TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home • Hacker News Board

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#71

Post by fein » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:09 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #67

TSA is a case where the government nationalized a thing (airport security) that was sufficiently handled by the private sector. A centralized regulating agency for transportation security makes sense, but heres what I don't get: what was the argument for also creating/hiring a literal army of guards to replace the private force that existed before? It seems unprecedented considering everything else in the post-Reagan…

It's just a government jobs program, nothing more. Just a tool to bolster bigger budgets and higher employment numbers.

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#72

Post by kurczynski » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:17 PM UTC

ed312 wrote: post #10

maccio92 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't think screening for bombs has any potential to be dangerous?

At what scale? I would argue a taxi driver has a more dangerous job (in terms of probability of injury).

I believe I read that taxi drivers have a very high fatality rate in the United States, but definitely higher than law enforcement.

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#73

Post by pfranz » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:19 PM UTC

pram wrote: post #67

TSA is a case where the government nationalized a thing (airport security) that was sufficiently handled by the private sector. A centralized regulating agency for transportation security makes sense, but heres what I don't get: what was the argument for also creating/hiring a literal army of guards to replace the private force that existed before? It seems unprecedented considering everything else in the post-Reagan…

I have little sympathy for the TSA as an organization. I also have no idea if the effectiveness is any better or worse, but I feel like the policies and protocols are more consistent between airports or even terminals than they were before they took over. (although, the TSA seemed to struggle with this during the first decade or so of their existence and it's still an ongoing problem...just much smaller). As airport security concerns grew after 9/11 more demands were made of travelers with vary inconsistent application. At least now if I go to most airports I know what the security protocol will be. If I have PreCheck, that is also pretty consistent with how its applied.

Given that, I don't see any reason they can't just be standards or policies that private security would adhere to. I'm sure there's a boondoggle story behind it, but I thought some airports had tried replacing TSA with middling success?

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#74

Post by excalibur » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:20 PM UTC

InitialLastName wrote: post #68

excalibur wrote: post #29

> “The American people need to know that their air travel remains safe,” Markey wrote. I think the American people have been lied to enough.

Air travel is probably safer with the TSA in full operation, but only because there is a lower proportion of angry and tired people who have been waiting in line for 4 hours around.

Sen. Markey wasn't referring to the TSA, at least not primarily. He was much more concerned about air traffic control and safety inspections, as we should all be.

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#75

Post by freehunter » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

ryanbertrand wrote: post #20

I wonder if Uber/Lyft has seen a jump in driver sign ups since the shutdown. Not sure how fast their onboarding is...but probably faster than trying to find a new job / temp job?

A friend of mine works for Shipt and she says there's been huge amounts of new signups in the past two weeks.

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#76

Post by twblalock » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:27 PM UTC

cascom wrote: post #22

While i don't envy their position - i think describing it as working without pay as a little disingenuous - while they have yet to be paid for the work they are performing, does anyone really believe that they are not going to be paid for their work down the road?

> While i don't envy their position - i think describing it as working without pay as a little disingenuous - while they have yet to be paid for the work they are performing, does anyone really believe that they are not going to be paid for their work down the road?

In the meantime they need to make their rent and mortgage and car and credit card payments and their creditors aren't going to accept an IOU. So for the time being, this is exactly like working without pay.

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#77

Post by rwoodley » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:29 PM UTC

Nothing like a bunch of privileged computer geeks laughing at the 'help' that isn't getting paid. And mocking them because they feel insecure dealing with all the hostility every day on the job.

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#78

Post by zik » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:32 PM UTC

delecti wrote: post #30

Cpoll wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm genuinely curious, myself. In the US, how many deaths in the line of duty are there (per thousand) for police officers, firefighters, and TSA agents, to juxtapose?

Only one TSA officer has ever been killed on-duty, and they have a total of 57,000 employees as of 2016 [1]. Not all of them are inspection agents (maybe 1/3? I'll use 20,000), but they've been an agency since 9/11 (I'll use 17 years). That makes 1 death per 340,000 agent-years. Admittedly I don't know how their total employee number has changed over time, and my 1/3 estimate could be wildly off. Meanwhile the statis…

That's a whole lot less dangerous than being a mechanic or a farmer.

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#79

Post by eeeeeeeeeeeee » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

kurczynski wrote: post #6

She said her fellow officers are “out there working, they’re putting their lives on the line. We took that oath when we got hired here, and we’re not even getting what we deserve.” All budgeting problems aside, how do TSA officers put their lives on the line?

Is there any incident of a TSA agent being assaulted on duty or even off-duty? I mean, I bet it compares to almost anyone working in a high customer interaction environment. It’s probably more dangerous to work at McDonalds.

Re: TSA acknowledges financial stress of shutdown is forcing officers to stay home

#80

Post by wvenable » Thu, Jan 17, 2019, 9:37 PM UTC

cascom wrote: post #34

walru wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they will receive back pay, but a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck.

this is my point - don't you think it a salient fact to inform the reader that these employees will in fact be paid for the work they perform....at some point

Just imagine how many payday loans are currently being processes right now at crazy interest rates. The true fallout might actually occur long after this shutdown is over.