Lawmakers Threaten TSA with Private Screeners
Jan 17, 2014, 3:33 pm
#46
Join Date: Aug 2012
Posts: 3,526
I agree with most of your points. However, I do think one needs to be in possession of a valid ID to fly. I for sure would not want to be on a plane without people who can properly ID themselves.
Instead of going back to old metal detectors, I would speed up development of new technology. Scanners you can walk through without separating yourself from your bags or items would save a lot of trouble. Its not a matter of IF such technology will be available, but WHEN.
Instead of going back to old metal detectors, I would speed up development of new technology. Scanners you can walk through without separating yourself from your bags or items would save a lot of trouble. Its not a matter of IF such technology will be available, but WHEN.
Jan 17, 2014, 3:40 pm
#47
Join Date: Jan 2010
Programs: UA 1K, Marriott-Gold
Posts: 621
But I think we both can agree it would make it more difficult for a terrorist to forge a new identity than not to. There is no possible way to 100% make sure nobody who shouldn't be onboard an aircraft isn't, but I think if we need an ID to drive to the grocery store, we should ID the people going on a plane. It takes two seconds to check for ID's I think its worth the trouble.
Jan 17, 2014, 4:21 pm
#48
Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 223
They might have, and you are absolutely right that is always a possibility.
But I think we both can agree it would make it more difficult for a terrorist to forge a new identity than not to. There is no possible way to 100% make sure nobody who shouldn't be onboard an aircraft isn't, but I think if we need an ID to drive to the grocery store, we should ID the people going on a plane. It takes two seconds to check for ID's I think its worth the trouble.
But I think we both can agree it would make it more difficult for a terrorist to forge a new identity than not to. There is no possible way to 100% make sure nobody who shouldn't be onboard an aircraft isn't, but I think if we need an ID to drive to the grocery store, we should ID the people going on a plane. It takes two seconds to check for ID's I think its worth the trouble.
Jan 17, 2014, 4:51 pm
#49
Join Date: Jan 2010
Programs: UA 1K, Marriott-Gold
Posts: 621
If you think its wise to drive without a drivers license/and or insurance... go ahead.
Jan 17, 2014, 7:26 pm
#50
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
Yep, this a fine example if I've ever seen one. No dragons have attacked any commercial airlines since 9/11, it must have been that magic "Anti-Dragon" spell I cast many years ago. I honestly wonder how someone can post that with a straight face.
Think about it this way. How many terrorist attempts have the TSA actually thwarted? Did all of the terrorist just suddenly disappear? Are they so terrified of the crack blue shirts that they don't even bother trying? Is the current Al Qaeda #2 sitting in his cave saying "I wish I could launch another major attack against the Great Satan, if only if it were not for that dastardly TSA and their body scanners".
Think about it this way. How many terrorist attempts have the TSA actually thwarted? Did all of the terrorist just suddenly disappear? Are they so terrified of the crack blue shirts that they don't even bother trying? Is the current Al Qaeda #2 sitting in his cave saying "I wish I could launch another major attack against the Great Satan, if only if it were not for that dastardly TSA and their body scanners".
Jan 17, 2014, 7:28 pm
#51
Join Date: May 2009
Location: LGA, JFK
Posts: 1,018
It should not be "required" for an airline passenger to have an "ID." If the airline is fine with that passenger, so am I.
Jan 17, 2014, 7:34 pm
#52
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Colorado
Programs: TSA
Posts: 2,745
Actually the airports that now use private screeners dispel both of your "issues".
1. The screening equipment at those airports such as SFO are still owned by the TSA and future equipment purchases are funded by the TSA. There is nothing stopping the TSA from owning the equipment and having the staffing of the checkpoints done by a private contractor. This is something done in hundreds if not thousands of federal, state and local government buildings today.
2. Not sure what you're talking about with the respect to the past, but the contract between the private screening company and the TSA or other supervising agency can require the publishing of stats and more importantly specify penalties for not meeting them. This can include customer service metrics, checkpoint throughput requirements and success at "red flag" style testing.
Keeping the screening process internal to the TSA ensures there will be no real accountability for poor performance.
