boatseller

Unfotunately, this is the biggest obstacle. With the Federal Government responsible, essentially no one is accountable and, more importantly, no one is liable.

MDtR-Chicago

This thread reminded me... I'm seriously becoming worried about how this AIT bunk is decreasing airport security.

I'm not worried about highly advanced terrorists who can successfully hide a non-metallic explosive. The handful of people with the knowledge, ability, and willingness to do something like that is infinitesimal. (And they have non-checkpoint security gaps they can exploit much more easily anyway.)

I'm personally concerned about some deranged nutjob who decides to go on a shooting rampage because he's mad at the government, or someone in particular, or everyone.

Which is why I want a checkpoint that can detect a gun or a traditional bomb that nutjob would bring to the airplane!

Instead, we have increasing use of machines and patdowns that do not work.

So now, the only real threat I'm facing on a plane - some idiot who is going to shoot it up or try to take it down with what he makes in his garage or buys at wal-mart - has a great chance of getting his weapon onto the plane!

And this is how I know Mica is only posturing. If he really cared about airline security, he'd be rallying Congress around this threat. He sees the screening performance numbers and knows they are pathetic. And yet, he barks for the cameras, and then disappears.

BearX220

Hey, there's about 432 members of Congress you should be going after on this issue before you assail John Mica. Most of those cowards (including my whole congressional delegation: Patty Murray, Maria Cantwell, Jay Inslee) have remained completely silent while the Constitution gets shredded by TSA, because they're petrified of blowback if there's another terror incident. At least Mica has the stones to level public criticism. Pick your targets better.

MDtR-Chicago

Eh. He's had a year to rally his colleagues on AIT and much longer on TSA in general. I'm not impressed. Stand up for him if you want but he's had plenty of time to go after this if he really does care.

GUWonder

If he were to do that, the House leadership (in his party but also in the opposing party) will can(e) him in some form or another and he'll find himself on something like the Committee to Investigate Kitty Litter instead of his current "leadership" position. Even if there happened to be no grounds to pursue on the basis of "felony" or "breach of the peace".

I have noticed that swabbing passenger hands (for ETD purposes) has been ramped up tremendously at some airports, and it is part of "continuing/continuous screening" for those who go into an WTMD that alarms even when there is no metal on the passenger sufficient to alarm the WTMD at the TSA's "standard" level for detecting metal.

RatherBeOnATrain

Why would a "deranged nutjob" attempt to get their weapon(s) past the security checkpoint when they could simply attack the people queued up at the checkpoint?

jkhuggins

Being an expert on "deranged nutjobs" ...

It's a matter of choosing your target. Bringing down an airplane, while much more unlikely, has the potential for harming many more people (both in the aircraft and on the ground) than might be queued up at a checkpoint.

BearX220

A tightly packed pre-security snakeline at peak traffic times has hundreds of people in it, so I dispute that. And if you wanted to throw the country into a self-lacerating tizzy with a massacre that was a direct result of TSA policy -- it's snail-paced TSA screening procedures that force people to stand densely packed and totally vulnerable, shuffling along, for 10 , 20, 30 minutes -- you couldn't do much better than shooting up or blowing up a security queue. (I was stuck in one last week at LAX T3 that would have been a big, fat target with hundreds of sitting ducks with no means of escape. Anyone could run in right off the drop-off curb and start shooting; you'd have dozens of casualties in about three seconds, and it's TSA's idea to force pax to queue directly in front of the terminal doors.) Because TSA is always fighting the last war, you'd prompt security checkpoints to be moved to airport terminal doors or even perimeter border-crossing-style cordons. There would be billions in stupid post-hoc expenditures.

WillCAD

Do the airlines really want TSA to stay the way it is? They are taking a lot of heat from the traveling public who is sick and tired of TSA's antics; I wonder if the airlines wouldn't rather have TSA eviscerated, just as we would.

That's true, but the potential is much smaller than a bombing in a crowded area.

Criminals tend to choose targets of opportunity; make a target just a little harder than the one next door, and the one next door will have the break-in. I suspect that, despite assertions to the contrary by people who watch too many movies, terrorists generally follow the same modus operandi as any other criminal - they mostly choose targets based on a balance of diffuclty, risk, and reward. OBL, of course, was the big exception to this, as he had some personal burr under his saddle regarding the WTC.

So, while there are still plenty of whack-jobs out there willing to jump through whatever hoops it may take to attack a plane in mid-air, my greatest fears are that some of the wack-jobs may actually grow a brain and start targeting the fattest, juiciest targets of opportunity, like shopping malls, public transportation, and sporting events (just as they have done many times in other parts of the world).

And that will be the death-knell of freedom of assembly, freedom of association, and even the gauzy pretense of freedom from unreasonable search and seizure that we currently enjoy.

mahohmei

This has been discussed elsewhere on TS&S, and I've been quite surprised by it. I'd think that airlines would love to see the elimination of the TSA and airport security restored to exactly the way it was before 9/11, with the exception of hardened cockpit doors and policies to resist hijackers. I didn't even like flying before 9/11, but should this security reversion ever happen, I've joked about taking a "celebratory flight".

Apparently, the airlines love the TSA:

- Revenue protection from TSOs making sure the ticket purchaser is the only one who goes through the checkpoint (and again at the gate, if the TSOs are bored). They even go so far as to verbally discipline GAs who don't notice undercover TSOs sneak through.

- Airport security funded by taxpayers and "fees" on tickets; airlines don't have to pay the airports.

- If there is ever an actual security incident on an aircraft, the airlines get to blame the TSA.

- Theft of or from checked baggage can be blamed on the TSA.

- Barely-functioning intercity rail and not an inch of high-speed rail == audience with no choice.

I can barely understand the logic.

Customer on phone: "I was trying to visit your office today, but a security guard wouldn't let me in unless he got to search my purse, steal my iPad, and force his fingers into my vulva."

Me: "The building owner makes all the decisions about security; I'm just a tenant. I have no control over the actions of the security guard; you have to follow his orders. Do you want to get consulting today?"

Customer: *click*

Janus

Actually... It is. Congress cannot reveal (nor de-classify) classified information. And they can be sent to jail and kicked out of office if they do so. Congress does create the laws that determine what information is and isn’t classified. Granted, I doubt this particular Rep was around when those laws were passed, otherwise this whole "sorry, can’t tell you, classified" act would be an overly convenient excuse.

KDS

Based on the replies I've received from my primary airline when I've complained about its lack of opposition to TSA outlandishness, I'd say the airlines are quite happy with the current setup.

GUWonder

Congress can reveal classified information -- whether it should or not, whether it is lawful or not, that depends on a variety of things. [It has before, repeatedly at that, revealed classified information, with the irony being that those with Executive service affiliation remain unable to go on the open record to legally confirm the specifics about the revelations which have taken place.]

Since Congress has the power to make laws and to establish or eliminate penalties for a variety of things, it also has the de facto power to de-classify classified information too. I expect we'd have yet more fights heading to the federal courts if it were to fully exercise such power under explicit Congressional action.

WillCAD

Do their responses indicate "happy"? Or do they simply indicate that the airlines are not unhappy enough to push for change, out of either fear of reprisals, fear of bad press, fear of customer migration, or whatever else they may fear?

Could be either. Or both.

mahohmei

You still have plenty of people who would rather be "felt up than blown up" or "radiated than blown up". We need to stop calling this a security vs. privacy debate, since security simply is not being provided.