Apparently racist profiling still has some critics in and around DC.

The way the financial favors are done is by targeted recruitment of relatives/friends/sex partners of relevant significant political, bureaucratic and military players. Those relatives/friends/partners' career/contract opportunities and their compensation packages seem to somehow or another eventually get adjusted for the favors delivered.

That's why some say it's necessary to follow the money -- not just the money to those in an official decision-making/-influencing position but also the money that goes to the favorite individuals of the decision-making/-influencing person(s).

Does TSA ever conduct a cost-benefit analysis?

Does Congress pay attention to GAO reports?

I suspect that if DHS OIG did a complete program review of TSA from top to bottom the headline would read:

DHS IG: TSA is useless
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Or DHS IG is toothless perhaps?

While this (SPOT) is not an epiphany to most of us, the question is how much effect will this revelation have.

What is none, Alex.

You know, they(the TSA management) actually might. We may just be assuming a different ratio to that analysis than what the TSA is aiming. How else could they implement such a majority of rules/practices with nearly the inverse of the desired outcome of this analysis?!

Another prime example: dumping the HHMD, that only finds metal and finds it very effectively, quickly, and is fairly cheap and replacing it with the assaulting grope-down, which finds everything, even skin, is very expensive and slow. The HHMD and gropedown can be exchanged with WTMD and nude scanner with the same results.

This comes as no surprise to anybody, outside of the AFS'ers!

This reminds me of the science experiment in science 101. Mix water, salt, wood chips and metal shavings, then develop a method to separate them. I can just imagine the system the TSA would come up with to do this, millions of dollars and the end result would be a jar with all of the above plus some new elements added somehow.

gsoltso has as part of his signature the following: "What part of "I can't talk about the BDO program" are you not getting?".

I think I better understand the meaning of the statement now. We all know it is extremely hard to talk about something that makes absolutely no sense.

I like gsoltso, but I agree. This is a total waste of tax dollars.

Of course they do. For example:

"If I buy this piece of equipment, how much will the contractor's contributions benefit my campaign? If I don't buy it, how many votes will the lack of funds cost me?"

Mike

I have seen it work. The problem is that it is not a universally known, tangible process and those that are not educated about it dont understand how it works or why. TSA did gather stats on it in the early years. I dont believe those were ever published. Has it been misused? Probably, just like the police abuse radar for traffic enforcement. And lets not forget to take into account the interviews might not have been answered by those employees that are most versed in PC answers.

"I have seen it work."

Even a blind squirrel finds the occasional acorn.

Wouldn't matter, as Wally Bird said above. Congress and the GAO and even the DHS IG have been fulminating about TSA's stupid, costly, untested policies and procedures for years, but unless they cut the comforting flow of $$$$$$$$, TSA will just ignore them. And Congress doesn't have the courage to cut the funding.
And I can turn straw into gold. It doesn't matter that centuries of conventional science say it's impossible, I've seen it happen. It's not a universally known tangible process and those that are not educated about it don't understand how it works or why.

I could tell you about it, but, ya know, it's RGSSI.

A person was able to sell me an elephant repelling rock for my backyard. I was skeptical initially, but sure enough, no elephants.

I don't know how, but it seems to work.

That's weird because all the actual science about it says that it doesn't really work. Even the Israeli's say that it's marginal as a field activity and that they have to have people with actual degrees in psych & CogSci and the like along with constant training to get even vaguely reasonable results. I wish it wasn't SSI so that TSA could tell us how it works so well for them with their high school grads with their ~20 hours of training.

So is the TSA the only agency that understands SPOT and believe that it works? It appears that it is, based upon comments from TSA personnel, and nobody else understands it. Incredible for a government agency that was only formed 12 years ago!

It has 'worked' to detect folks with outstanding warrants and fake IDs.

It has not 'worked' to detect someone who posed a threat to aviation security - which is what TSA is supposed to be focused on.

eyecue, you know as well as I do that if SPOT had been responsible for detecting a single te**orist threat, we would have heard about it. Neither Nappy nor Pistole could have kept it quiet - nor would they have wanted to. They would have used it as justification for doubling down on the program.