Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security • Hacker News Board

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#191

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:07 PM UTC

mcherm wrote: post #189

CaptainZapp wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, the TSA sucks big time and should be abolished. I get that. But what about the alternatives? In this day and age it's just not thinkable to let people enter a plane without a security check. So you need some entity performing it. I think one factor on providing successful and to the passenger acceptable (they will never be pleasant) security checks is adequate funding and employing adequately compensated professi…

> In this day and age it's just not thinkable to let people enter a plane without a security check. Few would suggest that. But the security measure that were in place in the US prior to 9-11 took far less time and cost much less, and in my opinion provided a similar level of security. > And it's not that checks are less thorough around [any European airport ]. Really? Do they require you to remove shoes and belts, p…

> > And it's not that checks are less thorough around [any European airport ].

> Really? Do they require you to remove shoes and belts, plus all items (even scraps of paper) from your pockets? Do they require you to stand motionless, hands raised for 1-2 mins to be scanned by a millimeter wave or backscatter x-ray machine or submit to a 15 min careful patdown and swabbing?

"Intrusive" is not the same thing as "thorough". You are describing how intrusive the US measures are. How thorough the measures are depends on their effectiveness at actually detecting what they set out to detect (all the information that has come out about the tests of the US system in that regard have shown that, while intrusive, it is absolutely not thorough.)

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#192

Post by drzaiusapelord » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #24

This, in combination with American airports being completely ignorant to the transit concept must cost American airline companies dozens, if not hundreds of millions a year in lost revenues. Case in point: if I want to to fly from Zurich to Lima I have essentially two choices: I can connect either in Amsterdam, or in Madrid. Madrids legal connection time is 55 minutes max (on Iberia). In AMS on KLM it's a maximum of…

Oh come on. I fly through Europe twice to three times a year. The transfer from Charles de Gaulle is a nightmare worse than any major US airport. They literally make you leave the security area and go through security for simple transfers if you're coming from the states. That's shit design right there. A lot of international connections are terrible and knowing which airports/airlines do a good job is important. Its not a US thing.

Also, what a shit prize naming a airport after someone is. No one likes airports. de Gaulle deserves better.

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#193

Post by vinay427 » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:09 PM UTC

vincefutr23 wrote: post #4

Blaming volume? How about 1) the switch from metal detectors to less numerous and slower body scanners? 2) the allocation of employee resources to the "pre check" line leaving less staff for 90% of travelers. 3) still having to take belts and shoes off even with a full body scan? This program has gotten seriously out of hand and is incredibly frustrating. I don't care if it's 3 hours or "75 minutes" anything over 15…

>2) the allocation of employee resources to the "pre check" line leaving less staff for 90% of travelers.

I don't think this makes sense, unless in your airport the PreCheck line is sometimes empty and the staff there are waiting around. Otherwise, they can allocate fewer staff than in every other line yet process more travelers due to the faster process. This speeds up security for everyone, not just those with PreCheck, as without PreCheck all of the travelers would have had to go through the longer process which would delay security for everyone behind them.

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#194

Post by gumby » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:10 PM UTC

pessimizer wrote: post #103

sneak wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can drop "around the country". Your nation or any other nation's national borders do not make free and unimpeded travel any less of a basic right for all people, in all places.

Free and unimpeded travel is not a basic right for any people, in any place. It's supposed to be within the US, though, just like in Schengen. That's due to law, not some magical "right", though. edit: what is a "basic right" supposed to be, anyway? I missed that day in philosophy class.

> what is a "basic right" supposed to be, anyway? I missed that day in philosophy class.

Fundamental rights that are inherent to all humans by birth and cannot be justly alienated. It's a major philosophical topic you've probably seen reflected in the universal declaration of human rights, american declaration of independence, french revolutionary declaration of the rights of man etc .

There's a terrible and anglocentric wikipedia page devoted to this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_and_legal_rights

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#195

Post by dragonwriter » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:11 PM UTC

CaptainZapp wrote: post #59

MichaelBurge wrote: post #39

I think Trump would abolish the TSA. Cruz has said he would, too. I'd like to see either one get in, though I wonder if the President should be able to just decide on his own to shut down an agency that Congress has approved. Why has Congress not shut it down? I don't think anybody really likes the TSA, so I can't imagine there'd be too much opposition to a bill abolishing them. It affects so many people you could pr…

Ok, the TSA sucks big time and should be abolished. I get that. But what about the alternatives? In this day and age it's just not thinkable to let people enter a plane without a security check. So you need some entity performing it. I think one factor on providing successful and to the passenger acceptable (they will never be pleasant) security checks is adequate funding and employing adequately compensated professi…

> But what about the alternatives?

