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How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?
by Fervicus 8mo ago
How many man hours and how much money have we wasted over security theater at airports? Has it been a worthwhile trade off?
- chihuahua 8mo agoNo successful terrorist attacks on planes going to/from western countries after 9/11/2001, that's a pretty good record. Maybe we can't prove that the security theater was responsible for that, but still, the only planes that were bombed after 9/11/2001 were inside Russia or going from Egypt to Russia.
- none2585 8mo agoThis is an asinine take - it literally has nothing to do with the theater we deal with at the airports in America
- abenga 8mo agoWhat's the actual reason then?
- no_wizard 8mo agoBetter cooperation between intelligence and law enforcement agencies
- SCdF 8mo agoLocking the door of the cockpit, actual on the ground policing in terms of monitoring terror cells.
- lesuorac 8mo agoThere's 200 other people on the flight that think this plane is going to crash instead of thinking this plane is going to land safely and a ransom is going to occur. Prior to 9/11 hijackings were rare but still occurred with everybody living [1]. There is a notable truncation in the list after 9/11 of incidents per decade (across the world; so nothing special about TSA). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#1990s https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings#19...
- bradleybuda 8mo agoLast I checked, in the US there has not been a single instance of the TSA detecting and preventing a terror attack in its 25 year history. And presumably they wouldn’t be shy about telling us if they had.
- HaZeust 8mo agoI mean, they do find a ton of guns and ammunition. I wouldn't be so sure.
- victorbjorklund 8mo agoI have no idea if it has worked or not but you got to count deterrence too. If you have a lock and alarm in your house it might deter someone from even trying to break in. Of course you could never know if the deterrence worked (only attempts would be noticeable)
- palata 8mo agoI don't think that the question is really "removing all checks". It's rather "are all those expensive machines necessary?".
- bawolff 8mo agoI assume they have some deterent value. You can tell because some of the failed bombings (like the shoe bomber) failed because their plans were stupid to get around security, and if security wasn't there they would probably have used a normal bomb and succeeded
- hosteur 8mo agoI have a rock that keeps tigers away. For 30 years I have not encountered any tigers. That’s a pretty good record.
- bruce511 8mo agoTo answer the parent question, no not even close. TSA direct costs, passenger time wasted, flights missed, items confiscated. All so no bombs on planes. But somehow also no bombs at sports events or music concerts, or on trains or subways, or courthouses or.... So the TSA is either stunningly successful or a complete waste. I'd argue a complete waste, but hey, everyone in a TSA uniform drawing a paycheck us entitled to a different opinion.
- closewith 8mo ago> But somehow also no bombs at sports events or music concerts, or on trains or subways, or courthouses or.... Boston marathon? The Madrid train bombings? 7/7? Ariana Grande? Airport security has been stunningly successful.
- Fervicus 8mo agoBut we don't have intense security checks at concerts, trains, or at marathon events as a result, do we?
- prmoustache 8mo agoI thonk it has more to do with process and pilot crew closing their door.
- bawolff 8mo agoBombings are pretty rare. The last succesful plane bombing of a plane departing from the united states that killed people was in 1962.
- hdgvhicv 8mo agoOk so cockpit door was locked and thus nobody can hijack plane. Of course even that has killed people.
- reisse 8mo agoThis is somewhat false? There were four other bombings, two in western countries (specifically EU->US flights). None of these two were successful in terms of "the plane was downed", but bombs were carried on a plane and exploded, and security didn't stop that. 22 December 2001, American Airlines Flight 63 7 May 2002, China Northern Flight 6136 25 December 2009, Northwest Airlines Flight 253 2 February 2016, Daallo Airlines Flight 159
- dec0dedab0de 8mo agoThe main benefit from post 9/11 security is locks on the cockpit doors. And no longer telling passengers to do whatever a hijacker says.
- vjvjvjvjghv 8mo agoNo hijacked planes, no terror attacks?
- none2585 8mo agoThere's also been none since I washed my hair this morning - certainly must be related!!
- sealeck 8mo agoClever
- vjvjvjvjghv 8mo agoNot really….
- runarberg 8mo agoI don‘t think that is true at all. There have been numerous hijacked planes since 9/11 including two in the USA just this decade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings Plane hijacking has been on its way out anyway after the turmoil of the 1970s. And that has probably more to do with a) the relative political stability of the post cold war period, and b) a general sense that airplane hijacking isn’t actually that likely to advance your political goals. If you read the list above, you see people hijacking planes all kinds of dumb methods, hardly any of them involves carrying an actual bomb onto the plane.
- mcmoor 8mo agoThere has been way less terrorism in general too. I'm always curious whether the war on terrorism is that effective, or there's major socioeconomic factor that matters most (or there's just less lead in the air).
- justsomehnguy 8mo ago
- Stevvo 8mo agoDepends who the 'we' is. It worked out great for the airports; increased drink sales means increased rent for airport shops.
- mlrtime 8mo agoHow many man hours and how much money have we wasted over SREs at <tech company>? Has it been a worthwhile trade off? - Half kidding but this is what a lot of CEOs/CTOs think, SRE is one of the least invested skills because it is so difficult to prove that they are worthwhile. Similarly they are invested into AFTER a major incident.
- escapecharacter 8mo agono
- wrs 8mo agoDon't forget to account for the risk we added by creating places where hundreds of people line up outside the security check. [0] [0] https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2016/05/out-of-line-how-to-better-protect-airports-from-terrorist.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2016/05/out-of-line-how... -- "The study also identified an easy way to make people a less attractive target — improve ticketing and security operations so that crowds of people aren't waiting in line."