TSA Privatization Returns Airport Security to a Dangerous Past • Hacker News Board

Re: TSA Privatization Returns Airport Security to a Dangerous Past

#11

Post by dcrazy » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 4:00 PM UTC

general1465 wrote: post #10

In Europe you have often private companies like G4S as a security with police doing only supervision and passport control.

Speaking of Europe, when the topic of airport security comes up I often think about how many European countries use the gendarmerie for public security. We explicitly do not have any such thing here in the U.S., so we wind up with all of these fragmented police forces like ICE with varying degrees of heavy arms.

Re: TSA Privatization Returns Airport Security to a Dangerous Past

#12

Post by josefritzishere » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC

we're taking security theatre and giving it to profiteers. That's awful.

Re: TSA Privatization Returns Airport Security to a Dangerous Past

#13

Post by tmaly » Mon, Aug 03, 2026, 7:48 PM UTC

W3cUYxYwmXb5c wrote: post #5

The TSA has always been taxpayer-funded security theater, and routinely fails at it's own job. Airports and Airliners should be paying for their own security.

I think I would prefer more accountability, if a private firm can do that, than I see no issue.

Re: TSA Privatization Returns Airport Security to a Dangerous Past

#14

Post by Zigurd » Tue, Aug 04, 2026, 12:29 PM UTC

W3cUYxYwmXb5c wrote: post #5

The TSA has always been taxpayer-funded security theater, and routinely fails at it's own job. Airports and Airliners should be paying for their own security.

This is the key insight: it's not a question of better or worse security. Airport screening doesn't enhance security. This can even be experimentally measured. Bottles of liquid get screened reliably while weapons don't get detected because it's rare for a weapon to pass through the baggage screening machine. The correct response to a lose lose situation like that is to minimize the cost and friction until someday it's announced that a magical technology can do mass walk-through "screenings," and we can stop paying the shampoo bottle screeners.