Here's the problem I see. I had one government job. During the time I worked that job, I remember reforms being suggested. The reaction from the entrenched was "we tried that in xxxx and the idea didn't work out." The simple fact is that any structure being pressed to move out of a comfortable position can easily prove the nonworkability of any idea they don't like. It really takes an outsider who is willing to kick butt and be hated. I saw that person in my job. She came from Honeywell, and there were civil servants who found the mess to be very comfortable who, despite her position as the boss of every manager in the whole division, swore at her to her face. They believed there was no risk in flipping her off. She could so easily have folded her tent, but she was kinda feisty. She had big changes she wanted made, and they couldn't force her out with frustration. So before I left the place, I saw some real differences from the status quo. The biggest one had the finance application go completely online, eliminating about 1.2 million pages printed annually (paper is cheap but the OT for the printing wasn't). It also had the platform changed to Hitachi, with the county selling service to the city.

She saw all this through to success, then she shook the dirt of the place from her heels and moved on to a job where she got the respect she felt she deserved.

Having described all that, I have to ask, who the *beep* is there in TSA structure who even cares that much? To me they are all marching in place, participating in the fiasco of spending billions on "security" and refusing any accountability. As long as the heavyweights in politics don't back them up against a wall, the optimism of some TSO's here seems very naive.

#50

1-30 here.

It is amazing how many of the items from this list apply to the TSA.

To be honest, many failing organizations have this same sickness. "Turnaround specialists" often have the same personality that they don't mind the uproar they cause to wrench an organization out of its ineffectuality.

Yup, and we definitely can't have the TSA going out raping school administrators who have been dead for 200 years.

I disagree, the TSA has been quite successful at finding a uniform company that supplies size xxxxxxxxl pants.

TSA has been "successful". They have succeeded at emulating the Pentagon in wasting billions with the ultimate result being harm to the country and its people. Bravo.

Want me to credit the TSA with success? Here's how. TSA's annual budget is $7BN. If that budget were cut in half, the savings would be $3.5BN. That money could provide (very good) health insurance to roughly 200k people (at $17.5k/year). If you make the very conservative assumption that having health insurance will mean than 1 in 200 of those people won't die that year, that's 1000 lives saved. That's 8 flights. Mark it down for the cost of the airplanes themselves, you're looking at maybe 5 flights.

So, unless you can argue that cutting TSA's budget in half would result in five more planes a year being destroyed in terrorist attacks, it's not a good use of our tax dollars.

The more crap the agency piles on, the more frustrating it is for passengers and the more likely it is to become so complex as to fail. Instead of coming up with a better mousetrap, the agency continues to add more mousetraps to the floor to the point there is more danger to those folks that are legitimately there than there is to the mice. At some point, the mice still get the cheese, and the people get none.

The recent stories out of Denver are prime examples. Confiscating insulin puts the passenger at risk of death. Yet nothing, but nothing, is accomplished to increase security.

You'll find me supporting risk-based screening as long as the agency does it right. Unfortunately, the TSA's track record for doing things right is lacking.

+1,000

^^

Reality is often difficult to absorb, so I understand your comment, completely.

He has no �Need to Know�. If you had a security clearance you would understand the meaning of the phrase.

Not one bit. I am just as friendly to them as they have always been to me. Each �relationship� last on the average about 15 seconds. That also has not changed.

Its not the TSO�s who are telling you this, it is the nationally recognized experts in the field that are. Yet folks here refuse to believe them because of some half-baked agenda. People are going to believe what they wish to believe, regardless of the facts.

Well said. ^

An interesting point. ^

Worthy? No. But that person, by wearing the uniform and performing their assigned duties has shown a willingness to put their own personal life on the line for the citizens of this nation, and do so in a very public manner. Before entering the military they are given background checks, much is known about them, and then they are given positions of trust and usually prove that that trust is well placed. But even the military misses things, as Major Hasan has shown us, so we screen active duty military even in uniform. Maybe not to the extent that we do the standard passenger, but then again by their service they are proving that they can be trusted.

He and I are two of the dissenting voices in this forum and we are ignored or marginalized constantly. Could not the same thing be said for those who post here and are of the same mind as yourself?

The 'trusted traveller' program offers nothing to folks physically unable to assume and hold the position in the NoS. Those folks will continue to undergo invasive gropes every time they are 'randomly' selected for the NoS or the WTMD is not in use.

You know, I really dislike the words 'trusted traveller', particularly since they come from an agency whose distortion and abuse of the English language is second to none.

genitals = 'resistance' = 'sensitive areas'

grope = 'patdown but with a sliding motion'

fool = one who volunteers personal information to TSA in hopes of a less invasive screening knowing TSA lies = 'trusted traveller'.

This isn't about TSA 'trusting' pax - that will never happen (hey, there's no money in it). This is about pax foolishly 'trusting' TSA to behave with integrity for once.

Back from your BDO training already?

Exactly what is a "Standard Passenger"?

That's SSI.

BTW, that has to be one of the silliest things I've read.

I'm not going to run numbers, but we've had a couple guys in the US military who apparently served their country well until they didn't. I don't know what percentage of active military folks that is.

Now, how many acts of terrorism have been committed by non-military US citizens - you know, grandmas with wet diapers, little kids, pregnant women, elderly WWI vets in wheelchairs.... What percentage of the population is that?

So statistically the active military person is less likely than a member of the general, non-military population?

Right.