No Security
 

If TSA dismantled the whole apparatus of airport security erected after 9/11, I suppose it would make everyone here happy. But I wonder what kind of economic impact it would have on the airlines. Right now, security theater is keeping the airlines afloat by persuading people not so enamored of flying that it is safe to fly. But would enough of those with a weak attachment to aviation simply bail out to put all the airlines in bankruptcy? I think we could really contemplate dismantling TSA if there is no economic impact. After all, the people who complain most about TSA are already convinced they are on the safest travel mode. No person like that is going to stop flying just because a plane here or there explodes.

Normally, when someone prattles on like this I'd ask them if they have the numbers to back up their post (e.g. how many people actually would stop flying if TSA were destroyed vs. how many more people would take to the skies if TSA were destroyed).

However:

1) I know I won't get an answer to this question.

2) No one here seems to want security to go away, many want TSA to go away so the original question is pretty vacuous.

There was nothing wrong with checkpoint security on 9/11. Given the single-percent positive comments on TSA news articles, I doubt the airlines would go bankrupt due to fallen traffic if security was being run by the private sector, with oversight by the DOT or FAA.

EDIT: Spiff and I were posting at the same time:

I can tell you first hand that my friends and relatives in Europe would start visiting the States again if the TSA went away, even more so if CPB quit acting like thugs. All in all I would expect a net increase in air travel. An interesting thing to ponder...

I don't think it is a question of security or no security. The question is how much security is needed for the given threat.

I am not convinced that TSA has done the background to answer that question based on the growing presence of TSA I see in our lives.

The next question is who should be responsible for security. I believe that TSA should be an oversight agency to provide security requirements and to monitor and inspect the airport/airline security collaboration.

actually from the people i have been talking to, the main reason there not flying is TSA and they have told the airlines that. Now they will drive then fly as the BS, hassle and harassements not worth it. That or if its a major deal a client with charter a private plane where they dont have to deal with TSA.

Well, personally I'd keep the armored cockpit doors, policy of not cooperating with hijackers, and federal flight-deck officer program. I'm also a fan of ETD, but that technology was being used pre-TSA, so it wouldn't be subject to dismantling anyway.

Would the economic impact be greater than the bloated cost of maintaining TSA security theater?

Driving a car is much more dangerous than flying on a commercial aircraft by almost any measure, even accounting for terrorist events.

If a fully-loaded widebody crashed every month with 100% fatalities, it would still be a fraction of domestic road fatalities (< 20%). Let alone fatalities from completely preventable causes like smoking. Yet people keep driving in spite of the lack of security measures, many people continue to not wear seatbelts while driving, and a non-trivial fraction of the population chooses to keep smoking.

Nice hyperbole. :rolleyes: Nobody wants to see a plane explode periodically "here or there." The question is whether the money, hassle, and rights-erosion that is TSA is actually preventing aviation incidents. And whether the same benefit, if any, could be achieved with drastically less visible security, less spending, less hassle, etc.

For example, what if we reverted to pre-9/11 security (except for exceptions I mentioned), took all the extra money that was being spent on TSA, and gave it to the FBI to conduct law-enforcement investigations (respecting constitutional limits and using "quaint" :rolleyes: concepts like search warrants) and the CIA to conduct intelligence gathering (while respecting the rights and privacy of US citizens)? Could we achieve the same or even better level of "security" as TSA provides? While harassing only criminals instead of millions of innocent Americans?

I definitely WANT security. I just want efficiently provided security. We have security now (cockpit doors, screening, x-ray) and we need more (screening everybody, cargo).

What people here complain about is that 1: we pay (in pecuniary and non-pecuniary terms) too much for what we get and 2: we are not getting enough of what we actually need, and 3: we are getting too much of things we don't need (ergo point 1).

I can't provide statistics, but from a very personal perspective, the TSA has made me decide to avoid the US and US carriers whenever possible. I no longer connect through the US when going to Canada or Japan, for example, and only go there when business takes me, not for vacations. Many people in my circles feel the same way. In fact, we have become more and more interested in vacations and conferences in Europe and Asia.

For the visitor, the TSA is one of the first things you experience in the US, and the last. Makes a big mark.

Why is it that the TSA apologists always (okay, ALMOST always) seem to want to cast things in a "TSA or no security whatsoever," light, when that is explicitly ***NOT*** what those of us opposed to TSA want? I mean, we STATE OUTRIGHT that we want REAL security, as opposed to the security theater that is all TSA could EVER provide (and it STILL can't manage to do a good job of even that, as evidenced by their own test results!), and still TSA's cheering section insists that what we're demanding is a complete lack of any security, whether real or imagined.

When we say to you over and over and over again, "Black. Black. Black.", and you persist in replying, "So, white then?", what I get from that exchange is that you aren't really interested in discussing the ACTUAL issue. There's certainly room for differences in opinion - it'd be pretty boring if there wasn't! - but stop trying to claim that we're saying something we're explicitly NOT. It's dishonest, and shows a marked lack of respect.

That's why it's seldom worth the electrons to respond to such drivel. @:-)

Why must it be all or nothing? Why can't airport security be like in other countries? (at least the parts not contaminated by TSA) By that I am referring to the parts that include common sense, professionalism, polite interaction, and real security measures, not those put on for show to reassure an impressionable public.

