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

nytimes.com

451–460 of 512 posts

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

#451

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…

How about 4) TSA is "accidentally" understaffing checkpoints to angle for more budget. It's a purely political move.

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

#452

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…

Body scanners that it turns out are less effective than actual metal detectors for people who are trying to hide things on/in their body.

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

#453
post #446

As someone who fly quite often, fuck the TSA. Seeing that O'Hare picture in the article makes me so angry (as that's when I fly the most to/from). Last times it took 3 hours to pass the border. Here's an idea: boo people who are in the "TSA pre" lines.

> Here's an idea: boo people who are in the "TSA pre" lines.

What does that solve?

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

#454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like the time I asked someone on Reddit what they meant by funding education "fully." They said, "double." So... we'd be a world leader in primary and secondary education again if we just spent twice what we currently do? Well, I guess it was an answer. There are 2 kinds of people: those who think that more money will somehow fix everything (them), and those that think more money will only exacerbate the prob…

Ah yes, the thrifty conservatives that led us into the multi trillion dollar boondoggle of the Iraq War.

Admittedly, it may not have been clear, but I was referring to social issues. I don't consider the TSA a security issue. That's a work program wrapped up in propaganda.

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

#455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is like the time I asked someone on Reddit what they meant by funding education "fully." They said, "double." So... we'd be a world leader in primary and secondary education again if we just spent twice what we currently do? Well, I guess it was an answer. There are 2 kinds of people: those who think that more money will somehow fix everything (them), and those that think more money will only exacerbate the prob…

Um, no, liberals and conservatives generally fight over whether the spending should be on defense/security or social welfare. People who want to defund both defense and social welfare (libertarians) are an extremely rare fringe group that's vastly overrepresented on HN but gets basically no votes in the real world.

Yeah, well count me as one of those "no" votes. I voted for Barr in '08. Till people get it through their heads to stop "holding their noses" and casting votes on D's and R's, that's all they're ever going to get.

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

#456

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…

Do people get their flight refunded if they miss it by waiting 3 hours in security lines?

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

#457
What's going to finally change this is when there's a particularly bad day, and security lines are likely to make enough people late, that a swarm effect happens and a mass of people just says "no more" and walks through. Just like the fences at outdoor concerts. It takes a few fearless/stupid people to break through, and progressively less fearless/stupid individuals to follow, having watched enough ahead of them follow. Once the video of this gets out, it'll happen again, and again, "like that time in that other airport!", and eventually, we'll end up with sane rules, or no one will fly because it'll become so prohibitively expensive to fund the theater (and then the airlines will get government bailouts)

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

#458
post #453
post #446

As someone who fly quite often, fuck the TSA. Seeing that O'Hare picture in the article makes me so angry (as that's when I fly the most to/from). Last times it took 3 hours to pass the border. Here's an idea: boo people who are in the "TSA pre" lines.

> Here's an idea: boo people who are in the "TSA pre" lines. What does that solve?

people will top giving their money to the TSA.

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

#459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure about other places, but who do you think is enforcing this in Portland? http://kptv.images.worldnow.com/images/8324399_G.jpg

I wouldn't think they'd have the authority to seize the drugs themselves, since the warning sign is from the Port of Portland, the governmental authority that oversees PDX as well as marine ports. My feeling is that they would be obligated to attempt to hold the bag (less likely) or flag the bag and passenger (more likely) for a Port Authority Police officer to handle. EDIT: According to one story [0], the TSA cooper…

True, but they wouldn't be able to alert authorities if they weren't actively looking for the items, which gets back to the original issue of speed of inspection.

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

#460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think they wouldn't institute similar TSA-style [1] security on a shiny new high-profile high speed rail? 1. Or literally the TSA: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/06/us/tsa-expands-duties-beyo...

Right, Spain already does this. And I've during high-profile events I've seen TSA patrolling the main subway stations in Washington, DC.

I nearly lost a pocketknife when my suitcase was x-rayed at a Spanish train station.

Our small satchel bags and bodies did not get x-rayed, but the large suitcases did. I forgot I had a pocketknife in there (as it's fine usually for airport security as a check in bag). Somehow, when my suitcase got scanned, they mixed up the order and the person behind me got stopped for having a knife. By that time, I was making a quick getaway to the platform as I didn't want to lose the knife.

I could have just had a knife (and bomb?) in my satchel bag, so was pretty confused by the whole x-ray suitcases only situation.

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