FliesWay2Much

Kippie stepped in it a few years ago when he set rules in place for his declaration that, "ID matters." Active uniformed service and federal civil servants tried to present CACs to Blacklight Bobs and Bettys who denied them because one or more of Kippie's criteria were not visible on the CAC. Under pressure from the DOD and the media, he relented.

Back on the main topic, here are a couple of thoughts:

1. Congress very rarely legislates specific operational criteria to federal agencies. When they take this step, it's a sign that they view a federal agency as so broken that Congress has to step in and become the program manager. When Congress becomes the program manager, they are worse than the executive branch managers. Telling an agency which programs are canceled and which are mandatory is one thing; telling the TSA who can be a "trusted traveler" is way down in the weeds.

2. Along the theme of Congress being a bad program manager, here are some unanswered questions in their bill:

• Only on official business? How about the same GI on leave? Are they suddenly not trusted because they are taking some time off?
• Will the TSA demand to review a copy of the GI's travel orders to verify they are on official travel? How will they determine that they are real? (You KNOW they will do this!)
• How do you define "family member?" Do they have to possess a dependent ID card? Do they have to live with the GI? How about family members traveling alone to a military hospital in Germany to see their active duty family member who was wounded?
• How about reserve, Guard, and retired members possessing the same CAC -- and THEIR familily members?

3. Given that Congress has taken this decision away from Pissy and left him with a lot of open issues, it will be up to the TSA to figure all this out. It will not end well.

4. The TSA will have no problem completely blowing off the 6-month suspense. From June onward, the focus will be on the election and nobody will care.

cestmoi123

If we really were using "risk-based screening," then active duty members of the military would be screened _more_ intensively than the population on the whole, not less.

1.45MM active duty military.
Number who have committed terrorist acts in the US since 2000: 1

Total US population (non-military): 328MM
Number who have committed or attempted terrorist acts in the US since 2000: 21 (including 9/11, shoe bomber, underwear bomber)

So, if we're purely being "risk-based," active duty military are 10x more likely to attempt a terrorist act than a random sample of civilians in the US.

The real message of this is that the % of people who have attempted succeeded at terrorist acts is so vanishingly small that the resources being deployed to stop them are wildly disproportiate to the actual threat.

goalie

Agreed

Then they need to have orders or other official documentation stating just that so if there is an alarm, it can be properly resolved as opposed to some TSO thinking he just made "the big catch"

jkhuggins

Because, of course, we see how well it works right now when passengers present documentation to TSOs regarding passenger disabilities, or TSA's own policies on permitted items, or TSA's list of approved identity documents, or ...

N965VJ

That's similar to airline employees transiting the checkpoint in uniform to avoid the War On Water, Scope 'N Grope, etc. and then changing into civilian clothes in a sterile area restroom because they're non-reving.

dd992emo

A camo bag in South Mississippi??? Could belong to any redneck who spends 3 hours sitting in a tree waiting for an unsuspecting deer to walk into a baited feeding area so he can blow it away and say he went "hunting"...

alanR

How do you verify those orders or other official documentation are real?

RadioGirl

They shine a black light on it, don't they?

What they're creating is a setup for a TDC accusing an active serviceman/woman of buying their uniform at a surplus store and forging their documents. Just watch them turn a procedure meant to improve things for the military turn into a way to humiliate them further.

But fundamentally, I agree that this is simply another divide-and-conquer technique. Stop hassling pilots and flight crew, and they stop complaining. Stop hassling (some) FF elites and they stop complaining. This is more of the same. As N965VJ said, everyone should go through the same (sensible) screening.

KDHawaii

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/p...oops-/575633/1

Don't get me wrong. I strongly support for the troops who were/are fighting for our country and others but why do they get special treatments at airport screening? That isn't right. You never know troops might smuggle illegal substance, weapons, or drugs .

MAMOHT

Divide et impera - Divide and rule (Julius Caesar)
One of the oldest tricks in the book. Create different entitlement groups and manipulate them any way you want.

xolinlevh

While I support our troops, they are human also and aren't all good. Just in the past few years there was the guy who shot up fort hood, the squad going off killing civilians in Afghanistan, among others. I don't feel l like devising a blanket pass for an entire group seems like a hugely bad idea.....

jkhuggins

TSA says "identity matters". If identity really matters, one would think that members of the military, who have already been screened by our government and are trusted enough to defend us in times of war, would be trusted enough to pass through a TSA checkpoint without hassle.

Of course, it's not clear that identity really matters when it comes to security.

peachfront

You trust these guys to be properly trained to fire automatic weapons at people in time of war but you don't think they should get special treatment at airport security? Why do you think "it isn't right" to give them some special treatment? I don't see the purpose of hassling a soldier to untie all those heavy boot laces so I agree to allow them some special privileges. They'll still be screened for weapons/drugs. Not even the guy piloting the plane gets to skip the line altogether. All they're talking about is to put the soldiers at the head of the line and allow them to keep their shoes on, based on the article you linked. Can you really object to that?

clrankin

I object to giving anybody special treatment - especially if it means allowing them to cut to the front of the line. Doing so implies an inequality among citizens, a special status granted upon them for no reason whatsoever.

If airlines and private businesses want to do this, that's one thing - and I support it there. If our government wants to do this, that's an entirely different matter. It violates the premise that all citizens should be treated as equals.

And for the record, I'd object to a government giving them special treatment under pretty much any other conditions as well. We don't allow people to line jump at the voting booth, at the DMV, at the post office... why should it be any different here? The answer is simple: it shouldn't.

I support our troops as much as you or anyone else, and believe that the equality of treatment bestowed upon us by our country's founding principles should apply in all situations controlled by the government.

KDHawaii

I agree with Drankin. We are HUMAN BEINGS. They(gov't) should treat us equally. The gov't should not give troops special treatments just because they're soldiers/troops. If the gov't give troops special treatment, why can't we get it? Also Like Drankin said, we don't allow ANYONE to line jump at the voting booth, grocery store, DMV, or register for classes.