Originally Posted by
chollie
I think it's pretty obvious that we can vent here and on other forums, but nothing is going to change with TSA. It's too big to stop and the culture is too ingrained and there are too many people making a lot of money off the way things are now.
The point of the dogs is not to pre-clear pax for expedited screening, thus reducing congestion and the security threat it presents. It's solely to prevent another Brussels - and another job to promote TSOs to, where they get a pay rise but also reduce the working checkpoint staff by a headcount.
Another Brussels cannot be prevented when TSA security lines are two + hours long. An attack against the land side of any airport will likely have some success unless you have an armed forced in place, ready to fire and in doing that you almost guarantee that some innocent person(s) will be mistaken for a terrorist and be fired upon at some point.
We can harden airports and other transportation centers that eventually we will be under complete government control bringing use to a slow crawl and then a terrorist will just shift focus to the next target.
There is risk in everything we do and I do not believe that we can remove all risk from out lives. There comes a point when increasing security steps and trying to lower risk become too much and I think we are very near that point today where TSA is concerned.
What is the real risk of a terrorist attack against commercial aviation in comparison to the risk one faces by driving a personal vehicle to the airport? Would anyone be willing to put in place extensive safeguards that would reduce that risk for their personal vehicles?
Reasonable security steps can and should be taken but at some point those steps become burdensome and unnecessary. I think the Whole body Imagers, shoes, belts, and LGA restrictions are examples of security steps that are just not necessary.