Absolutely. In the same way that I believe that there is a non-zero chance that a flight information board will fall over and kill me. I guess it could happen, but I'd rather not live in fear of every event with a near-zero probability of occurring, as members of the AFS crowd seem to (not pointing finger at you here).

It's worth noting that we already have a user fee for airport security, the 9/11 security fee. But the money is wasted on the TSA. It could be dramatically reduced and we would be no less safe than we are today.

Mike

TSA is already being funded very well through taxes and ticket fees so no additional funding should be provided until TSA can document exactly why more money is needed. Especially given that TSA has multiple warehouses near DFW with equipment that TSA has contracted for and it is either not suitable for the intended use or TSA just squandered our tax dollars for no reason. TSA waste more money than should be tolerated and in fact should have a 25% budget reduction.

TSA should be required to justify its abundence of employees, many we see standing around doing nothing useful before any additional monies come their way. I have seen STSO's guarding exits; that is clearly a job that should be done by the lowest paid TSA employee not a supervisor.

TSA should be required to screen all airport workers 100% of the time since they represent a real threat to commercial aviation. No restrictions on what is brought inside the sterile area, access to airplanes, and little direct supervision all make for the perfect storm a terrorist would look for.

Passengers should all get the same level of initial screening only elevating with demonstrated cause. That would be equitable for all concerned. Pre Check level of screening for all would provide that, by not negatively impacting the frequent traveler and having processes in place to give screening of greater depth to those who require such.

No, the criteria used to assess risk are not immaterial to the concept. The criteria you have listed would either be unconstitutional to use (ethnicity) or have no demonstrable correlation with security risk.

When courts analyze the legality of government programs that treat people differently based on arbitrary criteria, they want to see the connection between those criteria and the desired outcome. For example, universities may be able to have affirmative action programs if they can show that the criteria they use results in the advancement of a demonstrable state interest.
A similar standard should be applied to TSA as well.

Once again, if there is an actual connection between what you are paying for (the background check and fingerprinting) and security risk, then it would be one thing. But as I said earlier, plenty of terrorists could pass such a check, and there is no evidence that someone who passes is less of a risk. Therefore, it appears to be little more than a program that lets people avoid hassle by paying money.

Sounds like that would be an improvement from the current state of US airport security screening and would create an opportunity to reduce costs while improving WEI interdiction. That outcome however would be dependent upon ETD/ETP processes, technology and users to improve from the current state -- certainly less likely to happen with a massive federal government workforce doing the day-to-day screening and the airlines and airports thrilled not to be running the screening operations. The more I think about this the more I love your suggestion about this.

This is not my video but I think it clearly states the security issues vs privacy. I am on the side of privacy.

http://youtu.be/gDLTDITL3eo

^^^^^^

I travel extensively, and I have never removed my shoes or encountered a full body scanner (much less seen them used as primary) outside the US. Admittedly, I haven�t been to London recently, but my travels include most of Europe (East + West), Northern Africa, Southeast Asia, Japan, Oceania, Canada, South and Central America.

Worst, I am convinced full body scanners are a higher risk for aviation, since they are methodologically flawed and allow a higher probability of successfully taking a gun on an airplane. In other words, PreCheck for a fee is actually providing better security for a cost, while those who don�t pay are submitted to a procedure that has more false negatives.

Read the EU directive. And I looked for data on false negative relative rates of Wtmd v MMW. I couldn't find any real evidence but I am willing to learn.

That doesn't change the proposition that different methods based on relative risk is conceptually incorrect nor that shifting the financial cost to the user is inappropriate.

Indeed! Paying a fee to avoid being subjected to invasive searches is a modest proposal, and a good start.

I for one welcome the day in which the federal government recognizes it can enhance revenue by charging me a fee to ensure my IRS return - and any potential refund - will be fast-tracked and that the chance of my being audited will be significantly reduced. @:-)

I would also welcome a fee that will ensure I'm not required to complete the long-form census.

Given the increasing size and scope of government, the opportunities for such mutually beneficial transactions appear limitless. @:-)

User fees represent market based economics a whole better than redistribution based on ability to pay .

I'm just finding this thread so fascinating - a defense of the proposition that after stealing our rights, TSA is somehow justified in attempting to sell them back to us as privileges.

Capitalism at its best? The mind boggles.


~~ Irish

Everyone has agreed that some form of security is required. That has a cost. The cost should be born by the user. The current standards aside, the risk of passengers varies. As such, assessment of risk level is an additional cost. If you elect to undergo this assessment you pay the cost.

You pay a user fee for a drivers license.

Your argument is focused on the mechanism used to ensure airplane security.

I posted my astonishment that no one argues for no security. It's the perfect guarantee of your personal civil liberties. If you think it's ok to force you through a WTMD and have your personal property examined by X-RAY is not an infringement on your civil liberties but a Gumby MMW with your shoes off is then you need to understand my confusion.

It's like being a little bit pregnant.

Suppose there were 2,000 passengers -- an extraordinarily pessimistic view of the threat out there -- every day who were boarding planes at American airports with the intent to bring down the plane. That would still mean that 99.9% of passengers intended no harm to the plane or their fellow passengers.

Please quit it with the canard that airports are teeming with individuals looking to cause mass destruction. Checkpoint procedure could randomly assign half of the passengers to undergo no screening at all with no ill-effect on security.

A passenger is either a threat or they are not. You know, kind of like being a little bit pregnant.