No one country has managed to work out everything to be the 'right' way; again, nothing is that black and white. But when there are more 'wrongs' than 'rights', it is time to reevaluate.

I'd prefer "no security" over security theatre and hassles with no appreciable difference. Armored cockpit doors, air marshalls on all flights and scanning all checked and behavioral profiling would work better than the present farce.

Are you willing to pay additional taxes/fees for marshals on ALL flights? I'm already paying $40-45 on itineraries to the east coast just in taxes. I don't want to pay $50-60 just for more marshals on board.

You could get rid of the useless TSA screeners and cut some other useless expenses in the security theatre and that would absorb a lot of the cost.

Given the perceived level of threat, why would air marshals even be needed? Again like I say, you aren't the audience for the security theater. It is people who'd never think of chasing airline miles. Now, another slant would be "how much security theater could we buy at a very insignificant expenditure?" Lets say we cut the budget for this 95 percent. Could we possibly keep all the casual flyers going just because it looks like we have security? This is what security theater means to me. A lot of activity with no real purpose except to convince the credulous to keep flying.

If you want truly effective security do what they do on El Al, the Israelis are much better at this than the Americans.

We'd still have security if we cut 95% of the crap in place right now. @:-)

No thank you. The Israelis are welcome to keep their policies of interrogation and harassment. If a government actor tried that in the USA they should be told to go do something biologically obscene to themselves.

The TLV model is not scalable.


Spending on security is now 10 times what it was in 2001. We could roll back to those levels and whatever portion of the single-percenter TSA cheerleaders that decide to no longer fly would be offset by those that come back after having stopped flying because of TSA harassment. Also, visitors to our country that have been spending their vacations in places elsewhere would also offset the single percenters.

How about an all volunteer airport security based on the volunteer fire department model? @:-)

Volunteer fire departments have problems with "whackers" that join up just so they can trick out their personal vehicles with lightbars and sirens. I hate to think what the checkpoint would be like if it were staffed by the kind of people that buy the Counter Terrorism Task Force Set of badges, ID cards, etc. It's telling of that demographic that the LEO-style jackets and shirts are available in Size XXXLarge. :eek:

Probably not too different than it is now....:D, since you pointed that out. Maybe I'll make myself a Counter Terrorist Homefries Security- Breakfast Responder badge.

On what info are you basing this assumption. I know people at work, in my neighborhood, and in social circles that are most assuredly not frequent flyers and loathe the TSA for all it is worth. They complain about the rude, arrogant attitude at the moat and the mindless, lazy TSO zombies that walk around aimlessly looking self-important.

Again, these are not frequent flyers, but people that utilize an airport - maybe - once or twice every couple of years.

It is the TSA that seems to be turning people off to traveling.

Tomorrow, I will drive 700 miles, RT to attend a meeting. This will be the second time in 5 days that I have done so. I find this preferable to dealing with the TSA and their stupidity. Eventually, the TSA will bring the airline industry to it's knees. They are the number one reason that many people I know refuse to fly.

One of the problems with TSA is that they don't bother to make a good first impression, and it just unravels further, the more you travel.:p

I can't answer that in specifics except to say that I believe that the security theater is now as much about keeping casual flyers happy as it is about making it look like the government is on top of things. There is also a sort of CYA, not-on-my-watch attitude.

But another important question is really the inverse (unless it is the converse-- they taught us that stuff in math class back in school and I guess it didn't stick): How many business executives and other travelers would travel by air more if it were more convenient. Remember it was only 10-15 years ago that UA had a special check-in desk at ORD for people with less than 20 minutes until their scheduled flight departure time. If we went to a system where air travel were less of a pain in the rear, there are many who would fly more, not less.

Well, what I feel many of you seem unable to see is that the larger population is quite convinced that the status quo pro ante did not work. They have this silly idea that if pre-TSA security, the thing you all seem to prize, failed to prevent 9/11. So they are looking for evolution, not just "lets go back to 9/10/2001". Maybe some of them are less than happy with leaving much earlier to the airport, but are there mass opinion polls anywhere that show they believe in the kind of security that is favored here? Or do you believe that they've all been brainwashed so completely that no poll could possibly be fair?

And if that is how you feel, aren't you raging in the dark since without broad public pressure, is there even the slightest political possibility of any change you want to happen?

In April, we drove 18 hours (each way) to visit relatives in Florida. In May, we drove 15 hours (each way) to attend an awards dinner.

We simply choose to no longer deal with TSA.


~~ Irish

That's what freedom is all about. But I gotta say, that doesn't sound like all that great a curse to me. I've driven for a couple of days in a few cases. More than halfway across the USA. For some of us, this is pretty much what we grew up with, so we tend to think of some younger folks as a little spoiled in their expectation of instantly moving across thousands of miles and considering an hour in security as intolerable. You probably have little concept of what you missed. A good deal of the earth is foreign territory to you, since you just pass over it at 35,000 feet. We experienced every inch of it. How many have sailed the Atlantic from New York to Germany and back? Have had dinners for a week in the dining room of a passenger ship? Not terribly long ago, it was a widely shared experience. Now hardly anyone has done anything but maybe get on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship.