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TSA: Fail

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Re: TSA: Fail

#61

Post by smsm42 »

afterburner wrote: post #25

"I am stunned, quite frankly, that the same people who fought against the Patriot Act because it was invasive and violated privacy rights have not howled about this invasion of personal privacy rights." Say what? I see the same people railing against both, all the time.

Definitely not all of them. A lot of left politicians raised a living hell about Patriot Act while Bush was in power, but shut up and silently agreed with its extensions and never raised their voice agains TSA and such once Obama came to power. Some were more principled, but I definitely not seeing the same fuss in the same places about it as there was when the people who are now in power were in opposition.

Re: TSA: Fail

#62

Post by smsm42 »

verelo wrote: post #9

As someone who travels regularly and is not an American, I've had nothing but frustrations generated by the "TSA". Initially it caused me to unfairly assume all Americans are like TSA agents (i know this isn't true, but i guess its just my human bias). A few things that frustrate me: - They are not friendly, have a real attitude problem and treat you as if you are guilty before proven innocent. You are the face of th…

Actually, it is a fact that as a visitor you have almost no rights towards US border agents. Well, of course they could not murder you or anything like that, but they can search any of your belongings and your person without any reason and any suspicion of actual crime, can refuse your entry on their sole discretion, can detain you if something looks wrong to them, etc. etc. I'm pretty sure though it's the same in other countries.

And why would TSA agents care about TSA reputation? They are just a hired clerks, and their pay is not that spectacular, and they get very little respect for what they are doing, and for many of them that job is just a step towards a better federal job. I'm not saying that to justify them - it was their choice to go for this job and stay on it - but it is what it is. TSA is a bunch of semi-professional clerks following instructions which they by now must know do not really contribute much to anything and they by now must also know many of the people they meet on the job every day are either disgusted by what they are doing or consider them useless and annoying. It's very hard to be happy doing such job, and even harder to find as many people as needed to do it and be happy about it. So no wonder you meet some unhappy ones, it's a natural consequence of TSA being TSA.

Re: TSA: Fail

#63

Post by noonespecial »

Carried to its logical end, TSA policy would have to require passengers to travel naked or handcuffed.

I always just assumed that sooner or later they'd start issuing us some sort of jumpsuits and we wouldn't be allowed to fly in "street clothes". Sadly that sounds almost reasonable in this climate. Or at least no less reasonable than some of the other stuff they do.

Re: TSA: Fail

#64

Post by BigTigger »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #57

As this terrific article says in many different ways: the TSA is a fundamentally flawed institution. It's an example of something that anybody who has spent too much on consultants will recognize: if you have money, there are people who will gladly say they will solve a problem, even if the problem doesn't make sense and there is no solution. It's like that old demotivator image says about consulting "if you're not p…

Great post, I do however much prefer the quote,

"If you can see the light at the end of the tunnel, order more tunnel"

Re: TSA: Fail

#65

Post by georgieporgie »

pyre wrote: post #51
richardlblair wrote: post #36

True Story: A friend of mine was traveling through various airports in the states. He had accidentally left his pencil bag in his back pack which had a pair of scissors in it. The scissors were over the length allowed on a plaine (Something like 4" is considered safe.) He went through 2 security checks in the states, and boarded planes with these scissors in his back pack. It wasn't until he went through a simple, sm…

At the same time, a couple of years ago they gave me a HUGE hassle over a fucking snow globe. Even going so far as telling me that I had to ship it because it was banned from checked luggage.

I wish I could remember the source where someone determined the most confiscated items by looking at the government auctions. The TSA likes to issue self-promoting press releases like, "we confiscated over 300,000 prohibited items last year," but it turns out they're primarily bottled water, snow globes, and Swiss Army knives.

Incidentally, states sell confiscated items at auction.

