OK, once again I predicted your responses. I tried to be civil and make my exit politely, but I come back to read things like :Lazy, Dumbasses...

Once again I ask who are the real thugs? I enjoyed chatting with a few of you, but like I said, I'm spending too much time hanging around here. I didn't say anything about being lazy, or running away from an argument etc. I said I�m spending too much time here. (See, I'm back already after saying I was leaving.) I've got alot of things going in in my life that warrant more attention than this message board. So, if you feel like you've chased another one off, so be it. Go ahead and chalk up another one if it makes you feel any better.

As far as Spiff and FWAA and anybody else that decides to take a shot a me after I'm gone, I'd like to send out a big old **** you! I'll let you fill in the blanks on that one.

You keep saying you're leaving, but like a bad penny . . .

Don't worry. Every few weeks we get a surge of new alleged TSA employees here to lecture us "whiny frequent flyers" about the "truth" of airport security just like we did last week.

Your off-topic response to my question in the thread on Boston Train station screening (assuming the subject was airport screening) told me all I need to know about your academic abilities.

I'm sorry if my post offended you - you are not a dumbass (nor very lazy, since you keep posting here). But your agency is a disgrace. Its pretend security doesn't really make us any safer, and highly educated frequent flyers can't be fooled as easily as some dumb, fat Walmart shoppers from Hicksville. That they think everything is peachy doesn't mean the TSA is worthwhile.

I'm sorry, but you truly are lazy.

I even pointed you to a search word - Sentinel. You ignored it because I didn't want to re-type my answers to this previously asked question just because you feel like you're someone special.

I don't need to take any potshots at you - your words speak for themselves.

The fundamental problem I have is that the government took the easy way out -- they simply threw money and people at what they perceived to be the problem. Also, I suppose, they concluded that a visible presence of government people (including every National Guard guy that wasn't soon on his or her way to Iraq) would restore the public's "confidence" and get them back flying again. This "ready, fire, aim" approach completely circumvented any sort of rational vulnerability study (It didn't have to be a long one.) and eliminated common sense. 536 government officials got caught up in massive group-think right after 9/11 and put us on a flawed course that only a truly curageous individual in government who thinks outside the box can change. So, we're left with the TSA paradigm: "Security" is good; "more security" is better.

As folks have pointed out for several years, the 9/11 terrorists committed absolutely zero infractions of security rules in place on 9/11. They also took advantage of the long-standing practice of cooperating with hijackers.
As Bruce succintly pointed out, the airlines and the flying public themselves eliminated the vulnerabilities -- not the TSA and not anyone else in the Executive or Legislative Branches. I'm convinced beyond a resonable doubt that 9/11-style hijackings/terrorist attacks could not happen again in North America if we had kept Argenbright under pre-9/11 screening procedures -- or if we go back to them.

Today we have a large intransigent bureaucracy that is much too lumbering to think. It is fighting the last war. As I've said before, the TSA is like the old Soviet Politburo -- its main purpose is to perpetuate itself. The TSA MUST to do something different to justify its existence. Going back to pre-9/11 screening procedures would be admitting failure. Nobody in government admits failure.

I've often asked myself why the TSA bothers me so much and why the Argenbright era didn't. I don't really have answers -- just a few observations:

- The TSA is government. Private screeners were accountable to the FAA for procedures and to the airlines and their customers for customer service. ...not a bad arrangement. Part of our American culture is an inbred distrust of government, which is also good. I never distrusted a private screener (Maybe I should have?). When I did distrust private screeners, theft was usually the main reason. I simply put my wallet, keys, and other valuables in my locking briefcase and didn't think twice about it. I was generally pleasant and curteous to private screeners. I went out of my way to be curteous towards those folks that didn't have a good command of the language. It's clear that the TSA distrusts the flying public. They give us no choice but to respond in kind, no matter how uncharacteristic this is for most of us.

- We are assumed to be terrorists because we bought an airline ticket and showed up at an airport. Sure, I beeped plenty of times in the old days. I simply removed what caused the beep and tried again. I recall wearing steel-shanked hiking boots on several camping trips involving air travel. I beeped every time. The guy ran the wand under my boots to verify that they were the source of the beeping. The screener could think for himself or herself and make their own judgments about me as a potential threat. You don't have to have a GED or a good command of the language to think clearly.

