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Flights feel like they’ve gotten much slower, in user space time. I remember as a kid in the 90s you could do a little metal detector, and sometimes not even t
by tyre 2y ago
Flights feel like they’ve gotten much slower, in user space time.
I remember as a kid in the 90s you could do a little metal detector, and sometimes not even that, and get on a plane.
The changes to cockpit doors solves the 9/11 problem. Other than that guy who lit his underwear on fire one Christmas, I don’t know what exactly all of this is pretending to prevent.
The TSA’s own internal tests have people getting handguns through.
I have pre-check. Maybe eventually everyone will have it and the vast majority of passengers won’t have to take off shoes or take out laptops. Then we’ll get back to where we were decades ago.
- whatshisface 2y agoIt's our punishment for allowing national security to function as a get-out-of-congressional-debate-free card.
- tyre 2y agoI understand why all of this happened in the first place. 9/11 was truly shocking. Maybe more so because I was a kid, but watching those planes hit the buildings, the buildings collapsing, the Fallen Man, the recordings for United 93…it was a lot. It really broke the spell that America could fuck around in the rest of the world without finding out. It seems like there are two problems: 1. No one wants to be the person who rolls back regulations, because they’ll be blamed the next time something goes wrong. Even if the previous regulation wouldn’t have stopped it (again, TSA internal tests of people getting knives and guns through), that person is getting blamed. 2. There is simply a ton of money in this crap. Those companies have lobbyists and donate to campaigns. Given (1), these congresspeople aren’t going to change it anyway so I don’t actually think corruption plays as much into it. They’d never vote to remove the regulations; campaign donations are free money. Engineering orgs have similar problems. I remember at Stripe seeing the 12 years of accumulated processes. Every bug or incident needed a new process or automated checker to ensure it couldn’t ever happen again. None of these were ever reviewed or removed. As an EM, even if I knew something was a net-negative when comparing dev velocity vs. risk x magnitude of a bug, no chance my manager would let me remove it. It takes confident, independent leadership willing to make tough trade-offs to change these things. That’s pretty rare in my experience.
- psunavy03 2y ago> It really broke the spell that America could fuck around in the rest of the world without finding out. That's . . . a take, considering that OBL's main beef with America was infidel troops on the soil of Saudi, because the Saudi royals were the guardians of Mecca. And the Saudis asked us to intervene against Saddam. 9/11 wasn't some coherent beef with US foreign policy; it was bog-standard religious extremism of the Salafist Islamic flavor.
- Muromec 2y ago>9/11 wasn't some coherent beef with US foreign policy; it was bog-standard religious extremism of the Salafist Islamic flavor. Why would he bomb US and not SA then? At least in his own words it was about foreign policy and Palestine among other things.
- dinkumthinkum 2y agoI'm just being honest but I think you are missing an gigantic point here. Why would a Muslim terrorist not bomb the holiest place in Islam? That is basically your question. They already viewed the U.S. as infidels, the "Great Satan", or kuffaar (unbelievers), I don't see why its not obvious that someone like that would choose to attack the U.S. instead of Saudi Arabia.
- Muromec 2y agoBut that's not how terrorism works. Terrorism works by inflicting pain on your adversary, not on random infidels half the world away.
- dinkumthinkum 2y agoWhat I wrote is exactly how terrorism works, for evidence, I submit the real world. Again, they aren't going to bomb Muslims in their holy land, I don't see how this would be surprising.
- 2y ago
- p_l 2y agoTSA allows a shift of liability for insurance purposes
- nradov 2y agoHuh? The TSA has sovereign immunity.
- epc 2y agoPre–TSA each airport authority was responsible for security. In theory there was a common standard, in practice it varied greatly airport by airport and contractor by contractor. Am pulling this completely out of foggy memory but one of the justifications for TSA was that potentially local airport authorities would be considered liable for acts of terrorism like 9/11.
- p_l 2y agoA shift of liability for airline insurance and airport insurance needs.
- massysett 2y agoSecurity prevents routine hijackings. During the late 1960s there was one attempted hijacking every 5.6 days. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aircraft_hijacking
- esskay 2y agoSecurity does. But a lot of what we go through these days is security theater. The whole shoe removal thing, belts, etc. It's the most pathetically over the top form of security, and totally unnecessary. It does not in any way shape or form provide any extra level of security that can't be covered by something much simpler, less invasive, slow or antiquated.
- ghaff 2y agoI largely agree. But if you're anything like a regular traveler you get TSA-pre for not a lot of cost or effort and that pretty much all goes away.
- throwway120385 2y agoYeah, at the expense of my civil liberties. You do realize that you have to do a background check and an interview to get that, right? Whereas when I was a child you didn't have to do any of that to enjoy the right to keep your belt and your shoes on at the airport.
