The Upcoming Elections and the TSA
 

Have either of the candidates for President or the political parties staked out a position on the TSA?

No, and they won't, except to say how much they "support those working hard to protect our citizens"! No one wants to appear soft on "terrorism".

Agree. The Republican candidate won't do anything - he wants to appear tough on terra (or, terror for you educated types). The Democrat - he may speak out against profiling, but would never speak out against a large government organization -- that's bread and butter for his party. In the end, it is us citizen/passengers who lose.

It's going to be SSDD no matter who gets elected.

A year ago, Obama said this in a speech entitled "The War We Need to Win":

That gives me a bit of hope.

+1, IMHO. There is no difference in the candidates on such matters. O's administration may push the envelope to a lesser degree, but both of them have to embrace a message of why they're different - even if they aren't.

A year ago, O said a lot of things that are now different. Latest example: he'd oppose offshore drilling, but now says he'll support it if needed to get an energy bill through.

IMHO, both parties have trashed the Constitution and infringed on our freedoms to further the party platform. Take the discussion in the customs/laptop seizure thread: conservatives hate porn and child porn because it's, well, porn. Liberals hate porn and child porn because it exploits women and children. And both sides support taking (almost) any necessary step to stop it.

Perhaps you haven't heard that anything Obama said a year ago has been changed in the interim.
Rev. Wright: GONE
Immediate Pullout: GONE
16 month timeframe: GONE
Offshore Drilling: MAYBE


If you retain any hope of Obama doing anything different w/r/t TSA/DHS (other than seeking TSA Unionization :mad:) -
You are either delusional or simply OTT optimistic, IMO.

Dave

TSA Unionization - that should be fun. :rolleyes:

Then it can be like the US Postal Service - the only way to get rid of a bad employee is to promote them. (I say this as a former USPS worker and former APWU member.)

Obama love = shiny object syndrome

The eternal optimist.....anything else is just too depressing to contemplate. :)

Or like the police union...

Link

link

There are more, you get the idea.

On the other hand, if the TSA were so inclined, they could simply let there be a union, who could act as a virtual mouthpiece defending misconduct by screeners. TSA could build a whole PR campaign around it...

I know I've said this before in other threads, but, in the grand scheme of things, the TSA as a broken agency isn't high on either candidate's list. When you put the TSA in the context of the bigger DHS, there are two DHS-related issues far more important than airport security theater:
The Obama speech quoted above leads me to believe he will fix FEMA. The best way to fix FEMA is to remove it from DHS. (On a related note, the new president should do the same thing with the Coast Guard -- DHS has destroyed its mission as well.).

In the grand scheme of things in DHS and on anyone's must-fix list, the TSA is in the "comic relief" category. The best thing that could happen to it is that the new president views the TSA as a bill-payer.

So, this means that we will have to take back our airports and our Constitution-free zones in the transportation world through the other two branches of government, which haven't been too much of a help lately.

Word to that. As many of us have observed, the majority of the traveling public support "the mission" of the TSA, and they endure the idiocy becuase, well, "if it makes us safer...". Until a majority of rank and file travelers start to harp on the uselessness of the TSA, nothing much is going to change. In the scheme of things, FEMA and the Border Patrol are much higher-profile agencies. The TSA will continue to waste money and madden travelers. I support Obama, but I have no illusions that there will be substantive changes in the TSA. OTOH, we will be rid of Skeletor and his incompetent cronies. ON the bright side, I suspect either candidate will shy away from the pure political atmosphere for the management positions (remember "Brownie"?) to install basically competent people.

Folks, we've had to remove a few posts where members were electioneering for their candidates.

This thread is not about who you want to win the US Presidential race or who is the better candidate. It's about the positions that the various candidates have regarding TSA/DHS.

Please keep political commentary out of the thread or we'll have to move it to OMNI.

Thanks.


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Cholula
Travel Safety/Security Forum Moderator

I'll just come out and say it -- I've never been a single-issue voter, but any candidate which will disband the TSA gets my vote. I'm all for REAL security, not this "feel good" crap that interferes with getting real security in place.

Sad, but true.