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TSA: Fail

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Re: TSA: Fail

#81

Post by mbell »

joelmichael wrote: post #31

Does he really think potential terrorists or criminals are going to hijack a plane using toothbrushes or popsicle sticks? The purpose of the TSA is to screen all passengers for real threats like guns, blades, and most of all, bombs. He says there was no outcry over the backscatters. That's just out of touch; it was all over the Internet and even major news media back around November of 2010. Liberals and conservative…

Flew Boston -> New Orleans 2 weeks ago and New Orleans -> Boston last week. They scanned everyone with the back scatter both times.

That is one major international airport (Boston) and one fairly small domestic only airport (New Orleans), both scanned everyone.

Re: TSA: Fail

#82

Post by mbell »

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…

Short of the finger printing they do about the same to Americans returning home. I went to Oktoberfest in Munich several years ago and couldn't believe how easy it was to leave, how easy it was to enter German (they were very nice, took 5 minutes tops), and how much of a pain it was to get back into the US. Apparently 2 mid 20's males returning from Oktoberfest was suspicious and required 20 minutes of backpack searching and questions (not an interrogation by any stretch but still annoying).

Re: TSA: Fail

#83

Post by InclinedPlane »

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…

Keep in mind that there have been attempted attacks that the TSA failed to stop. In every case the TSA proved useless and other forms of security (vigilant passengers especially) saved the day.

Re: TSA: Fail

#84

Post by InclinedPlane »

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…

This happens ALL THE TIME. I accidentally boarded a plane (through SEATAC) in 2007 with this knife in my pocket: http://www.amazon.com/Gerber-45860-Ranger-Serrated-Knife/dp/...

Re: TSA: Fail

#85

Post by sukuriant »

willvarfar wrote: post #10
dsr_ wrote: post #2

TL;DR: Bruce Schneier is still right.

Its natural to read your comment as though the article disagrees with Bruce and you think the article is wrong and Bruce is right. We all know that the article is completely in line with Bruce and he even blogged it: www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/02/fbi_special_age.html Just clearing that up ;)

Erm... I honestly didn't read that from what he said... I thought the article was in agreement with Bruce. Where would someone get the opposite idea?

Re: TSA: Fail

#86

Post by mikeash »

joering2 wrote: post #32
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…

hahaha, love how you throw Rackspace at the end (I deal with them everyday and can say they are top notch!) I hate TSA as much as I do. I hate them more because I can imagine how this show will look in the future (further on this one) > They are not friendly, have a real attitude problem and treat you as if you are guilty before proven innocent I think this is one of those places where presumption of being guilty sho…

"I think this is one of those places where presumption of being guilty should proceed the one of being innocent. Otherwise, would you really care that now its about the time to point a finger that this guy is guilty [for planting a bomb] where your eardrums exploded from sudden cabin decompression and you free-falling into the ocean?"

You don't get to toss out innocent before proven guilty just because you come up with a particularly uncomfortable way to die. The risk of dying from terrorism in the US, with or without the TSA, is incredibly low. It could get ten or a hundred times worse and still not be noticeable next to the ~40,000 road fatalities in this country every year. Why is terrorism so special that it causes people to want to do anything and everything to stop it, while they don't even bat an eye at things that are far more dangerous?

Re: TSA: Fail

#87

Post by jonybluz »

TSA is a resounding success. As a jobs program, that is. What difference does it make whether they stop terrorists or not? The main thing is to create careers out of whole cloth, and photographing people nude is a much more dignified employment than digging holes and filling them in again. If you weren't totally against the working poor, you would see that.

Re: TSA: Fail

#88

Post by WettowelReactor »

mbell wrote: post #82
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…

Short of the finger printing they do about the same to Americans returning home. I went to Oktoberfest in Munich several years ago and couldn't believe how easy it was to leave, how easy it was to enter German (they were very nice, took 5 minutes tops), and how much of a pain it was to get back into the US. Apparently 2 mid 20's males returning from Oktoberfest was suspicious and required 20 minutes of backpack searc…

IANAL but I do not believe you have to answer any questions about your travels as a citizen re-entering the country. It probably worth your while to avoid lengthy delays but they cant deny a U.S. citizen entry into the U.S.

Re: TSA: Fail

#89

Post by richardlblair »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #84
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…

This happens ALL THE TIME. I accidentally boarded a plane (through SEATAC) in 2007 with this knife in my pocket: http://www.amazon.com/Gerber-45860-Ranger-Serrated-Knife/dp/...

With an item like that there is no real excuse for them to miss it. There is no mistaking that as something else. It is clearly a knife. It just proves the whole thing is "Security Theatre".

Re: TSA: Fail

#90

Post by joeyh »

jonhohle wrote: post #55
joelmichael wrote: post #31

Does he really think potential terrorists or criminals are going to hijack a plane using toothbrushes or popsicle sticks? The purpose of the TSA is to screen all passengers for real threats like guns, blades, and most of all, bombs. He says there was no outcry over the backscatters. That's just out of touch; it was all over the Internet and even major news media back around November of 2010. Liberals and conservative…

> have you ever seen one? > > Seems to me that the TSA has changed their backscatter > approach since then. Instead of showing the full images > to security personnel it will do some computational > analysis of the images and then represent any anomalies > on a simple drawing of a human. The people going through > the machine will see the same images the TSA will. Perhaps you don't travel often, but I have not been t…

Major cities probably all have them, but the US has a large number of smaller non-hub airports that feed into the hubs, and I know that at least some don't have them. In fact, I've only experienced them once, at SFO. When traveling TRI -> ATL -> LHR and returning via Detroit this summer, I experienced none.

So if you don't mind spending an extra $150 per trip and running from the far ends of the airport where the feeders dock, you can still avoid the them, at least for now..

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