When over 99.9% of passengers present no threat whatsoever, how can you with a straight face say that the "risk of passengers varies"?

And let's look at some of the PreCheck perks: You can leave your shoes on. So the presumption is that someone who has not had a background check is more likely to be hiding a bomb in their shoes. Yet exactly one passenger in the century-old worldwide history of aviation has tried to blow up his shoes. But yep, we can conclusively say that someone who hasn't been convicted of a crime is less likely to do so.

Risk-based security my a**.

Not at all.

The risk of passengers varies so little -- given how few terrorists there are in the US (who have targeted domestic aviation) per huge numbers of harmless passengers on board -- and the competency of the government to cheaply find terrorists before terrorists strike so questionable that counting on $85 per terrorist or $85*100,000 to do substantial good is just like relying upon my 18-month old relative's throwing of Legos to defend the country against terrorists: a big joke.

These "user fees" won't cover the true cost of what the TSA does. Government using "user fees" as a "market-based economic" solution? Talk about a trick played on the naive or self-dealing. That the government established a fee for use is more usually the antithesis of a market-based economic solution.

Do you really believe that the DL fees cover all the costs of issuing DLs in each and every state in the US? Apparently you should check out a lot more state government budgets and historical budgeting practices.

There is not one person yet who has posted that there is a zero risk - all have acknowledged that there is a risk and that some security is necessary. Not my canard - yours.

It doubles the risk. Simple math. If you were correct, "...with no ill-effect on security," then no security would be equally as efficacious.

Actually, a passenger is either a terrorist or not is the correct analogy. Absent a test, one cannot establish the "threat" status. One can, however, establish the relative risk of being (or not being) a terrorist.

I understand probability - please do me a favor though - find me the 0.1%. That's the whole purpose of this isn't it? Ensuring that the 0.1% are found before they can become martyrs.

Because I understand probability theory? Each passenger has an assigned probability of being a terrorist and that absent any additional information that probability is the population probability. Add additional predictors and the probability no longer is the population probability but rather the probability of the refined cohort. If you can refine multiple cohorts you now have a distribution of probabilities across the population. This distribution defines the variance - its math, not politics or emotion. Granted, what those factors are is up for debate - though if you've ever flown ELAL you get a sense that there are valid factors.

You are arguing the process not the concept. Let me reiterate, TSA is the most ineffectual piece of government monstrosity every devised by man. It is, unfortunately, what we are asked to tolerate in the interest of aviation safety. I'm all for getting rid of every single smurf. You?

But in the meantime, lets try the pregnancy game.

You have 100 people in a room. We know that one of them is pregnant - which one is it?

Each one gets two sequential blood tests, a urine test, and an ultrasound. We find that the pregnant person is person #46. We have assumed that every person in the room has an equal chance of being pregnant - equal "risk" so to speak.

Can we do better?

Of course. In the room of 100, there were 50 men and 50 women - do we need to test the men? Likely not. So instead of 100 comprehensive exams, we only do 50, the men save time and money.

In the room of 50 women - one is still pregnant. Ten are post menopausal - hence, they have a very low risk of being pregnant. Leaves us 40. Of those 40, 10 are pre-menarch - not a non-zero risk but certainly lower than the population of all women taken together. Leaves us 30. Of those, 20 insist that they use birth control. We know that BCPs are about 97% effective so their chances are less than those who do not take BCPs.

What do you do? You could test all 50 because they are women. Certainly each one doesn't have the same chance of being pregnant, but as women its not totally biologically impossible. On the other hand, you could only test those defined in medicine as being of child bearing potential, or you could only test those of child bearing potential not reporting the use of birth control.

In the end you have 100, 50, 30, or 10 people who qualify for the intensive high cost time consuming evaluation because they represent those at the highest probability of being pregnant.

Lets adapt this to the TSA:

One could forgo any testing and wait to see if one of the people gives birth - by default, that's the pregnant one - i.e. the terrorist.

One could test everyone with a simple inexpensive blood test - with a known error rate. This is WTMD orr WWM, or whatever. Or, one could test everyone using BKSTR and secondary patdowns and body cavity searches - depends how much sensitivity you want in your test, how much time you have and how much money you want to spend.

CAUTION - THESE ARE ONLY EXAMPLES AND DO NOT REFLECT ANY PERSONAL BIASES OR PREJUDICES - THESE ARE EXAMPLES!

One could test only the women - applied to TSA test only those who are non-frequent fliers or those not qualified under TT programs. Sort of like your 50% rule.

One could test only those of child bearing potential - i.e only non-citizen non-FF non-GEers.

One could test only those who don't use birth control - i.e. non-citizen non-FF non-GEers of Arab descent on student visas.

What TSA has done is said we can differentiate risk based on two criteria - Frequent Flier Status or background characteristics. This is no different than me as a doctor not doing an expensive and definitive range of r/o preg labs and clinical evaluations on an 85 year old man complaining of nausea in the morning. Just because he has nausea (getting on an airplane) its not due to pregnancy (being a terrorist).

Whether or not the criteria are correct is immaterial to the argument that differential risk exists and the cost of differentiation should be born by the individual.

Your arguments that each individual has an equal risk and moreover that non-screening in a proportion of the population because of this particularly because of your assertion that the risk, though non-zero is infinitesimally small is non-consequential to airline security are fallacious.

Its not about policy or process - its simple math and probability theory and market rationality