18 weeks for routine processing, and 12 weeks for expedited.

It's gotten worse since the first of the year. So ugly that At least one group is suggesting that you renew at least 6 months in advance and people are missing vacations.

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/passports/how-apply/processing-times.html

https://www.wcpo.com/money/consumer...ort-delay-ruins-womans-dream-jamaica-vacation

 

[Albany Tom]

Privatization only works if it's set up so there's competition. If it's set up as a monopoly, there no incentive to make things more efficient and less expensive. That's one reason why privatized ATC is problematic; there's no way to set up competing ATC services.

Of course. But it wouldn't be a monopoly. It would revert back to the way it used to be, with airports responsible for their own security, free to hire whomever they choose. Most airports would bid this out, and it would be cheaper and faster. Some airports, I can probably name a few, would give the contracts to political "friends", and there would be some graft there - but still cheaper and more effective than TSA. Without federal oversight, it would be much better.

But privatization managed at a federal level? Yep, way less efficient and more expensive.

 

[Albany Tom]

The TSA can only dream of being 25% effective. Periodic penetration tests by the Feds routinely show them missing 95%+ of weapons and explosives.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jul/6/tsa-failed-detect-95-percent-prohibited-items-minn/

https://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-tsa-screeners-20150602-story.html

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/2...h-tsas-security-efforts-is-pure-theater.shtml

Yep. The serious attempts that have happened in the US post 2000 have been stopped not by the TSA, but by the passengers. For the very simple reason that everyone knows that the rules have changed, and those 150 other people on the plane have a very strong incentive to fix the problem themselves.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Another interesting historical fact is that even the basic metal detectors were essentially forced on the airlines by the FAA 3 years AFTER hijackings in the US reached their peak.

 

[Omalley1537]

But every business deserves to have people falling over themselves to come and work for them without paying the going rate? Capitalism works both ways. If you can't pay enough to attract workers, you don't have a business.

People love to say "if you don't like our wages, then you can choose not to work here" and then get mad when they choose not to

Theres a big difference between choosing to work for the competition and/or changing careers to get better compensation, and choosing not to work at all while collecting “free” money to sit on one’s posterior (or worse, having a grand time and buying things) while being funded by those of us who work.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Some readers here may be interested in the book “Terror, Security, and Money” which looked seriously at the issue of the effectiveness of screening passengers to prevent terrorist attacks.

Their conclusion was that if you care about saving lives and that is why you are spending the money on the TSA, there are literally 10X more effective ways to spend the money.

Such attacks are just too rare and possible methods of screening have too low a sensitivity and specificity to work effectively if you want to save lives.

 

[Palmpilot]

How do we know that the reason attacks are rare isn't due to the existence of the screening program?

I'm not saying that is the case, because I don't know, but I don't think it's valid to just assume that the rarity of attacks proves that screening is not necessary.

 

[MauleSkinner]

How do we know that the reason attacks are rare isn't due to the existence of the screening program?

I'm not saying that is the case, because I don't know, but I don't think it's valid to just assume that the rarity of attacks proves that screening is not necessary.

I didn’t realize the comparisons were going back that far. I thought it was pre-TSA screening vs TSA screening.

 

[Palmpilot]

I didn’t realize the comparisons were going back that far. I thought it was pre-TSA screening vs TSA screening.

I was just responding to what Peter wrote. I'm not sure what time frame he was talking about.

 

[Tarheelpilot]

Wow. Criticize the current performance of TSA all you want (and I agree), even say that it is worse than what we had before. But the statement above is rather famously false.

how so?

 

[hindsight2020]

Theres a big difference between choosing to work for the competition and/or changing careers to get better compensation, and choosing not to work at all while collecting “free” money to sit on one’s posterior (or worse, having a grand time and buying things) while being funded by those of us who work.

Now now, some of those airline pilots frequent this forum. Be more tactful.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

How do we know that the reason attacks are rare isn't due to the existence of the screening program?

I'm not saying that is the case, because I don't know, but I don't think it's valid to just assume that the rarity of attacks proves that screening is not necessary.

Good point. There are a number of pieces of evidence that argue this is the case.