Private companies have proven that the screening process can be more efficient, less expensive and offer the same or better level of security than the TSA doing it themselves.
1. The screening equipment at those airports such as SFO are still owned by the TSA and future equipment purchases are funded by the TSA. There is nothing stopping the TSA from owning the equipment and having the staffing of the checkpoints done by a private contractor. This is something done in hundreds if not thousands of federal, state and local government buildings today.
2. Not sure what you're talking about with the respect to the past, but the contract between the private screening company and the TSA or other supervising agency can require the publishing of stats and more importantly specify penalties for not meeting them. This can include customer service metrics, checkpoint throughput requirements and success at "red flag" style testing.
Keeping the screening process internal to the TSA ensures there will be no real accountability for poor performance.
Private companies have proven that the screening process can be more efficient, less expensive and offer the same or better level of security than the TSA doing it themselves.
Jan 17, 2014, 8:05 pm
#53
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2009
Posts: 16,047
The airport wanted to go private, but it approached the TSA to not go private?
Does the TSA in CO drug test its employees?
Jan 17, 2014, 10:56 pm
#54
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: SYD (perenially), GVA (not in a long time)
Programs: QF PS, EK-Gold, Security Theatre Critic
Posts: 6,790
I don't need an ID to ride in my friend's car to the grocery store, or take a bus to the grocery store, or hire a taxi to the grocery store. Those are the analogs to being a passenger on a plane.
But spare a thought for the international visitors to the US who don't understand what they're being asked. Spare a thought for those with hearing difficulties who don't know what the question was. Spare a thought for poor (fictional) Siobhan Niamh St John Cholmondeley who is going to have a fifteen minute argument with the TSA screener about the pronunciation of her own name. (Shivahn Neeve Sinjin Chumley, in fact.)
And then consider that these people are going to be inconvenienced for more than 2 seconds every time they travel.And it's not really a question of "it only takes two seconds so why not?" If they asked you to drop your trousers right there in the line, if they asked you to hop on one foot and cluck like a chicken, if they asked you the last time you'd been to the doctor, any of those would only take two seconds, too, but they would be unnecessary and inappropriate.
Jan 18, 2014, 3:51 am
#55
Join Date: Oct 2013
Posts: 537
I don't want to sound cynical, but why do I have a nagging feeling that Congressman Mica is just doing this for show (to win votes), while this issue will die a quiet death later and the TSA will just go back to how they've always treated passengers.
Hope I'm wrong, but I don't want to get my hopes up too soon...
Hope I'm wrong, but I don't want to get my hopes up too soon...
Last edited by WindowSeat123; Jan 18, 2014 at 4:11 am
Jan 18, 2014, 5:58 am
#57
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Nashville, TN
Programs: WN Nothing and spending the half million points from too many flights, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 8,043
Read the article. Wish that I had not. Nearly lost my breakfast:
Don't know where to start so I won't.
Now, my analysis.
Just my take.
Screening jobs are tough because the staffers must be constantly alert for contraband while still providing customer service, Hoggan said.
The Nov. 1 shooting death of TSA Officer Gerardo Hernandez at a checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport illustrates the perils involved with the job.
New hires receive 80 hours of training, followed by on-the-job training of 40 hours, plus more training for specific equipment, Hoggan said. In addition, the agency provides integrity and leadership training for supervisors, he said.
"It's a difficult job," Hoggan said. "Customer service is part of the training."
The Nov. 1 shooting death of TSA Officer Gerardo Hernandez at a checkpoint at Los Angeles International Airport illustrates the perils involved with the job.
New hires receive 80 hours of training, followed by on-the-job training of 40 hours, plus more training for specific equipment, Hoggan said. In addition, the agency provides integrity and leadership training for supervisors, he said.
"It's a difficult job," Hoggan said. "Customer service is part of the training."
Now, my analysis.
- TSA is now unionized.
- Public employee unions support Democrats.
- House is Republican, including Rep. John Mica, R-Fla.
- Private screeners may or may not be union, likely not.
- Private, <100% union, better than TSA, 100% union.
Just my take.
