Originally Posted by
LuvAirFrance
Interesting topic. If it is true that TSA is not needed, problem solved. But as long as some people think their hijinks are worth the money, particular problems like this will be myriad.
The problem with that premise is that TSA actually IS needed. It's a foregone conclusion that air travel does actually require some sort of a consistent, national security policy.
It had been a major complaint for years prior to 9/11 that airport security was different everywhere you went. Rules changed, procedures changed, and there was no way to know what to expect at an airport you'd never visited before.
One of TSAs mandates when it was formed was to make those security procedures consistent and and logical nation-wide. In theory, TSA should be making air travel easier and more efficient by standardizing procedures throughout the US, giving air travelers a solid idea of exactly what to expect at any airport and the ability to properly prepare for getting through security, even if they are not experienced travelers.
In reality, TSA has been inconsistent due to poor training, reactionary policies, low hiring standards, draconian, nearly fascist attitudes toward the traveling public, and perhaps even corruption. Travelers have little idea what to expect, because poorly trained TSOs make things up as they go. Security is frustratingly slow, and yet has upwards of a 70% failure rate in internal tests. And policies handed down by upper management are blatant violations of the 4th Amendment, but those who actually make the laws - Congress - have given them a blank check and rubber-stamped any outrageous thing TSA puts into place, solely in the name of some illusory sense of security.
In short, TSAs existence is not the problem. Neither is the fact that TSA hates books. The real problem is that TSA is an incompetent agency that can't tell books from plastic explosives, has an institutionalized belief that anything it does is perfectly okay and legal as long as they claim it's for safety, and looks at the traveling public as criminal suspects rather than those whom they are charged with protecting.
TSA will stop hating books, and doing the other illegal and despicable things they do, when the upper management is swept clean and replaced with people who have a clear understanding of both the agency's true mandates, and the limits placed upon it by the US Constitution.