Is there an opt-out for this? What if you just refuse -- can they deny you boarding, and is that legal?
Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
121–130 of 130 posts
Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#122If the TSA was shutdown entirely leading to terrorists blew up 10 planes a year in the US, flying would still be as safe as it was in the 1960s. http://www.sfgate.com/nation/article/U-S-commercial-airlines...
For those w/o a working knowledge of 1960s air safety; are you saying removing the TSA would make us safer, less safe or simply that we tolerated the same level of safety w/o TSA 50ish years ago?
I'm not advocating removing the TSA entirely, just pointing out that we are paying a heavy price for a likely small benefit.
Locking the cabin door virtually eliminated the threat of turning jetliners into terrorist weapons at a tiny cost. But on top of that we've cost the country maybe a trillion dollars in excessive and invasive security procedures to prevent planes from being blown up. The TSA is only one part of those costs, longer travel times, reduced travel and lost liberties are a big part of it.
The value to terrorists blowing up an airliner is relatively small, there are far easier and cheaper ways to kill a few hundred people to make a political statement.
So my real question is, if we reduced spending on airport security, and reduced the level of security significantly so that we shaved 15 mins on average off every trip, would it be worth accepting a plane being blown up every few years?
Every year the US has nearly 1 billion trips by air. If you value travelers time at $20/hour, saving 15 minutes per trip directly saves nearly $5B a year. If the cost of saving those 15 minutes per trip is 50 lives per year, we are valuing each of those lives at $100m each. That seems incrediably excessive to me. Of course this is just a rough estimate, run your own numbers but it's hard to imagine the costs get down to a barely reasonable $10M per life level.
and remember that doesn't include the cost of the TSA or the cost of flights not taken.
Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Oh interesting. I am curious is the experience of the privatized screening any better? Or is the amount of humiliation, infantilizing and browbeating of regular honest people about the same as the non-privatized TSA? There was big uproar about privatizing the TSA about a year ago when the time spent in lines was growing even more excessive. That narrative about privatizing seemed to go dark. Is the Kansas City Airpor…
Yes; I live in KC. The ones in MCI are polite, as opposed to Baltimore where they strut around barking orders. Of course MCI had a distributed security and gates, so they are smaller and thus quieter.
Yeah I think the distributed security has a lot to do with customer satisfaction. The horseshoe design is really efficient for plane parking and the drop/pickup. Unfortunately, it's terrible for logistics like transfers :/
Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes; I live in KC. The ones in MCI are polite, as opposed to Baltimore where they strut around barking orders. Of course MCI had a distributed security and gates, so they are smaller and thus quieter.
Yeah I think the distributed security has a lot to do with customer satisfaction. The horseshoe design is really efficient for plane parking and the drop/pickup. Unfortunately, it's terrible for logistics like transfers :/
I think it's the best airport in the country. I can get from plane to car in 3 minutes. But yes, transferring airlines would be a pain, though flights on the same airline are usually within the same security zone.
Unfortunately the KC politicians keep scheming to build a new one. Fortunately the population wants to keep it.
Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#125Wasn't there a scene in one of the recent Bond movies where a huge pile of cash had been treated in some kind of chemical that turned it into a bomb?
The World is Not Enough is the movie you're thinking of. From 1999, if you want to call that recent; going back 18 of the 55 years of Bond movies.
that's right. I was thinking it was one of the Daniel Craig films. In my defense I remembered the explosion was at MI6 and MI6 blows up twice under Daniel Craig's watch...
Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those w/o a working knowledge of 1960s air safety; are you saying removing the TSA would make us safer, less safe or simply that we tolerated the same level of safety w/o TSA 50ish years ago?
I'm not advocating removing the TSA entirely, just pointing out that we are paying a heavy price for a likely small benefit. Locking the cabin door virtually eliminated the threat of turning jetliners into terrorist weapons at a tiny cost. But on top of that we've cost the country maybe a trillion dollars in excessive and invasive security procedures to prevent planes from being blown up. The TSA is only one part of…
The TSA doesn't just exist to stop terrorism. Also if the US didn't screen passengers, many other nations likely wouldn't accept flights originating from it.
How are you assessing the value of a human life?
Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#127Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Notebooks, stacks of paper, and note cards are usually pretty clearly detected by whatever software they're using to help highlight items How do you know the problem isn't that the software flags dangerous items as paper incorrectly (which I think is the mostly likely problem here)? I doubt you've seen the X-ray image of someone smuggling nitrocellulose. The software is just using density--if you have an explosive o…
Well, I was more specifically replying to the comment "It is the cellulose in the paper. Blocks of it are homogenous enough that they look similar in density to something dangerous." Every time I've seen it on the scanners here, or the glimpses I've seen at airports last I was in the US, usually it's very clear what you're looking at - books and other paper products are plain to see. If they obfuscate, sure, possibly…
An x-ray only shows density. 2 equally dense objects will look the same regardless of chemical composition.
What you're likely seeing is computer enhanced images, which may be giving you a false sense of the capabilities of x-rays.
There are explosives with densities fairly similar to paper. A block of those explosives, and a block of paper would look very similar on an x-ray.
Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#128I found this, it may or may not be related. The gist is relatively recent research (2011) discussing using x-ray refraction rather than just attenuation and is capable of "creating precise images of the contours of all objects".
A New Generation of X-ray Baggage Scanners Based on a Different Physical Principle www.mdpi.com/1996-1944/4/10/1846/pdf
Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#129Re: Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?
#130Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not advocating removing the TSA entirely, just pointing out that we are paying a heavy price for a likely small benefit. Locking the cabin door virtually eliminated the threat of turning jetliners into terrorist weapons at a tiny cost. But on top of that we've cost the country maybe a trillion dollars in excessive and invasive security procedures to prevent planes from being blown up. The TSA is only one part of…
The TSA doesn't just exist to stop terrorism. Also if the US didn't screen passengers, many other nations likely wouldn't accept flights originating from it. How are you assessing the value of a human life?
I never advocated not screening passengers, just doing it more efficiently even if slightly less effective.
How are you assessing the value of a human life? I don't know of any study has ever gone above $10M.