Originally Posted by exerda
I don't know that the TSA will be blamed for this, but to me, that will be that much more money wasted, because unless we get some proactive instead of reactive policymakers in place, very little of what the money is spent on will do anything to make us safer.
ABSOLUTELY RIGHT.
I've been reading this forum for a few months and this is the point both the TSA apologists/defenders and the reactionary anti's both miss.
The simple reason we have this security mess is
all the branches of our government are scared the next attack will happen on thier watch and they will take the blame for it. So everytime something extraordinary happens a rule or a law is passed to prevent it from ever happening again. Regardless of the long term mess it creates. Short term thinking is a downside of free and frequent elections
Hire a bunch of poorly paid and trained cop rejects (or wannabes) to man the gates. Give them absolutely no discretion in following contradictory rules, then do nothing when the screening procedures annoy (harass is too strong a word in my opinion, reactionaries don't read further just start flaming now) the flying public.
Airport security is not there to catch hijackers. It's there to deter them and is probably doing a good job of it. Face it, the other side of the poor guy gets whisked to jail for the forgotten about pen knife but bad guys aren't getting caught story is the fact that real bad guys are not trying any more. The chance of getting caught is just too great. BTW it does'nt excuse the times the TSA DOES let something potentially dangerous through because it means a baddy may want to try his luck if the screen is percieved as too pourous.
Ridicuolous (sp?) and opaque screening procedures are not the beginning of the fascist take over of America. It is a scared s***less reaction by beaurucrats (sp?). The left is just as guilty as the right. Chuck Schumer is a strong supporter of CAPPS II and is constantly stumping for more security at NY airports. Hillary too. When have either of them ever been accused of being fascist. When did Ted Kennedy try to bring sanity to the management of the No Fly list after his problems. I've heard Ted called many names, including murderer, but never facist. I'm almost 50 and all my life I have been hearing about the beginning of the hijacking of America. This is not it.
The no fly list is very poorly managed, but if done correctly will serve a valuable purpose too. It will stop a baddy from even trying to get on an airplane.
I'm tired of ranting. I think I made my point.
LaGuardiaguy