13 ms·

You really think the TSA isn't going to want a piece of this?

avn2109 10y ago
The TSA's primary mandate is just to socialize legal liability for terrorist attacks away from the airlines. Their secondary mandate is crony capitalism. Their tertiary mandate is to acclimatize the population to the trappings of the unconstitutional American police state. Only the latter would be substantially aided by encroachment onto rail, so I'm not too worried about it for now.
- briandear 10y ago
  The airlines never asked for TSA. In fact the airlines would prefer doing their own screening like the old days. And 'crony capitalism?' That makes no sense.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    The airlines asked for both retrospective and prospective relief from liability for the actual past (retrospective) and potential future (prospective) security failures in the wake of 9/11. Nationalization of the security function was the mechanism for the prospective portion of that relief; since they no longer controlled the function, they would no longer be liable for any failures. Now, they would have preferred immunity from liability while controlling the function, but even their allies in Washington couldn't sell that open-ended a handout publicly. But TSA security theater made adequate political cover for the real purpose.
ghaff 10y ago
Leaving aside excessive and largely ineffective security screening for flights in the US (and pretty much everywhere else), a lot of European high speed trains absolutely have metal detectors, luggage inspection, and document inspection. As do many buildings. It doesn't take long to go through most of the time but then going through Pre-Check probably averages me 10 minutes. But I do leave a good buffer. It's probably a bad idea to predicate travel time estimates on arriving at the train 3 minutes before it leaves and getting on.
- OxO4 10y ago
  As a European, I've never seen high speed trains that require metal detectors and/or luggage inspection. Which country was that?
  - te_chris 10y ago
    Eurostar's the obvious one, but I've seen scanners at Gare du Nord for TGV/Thalys as well, and when we caught TGV from Barcelona Sants to Paris (Gare de Lyon, I think) we got marshalled into some sort of departure lounge at Sants. Only time I've ever seen that in Europe though. Oh and changing from Eurostar to ICE in Brussels we had our ID's checked before being able to get to the platform (this was on the 23rd of December though).

The TSA's primary mandate is just to socialize legal liability for terrorist attacks away from the airlines. Their secondary mandate is crony capitalism. Their tertiary mandate is to acclimatize the population to the trappings of the unconstitutional American police state. Only the latter would be substantially aided by encroachment onto rail, so I'm not too worried about it for now.

briandear 10y ago
The airlines never asked for TSA. In fact the airlines would prefer doing their own screening like the old days. And 'crony capitalism?' That makes no sense.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The airlines asked for both retrospective and prospective relief from liability for the actual past (retrospective) and potential future (prospective) security failures in the wake of 9/11. Nationalization of the security function was the mechanism for the prospective portion of that relief; since they no longer controlled the function, they would no longer be liable for any failures. Now, they would have preferred immunity from liability while controlling the function, but even their allies in Washington couldn't sell that open-ended a handout publicly. But TSA security theater made adequate political cover for the real purpose.

ghaff 10y ago

Leaving aside excessive and largely ineffective security screening for flights in the US (and pretty much everywhere else), a lot of European high speed trains absolutely have metal detectors, luggage inspection, and document inspection. As do many buildings. It doesn't take long to go through most of the time but then going through Pre-Check probably averages me 10 minutes. But I do leave a good buffer. It's probably a bad idea to predicate travel time estimates on arriving at the train 3 minutes before it leaves and getting on.

OxO4 10y ago
As a European, I've never seen high speed trains that require metal detectors and/or luggage inspection. Which country was that?
- te_chris 10y ago
  Eurostar's the obvious one, but I've seen scanners at Gare du Nord for TGV/Thalys as well, and when we caught TGV from Barcelona Sants to Paris (Gare de Lyon, I think) we got marshalled into some sort of departure lounge at Sants. Only time I've ever seen that in Europe though. Oh and changing from Eurostar to ICE in Brussels we had our ID's checked before being able to get to the platform (this was on the 23rd of December though).