The first being that the frequency of attacks in which a airplane leaving a US airport is taken down by a non-crewmember has not changed in a statistically significant manner before and after 2001. This argues against the formation of the TSA having a causal role.

Another indirect piece of evidence is that there have been no attacks on the lines to go through TSA screening in the US. I mean a terrorist could kill nearly as many people with a well placed attack on these lines. But yet it hasn’t happened which suggests that there are other factors preventing such attacks.

Other pieces of evidence are the exceptionally poor performance of the TSA in detecting contraband, the myriad ways weapons could be constructed from materials after the checkpoints, as well as the huge security holes in baggage personnel etc.

On the other hand, the TSA had never been able to document thwarting a single attack, not even to classified Senate committees.

Taken together, I think the evidence is fairly strong that the TSA is security theater, as nearly all experts who have examined the issue who are not employed by the TSA have concluded.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I didn’t realize the comparisons were going back that far. I thought it was pre-TSA screening vs TSA screening.

Certainly that is the most direct comparison presently (and as I note above a statistical comparison of before and after the TSA fails to show a statistically significant difference in attack rate at this time. It is a very low rate of attacks and would take a really long time to reach significance.)

OTOH, I think the earlier comparison also shows that there is no good evidence that this type of mass screening does not work. And largely due to the same low rate events being very hard to accurately detect. Likely better to spend law enforcement resources on other measures if one really wants to prevent attacks.

 

[Palmpilot]

Good point. There are a number of pieces of evidence that argue this is the case.

The first being that the frequency of attacks in which a airplane leaving a US airport is taken down by a non-crewmember has not changed in a statistically significant manner before and after 2001. This argues against the formation of the TSA having a causal role.

Another indirect piece of evidence is that there have been no attacks on the lines to go through TSA screening in the US. I mean a terrorist could kill nearly as many people with a well placed attack on these lines. But yet it hasn’t happened which suggests that there are other factors preventing such attacks.

Other pieces of evidence are the exceptionally poor performance of the TSA in detecting contraband, the myriad ways weapons could be constructed from materials after the checkpoints, as well as the huge security holes in baggage personnel etc.

On the other hand, the TSA had never been able to document thwarting a single attack, not even to classified Senate committees.

Taken together, I think the evidence is fairly strong that the TSA is security theater, as nearly all experts who have examined the issue who are not employed by the TSA have concluded.

That's all pretty theoretical.

One possibility that I think your analysis doesn't cover is that, given the highly successful nature of the 9/11 attacks*, one might be justified in expecting an increase in the number of attacks, once it became apparent to would-be attackers that the tactics used were effective. If so, then the fact that "the frequency of attacks in which a airplane leaving a US airport is taken down by a non-crewmember has not changed in a statistically significant manner before and after 2001" could be evidence of a deterrent effect. How much of that is attributable to increased changes in screening, and how much to other measures that were adopted, I don't know, but I don't think we should just assume the answer.

*e.g., 75% of the hijacked aircraft reached their intended targets, and a lot of people were killed for relatively little expenditure

 

[Larry in TN]

Are there data showing that screening is more effective at those 17 airports?

This is a number of years old but gives some insight into the private screening at San Francisco.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

That's all pretty theoretical.

One possibility that I think your analysis doesn't cover is that, given the highly successful nature of the 9/11 attacks*, one might be justified in expecting an increase in the number of attacks, once it became apparent to would-be attackers that the tactics used were effective. If so, then the fact that "the frequency of attacks in which a airplane leaving a US airport is taken down by a non-crewmember has not changed in a statistically significant manner before and after 2001" could be evidence of a deterrent effect. How much of that is attributable to increased changes in screening, and how much to other measures that were adopted, I don't know, but I don't think we should just assume the answer.

*e.g., 75% of the hijacked aircraft reached their intended targets, and a lot of people were killed for relatively little expenditure

True isn’t that also rather speculative?There are other roughly equally speculative reasons to think that no such future attacks would ever be successful and so would be attackers would abandon that mode.

Thus I think it is fair to say there is no good evidence that the TSA decreases the frequency of such attacks.

