I am shocked that the first time I get to check flyer talk in a week, and no one is talking about Mineta's comment today.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/663744.asp?pne=11947

Mineta now admits that it is impossible to actually meet the deadlines in congress's new air legislation. Just as many of the people have posted, people have cried out for something to be done and as the T-shirts always say "all I got was this stupid shirt"

I hope the media, politicians and the public take a breath. Unlikely I know. Some of the first responses. If they can't get the equipment made in time have troops open and search your checked bags. I guess they must think that the couple of hour waits that many people are now experiencing are too short. Lets add more hoops. Maybe when it is quicker to drive cross country than fly we will rethink our actions.

The funny thing is he goes later on to say that the goal is 10 minutes to get everyone through checkpoints. He says "no weapons no wait", I think that the next announcement will be that we need to show up in medical gowns with no checked or carryon luggage. I realize that I am being sarcastic. It just makes me mad, either Mineta is a total moron or an idiot. If he had anyone briefing him, he had to know and could have spoken up while speaking before congress on the proposed law instead of saying how stupid and ineffective the airline security companies were. The other option is that he acted as any bureaucrat would. Expand your authority/position and then start working on your excuses. Niether answer really makes me very comfortable with what is ahead.

Again to paraphrase Rodney King, can't we all just think about our actions!!!!!! before we make things even worse.

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Robert

Norm Mineta has been Transportation Secretary since early this year. Prior to that, he was on the House Transportation Committee for 21 years, and was Chairman of that committee for the last 8 years. I won't resort to using terms like idiot or moron but put it this way-whatever you think of the current airport security system-if you like it or if you think it's a joke-lay the thanks or blame in large part at Norm Mineta's doorstep.

The current law was in limbo for weeks while Republicans argued against having government employees do the screening, while Democrats (and all 100 Senators) said they should. I did not see anything from Moneta or his department during this time that implementation would be a problem.

I think the people whose fingerprints are all over what happened on Sept 11-from Trnasportation to Intelligence to Terrorist Investigations should all be rapidly debriefed, then replaced. Will the replacements do better? I don't know but they can't do much worse and at least we'll avoid the excuses.

The thing that irritates me isn't that they won't meet the 60 day deadline. It's that Mineta knew they wouldn't, and he let them put that provision in the bill anyway.

As for the screeners themselves, I do think that the feds will do a better job of checking their backgrounds and providing them with more training. I also think the caliber of the people applying for these jobs will improve. You get a hell of a lot better pool to choose from when you pay someone $35K a year with benefits versus $7 an hour with no benefits.

Working to the goal of screening all baggage by mid January is better than nothing.

How effective are some of these goals?

1. Current security checkpoint: I think it is passable for now. Getting more morons to look for nail clippers and having National Guard scarecrows with empty rifles doesn't help. A realistic goal of 50% detection isn't good, but doesn't have to be 99.9% IF it means exclusion of other types of security, such as luggage screening.

2. air marshalls: This makes one feel good. However, I think this should be one of the last means of security that should be implemented. It's less effective for 1 person to guard 150 people for 3-4 hours then for him to screen and question people at airports.

3. Luggage screening: This needs to be done now. Even manual searches with CT scans of things like radios or devices can be done now. Why are airports so reluctant to open bags and do things manually?

4. Background checks: Having terrorist suspects or criminal isn't good.

5. The other things such as better cockpit doors, more explosion resistant cargo containers, etc. are interesting.

I bet you it's because they're worried about liability if they damage things. A sketchy person could, for example, put a broken camera into his bag, get it searched manually, and then file a claim against the security company.

Heard this morning on NPR comments from a federal union chief. He says that it will also be impossible to meet deadline on making sure that all screeners will be american citizens. First he said that it will not be possible because of the time it will take to hire and train people in general. Second in large cities such as San Fran, etc, they currently have 60+ percent green card employees. Finally he started on the attack by saying he saw no reason why they should be excluded from having that job anyway.

