stimpy

My mind is spinning...

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000....html?mod=e2tw

We were saying the same things here 10 years ago.

mbstone

Obviously someone has given Kippie the Flowers for Algernon treatment and he is no longer an Idiot, at least for now. Will it wear off?

davewho??

Here's hoping for a change. Fingers crossed.

GUWonder

There is some common sense there but there is also some nonsense there too.

WChou

Meanwhile, in another part of town..........


I am a bit suspicious though. The sudden backtracking makes me think Kippy has some hidden agenda.

chollie

+1

A monster, taxpayer-funded open-ended 'consulting' contract with Accenture? A contract that will result in the same 'recommendations' Kippie just outlined, recommendations that were allegedly stymied by the overwhelming weight of the bureaucracy in his time and will undoubtedly meet the same fate again?

Perhaps he'd like to name names and tell us who 'owns' or could provide the 'small software change' that could allow liquids through screening. I'm sure he has no financial stake, right?

WillCAD

There is nothing hidden about it - he's selling a book that he wrote. The book, of course, is a "here's what's wrong with the Establishment and how I would fix it" treatise, which always sells well. I'm sure the royalties are keeping him in First Class seats whenever HE flies anywhere. Were the book all about how great TSA is and how everything they're doing is just right, it wouldn't sell.

I don't know if he believes the stuff he wrote in the article, but some of it - not all - makes sense and would be a real improvement to air travel security if implemented. But it would require the government to actually give up power, money, and control over a segment of the population - something the US government only does with the knife of public revolt at its throat.

txrus

Clearly Kippie hasn't flown much or he would know very few pax get to 'walk thu a WTMD anymore' as he claimed...

scott523

First thing that comes to mind on this article is all the SSI (wth?). However, this is a good article.

StanSimmons

Can Bruce Schneier sue the Kipster for plagiarism?

Himeno

Comments like "No security agency on earth has the experience and pattern-recognition skills of TSA officers." make me somewhat skeptical about Kip's ability to think.

stimpy

Yes I noticed that too. I'm flying out of LHR tomorrow. Maybe I should print out the article and show it to one of the supervisors there.

IslandBased

Maybe that was the few carefully chosen ones that Kippy was allowed to observe.

greentips

"If you're a frequent traveler, you probably hate us."

And a master of understatement:

". . .it is a national embarrassment that our airport security system remains so hopelessly bureaucratic and disconnected from the people whom it is meant to protect."

And a realist:

"The crux of the problem, as I learned in my years at the helm, is our wrongheaded approach to risk. In attempting to eliminate all risk from flying, we have made air travel an unending nightmare for U.S. passengers and visitors. . ."

"But I readily acknowledge my share of failures as well. I arrived in 2005 with naive notions of wrangling the organization into shape, only to discover the power of the TSA's bureaucratic momentum and political pressures."


If he truly believes what he said, then I hope he has some influence, but he also points out that the TSA is a failed bureaucratic buffoon answerable only to itself, without clear vision of its mission and its goals.

amejr999

What he fails to mention is that he was head of TSA for several years, and could have made all these changes if he wanted to.