Jan 18, 2014, 7:31 am
#58
Join Date: Nov 2010
Location: Baltimore, MD USA
Programs: Southwest Rapid Rewards. Tha... that's about it.
Posts: 4,332
Although I dislike TSA as much as you do, I have to question how you know for sure 100% your "facts".
I mean do you have proof that TSA never stopped a terrorist? They have stopped hundreds of people with guns in their bags, knowingly or not knowingly. How do you know that they were not planning on using those guns once airborne? How do you define "stopping a terrorist"?
I mean do you have proof that TSA never stopped a terrorist? They have stopped hundreds of people with guns in their bags, knowingly or not knowingly. How do you know that they were not planning on using those guns once airborne? How do you define "stopping a terrorist"?
A person or organization makes an assertion. Their assertion must be presumed false until they can present facts to back it up. Even if they can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, like the Big Bang Theory, it can be accepted as probably factual because all of the available facts (background radiation, universal red/blue shift, etc) support it. "We don't know for sure, it MIGHT not have happened that way," is not considered a disproof, or even reasonable doubt.
TSA has never presented any facts of any kind to support an assertion that it has caught a terrorist. In point of fact, the agency itself has never even made an assertion that it has caught a terrorist; only its brainwashed myopic supporters and yes-men have done so, and they have done so only with innuendo and theoreticals.
The fact that something is not impossible does not count as a proof that it HAS happened. It does not even count as reasonable doubt against the assertion that it has NEVER happened.
I say that it has never happened. Here are the facts that I present to support my assertion:
1) TSA has never claimed it happened
2) Nobody else has ever given any first-hand or second-hand or third-hand descriptions of it ever happening
3) Given the response to other terrorist attacks and attempts that have occurred since 9/11 (the shoe bomober, the underwear bomber, the liquids plot, the printer cartridge bombers, and even the LA shooter), and given TSA's reaction to its own "big catch" incidents which don't involve terrorism in any way (drug smugglers, guns and Leatherman tools in luggage), it is highly illogical (delusional, IMHO) to believe that TSA would ever have stopped or caught a terrorist without crowing about it like Peter Pan to every journalist in the world. Unless, of course, the entire incident were classified by some other agency like NSA or CIA or DOD.
If we only knew what? Backup your assertions with facts, or they're BS. They're the TSA equivalent of a 5-year old on a playground screaming "YES MY DADDY IS THE STRONGEST MAN IN THE WORLD! HE BEAT UP KING KONG! HE CAN BEAT UP YOUR DAD!"
Here's some logic for you:
1) You are (you say) an employee of TSA
2) As an employee of TSA, you are a Covered Person and thus contractually bound by SSI regulations
3) By asserting, even in a roundabout way, that TSA has caught terrorists but kept it secret, you are confirming something that you are contractually bound to neither confirm nor deny if it's SSI.
4) By doing so, you have violated your employment agreement and are subject to disciplinary action up to and including termination.
And another:
1) The assertions you make may be SSI, but they may also be a matter of national security and actually classified, as opposed to the BS TSA term SSI.
2) If such information is actually classified, the only way you'd know about it is if you had a security clearance.
3) As a person with clearance, by confirming or denying the existence of such classified information, not to mention making allusions as to the actual content of such information, you are guilty of multiple felonies, and are subject to prosecution as a terrorist yourself.
Now, given the above, and given that no sane person would ever willingly violate national security protocols which could land him in prison, or SSI protocols which could get him fired and perhaps fined heavily, merely to win an argument on a message board which we know for a fact has multiple TSA employees aboard who could report you, I have to doubt your alluded assertion that TSA has ever actually stopped any terrorists or terrorist plots.
Given your rabid support of TSA and TSOs in general, however, I don't have any strong doubts that you actually are a TSO. It's possible you're lying, but since there is no reasonable indication that you are lying, other than the theoretical possibility that you're lying, I'd going to accept your assertion that you're a TSA employee on its face.
Which means you're either lying about TSA catching terrorists, or you're guilty of a termination-level offense by breaking SSI protocols. Or, you're guilty of multiple felonies by openly confirming the existence of, and alluding as to the content of, classified material.
