4 ms·

I don't fly to LA. By far better I mean the procedures are faster, better explained, and the operation is more professional. My point is not to advocate gover

by aneth 16y ago

I don't fly to LA. By far better I mean the procedures are faster, better explained, and the operation is more professional. My point is not to advocate government run security, but to point out that all this reactionary criticism of TSA is unjustified and it's crowdthink going on right now.

dalke 16y ago
But is the security any better? Back in the 1990s the procedures were faster (because there was less checking) and better explained (because there were fewer things to explain). Does 3-1-1 and taking off of shoes make us more secure? If not, then the professionalism is unwarranted. And every study report I've seen says that outside of a few things (secure doors, which the airlines fought against in the 1990s; and halting the practice of responding to hijacker demands), the overall security is not made better by this ever-increasing level of passenger scrutiny.
- aneth 16y ago
  By this logic, we could drop all security checks. I'm sure no one would ever board a plane strapped with explosives...
  - dalke 16y ago
    That's not what I said and your logic makes no sense. A few months ago we had security X. We now have security Y, which is more expensive and more intrusive. Is that change justifiable? The TSA has not really justified this, which is easy to see from the Government Accountability Office reports. A decade ago we had security A. We now have security Y (still). The same argument holds - are flights more secure, and which security factors are beneficial and which are not? Quite clearly the secure doors and rejection of the policy to agree to hijacker demands are effective against a broad range of attacks meant to use airplanes as a directed weapon. This is a security change I would not drop. But since the GAO has shown that it's as easy to smuggle in "bomb parts" into an airport during periods A and Y, there is quite clearly limited improvement in the effectiveness of preventing people from blowing up planes. Note that this is a different security threat than in the previous paragraph. How here does this equal to a logical conclusion that we should drop all security checks? That only makes sense if you think that none of the security screenings work, which I quite clearly did not say. Oh, and in your original post you said you "found 95% of the TSA to be good humored and responsible." If you deal with 3 TSA people each trip then every 5 trips you'll be dealing with a non-good humored or non-responsible TSA member. If in a 1990s-era airport you found that only 90% of the staff was the same, but you only needed to deal with a single magnetometer staff, then you would have problems only every 7 trips. More professional staff doesn't necessarily mean a better experience.

by aneth 16y ago

dalke 16y ago

But is the security any better? Back in the 1990s the procedures were faster (because there was less checking) and better explained (because there were fewer things to explain). Does 3-1-1 and taking off of shoes make us more secure? If not, then the professionalism is unwarranted. And every study report I've seen says that outside of a few things (secure doors, which the airlines fought against in the 1990s; and halting the practice of responding to hijacker demands), the overall security is not made better by this ever-increasing level of passenger scrutiny.

aneth 16y ago
By this logic, we could drop all security checks. I'm sure no one would ever board a plane strapped with explosives...
- dalke 16y ago
  That's not what I said and your logic makes no sense. A few months ago we had security X. We now have security Y, which is more expensive and more intrusive. Is that change justifiable? The TSA has not really justified this, which is easy to see from the Government Accountability Office reports. A decade ago we had security A. We now have security Y (still). The same argument holds - are flights more secure, and which security factors are beneficial and which are not? Quite clearly the secure doors and rejection of the policy to agree to hijacker demands are effective against a broad range of attacks meant to use airplanes as a directed weapon. This is a security change I would not drop. But since the GAO has shown that it's as easy to smuggle in "bomb parts" into an airport during periods A and Y, there is quite clearly limited improvement in the effectiveness of preventing people from blowing up planes. Note that this is a different security threat than in the previous paragraph. How here does this equal to a logical conclusion that we should drop all security checks? That only makes sense if you think that none of the security screenings work, which I quite clearly did not say. Oh, and in your original post you said you "found 95% of the TSA to be good humored and responsible." If you deal with 3 TSA people each trip then every 5 trips you'll be dealing with a non-good humored or non-responsible TSA member. If in a 1990s-era airport you found that only 90% of the staff was the same, but you only needed to deal with a single magnetometer staff, then you would have problems only every 7 trips. More professional staff doesn't necessarily mean a better experience.