The political question then becomes whether it is appropriate to spend that kind of money and invade people’s privacy to this extent absent good evidence.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

We really don’t have good evidence that the TSA works. And it is likely very difficult to obtain such good evidence because of the difficulty of performing properly controlled experiments.

Just as in a marketplace for goods it is hard to predict exactly what product will be most successful in advance.

In these circumstances, usually best to let a free market decide. Let the airlines worry about what is best for them and their customers and most successful in the market and hold them responsible for the consequences of judging that improperly. Presently they are exempted from liability. That usually leads to all sorts of bad outcomes.

I certainly don’t claim to know what the airlines would do to manage this risk. I suspect probably some combination of frequent flyer vetting and screening for others. I imagine some of the more ridiculous TSA rules about toothpaste and taking off your shoes would likely be the first things eliminated. I also imagine it would evolve over time.

 

[Palmpilot]

True isn’t that also rather speculative?There are other roughly equally speculative reasons to think that no such future attacks would ever be successful and so would be attackers would abandon that mode.

Thus I think it is fair to say there is no good evidence that the TSA decreases the frequency of such attacks.

It's speculation either way.

Lack of evidence is not a valid reason for drawing a conclusion that TSA is effective, AND lack of evidence is not a valid reason for drawing a conclusion that TSA is ineffective.

The political question then becomes whether it is appropriate to spend that kind of money and invade people’s privacy to this extent absent good evidence.

Beats me.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Lack of evidence is not a valid reason for drawing a conclusion that TSA is effective, AND lack of evidence is not a valid reason for drawing a conclusion that TSA is ineffective.

That raises a good point. Logically speaking, the burden of proof is on he who asserts existence. So if a party maintains that the TSA is effective in preventing terrorist attacks, the burden of proof lies on them. Lacking such evidence, the belief in the efficacy of the TSA becomes similar to a belief in ghosts.

Aside from this logical consideration, this corresponds well to the practical question - if there is no good evidence that the TSA prevents terrorist attacks, why on earth should the government spend $8bn / year on it and be allowed to invade traveler’s privacy in this manner?

Beats me.

Agreed. Me too.

It seems to me we should demand a high standard of evidence before we start having the government force searches on people. Even the current legal justification of the TSA searches as an administrative, rather than criminal, search requires amongst other things that the search be effective in accomplishing an important government objective. Where is the evidence that this is effective?

 

[Palmpilot]

I'm neither asserting existence, nor asserting nonexistence. As for your questions, I don't know the answers.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I'm neither asserting existence, nor asserting nonexistence. As for your questions, I don't know the answers.

Well you do raise some good points though.

In terms of policy I personally think that the lack of good evidence for a preventative effect of the TSA is good enough reason to have the government stop spending a fortune on it and invading people’s privacy.

 

[Albany Tom]

I worked for a pretty long time in private sector, and for a fairly long time in government service, too. One thing I've learned that government is good at is throwing money at a problem without any realistic way to measure effectiveness. On the contrary, they generally don't want to measure effectiveness, because that could be used as a way to justify getting rid of the program. So I tend to want to err on the side of spending less money. Fear, to misquote an old Democratic president, is a lousy justification for most actions.

I'm far from the first person to make these observations about government and aviation, though. Would recommend "Slide Rule" as reading for anyone with an interest in aviation.

 

[Robert Gee]

Is that what you see when you interact with TSOs at the TSA checkpoints?

Yes, I also have a close friend that has done the job for 15+ years. I have heard a few insider horror stories and also some of thankless dedication and simple pride in doing a job well Some of use would scoop dog **** to the best of our abilities while other people look down their noses and scoff because they had to wait while the sidewalk was washed. Never considering the **** they didn't have to go through.

 

[Robert Gee]

So you’re saying those wouldn’t have happened without the TSA? How do you know this?

That’s not a security thing…that’s just *******s.

Straw man jerk-ness. I'll just say it's evidenced in that they didn't before.

Yes it's not a security thing anymore than it's a fast-food thing or post office thing. Some people are just argumentative jerks over the smallest things and inconveniences.

 

[Robert Gee]

The solution is shutting down TSA and privatization of security.

I think some are missing the point or don't have the experience to know that there were lines at security, delays and plenty of jokes to be made about the security well before the TSA!‍