Who actually supports the TSA? Everything from the Huffington Post to the Drudge Report slams them relentlessly.
Talk to people who fly once a year, or less. They’ll tell you, “anything to make us safe,” as if the TSA were a thin blue line between us and those hordes of Al Qaeda just itching to hijack your flight. The whole ‘be afraid’ thing works.
Not sure I’d agree with that. Not EVERYONE, certainly. I fly once (maybe twice) a year, generally for vacation, and I think the TSA circus is one of the single most ridiculous things I’ve seen in my lifetime.
I think the only people who think the TSA is any good are people who effectively don’t fly at all.
I don’t fly at all and I think the TSA is a terrible waste of money that provides no additional safety.
To get an equal level of security and deterrent that the TSA now provides, each airport could have hired someone to wear a suit, sunglasses and an ear piece. They would stand in a well visible but “obviously totally trying to look inconspicuous” location near the security check point and occasionally put their hand to their ear and whisper to themselves. Perhaps say things like, “Hawaiian shirt. Got eyes on. Over.” randomly picking articles of clothing that describe at least two people in line.
It’s the FUD attack to keep the fear factor up. Money is not an issue, if it is then we’ll print more! Nothing will stop funding for “national and world security”. (haliburton, big oil, big business).
The “X-Ray” peek-a-boo scanners that people hate so much will be removed from US airports because the contractor was unable to write software that would obfuscate the naughty bits.
I bet you some enterprising adult store buys one surplus as a novelty. Unless the govenment puts them straight into the trash.
They’re “moving them to other departments”.
I admit I’m still puzzled as all heck to why they’re using backscatter devices, when millimetre radar devices also do the job AND don’t irradiate people (or have /any/ known health effects)
Because government contracts and congressmen’s pockets.
After the backscatter x-ray machines are removed, they’ll switch over to 100% millimeter-wave. There’s some speculation (maybe from the Washington Post?) that concerns over radiation are the real reason the machines are being pulled.
Well, at least one of the remaining contractors still uses backscatter machines, and they’re moving the machines to other departments, not retiring them.
The TSA will now begin allowing small penknives.
Still can’t carry on that bottle of lotion or water though.
You can’t carry it on if it has a molded grip?
Huh?
Man, I wouldn’t even attempt it. Good luck. Knitting needles and safety scissors are supposed to be allowed too, and my wife has had both of those things confiscated. Had a crochet hook taken one time. Had an expensive little tub of hair product confiscated because it was more than 3 oz, despite being neither gel nor liquid and in fact about as solid as a bar of soap. In my experience they can publish all the rules they want; whether or not something gets through is down to the particular TSA agent’s mood and intelligence.
Security in the Tokyo airport literally had a ruler and measured my wife’s sewing scissors when we passed through. I think it was something like half a cm too long, and the security person was clearly very conflicted about whether to allow us to keep them. We were in a hurry, so my wife just let them have them.
Passing through a mainland Chinese airport (I forget which one), a security guard looked at my bottle of contact lens solution and decided it had over 3 oz in it. His solution was to make me pour a couple ounces out of the bottle into the trashcan located nearby, apparently for just that purpose. That was one of the weirder things I’ve seen in an airport security line.
See, this makes my head explode. On the one hand, I have no problem with knives being carried on board, we did it safely for decades. On the other hand, out of all the horrible things the TSA has banned, intruded, searched, and generally fucked up, the first thing they decide to allow on ARE FUCKING BOXCUTTERS THAT STARTED THIS WHOLE MESS! Granted you’ll have to shop around for a bit to find one that uses 1/2 inch wide blades and doesn’t lock, but come on, people.
Can we get a Secretary of Irony at DHS, ffs?
Anyway, you can argue that the same trick will never work again, and you’d be right, but that’s a pretty subtle point when we’re talking about the TSA. I’d much rather not have to do the shoe and belt dance than carry on a knife.
My 9 year old didn’t have to take his shoes off. My 12 year old did. Couldn’t they have just switched shoes? I also went through that backspatter whateverthefuck the thing is. I have no idea if my family got xray levels of radiation from it, but I wasn’t comfortable. Of course being the obedient sheep I went through it without a word.
Did your kids? I don’t care if the TSA person sees my dick, but I do have a problem if they see my kids’ stuff.
I’ll take any step back towards sane security measures that I can get.
It’s not so much that a “box cutter trick” won’t work any more, and more like hijacking is not the major concern. No passenger-plane full of people is going to allow themselves to be hijacked by people with small hand-to-hand weapons today. In 2000 those people would have figured that someone hijacking a plane meant an unscheduled stop in Cuba or whatever; an exciting/scary inconvenience in their lives. Today a hijacking (at least in the West) means almost certain death.
So the security theater rightly concentrates on detecting explosives and toxins. You could argue (and I would agree) that their current methods are inefficient and waste huge amounts of money and national productivity for practically no return, but at least the things that they are trying to detect are the ones that are the most worrisome.