The alternative is returning the responsibility and the accountability to the industry. The nationalization of air travel security wasn't done to improve security, it was to done to save the airlines by removing the potential drag of liability for future security incidents from them by nationalizing a function for which they had been responsible.

This hasn't improved security, but it has meant that the screening process is now provided by a cost-insensitive bureaucracy with the excuse of national security to avoid transparency and accountability.

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#196

Post by lg » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

frogpelt wrote: post #15

esoteric_nonces wrote: post #11

Why not give a 'security line' time (like the current gateline time). If the passenger is there before that time, then the flight waits for them, or they're put on the next flight. That seems to sidestep the issue neatly. As a passenger, security is not a discrete part of the process. I'm actually surprised that airlines haven't done more to make the security experience more streamlined.

Do you know if the airlines pay the TSA for the security? It seems like adding some direct private funding and influence would help alleviate some of these issues. Of courses that would affect ticket prices, but an extra hundred per passenger wouldn't be such a bad thing if it drastically improved the situation.

the government does not need private funding when it can just reach into your pocket, in this case to collect the September 11 Security Fee which airlines attach to your ticket on behalf of TSA.

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#197

Post by fblp » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:13 PM UTC

I find it absurd that a central agency manages the hiring of tsa agents. In Canada and Australia the airports hire private security to do the checks. They are more competent and friendly than tsa agents.

It's also not obvious how a government run tsa could be trusted any more than regulated private security contractors (overseen and kept accountable by a smaller government agency).

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#198

Post by KMag » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:14 PM UTC

scurvy wrote: post #86

Isn't there a TSA fee on every ticket issued in the US? How are they claiming budget setbacks then claim that more people are flying? Shouldn't more people flying mean more revenue / budget for the TSA?

Just because the fee says it's for the TSA doesn't mean that it directly goes to the TSA without legislators getting their grubby hands on it first.

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#199

Post by mikey_p » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:15 PM UTC

spdustin wrote: post #112

bglazer wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, and in Moscow as well. If the actual mission of the TSA was preventing terrorist acts, then they would have done something about this massive and completely obvious vulnerability. My opinion, however, is that the TSA has become an arm of the DEA and the "war on drugs". They make a big security theater production in the name of stopping terrorists but 99% of their daily activities are centered on seizing drugs.

You stated a fact alongside your opinion, that a large portion of the TSA's operation includes seizing drugs. Do you have a source for this?

Not sure about other places, but who do you think is enforcing this in Portland?

http://kptv.images.worldnow.com/images/8324399_G.jpg

Re: Catching a Flight? Budget Hours, Not Minutes, for Security

#200

Post by AnthonyMouse » Mon, May 02, 2016, 5:16 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #97

Hondor wrote: post #35

If a terrorist wanted to kill a lot of people confined into too small space to run away, what better target than these densely packed zig-zag queues? Really, what's the point of protecting a plane carrying hundreds of people by putting those same people into harm's way like that? It already happened in China - Muslim terrorists killed dozens of people waiting in a ticket hall a couple of years ago.

There are a large number of places with densely packed people. The unique thing about airports is their access to airplanes and their capacity to be used as weapons. (I'm taking a broad view of "weapon" here; even old-school hijack-and-divert is still a political "weapon".) If it weren't for that, they wouldn't be particularly interesting and wouldn't need special security. If someone blows up the line, well, they di…

> The unique thing about airports is their access to airplanes and their capacity to be used as weapons.

That problem was solved on 9/11 the instant the public realized the possibility. Before people wouldn't fight back because they would rather be ransomed than killed. Now that everyone knows their choices are fight or die, every person on the plane would fight to the death to prevent a terrorist from taking control over it, which solves the problem more effectively than anything the TSA could ever hope to do.

It actually makes everything the TSA does entirely counterproductive, because it's no longer possible to hijack a plane using a knife, but allowing all the other passengers to have knives would make it easier for them to fight back. The entire TSA is a farce that should be disbanded and replaced with nothing.