- The TSA is arrogant. Arrogance abounds in government these days. This arrogance takes place from individual screeners on power trips to the senior leadership and their Talking Heads. The examples are numerous: a TSA spokesman advising someone erroneously on the "no fly" list to legally changing their name; forcing the public to fly with unlocked luggage; extorting the public with a trusted traveller program; or simply blowing off complaints. Shame on us for allowing this to happen.

- The TSA is accountable to nobody -- day-to-day or organizationally. They aren't stakeholders in the future of commercial aviation. As in the Politburo example above, the TSA is its own customer. CAPPS-II is downright sinister. The TSA has taken upon itself the job of using checkpoints to search for non-security related items, like pot. I'm not a fan of pot, but that's not the point. The Constitution is the point.

- The TSA has craftily molded the public debate into one of long lines and arrival times at the airport. The media and a lot of the flying public has bought this hook, line, and sinker. Blind obedience = getting through the checkpoint quicker without fear of arrest or a fine; or, worse yet -- missing your flight. It's hard to get anyone's attention about the real problems.

OK -- after consulting my committee of one, the perfect world would be --

- Go back to commercial screening practices under airline/airport authority control. Eliminate the arrogance (which probably means eliminating the arrogant agency). This would restore end-to-end accountability to the public.

- Go back to pre-9/11 screening standards. Today's screening standards, including sensitive machines and the shoe fetish, are fighting the last war. We've fixed the vulnerability that caused 9/11. Let's get on with it.

- Pour at least 40% of the TSA's budget (after significantly reducing it) into a coherent technology development program designed to fight the NEXT war. Of course, that would take two HUGE paradigm shifts at the TSA -- out-of-the-box thinking and risk-taking. The TSA will never become this type of agency, so the job of preventing the next war has to go to someone else. I don't know who in government is qualified to quantify the "next war" threat, but it certainly isn't the DHS.

- Turn the private sector loose, once the threat is adequately characterized. Find a procuring agency that knows how to incentivize the private sector and one that practices and rewards risk-taking. An in-depth knowledge of the 4th Amendment would also be a good corporate trait. The private sector would take a systems engineering approach and develop machines that would not fall through airport floors or brown-out everyone within 100 miles. "Spiff, Inc." would be a good choice, but I doubt they would be able to keep up with the production unit delivery schedule.

All this takes is the same sort of incentive and forward-thinking we've had since our Founding Fathers (and Founding Mothers) set out to invent this place. The responsible course of action is right under our collective noses, but we don't have the guts to do the right thing.

FliesWay2Much: Excellent summary of the problem. ^ ^

That's actually SpiffCo (SPFC)...

I'd be happy to bid on providing the same or better security that the TSA currently provides at half the cost or less.

Yes, indeed!

Bruce

Folks, don't let people like TSAJohn cause you to believe that every TSA employee behaves in this fashion. There are plenty of TSA employees here like TSAMGR, screenerx, and myself who enjoy reading this forum and providing as much insight as we legally can. Sometimes we agree with you, and sometimes we don't. But we will always be ready to discuss it as adults and not hold any grudges. I do get embarrassed when some TSA folks come to this forum only to attack the frequent flyers. I like having the opportunity to hopefully clarify any misconceptions that may arise from the FF and vise versa. Again, I enjoy the content and thank all FT users for welcoming me in.

Are people willing to give up some rights as long as real security is done at the airport?

No!!!!!

No.

"Real scecurity" and rights are not mutually exclusive.

Should passengers right to bear arms be taken from them or should some form of intent be proven to disallow the carrying of a firearm onto a plane?

Most Amendments carry reasonable limitations. The 2nd is no exception.

All I want is a binary choice on firearms on aircraft. Either anyone who is mentally fit and not a convicted felon may carry a firearm on the aircraft or no one may carry a firearm on board - not the passengers, not the pilots, and definitely not the unneeded air marshals.

People can carry firearms pretty much anywhere because there is no form of screening, why shouldn't passengers or anyone else for that matter be allowed to carry a firearm onto a plane?

There is a door now in place to stop the hijacking of a plane and passengers could easily take down a lone gunman if it came to it, with a possible few killed of course a possible few could easily be killed with a knife or anything else.

I'll give in on having my bag x-rayed, in my presence. X-rays can detect most of the prohibited items, and are a reasonable middle ground between having my bag searched (which feels like an invasion of privacy due to all the intimate items one needs to take on an overnight trip) and having no surveillance of luggage at all.