The next step has started on implimenting the great solution everyone was screaming for. It is appearing more and more like you are going to get the same people doing the same job for more money!!!! Hope you do feel better.

Now in response to atleast it is something. Most of the efforts that are being made could be implemented faster if we were not trying to set up a gov. bureau at the same time.

And in the answer to skylinks question. Openning bags is not an option that will work and have a system that functions. Think of the time it takes to open and check bags when going through customs. That check is actually looking for obvious things not then also trying to scan or open electronics etc. Not to mention that no airport I have been to is laid out to have the it done correctly. You would need lots of lines and tables set up prior to check in, but once your bag was inspected you would need to have the area immediately past that also secure. The bags would have to be sealed after that inspection as well. You would have to commit a large part of the national guard to even try to do this. Or you would need to completely change the hub system so that flights went out slowly and not in the morning and evening.

Again the answer is not to constantly check everything and everyone. Profile the bags like the people so that ones that need intense security get it not wasting time checking the 65 year old nuns bag.

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Robert

Skylink USA:

The airlines are reluctant to start opening bags manually because there aren't enough hours in a day (or money to pay for it) to look into every checked bag. Today, various papers reported that there may be as many as 1.4 billion checked bags each year. That's an average of 3,835,616 bags a day. If it took only 10 minutes to open, empty, search, and repack each bag, you're looking at nearly 80,000 eight hour shifts each day to accomplish this task. At $15/hour, airlines would spend $3.5 billion annually ($9.6 million/day) engaging in a reasonably pointless exercise.

That comes to 112,300 full-time jobs. If airports were set up for such theater. Maybe we can just ban luggage if everyone is so afraid of checked bags.

Too bad Mineta didn't speak up before the wonderful federal bill became law. Then again, as a Democrat in a Republican administration, he probably doesn't mind making the President (and Republicans in general) look stupid in front of Congress and the Amererican people. Still, his sandbagging is inexcusable, regardless of your politics.

Someday we'll remember that these people are POLITICIANS, and not our great protectors, and then maybe we won't place such great faith in their abilities to make everything better with their magic bullet legislation.

The good thing about Mineta's statements is that he finally seems to understand that checking in for a flight cannot forever resemble reporting for a prison sentence; business leaders simply won't put up with it. Infrequent travelers may "feel safer," but they don't provide the profits to the full-service majors, business travelers do.

Stop the airport madness. Let's get on with our lives.

There's also air freight which is a big moneymaker for airlines. Is this going to be x-rayed and scanned for explosives also?

I am not surprised about the Mineta comments. As I've said plainly on other threads, the government's involvement in security is very bad. They react knee jerk, have no customers to account to, no costs to control, no quality control, they're going to be a new unionized pro-government expansion workforce etc. etc. etc.

i always have one question ready to ask my friends who feel that bigger government is the answer to our problems. feel free to use it...

do they deliver packages better?

do they manage health care better?

do they manage retirement accounts better?

with the exception of the military, name one thing, just one thing that washington does better?

sorry, my libertarian roots are showing tonite....



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All Hail Mighty Oregon!

GO DUCKS GO!

No they don't do it better. THat's not the way our system was designed, and that's not the reason our gov was created. Now we have an ever-growing ARMY of federal employees who work for a "company" that has no competition, no motivation to improve, and not even a real motivation to turn a profit or break even. THus, employees can do the absolute minimum. And we see that in most area of civil service, minimum quality, minimum service.
Yea! Bring on more Federal Workers at the airport! It will be like a day at the DMV times 10!

Please Democrats, no more government, no more spending, no more welfare, and no more taxes!!!! A Revolt is soon to come if we keep this up.

People who buy into the total bunk that making security folks govt employees will make things better deserve the mess we get.

Anyway people want way more security, with no additional cost or delays, so pleasing them is impossible. Enjoy.