Earlier quoted context omitted.
Israel's population is less than 7.5 million people.
People don't fly into Israel now? :)
No. Only planes and missles.
Time to Close the Security Theater
61–70 of 79 posts
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Wow, I should've looked at that, that is stunning, considering that the FBI actually regularly solves crimes. I imagine if you paid what it really cost to have screeners with that level of training we'd be talking about a pretty hefty increase over the FBI. Mind boggling.
But where is the other $47 billion going to? It is not the FBI's or CIA's budget. [edit] Probably to ICE for government provided IP protection and enforcement without due process.
The DHS is huge now. It covers everything from stuff like ICE to the Coast Guard. If you ask me, TSA is the tip of the DHS iceberg. The whole thing is suspect, top to bottom, and probably ought to be scrapped and done over.
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#63The problem with airport security in America is that they search for "Dangerous Items", not "Dangerous People". A dangerous person is allowed on an American flight if he/she doesn't have any dangerous items with him. In my opinion, a motivated group of guys could take a plane hostage with nothing but car keys, ju jitsu and some creative thinking. I'm not saying searching for the dangerous person is superior to search…
NOT TRUE!
They also try to identify dangerous people. That is what the TSA "no-fly" list is all about. The fact that it worked so poorly is evidence that trying to identify dangerous people has been even less effective than identifying dangerous things, and has a greater impact on civil liberties.
Furthermore your opinion about what a small group of dangerous people can do is over-inflated. FAA regulations mandate a locked pilot cabin during flight. This lock is strong enough that an unarmed man, no matter how motivated, should be unable to get into the cockpit. This does not make breaching the cockpit impossible, but it makes it harder. Particularly since, following the initial attacks on 9/11, on multiple occasions it has been demonstrated that people on airplanes will take extraordinary risks to subdue attempted terrorists.
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Your argument: Your site serves 20'000 users a month. There are more than a billion potential internet users in the world. Your site will not scale. Everything scales if you put the effort into it. Ok, maybe some things don't, but saying "The Israeli security model will not scale" just because it hasn't scaled, without providing further arguments, is a bit like saying "Rails doesn't scale" without providing further a…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airpor...
I'm saying that requiring a face to face interaction with every person about to board an airplane in an American airport would be unreasonably expensive and introduce massive delays.
I won't deny that it works well in a country with a very high risk of terrorist incidents and a low amount of air traffic.
The US, however, flies 633 million people per year, and is at a much lower risk for terrorist attack.
You've got to pick the right solution for the right problem. Israeli security isn't it.
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your argument: Your site serves 20'000 users a month. There are more than a billion potential internet users in the world. Your site will not scale. Everything scales if you put the effort into it. Ok, maybe some things don't, but saying "The Israeli security model will not scale" just because it hasn't scaled, without providing further arguments, is a bit like saying "Rails doesn't scale" without providing further a…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airpor... I'm saying that requiring a face to face interaction with every person about to board an airplane in an American airport would be unreasonably expensive and introduce massive delays. I won't deny that it works well in a country with a very high risk of terrorist incidents and a low amount of air traffic. The US, however, flies 633 million people per year…
Devil's Advocate: There already is a face to face interaction, though; right before you get into the checkpoint, when they check your ID and ticket. Adding an extra 30 seconds on to have a bit more interaction wouldn't slow things down much - in a crowded airport, it often takes more than 30 seconds to get past there anyways, and in an empty airport where things are already going quickly an extra 30 seconds won't matter much.
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Gurion_International_Airpor... I'm saying that requiring a face to face interaction with every person about to board an airplane in an American airport would be unreasonably expensive and introduce massive delays. I won't deny that it works well in a country with a very high risk of terrorist incidents and a low amount of air traffic. The US, however, flies 633 million people per year…
Devil's Advocate: There already is a face to face interaction, though; right before you get into the checkpoint, when they check your ID and ticket. Adding an extra 30 seconds on to have a bit more interaction wouldn't slow things down much - in a crowded airport, it often takes more than 30 seconds to get past there anyways, and in an empty airport where things are already going quickly an extra 30 seconds won't mat…
You could be correct. At the end of the day, we may be able to make the Israeli model work. But the question most people don't seem to ask or answer: should we?
IMO, there have been exactly two positive security advances post-9/11: you can't barge into the cockpit anymore, and everyone in the air knows to resist attempts to hijack the plane.
Adding more air marshals, creating the draconian TSA, forbidding liquids on flights -- it's not worth the time or money.
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#67What 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…
I think you completely missed the point. The TSA is, at best, plugging a few holes in a sieve. Any non-retarded terrorist could setup attacks. Un-plugging those few holes by reforming the TSA would free resources badly needed elsewhere and not change actual risks a iota.
Y'see, this is where the argument turns into hyperbole. Airport security does, in fact, make it much harder to carry out an attack on a plane.
Maybe you can sneak a blade through, but you're not getting on board with a gun. Maybe you can stick forty grams of plastic explosive up your butt, but you're not getting on board with a bag full of TNT. The 9/11 hijackers used shitty weapons because it was all they could get on board -- they changed the rules, and now they're stuck with even shittier weapons. The shoe bomb was a crappy bomb, and the underpants bomb was even crappier.
Now, if your point is that a terrorist would have to be stupid to even try to attack an aeroplane when so many other opportunities for killing folks exist... then you'd be right. But that's exactly the kind of stupid that terrorists seem to be... they keep on going for the aircraft rather than the crowded music festival. And hey, if they want to keep going for our best-defended rather than our softest targets then I'm not gonna try and talk 'em out of it.
Perhaps the TSA is really a desperate cry of "Oh please don't throw me in that briar patch!"
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pilots and air crew have to go through the TSA theater as well. The only immune people are the high-profile politicians.
Error. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17073-2004Aug...
By 'immune' I mean with an ability for recourse. That benefit is not reserved to mere mortals.
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#69It recently occurred to me that we can see what "appropriate" security measures would be by looking, even within the US, at what security is in place at sites that are not targets of mass hysteria. For example, subways are generally known to be good terrorist targets. What's the security level on subways? In Boston and NY, it's a bunch of signs saying "if you see something, say something" and "we reserve the right in…
Except terrorists aren't any more rational than the general public are (hey, some would argue even less so), and it's the terrorists who keep on trying to target the planes, not the subways, at least in the United States. If there were a series of successful high-casualty subway attacks you'd see insane security on the subway (and let's really hope that doesn't happen).
Besides, you just can't kill that many people on the subway. A single bomb on a 747 can kill 400 people... and with a single gun you could kill thousands. (A knife probably isn't good enough any more since folks will fight back, but with an assault rifle you can probably kill anyone who tries.)
Re: Time to Close the Security Theater
#70Earlier 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…
Your friends can tell you how well their LASIK worked, and how much it cost, as soon as their eyes heal. This allows market forces to do what they do pretty well. Anti-terrorist security measures have neither of these advantages. It's very difficult to find out how much they cost; especially if you include indirect costs to travelers. It's also very difficult to determine how effective they are since, to a first appr…
It's also very difficult to determine how effective they are since, to a first approximation, terrorists attacks don't happen even with lowered security.
This is also a problem with TSA. And we can calculate - roughly - the cost of TSA in delays, wages, missed flights.
A good argument just popped into my brain: we used to run security at airports with either local cops or private companies. This worked, pretty well, except for 9/11.
But everyone was taken by surprise, then.