4 ms·

Genuine question from someone outside the US. I see lots of Americans object to the TSA but is it the agency or the function that people object to? I only ever

• jedberg 7y ago
  It’s the agency. They make arbitrary rules and then they enforce different arbitrary rules. You can fly with the same luggage 100 times and get a different item banned every time. For example, sometimes ice is ok, sometimes not. It’s supposed to always be ok, but even if you quote the rules ack at them, they pull out the “final determinations are at the discretion of the supervisor”. Which means you can never count on getting your stuff through. Also they are terrible at their job (they fail over 90% of their tests) and they spend a ton of money. And all those new scanners they bought just happened to be made by a friend of George Bush.
  • AgentOrange1234 7y ago
    Aside from arbitrary rules there is also a long history of shady and intrusive behaviors (e.g. sharing pics from naked body scanners, groping kids, no fly lists, racial profiling, radiation concerns, ...) To be fair, in the pre-TSA era, airport security was also pretty ineffective. But now it’s much more in your face, and insanely expensive. I sympathize with the agents somewhat. It seems like a shitty job.
• gowld 7y ago
  Did you take your jacket, shoes, and belt off, and dump out your drinks, while waiting in line for an hour while getting yelled at for not following the ever changing instructions?
• jessriedel 7y ago
  Airport security in the US used to be privately contracted until 9/11. In the aftermath, TSA security replaced the private security at all but a handful of airports, and simultaneously tightened screening procedures. Over subsequent years, the airport security experience got significantly worse in terms of longer lines, privacy invasion, and more burdensome screening (although these changed at different time and in lumpy ways). Because of this history and the lack of alternatives, it's hard to tell how much of this is because the agency is dysfunctional and how much is an unavoidable aspect of increased security standards which are pretty widely supported by the general public (but not HN).
  • briandear 7y ago
    I have the exact same “privacy invasion” at airport security on domestic European flights.
    • qaq 7y ago
      you are taking off shoes and passing through full body scanners ?
      • mprev 7y ago
        The shoes, it depends on how big they are. The body scanners ... roughly a third of the time.
    • jessriedel 7y ago
      Yes, the US pushed many countries to tighten their security in the aftermath of 9/11. It's still unclear to me exactly where things are worse, and how much of this is rules vs. agency. Not sure why the scare quotes. Having to open up your luggage for strangers and get patted down on the crotch seems pretty unambiguously an invasion of privacy (in the sense of "invasive surgery"), whether or not it's justified.
    • komali2 7y ago
      Do you have your genitals examined in a backscatter scanner? Do you have your genitals physically examined if you opt out of the visual examination?
  • komali2 7y ago
    The security standards have not improved - tsa fails more than 90% of their audits, and there are many private security professionals screaming into the void about the pointlessness of TSA's methodologies. Easy example - the addition of tsa creates huge lines that are excellent, dense targets for terrorists.
    • jessriedel 7y ago
      The TSA is indeed embarrassing, but since we don't have audit data from the private security in previous eras we don't actually know if things are getting better or worse. There is also the notable fact that airplane-based terrorism in the US is now extraordinarily low, significantly lower than before 9/11. The causality here is hard to disentangle. In any case, I purposefully said "tightened" not "improved". All I need for my comment is that the rules have become more stringent since 9/11 (e.g., shoes off, no liquids, etc.), which is obviously true.
• whiddershins 7y ago
  Pre 911 airport security was privately run and in the wake of the attacks it was taken over by the Federal government. I believe that although new security measures were felt to be necessary in light of the awareness of how much damage a hijacked plane can cause, the change to management by a federal agency with no real incentive to make things move quickly, or to even demonstrate that precautions are reasonable, wasn’t as successful as we might have hoped. It is odd, for example, how they screen pilots ... who are obviously already in a position to do the thing we are most avidly trying to prevent ... this causes many people to feel this is all “security theater” that may create a deterrent effect through psychology but may not be doing much to prevent future attacks. Also the TSA employees don’t seem to fear for their jobs much ... which would be consistent with many other government employees ... so they are occasionally quite rude, although many are friendly and professional. Obviously the airlines are perfectly positioned to have motivation both to speed boarding and reduce risk of damage to people and equipment. It’s plausible that if they were in charge of security, and had to answer to insurance e companies who also assess risk, we would end up with a far better implementation.
• thrower123 7y ago
  The biggest problem is the rank inefficiency of the TSA. I don't think I've flown in the years since 9/11 where I didn't have to wait in line to get into the terminal, with everyone funneled through one or two scanner lines, while there are a dozen TSA employees lounging around doing nothing, and four or five additional lines that could be used sitting idle and unused. Throw in some stupid, arbitrary, and unpredictably enforced rules, and hassling about taking off your shoes, belt, unpacking all your luggage, dumping out your ziplock baggy of minuscule volumes of toothpaste and shampoo, confiscating your fingernail clippers, and all the other indignities that are forced on you by petty tyrant mall-cop types.
  • komali2 7y ago
    Seems like there's some sort of alternative option - whatever arrangement the state of California has with the department of Homeland security. I don't fully understand it, just get glimpses from brief conversations with tsa agents as they pat me down, but it seems California self-funds tsa, meaning for example all stations are usually manned, and there was no slowdown during the government shut down. Probably many states can't afford that though.
• mLuby 7y ago
  Here are some reasons off the top of my head: 1. Security Theatre: if the goal is security, you shouldn't be able to pay to receive less scrutiny (the baddies aren't poor). I realize TSA aren't the only guilty party here, but they are able to inflict more suffering than most. 2. Nonsensical Rules, like how they treat nail clippers and water as threats to national security, and after the shoe bomber everyone has to take off their shoes, but after the underwear bomber we… still keep our underwear on? Laptops out but a pile of tablets can stay in the bag? "Randomly" selecting elders and children for enhanced screening? 3. Lacking accountability: as stated in sibling comments, the agency has little incentive to do their job efficiently, and with usually only one local airport, people have few alternative methods of travel. 4. Ineffectiveness: lots of normal people have unwittingly snuck banned items through security checkpoints. And as has been much publicized, pen test teams have managed to make fools of the checkpoints many times. And it's not like all those fancy scanner machines and employees are cheap. So at significant cost to the US taxpayer, TSA checkpoints slow, inconvenience, annoy, and degrade travelers while providing little actual security, only the theatrics of such. We would be safer without them.
• chrismcb 7y ago
  Yes... To both. TSA and dhs don't do anything. The process has gotten worse, although it is similar to other countries. It is so a farce. It doesn't catch criminals, most policies are reactionary. Three are other ways to stop hijackers than to essentially great everyone as criminals.