Re: TSA: Fail

#66

Post by verelo »

[deleted] wrote: post #58
verelo wrote: post #9

As someone who travels regularly and is not an American, I've had nothing but frustrations generated by the "TSA". Initially it caused me to unfairly assume all Americans are like TSA agents (i know this isn't true, but i guess its just my human bias). A few things that frustrate me: - They are not friendly, have a real attitude problem and treat you as if you are guilty before proven innocent. You are the face of th…

[deleted]

I appreciate your assumption that Americans are everywhere and impossible to avoid, but it wasn't the case for me. I'm Australian, my first ever encounter with an American in real life (aka not CNN or the Simpsons) was during a flight from Sydney Australia to LAX in 2005. The 30 second interruption you referenced was not the case for me, i was held up for about 20 minutes while they searched my everything and quizzed me on why I was in the US (I was in transit headed to Canada)

These days i travel regularly, as I mentioned and you pointed out. At that time (in 2005) i had never had the pleasure of talking to a TSA guard, nor any American for any more than 30 seconds. I've been Star Alliance Gold (blah blah blah...) for several years now, but it doesn't change the fact that my first ever face to face conversation with an American was in 2005 at LAX airport. It wasn't fun, i felt a bit frustrated at the end...what more can i say? I'm an honest person, i was new to international travel...they treated me like i had something to hide (which made me feel like i actually did have something to hide)

I don't think all Americans are like TSA guards (like i said that was an unfair impression from that 20 minute encounter during that first time in the US) and clearly you don't either. I have had good encounters with the TSA here and there, even one who smiled once...but clearly the up votes tell a story that I'm not going to try re-create in this block of text.

Re: TSA: Fail

#67

Post by smsm42 »

tnuc wrote: post #3

I disagree, he missed a vital point. TSA: Success The worlds most expensive security theater. Making you feel safer for your troubles.

I'm not feeling safe. When I'm talking to Israeli security who actually try to evaluate who I am and if I'm dangerous, I feel safer. When I meet TSA agent that grabs my ass because his instructions says he has to do that to everybody, I don't feel safer. I feel I just participated in idiotic spectacle. I also get reminded that as a taxpayer I am paying a capable healthy person to spend his day touching other people's asses because instructions say so, when he could actually be earning a honest living instead doing something productive. Feeling safer is never even nearly there.

Re: TSA: Fail

#68

Post by orblivion »

"I am, as I have said before, a political conservative, a law and order kind of guy and I get misty when the national anthem is played at a football game and jets fly over in salute. If anything, I am pre-disposed to support the United States government."

This doesn't sit quite right with me. I could be wrong but I don't imagine a conservative would fancy themselves a "supporter of the United States government." That sounds more like, right or wrong, what a liberal thinks of a conservative (and what a conservative thinks of a liberal, for that matter).

Supporter of "the troops" or "the nation" sure, but "the government" seems a bit off.

Re: TSA: Fail

#69

Post by [deleted] »

orblivion wrote: post #68

"I am, as I have said before, a political conservative, a law and order kind of guy and I get misty when the national anthem is played at a football game and jets fly over in salute. If anything, I am pre-disposed to support the United States government." This doesn't sit quite right with me. I could be wrong but I don't imagine a conservative would fancy themselves a "supporter of the United States government." That…

[deleted]

Re: TSA: Fail

#70

Post by glenra »

nagrom wrote: post #54
ot wrote: post #23

I don't really buy the argument "TSA has never [...] foiled a terrorist plot or stopped an attack on an airliner.": it could be argued that the TSA measures act as an effective deterrent. A stronger argument could be to show that in none of the countries that do not adopt TSA-like measures there have been any terrorist attempts, let alone successful. How easy would it be to board in, say, Mexico or Canada, and hijack…

There are body scanners in Europe. I went through one at Schiphol on the way to Washington last week. And I didn't see any sign there to tell me that I could opt for a pat-down, whereas there are screens to tell you that in Washington on the way back.

The scanners we have in the US are using radiation. Some of the scanners used in Europe are using sound waves instead. (I noticed this because I always opt out of the radiation ones.)
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