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2012 Survey: How Effective is the Transportation Security Administration?

2012 Survey: How Effective is the Transportation Security Administration?

Old Aug 15, 2012, 6:04 am
  #46  
 
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My experience is that it is a place by place thing. I fly into the ATL a lot (from MAN, my home airport) and generally, it isn't as bad as I expect it to be. They yell a lot (which leads me to believe that some of the TSA eggheads believe that yelling English makes non-English speakers better understand English) but overall, it's not terrible. Thats how I would describe it: it tends not to be as bad as I expect it to be, particularly when you are faced with large crowds.

Some places are always terrible, in my opinion: JFK, EWR, PHL but those are not particularly good airports anyway. The TSA is simply maintaining the already low standards.

On the other hand, LAS has always been fine with me, and I inevitably fly through CVG, and they are great...largely because that airport is a ghost town these days. It's kind of sad.

On the international side, CDG is a joke, and so is the security there. the UK, which I love (and where I live) has airports so bad they are a national joke. How a world-class city like London could have such a collection of awful airports is beyond me. BRU is not bad....AMS is a great airport with at times awkward but not impolite security.

The worst in my experience (other than Baku, where I had to pay a bribe) are both Moscow airports, but they are bad at everything. The best is SIN, by far, but Changi is the best airport in the world, in my opinion. And China can be a little weird and very arbitrary.

Anyway...good airports tend to get security right, bad airports don't. That's how I see it. As to the efficacy of the whole thing, I just stopped thinking about that long ago. The TSA has an impossible task that they do for the most part reasonably well. The comparisons to Israel are just not reasonable to mel; Israel has such unfortunate security needs that it's difficult to draw many lessons there.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 8:12 am
  #47  
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Good post, Sir. ^

And, when discussing Israeli procedures, I assume they don't have quite the same passenger load to contend with as the USA? And I suspect their employees are rather more committed to the security way of thinking, given their experiences over the last half-century or so?
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 9:08 am
  #48  
 
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

The TSA doesn't actually make us safer, but it makes it feel safer. Also, it wastes money.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 9:15 am
  #49  
 
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater

The TSA doesn't actually make us safer; it just makes us feel safer. Also its a colossal waste of resources.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 9:56 am
  #50  
 
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[QUOTE=dumbinic;19127092 The TSA doesn't actually make us safer; it just makes us feel safer.[/QUOTE]

How so? Sounds like saying that a lot of police on the street makes you feel safe.

Obviously, if a strong police presence is necessary, it must be a very unsafe place/situation.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 10:04 am
  #51  
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So good he had to say it twice …

But but but … "This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can. (January 2009)". Not perhaps the greatest reference for the case.

There is little doubt in my mind that terrorism, in whatever form you choose to define it, has had a fiscal impact across the World. Nor will I deny that some of the dancing around at Airports and Borders that we are ALL subjected to has a questionable impact.

Nevertheless, I have no fear of flying: I know that "things are being done" here, there and everywhere. Whether TSA is a major contributor to that safe feeling, I am not qualified to quantify. Criticising TSA may, indeed, become an Olympic Sport in the future, given the fixation so many US Citizens seem to have with it … perhaps with Baseball, to appease the Media companies?


Personal Note: We flew UK>USA on 24 Sep 01. 9/24, if you must. The BA 744 to IAD was less than half-full, and for the next few weeks around DC people were amazed that we had risked flying to the US at all. How sad.

Suggestion: Grow balls: it's infinitely better than Blogging or writing to your Congressman. Then you just get on with life. It's not that difficult, even for this Senior Citizen. But then the UK doesn't have a written Constitution, giving me 38,284 things to complain about … I just get on with life, or at least what little remains to me.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 11:24 am
  #52  
 
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Originally Posted by Tom Mcneal
My experience is that it is a place by place thing. I fly into the ATL a lot (from MAN, my home airport) and generally, it isn't as bad as I expect it to be.
Indeed, I find MAN (t3) a lot worse.

How a world-class city like London could have such a collection of awful airports is beyond me. BRU is not bad
LHR T5 is great, LGW N isn't bad. LHR T3 + T1 could be better. LCY's main problem is a lack of lounge.

Every time I go through BRU I seem to run into a 15 minute queue.

The worst in my experience (other than Baku, where I had to pay a bribe) are both Moscow airports
I don't have any problems with DME. (Or TLV for that matter).

ISB and DEL are the worst international airports I've been to.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 11:55 am
  #53  
 
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Originally Posted by T8191
So good he had to say it twice …

But but but … "This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. No cleanup reason has been specified. Please help improve this article if you can. (January 2009)". Not perhaps the greatest reference for the case.

There is little doubt in my mind that terrorism, in whatever form you choose to define it, has had a fiscal impact across the World. Nor will I deny that some of the dancing around at Airports and Borders that we are ALL subjected to has a questionable impact.