- ghaff 2y ago>You do realize Yes, because I did the interview. But then I've done the background check and interview for jobs as well. And honestly, there's a ton of that information about you in computers if you travel by air at all. Don't fly (in particular) if you want to be anonymous.
- abecedarius 2y agoThe U.S. used to take pride in freedom of movement. In fiction, demands for papers were a classic sign of a government gone over the line. Now you need ID even for a Greyhound or Amtrak. I guess you can still walk or ride a bicycle.
- weinzierl 2y agoCame here to say the same. They feel much slower, not only because of the whole security ceremony but also because overall they got a good deal more inconvenient.
- soco 2y agoDid we get like to a commoditization of flights?
- JoshTriplett 2y ago> The changes to cockpit doors solves the 9/11 problem. Other than that guy who lit his underwear on fire one Christmas, I don’t know what exactly all of this is pretending to prevent. It prevents a lack of funding for security pork. The TSA is a massive funding boondoggle for many many snake-oil security salespeople. Full agreement with the point here: lock the cockpit doors, and let everyone go through the same level of security checks as TSA Pre.
- XorNot 2y agoLocking the cockpit doors solves the 9/11 problem. On a multi-hour flight someone could still just blow up the plane or start killing passengers.
- sdenton4 2y ago"Just killing passengers" isn't meaningfully worse/different than your average mall shooting... It sucks, but it's not quite as severe as turning the giant flying tube of jet fuel into an improvised ballistic missile (the 9/11 problem).
- XorNot 2y agoMost of the free world also doesn't have a regular problem with mass shootings.
- beeflet 2y agoYou seem like the target audience for security theater
- sealeck 2y agoThis is an... interesting comment on many levels. A few things: we also put lots of effort into preventing mass casualty attacks in public places around the world (except the US govt in primary schools, for unfortunate three letter political reasons that begin with N and end with A). We generally don't want people to blow up planes because they're super expensive (even if we discount the lives of the passengers). Terrorists prefer blowing up aircraft to other things. When planes crash, they often hit people on the ground. And so on...
- hansvm 2y ago> I don’t know what exactly all of this is pretending to prevent. Pick your fallacy: - We've spent billions of dollars on this stuff. Surely we wouldn't have done that unless it worked. - We've spent billions of dollars on this stuff. It'd be a shame to let that go to waste. - The TSA isn't perfect, but for every 30 handguns they let slip through they also successfully catch 1. That one could have taken over a plane. ...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- XorNot 2y ago> The TSA’s own internal tests have people getting handguns through. And the results of those tests are widely misunderstood. Security isn't about a 100% success rate - that's the goal but not the outcome. It is about disrupting the planning process. That someone, somewhere might sometimes get a gun through TSA security is one thing...but is that person intending to carry out a terrorist attack in doing so, or did they just leave it in their bag? Is it possible for anyone to organize a coherent plan which involves as a first step smuggling weapons onto a plane in a way which is not more likely then not to be detected? And is the correct conclusion from "in a test (where we motivated someone to try a plan they couldn't be sure would succeed but which would have no personal consequences for failure) they succeeded" that the security is pointless, or is it that they need to modify their procedures to improve the detection rate?
- thfuran 2y ago>That someone, somewhere might sometimes get a gun through TSA security is one thing... I think you might be misunderstanding the scope of the issue. In testing, guns get through screening more often than they get stopped.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoIt's the perception of safety. If DOGE was really about efficiency and cutting waste, TSA would be the first place they would be looking.
- bdangubic 2y agotoo young to remember 9/11? :)
- dmitrygr 2y ago> too young to remember 9/11? :) Too lazy to read the many GAO reports that all demonstrate TSA accuracy at finding dangerous items never topping 5%?
- bdangubic 2y agosure, that is why we have all these on-board incidents and terrorist attacks crashing airplanes left and right with millions of people flying daily :)
- sosborn 2y agoHow regularly was that happening pre-911?
- cogman10 2y agoWe'd see a plane hijack roughly once per year. Though it wasn't common for the hijacker to try and kill everyone on board.
- bdangubic 2y agoabout once per year but it makes no difference what happened pre 9/11 - it matters what we did to ensure that 9/11 doesn't happen again
- insane_dreamer 2y ago
- II2II 2y ago> I remember as a kid in the 90s you could do a little metal detector, and sometimes not even that, and get on a plane. I took flights in the 2010's that didn't feel all that different from boarding a bus. You went to the desk to check in and to give them any checked baggage, walked to the waiting area to wait with a couple of dozen people, then went outside to board the plane. Any plane that would eventually connect to an international airport would have passengers go through security, but otherwise no.
