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Time to Close the Security Theater

blogs.forbes.com

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Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#41

Post by hugh3 »

billybob wrote: post #23

Terrorism is about creating terror. It's about magnifying, in your enemy's mind, what is actually a small threat. If you have an entire military, you don't use terrorism; you kill your enemies en masse. If you're a small band of nutjobs, you scrape together the resources for a few small hits. You hope that fear will do the rest of the job of crippling your enemy. The way to defeat terrorism is to not be terrified . T…

"You are a tiny band of nutjobs. You can't kill us all. You can't even kill .00001% of us."

If we're talking about the US population, then 0.0001% is thirty people. They can probably manage that.

However, on your broader point, nouveau-Islamist terrorism differs from more traditional varieties (the IRA et cetera) in that its practitioners are markedly less rational. For them, terrorism isn't a tool which they're applying calmly in the hope of achieving a political goal. Most of them seem to just want to kill infidels, because the existence of people who aren't Muslim makes them angry.

So I don't think the refuse-to-be-terrorized strategy actually works. They don't particularly care whether you're scared of 'em, as long as you die.

(They're not very rational or very nice.)

Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#42

Post by smhinsey »

cema wrote: post #26
smhinsey wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The TSA already seems to be scraping the bottom of the barrel for their screeners. Given the tremendous discrepancy in the number of airports in Israel vs. the United States, how are we supposed to come up with enough people who are as qualified as the ones Israel can handpick for their airports?

The number of airports is consistent with the number of people. But who in his right mind would want to work in TSA if they can find a respected job elsewhere? Israeli screeners, on the other hand, are respected.

To be clear I didn't mean that there are not literally enough people to hire to do the job. I should've been a bit clearer but what I was really getting at was the massive scope and cost of such an agency with staffing requirements like that. We're talking about something on par with or larger than the FBI.

Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#43

Post by hugh3 »

What are folks actually suggesting here? That we go back to the more relaxed pre-9/11 days where you'd go through a metal detector and get your carry-on X-rayed, but it wasn't that big a deal? Or that we actually abolish airport security entirely?

The former seems pretty sensible to me, the latter seems a bit crazy.

I guess the other problem is this: there's no doubt a bunch of Al Qaeda-ish folks sitting around right now plotting how to kill people. A big sudden announcement that "guess what? you won't have to take your shoes off any more" might just give 'em the idea.

Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#44

Post by suking »

brown9-2 wrote: post #34
vaksel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no the power lies with the politicians...it's just too small of an issue for the general public to make it a deciding voting issue. Most people travel once a year(if that) so they don't really care about it

Who elects the politicans? bruce's point is that if the public cared enough, the public could end it.

Corporations elect them, duh.

Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#45

Post by king_jester »

brown9-2 wrote: post #34
vaksel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no the power lies with the politicians...it's just too small of an issue for the general public to make it a deciding voting issue. Most people travel once a year(if that) so they don't really care about it

Who elects the politicans? bruce's point is that if the public cared enough, the public could end it.

This is true, but the current electoral system in the US isn't very responsive to public input. First past the post voting systems will tend to two parties, which makes voter opinion less effective since election winners will not have to form a multi-party coalition. This means that politicians and lobbyists can use wedge issues to divide voter attention and reduce the effectiveness of voter choice.

Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#46

Post by widget »

brown9-2 wrote: post #34
vaksel wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no the power lies with the politicians...it's just too small of an issue for the general public to make it a deciding voting issue. Most people travel once a year(if that) so they don't really care about it

Who elects the politicans? bruce's point is that if the public cared enough, the public could end it.

Sadly, I don't think there's any way to make the public really care about this. For one thing, it's a sufficiently rare pain in the ass that virtually no one worries about what the latest nonsense from the TSA is on a day to day basis.

I also suspect many people actually do believe it makes us safer. Many others probably don't care one way or another, but if a politician were to seriously attempt to end the TSA, they would be branded as soft on terror so fast their head would spin.

Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#47

Post by bdunbar »

seabee wrote: post #31
bdunbar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to me competitive pressures would lead private firms to do exactly what the TSA is doing i.e. give the appearance of being serious about security. In the marketplace competitive pressure leads to better service, not worse. LASIK has gone from a novelty for the rich to a treatment everyone can afford, for example. Possibly counter examples exist, but I can't think of any offhand. Perhaps after I've had my mornin…

I think you're missing that enforcement by government inspection tends to go against the "unrestricted free market" ideal, that customers will vote with their feet and not patronize unsafe businesses. (In reality customers are never that well informed to make such a decision.)

In theory an unrestricted free market is nice, in reality unworkable. The role of the State is provide ground rules and regulation of the market.

A prudent State recognizes such a thing works best with a light hand, of course.

Customers need not be un-informed on safety issues. There are many, many organizations that provide such information to consumers - think Consumer Reports, Ralph Nader and so on.

Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#49

Post by owenmarshall »

swombat wrote: post #17
iwwr wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What constitutes a 'dangerous person'? There is already an extensive no-fly list in place, which incidentally is secret and gives people no avenue for appeal if they have been wrongly put on it.

Israeli airports use extensive profiling to identify potential suicide bombers, from car checkpoints away from the airport to airport staff instructed to look people in the eye and ask them how they're doing (people about to blow themselves up tend to act differently from normal people). They definitely seem to focus on identifying people rather than things. Seems to work ok for them under much harsher conditions tha…

Israel has one major international airport, Ben Gurion. It serves ~12 million passengers a year.

That's two months of traffic for Hartsfield-Jackson.

The Israeli security model will not scale.

Re: Time to Close the Security Theater

#50

Post by bh42222 »

white_devil wrote: post #38
bruce511 wrote: post #10

The power to end the TSA lies with the public. The responsibility to end the TSA lies with the public. The public need to make enough fuss, so the media reports the fuss, so that more public become aware of the issue. The key points to identify; a) The TSA does not make flying safe. The FAA makes flying safe. The TSA allegedly keeps bombs off planes but going by their press releases they've never actually done this.…

The power to end the TSA lies with the public. The responsibility to end the TSA lies with the public. The public need to make enough fuss, so the media reports the fuss, so that more public become aware of the issue. Really? Just like the power and responsibility to prevent Greece from imposing further utterly useless austerity measures on its citizens lies with the Greek public? The riot police would beg to differ.…

Just like the power and responsibility to prevent Greece from imposing further utterly useless austerity measures on its citizens lies with the Greek public? The riot police would beg to differ.

Oh come on, Greece is not North Korea.

Do you really think the Greek government could push anything through if more then two thirds of the population was violently against it?

Yes, the clashes with police look spectacular but what percentage of the electorate is out on the streets?

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