Nevertheless, I have no fear of flying: I know that "things are being done" here, there and everywhere. Whether TSA is a major contributor to that safe feeling, I am not qualified to quantify. Criticising TSA may, indeed, become an Olympic Sport in the future, given the fixation so many US Citizens seem to have with it … perhaps with Baseball, to appease the Media companies?


Personal Note: We flew UK>USA on 24 Sep 01. 9/24, if you must. The BA 744 to IAD was less than half-full, and for the next few weeks around DC people were amazed that we had risked flying to the US at all. How sad.

Suggestion: Grow balls: it's infinitely better than Blogging or writing to your Congressman. Then you just get on with life. It's not that difficult, even for this Senior Citizen. But then the UK doesn't have a written Constitution, giving me 38,284 things to complain about … I just get on with life, or at least what little remains to me.
I agree with you about growing balls. The risk of dying in a terrorist attack is so remotely low that surrendering freedoms for the infinitesimal increase in security achieved by these measures is incredibly foolish. I personally have been the victim of TSA malfeasance--primarily theft, but also including purposeful destruction of my property. On that occasion, I had gathered photographic evidence of damage, names and contact info of witnesses, details of the event, etc. and was ready to file a complaint when the station chief of US Air at the airport I was at approached me and took me aside to speak off the record. He told me that if I was a very frequent flyer, that my complaint would likely cause me more headache than it was worth because he had personal knowledge of flyers being "blacklisted" for filing legitimate complaints against the TSA. After carefully considering his words, I delayed my filing to sleep on what he had said. The next day, I consulted a friend of mine who was very well placed in ICE (Homeland Security) and asked him if he had heard about this happening. What he told me confirmed the fears of the US Air station chief that I had talked to. Since my livelihood is entirely dependent on my ability to travel freely, I wisely chose not to file my claim. In effect, I was "economically terrorized" by the TSA with no recourse.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 12:16 pm
  #54  
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Oh, well, we end up in the same position.

From the USA's POV, TSA is an enormous infringement of their freedoms, perpetrated by underpaid morons ith the skill-set of an amoeba.

I really must have an intense chat next month, when I'm "over there", with a friend who actually works for TSA. Oh, or is that DHS? No, that might be the other guy. We'll have some interesting chats ... Neither of them are hyper, just long-serving ex-Military professionals in a new career. I will accept that some TSA employees are further down the gene pool ... We have them in UK too. I suspect the pay-scale deters Masters graduates.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 12:26 pm
  #55  
 
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Originally Posted by T8191
Oh, well, we end up in the same position.

From the USA's POV, TSA is an enormous infringement of their freedoms, perpetrated by underpaid morons ith the skill-set of an amoeba.

I really must have an intense chat next month, when I'm "over there", with a friend who actually works for TSA. Oh, or is that DHS? No, that might be the other guy. We'll have some interesting chats ... Neither of them are hyper, just long-serving ex-Military professionals in a new career. I will accept that some TSA employees are further down the gene pool ... We have them in UK too. I suspect the pay-scale deters Masters graduates.
I am ex-military and most of us go to ICE, not TSA. However, morale in ICE is suffering greatly under this administration, and many of my friends are looking to retire.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 12:45 pm
  #56  
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Originally Posted by zombietooth
I am ex-military and most of us go to ICE, not TSA. However, morale in ICE is suffering greatly under this administration, and many of my friends are looking to retire.
Thanks for meeting me half-way

I'm not exactly sure where my bar-buddies work. One is certainly with TSA on the Tech side, the other is a 'man in black' so I don't ask too many questions: that would be inappropriate.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 1:19 pm
  #57  
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Originally Posted by T8191
Oh, well, we end up in the same position.

From the USA's POV, TSA is an enormous infringement of their freedoms, perpetrated by underpaid morons ith the skill-set of an amoeba.

I really must have an intense chat next month, when I'm "over there", with a friend who actually works for TSA. Oh, or is that DHS? No, that might be the other guy. We'll have some interesting chats ... Neither of them are hyper, just long-serving ex-Military professionals in a new career. I will accept that some TSA employees are further down the gene pool ... We have them in UK too. I suspect the pay-scale deters Masters graduates.
Do you need a Master's degree and comparable pay to be respectful and polite?

They didn't have courses in those subjects when I was in school. I suppose they assumed we had already mastered them by the time we got to kindergarten, if not sooner.
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 1:44 pm
  #58  
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Originally Posted by chollie
Do you need a Master's degree and comparable pay to be respectful and polite?

They didn't have courses in those subjects when I was in school. I suppose they assumed we had already mastered them by the time we got to kindergarten, if not sooner.
I thank my parents for that, but then I was lucky. I had two, one of each, and it was a Lonnng time ago
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 5:58 pm
  #59  
 
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Pre-line

I still did not find out if I was pre-approved yet for the quicker security check. Are elite members supossed to find out in Sept.?
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Old Aug 15, 2012, 10:48 pm
  #60  
 
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Bin laden helped create more jobs in the US
and the west than any other world leader.
The security industry has exploded as a result
of his efforts. His positive impact on the
economy should not be forgotten may he
rest in peace.
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