Welcome to America's permanent big government state. This is a prime example of excessive government bureaucracy, and it demonstrates how inefficient and wasteful many of these govt. programs are but exist anyway to keep politicians happy. The only reason TSA is getting called out for its unnecessary bloat is because the public despises what they do.
The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
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Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#32HN has quite an anti-TSA bias. The TSA has problems, but so does every large organization. I suspect HN'ers glare at the TSA because they travel frequently, and it would benefit them disproportionately to cut down on travel time and inconvenience. This is like the trucking lobby arguing for fewer restrictions on driver safety--the perspective is not exactly objective.
That. Or, perhaps, the TSA is objectively awful. Tell you what. Post an article that sings the praises of the TSA and I'll upvote it. Then we can have a discussion about bias.
A fair point. I spent only about 30 seconds on this, but found: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4943959, "Surprise Gallup Poll: People Think TSA Does A Good Job". This is a poor article: it's merely reporting on a public poll of the TSA. I didn't expect the public to be so approving; I expected views of TSA to be like views on taxes: they're necessary, but everybody still hates them. But perhaps the public is so scared of terrorists on planes that the TSA is comforting to them.
It's not a report on TSA efficacy, but I didn't look for one; such a report is would not be worth much due to the difficulty of proving a negative: the TSA's objective is not to find 100% of contraband, but to prevent terrorist attacks. There have been no terrorist attacks (excepting the shoe bomber, but there have been no shoe attacks since shoes started to be inspected), but does that prove the TSA is effective? Hard to say.
EDIT: I submitted two more articles: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4944165 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4944163
Still no upvotes, though.
Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#33Why do people accept this reality when talking about the TSA, but not other government agencies? All government agencies are like this, especially the Federal ones.
The TSA is more actively harmful to the freedoms we (supposedly) cherish, and is a strong push towards a surveillance society and a police state. Many other agencies are equally unproductive (or actually do something useful, just in a very inefficient manner), but not actively working against something we care about.
Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#34So the TSA is like some kind of rogue AI just "tryin' to survive" - except that unlike an AI, it's incredibly stupid on a massive scale. Doesn't bode well for our chances of fighting a real intelligent AI when it finally creeps up on us.
Why fight it? I for one embrace our AI overlord, maybe we can finally have the philosopher king we need.
Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#35Link to cut through the blogspam to actual Govt Accountability Office report:
Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#36I paid extra to not fly though the US. I encourage other North Americans who can to avoid it to do similarly.
Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#37HN has quite an anti-TSA bias. The TSA has problems, but so does every large organization. I suspect HN'ers glare at the TSA because they travel frequently, and it would benefit them disproportionately to cut down on travel time and inconvenience. This is like the trucking lobby arguing for fewer restrictions on driver safety--the perspective is not exactly objective.
So if those who see the problem can't bring it up, who can? Martin Luther King didn't exactly have an objective perspective either when he campaigned for civil rights reform?
Extreme example, yes, but change is brought about by passion, not waiting for some grey blob of objectivity to decide you're right, and passion is rarely objective.
Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#38HN has quite an anti-TSA bias. The TSA has problems, but so does every large organization. I suspect HN'ers glare at the TSA because they travel frequently, and it would benefit them disproportionately to cut down on travel time and inconvenience. This is like the trucking lobby arguing for fewer restrictions on driver safety--the perspective is not exactly objective.
I'd say that the Cato/Reason brand of Libertarian bias against Federal institutions is pretty irrelevant to how terrible the TSA is in practice. The problem isn't so much the criticism of the organization but the solutions put forth (break the unions, privatization = more secure inherently, etc.)
Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#39HN has quite an anti-TSA bias. The TSA has problems, but so does every large organization. I suspect HN'ers glare at the TSA because they travel frequently, and it would benefit them disproportionately to cut down on travel time and inconvenience. This is like the trucking lobby arguing for fewer restrictions on driver safety--the perspective is not exactly objective.
The difference is that there is no objective evidence that the TSA's airport security checkpoints benefit anyone; there is more evidence that the checkpoints actually put us in danger. There is also the matter of having my tax dollars poured into such a dubious program while simultaneously being siphoned away from non-secretive programs that benefit everyone.
Actually, there is some evidence of benefit: there has not been a successful terrorist attack on a US commercial aircraft since the TSA was formed.
Is that evidence good enough to say that the TSA is effective? Not really; terrorist attacks could have declined for other reasons.
The only way to be sure of the effectiveness of the TSA would be to keep relaxing TSA restrictions until a terrorist successfully attacks a plane, and then ratchet them back up to the minimum point necessary to prevent it again. Will they do that? No. So, the only alternative is to over-protect to some degree.
For example, should we still screen checked baggage for bombs? There have been no luggage bombings since Lockerbie, so maybe they're not necessary anymore. These checks are certainly expensive. I think the answer is obviously yes, because such an attack is "too damn easy."
However, it's terribly difficult to draw the line when things get less obvious, because the odds of an attack increase as the difficulty of such an attack decreases. How many plane bombings would there be if all you had to do was click on a link in a web browser? A hundred thousand (or the population of Gaza). Now what if it required an hour of work to be successful? Tens of thousands. A week? Hundreds. A month? Tens. When will it drop to zero? Hard to say.
Re: The TSA's True Focus Isn't Safety - It's Self-Preservation
#40While the TSA is messed up and all that, Americans shouldn't be too quick to turn to private companies. Private companies would be profit focused, this means that any way to minimise costs will be taken which may compromise security. I give you Blackwater in Iraq as a good example
You trust a private corporation to strap you to a flying hunk of metal, but not to ensure your safety? Sounds logical..
I do not trust a mercenary police force, no. I trust private engineers to certify a plane's operation.
Besides that as the poster above you mentioned, Blackwater is what happens when you trust the worst sorts of persons to protect the nation.