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How many attacks were stopped by the TSA? Directly: 0. Hell, they're 0/2 on known attempts (the Shoe Bomber in 2001 and Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in 2009),

by basseq 10y ago

How many attacks were stopped by the TSA? Directly: 0. Hell, they're 0/2 on known attempts (the Shoe Bomber in 2001 and Northwest Airlines Flight 253 in 2009), both thwarted instead by passengers and crew. Indirectly? (E.g., how many attacks weren't planned because of the TSA that would have been planned and executed otherwise?) Very hard to say. Have law enforcement officials seen an uptick in other terror channels that would indicate terrorist plots are avoiding air travel? Are any would-be terrorists abandoning their terror plans altogether because of the TSA? Surely not. So all the TSA is doing is shifting attacks from air travel to other channels. That's a net zero. And finally, at what cost?

drdeca 10y ago
Shifting attacks from one method to another is not necessarily useless. If what would have been the most effective method is reduced in its effectiveness, and as a result, another less effective method becomes the most effective one, and the used one, that reduces the effectiveness of attacks. That wording was convoluted. What I mean is, if they would have done plane attacks because of plane attacks working best for them, then making plane attacks not work as well, and therefore making them shift to something else, means that whatever they are doing for attacks wouldn't work as well for attacks as the plane attacks would have, which is a benefit. That's not to say that the TSA is beneficial, or that it does really reduce the effectiveness of adversaries. I'm just saying that, assuming that it is true that adversaries shift their attacks from air travel to other methods as a result of the TSA , that would suggest that adversaries are restricted by the TSA , and made somewhat less effective (assuming that adversaries weren't overestimating the effectiveness of air travel attacks originally).
- basseq 10y ago
  Fair point. I think we're both struggling with how to quantify the value of deterrence, and how to model (mentally or otherwise) things like "effectiveness shifting". It's hard! But I think we're notoriously bad as human being and a populace at having real conversations about cost-benefit analysis.
marze 10y ago
Zero successful attacks. Bottom line. No one here is familiar with the concept of "deterrence", apparently.

by basseq 10y ago

drdeca 10y ago

Shifting attacks from one method to another is not necessarily useless. If what would have been the most effective method is reduced in its effectiveness, and as a result, another less effective method becomes the most effective one, and the used one, that reduces the effectiveness of attacks. That wording was convoluted. What I mean is, if they would have done plane attacks because of plane attacks working best for them, then making plane attacks not work as well, and therefore making them shift to something else, means that whatever they are doing for attacks wouldn't work as well for attacks as the plane attacks would have, which is a benefit. That's not to say that the TSA is beneficial, or that it does really reduce the effectiveness of adversaries. I'm just saying that, assuming that it is true that adversaries shift their attacks from air travel to other methods as a result of the TSA , that would suggest that adversaries are restricted by the TSA , and made somewhat less effective (assuming that adversaries weren't overestimating the effectiveness of air travel attacks originally).

basseq 10y ago
Fair point. I think we're both struggling with how to quantify the value of deterrence, and how to model (mentally or otherwise) things like "effectiveness shifting". It's hard! But I think we're notoriously bad as human being and a populace at having real conversations about cost-benefit analysis.

marze 10y ago

Zero successful attacks. Bottom line. No one here is familiar with the concept of "deterrence", apparently.