- xattt 2y agoThere’s regional differences in airports. In a post-9/11 world, I took an airplane to university and back, and on a regular basis from [SMALL CITY] airport. I could, as a disorganized young adult, be at the airport within 10-15 before boarding time with luggage to check. Pre-9/11, my family travelled internationally and it was always a 3+ hour, pack-a-lunch affair to be at [MAJOR CITY] airport.
- jacobgkau 2y ago> pack-a-lunch affair You can tell it was pre-9/11 because you didn't need to throw the lunch away before getting to the part where you have to wait the longest.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- BobaFloutist 2y agoI've never had airport security confiscate food, only beverages. Unless you're packing soup for lunch, I guess? Or flying somewhere with specific customs prohibitions that for whatever reason does it at the origin instead of the destination, like flights too/from Hawaii maybe? But I've never had, like, a sandwich taken from me.
- xattt 2y agoWe didn’t actually pack a lunch, but was suggesting that getting through the gate took a really long time.
- timewizard 2y ago> TSA’s own internal tests have people getting handguns through. > eventually everyone will have [pre-check] How do those two things follow? The government does a /bad/ job yet I have to submit to even /more/ monitoring to fix it? They're the greatest exploiters of the transport monopoly we have in the USA and so strong is their grip people don't even avail themselves of the obvious solution.
- recursive 2y ago> Then we’ll get back to where we were decades ago. Except now with a subscription fee.
- kevin_thibedeau 2y agoAnd a social credit score.
- chrisco255 2y agoPre-check is a wild concept to me. I've been flying for 20 years and y'all are going to pretend you don't have me in your system, like I'm some unknown entity? It's a grift. If you can do pre-check to verify someone isn't a terrorist you can also let people through on good behavior after two decades. Call it a 20 year post-check. Just stop the madness.
- SoftTalker 2y ago> I remember as a kid in the 90s you could do a little metal detector, and sometimes not even that, and get on a plane. If you were picking someone up, you could also park in short-term parking, go all the way in to their arrival gate and meet them as they got off the plane, help them with their bags or just accompany them to your car. No fooling around with trying to time your arrival in the driveway or hanging out there blocking other traffic waiting for your party to appear and figure out where your car is.
- majormajor 2y ago> No fooling around with trying to time your arrival in the driveway or hanging out there blocking other traffic waiting for your party to appear and figure out where your car is. This hasn't really changed. If you're willing to pay to park you can still park and meet them at bag claim or another outside-security exit. I think people are just more rushed and there are more flights so more contention for parking.
- kortilla 2y agoWaiting at baggage claim sucks ass. The seating there is usually terrible and the dining/drink options on that side of the airport are comparable to a prison cafeteria.
- scarface_74 2y agoMost airports have free cell phone parking lots. You just wait for them to call you and you drive up
- smelendez 2y agoThat helps but it’s still a mess, especially if the driver and passenger aren’t both familiar with the airport and can’t communicate well about where they’re meeting.
- scarface_74 2y ago
- throwaway984393 2y ago[dead]
- linkerdoo 2y ago[dead]
- WalterBright 2y ago> The TSA’s own internal tests have people getting handguns through. Think of it like this. Suppose 1% of handguns get through security, and you are a terrorist. Do you really want to take on an assignment that has a 99% chance of ignominous failure and jail for life?
- WalterBright 2y ago> I remember as a kid in the 90s I remember as a kid in the 60s I was invited into the cockpit of the 707 to watch them fly. Of course, my dad being in his AF officer uniform probably helped :-/
- riffraff 2y agoIn a few airports in Europe they stopped requiring you to take out laptops (and for a while liquids, but I think that choice may have been reversed).
- simonebrunozzi 2y agoLet's remember that airports make 2/3rds of revenues from shops (rent), 1/3rd from flight slots. Therefore, there's a perverse incentive for them to make sure you stay in the airport longer.
- recursive 2y agoNone from parking? I don't believe it.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- whiplash451 2y agoThe problem is that security is feeding a whole industry with its union and lobbies now. We’re never going back. We’re going full body scan instead. Just fly from Seattle to see what the future looks like.
- spacechild1 2y agoThe most braindead "security" measure is the prohibition of liquids. Many airports don't even have any drinking water fountains at the gates! If you are thirsty you need to buy bottled water for 6€ - 10€ per liter. (Sometimes I take water from the toilet, but it's not safe to do on every airport.) It also causes lots of unnecessary plastic waste, both at the gates and on board. Personally, I would just like to bring a large bottle of water instead of drinking from these tiny plastic water cups. I try to take the train whenever I can afford it (money and time-wise)
- weberer 2y ago>Sometimes I take water from the toilet, but it's not safe to do on every airport. You man the bathroom sink... right?
- spacechild1 2y agoLol. Yes, I do. I should have clarified...
- r00fus 2y agoThe entire point was to create more make-work jobs (TSA) at the expense of the general flying populace. Also another revenue stream (Clear/Pre-check/GlobalEntry).