Airport Security Is Killing Us

I opt-out of the x-ray scanner every single time, and so should you. It really doesn't take much longer to go through the process. Show up 3 minutes earlier if you have to. You're rushing to the gate, for what? To sit there longer? Boarding with the crowds is stressful anyways. The most relaxed way to board is at the very end -- there's no more line, I just walk right into the plane, most people are seated, and just grab my seat. Why would you want to maximize the time spent sitting, especially on a cramped plane? I understand the situation is different if you really want your carry-on bag to stow above you.

If everyone opted out, the program would be scrapped. You can tell me about how the scanners give harmless amounts of radiation, but I don't really care. You have to stand for your principles. In this situation, a government contractor forced more security theater upon a country, with the only benefit of the entire charade going to their bottom line. Nobody is safer, an entire mode of transport has a new bottleneck, a government agency has expanded and is emboldened and now wants even broader jurisdiction, and as the article states, people are driving more and dying.

If we don't stand up and push back now, things will only get worse. More invasive, more annoying, more useless, more dangerous. And not an inch gained against the stated purpose of deterring terrorist attacks.

What is the answer though? Can you imagine a politician running under a "massively downsize the TSA" banner? Would any existing Washington elected official take up the cause?

They can't even repeal the comically silly shoe removal procedure (unless you're under 12 or over 75, because no terr'ist would ever foot kerplode those demographic stereotypes).

This is so NOT relevant at HackerNews. Why do you guys think other 'hackers' would be interested in such news? Can't they find newspapers on their own?

Is not the presence of upvotes an indication that it IS relevant?

Someone else did an analysis of airline travel and highway travel and came up with a similar finding. Blow up one plane per month over the continental US and flying would still be two orders of magnitude safer than driving or riding in an automobile over your lifespan.

There's no proof that TSA is making things any safer either. No one will ever pull another fast one on the passengers of a plane again. We all know that the planes themselves are weapons, so I'm pretty sure most passengers will go down fighting if terrorists try to take control of the cockpit.

This is precisely why it's called security theater.