7 ms·
It's the perception of safety. If DOGE was really about efficiency and cutting waste, TSA would be the first place they would be looking.
by insane_dreamer 2y ago
It'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 agoLots in the 70s but by the 90s it was very infrequent in the US. And most hijackings did not result in casualties (or very few casualties). People didn’t hijack with intent to kill the selves and everyone on board. Probably more people died from the shooting down of planes by militaries than by hijackings.
- Lammy 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgNvKr010pc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgNvKr010pc
- llm_trw 2y agoThe summer of 9/11 I brought on a full suit of hoplite armor with shield and spear on board a regional plane. The stewardess told me I can't have it in the passenger compartment so I should just give it to the pilot before takeoff. I'm not saying that we should let people board in full armor again, but surely there is a happy medium?
- bee_rider 2y agoYou just didn’t know there was a Sky Legionnaire up there ready to mess you up if you started anything.
- oceanplexian 2y agoI have vivid memories from childhood hugging my grandma before flying right at the gate. Unfortunately people have a short memory. Kids these days will have no memory of how free of a country we lived in even 25 years ago.
- selectodude 2y agoOn the contrary, not having to hang out with somebody at the airport before they leave is such a gift.
- scarface_74 2y agoBuy a refundable ticket, go through security, cancel ticket. People do it all of the time for other reasons.
- saagarjha 2y agoI’d rather we could have nice things.
- scarface_74 2y agoAnd the airport is already crowded. The last thing we need are people not even flying anywhere.
- insane_dreamer 2y agoI was 30 years old, saw it live on TV. So ... no But as others have pointed out, a lot of the TSA processes (taking off shoes, laptops, liquids, etc.) are pointless. What prevents another 9/11 are the cockpit doors, which have nothing to do with TSA.
- bdangubic 2y agothe shoes, the tooth paste, the water… are all necessary security theatre. the real work is happening behind the scenes. but the theatre is also necessary (albeit not as dramatic as we have it now :) )
- insane_dreamer 2y agohow is the theatre also necessary?
- bdangubic 2y agoit is necessary so that some Adam Lanza-wannabe doesn’t get any ideas on how to quickly become infamous
- cogman10 2y agoThe school shooters do that because it's shocking and gets in the news. We have so many crowded situations throughout the world where an equal splash could be made. We need about as much security around the airport as we need around a subway or a concert. After the dark knight shooting, we didn't find the need to put up xray scanners in every movie theater. It's dumb to do that with airports. Were I to guess, the reason we focus so heavily on airports is because our lawmakers fly more than most of the population. The theater is likely their safety blanket.
- bdangubic 2y agoWe need about as much security around the airport as we need around a subway or a concert. as soon as we have 2.7 million people in subway and/or concert daily in the US you'd be right... until then...
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- xp84 2y agoI wouldn't assume that isn't going to happen. I've heard specifically that someone in the Trump camp wants to just have the airlines figure security out themselves.
- roenxi 2y agoOne optomistic point is that a lot of stupid things persist because whoever gets rid of them would have to deal with a bad image. TSA is of that style; the other political party would almost be guaranteed to scream in cynical fashion that it is making people less safe. But it isn't obvious the Trump administration would have to worry about that. They've already saturated the screaming. There isn't anything worse to call them than Nazis and there are a couple of years of the administration left. We can hope someone thinks to tidy the TSA up.
- rayiner 2y agoTSA and DOD. One can dream.
- xp84 2y agoExactly. I think some of the things in Trump/Musk’s crosshairs are legitimately a waste of money and focus, and if worth having, would be better controlled by the more accountable state level. Some, like CFPB, are obviously much better off not being deleted, but tbh the things anyone can make a convincing case for, can just be reestablished later, without the sprawling cruft they’ve accumulated in 25-90 years of existence. I do wish it was someone smarter doing this, but only a President already hated by all the elites could do this degree of upheaval and get away with it.
- error_logic 2y agoIf you think Trump is actually in charge when he's signing all those executive orders being handed to him and-- Anyway, he's not the real power, here.
- AdieuToLogic 2y ago> If DOGE was really about efficiency and cutting waste, TSA would be the first place they would be looking. If DOGE was a real agency, maybe it would.
- kube-system 2y ago>It's the perception of safety. You say that as a dig, but a perception of safety is a real deterrent. If you can make your adversaries believe something is true, it doesn't matter whether it actually is or not. This is sometimes known as a bluff.
- ksenzee 2y agoAnyone who is serious about breaching security at an airport can figure out within half an hour that it’s security theater.
- kube-system 2y agoNobody has replicated 9/11, and to my knowledge, nobody has tried. If it's so easy to do so, then the perception of safety must be working great! To be effective, safety measures don't have to block people who are smart and wouldn't commit the crime anyway. They only have to block the people dumb enough to do it.
- ksenzee 2y agoNobody has replicated 9/11 because as soon as the passengers figured out the new threat model, there was no chance of getting away with it. Flight 93 figured it out before 9/11 was even over. The locked cockpit doors are the suspenders to the “let’s roll” belt. There will be no new 9/11 until 9/11 falls out of living memory.
- kube-system 2y agoThat idea is also a perception of safety. No team of hijackers has attempted to take over a plane post 9/11. If TSA is just theater, couldn't an attacker simply bring weapons sufficient enough to hold off the crowd and break the door? The hijackers on 93 only had box cutters. It is the combined perception of airport security and the perception that passengers will fight that deter bad actors from even trying.
- mullingitover 2y ago> If DOGE was really about efficiency and cutting waste ...they would've nixed Trump's trip to the Super Bowl, which cost taxpayers 15-20 million all for him to leave early when his team lost. They wouldn't be killing the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which costs taxpayers nothing (it's funded by the big banks, aka The Federal Reserve). The direction they seem to be going, they'll probably increase the TSA budget, add an extra hour to security lines, and make you take your pants off for some reason.