Good luck in your next job review.
Last edited by WillCAD; Jan 18, 2014 at 7:37 am
Jan 18, 2014, 10:30 am
#59
Join Date: Jan 2010
Programs: UA 1K, Marriott-Gold
Posts: 621
It's simple logic.
A person or organization makes an assertion. Their assertion must be presumed false until they can present facts to back it up. Even if they can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, like the Big Bang Theory, it can be accepted as probably factual because all of the available facts (background radiation, universal red/blue shift, etc) support it. "We don't know for sure, it MIGHT not have happened that way," is not considered a disproof, or even reasonable doubt.
TSA has never presented any facts of any kind to support an assertion that it has caught a terrorist. In point of fact, the agency itself has never even made an assertion that it has caught a terrorist; only its brainwashed myopic supporters and yes-men have done so, and they have done so only with innuendo and theoreticals.
The fact that something is not impossible does not count as a proof that it HAS happened. It does not even count as reasonable doubt against the assertion that it has NEVER happened.
I say that it has never happened. Here are the facts that I present to support my assertion:
1) TSA has never claimed it happened
2) Nobody else has ever given any first-hand or second-hand or third-hand descriptions of it ever happening
3) Given the response to other terrorist attacks and attempts that have occurred since 9/11 (the shoe bomober, the underwear bomber, the liquids plot, the printer cartridge bombers, and even the LA shooter), and given TSA's reaction to its own "big catch" incidents which don't involve terrorism in any way (drug smugglers, guns and Leatherman tools in luggage), it is highly illogical (delusional, IMHO) to believe that TSA would ever have stopped or caught a terrorist without crowing about it like Peter Pan to every journalist in the world. Unless, of course, the entire incident were classified by some other agency like NSA or CIA or DOD.
A person or organization makes an assertion. Their assertion must be presumed false until they can present facts to back it up. Even if they can't prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, like the Big Bang Theory, it can be accepted as probably factual because all of the available facts (background radiation, universal red/blue shift, etc) support it. "We don't know for sure, it MIGHT not have happened that way," is not considered a disproof, or even reasonable doubt.
TSA has never presented any facts of any kind to support an assertion that it has caught a terrorist. In point of fact, the agency itself has never even made an assertion that it has caught a terrorist; only its brainwashed myopic supporters and yes-men have done so, and they have done so only with innuendo and theoreticals.
The fact that something is not impossible does not count as a proof that it HAS happened. It does not even count as reasonable doubt against the assertion that it has NEVER happened.
I say that it has never happened. Here are the facts that I present to support my assertion:
1) TSA has never claimed it happened
2) Nobody else has ever given any first-hand or second-hand or third-hand descriptions of it ever happening
3) Given the response to other terrorist attacks and attempts that have occurred since 9/11 (the shoe bomober, the underwear bomber, the liquids plot, the printer cartridge bombers, and even the LA shooter), and given TSA's reaction to its own "big catch" incidents which don't involve terrorism in any way (drug smugglers, guns and Leatherman tools in luggage), it is highly illogical (delusional, IMHO) to believe that TSA would ever have stopped or caught a terrorist without crowing about it like Peter Pan to every journalist in the world. Unless, of course, the entire incident were classified by some other agency like NSA or CIA or DOD.
In your last sentence you are finally getting to my point... but not before you had to call me delusional.
Does CIA boost about their operations? Almost never. NSA? Never. Homeland Security? Rarely. Where are your facts that TSA would boost about their operations? You know the facts you claim like so much.
I dislike TSA's way of operating as much as the next guy, but to go around saying they never improved safety in the air, is just silly, and I am glad you finally realized that during your last sentence, that we would never know for sure.
Jan 18, 2014, 1:47 pm
#60
Join Date: Mar 2011
Posts: 471
Knew what? That the TSA is even more useless than we could ever imagine? I'm sure you're counting all of the nail clippers and bottled water taken away as "Thwarting terrorist plots". If the TSA actually caught a true terrorist John Pistole would be on every new channel dancing a jig and demanding billions in new funding as a reward.