I am on the other side. I believe that an unfettered free market is superior to authoritarian government in that the intelligence of the marketplace almost always exceeds the intelligence of the bureaucracy. More people, examining more evidence, making more decisions that personally affect their own lives will, on average, make better decisions.

Is it messy? Often.

Will people make mistakes? Of course, they are people, just like those in the bureaucracy.

Is it risky? Absolutely.

But, it is more than that. It is liberty. What we have now is a soft tyranny.

Which is pretty much what TSA is expecting. If they get full LEO powers at the checkpoints, I can almost guarantee that authority will be abused.

Local police - in many areas - are becoming almost para-military.

Out of curiosity, are Red Team tests directed at the guys with the black lights, TDCs? If so, are there any reports of failure to detect fraudulent ID?

Thinking out of the box here, and that have its consequences. (Running on strong meds, sleep deprivation, and on med leave with lots of time to think. Forgive me if this is ridiculous.)

Can the old puffer technology, adapted differently in a more controlled environment, be used at the time of boarding? Once the plane is full and the doors are closed. Circulate air and do an overall plane explosive detection. If the whole plane passes, kick it out of the gate and let it go. If not, re-screen. Gigantic PITA but it may be very rare. How often do the carry on ETD check actually show explosive?

Has this been tested and looked at? Short answer please, no technical explainaintion necessary. As in, tried it, did not work. Showed too many false positives. Whatever.

This, combined with WTMD, would be simple, if it worked. Just looking for answers. Not that they care.

I don't think TSA had any desire to make the puffers work.

They are used in many places with success.

I honestly believe that TSA had already made the decision to move to Strip Search Machines before the first puffer was taken out of any airport.

Is the technology adaptable to a full plane scan? If you can check the air in the area of a puffed upon PAX why could not the circulating air be checked. It could even be checked on the process of boarding by sampling jetway air and cabin air continuously. If explosive detected, stop the boarding.

Uh oh.....bad thought here.

If found during boarding it would mean a total secure area failure and a terminal dump.

Forget it. This is a nightmare waiting to happen.

There's one key item that's missing from any/all of these suggestions: security liability. Below is merely presumption on my part so grain of salt and all that.

Before 9/11 the airports and airlines that operated out of them were co-responsible for security (the airport hired the screeners and charged the airlines the gate/terminal fees). When "everything" hit the fan that day, suddenly you had everyone (airport operators to airlines themselves) scrambling to minimize/mitigate the lawsuit risks from such a huge security lapse.

What's forgotten is there was a significant change in liability assignment as part of the Patriot Act that established the DHS/TSA and thus the government assuming the liability for all commercial airline security. I even want to assert there was a retroactive immunity applied to the airlines solely based upon the potential of deleterious effects on their ongoing operations should negligence lawsuits against them proceed.

So yes, "eliminating the TSA" would not happen without the reassignment of liability back to something else other than the government and somehow I don't think you'll get too many commercial airlines to agree to that.

To note, some have suggested that any NGO would have an issue with the legality of the administrative searches (as they've been dubbed) but as before 9/11 this had already been hashed out in established case law decisions.

With that in mind, this establishes a perimeter you would need to operate within while maintaining liability with the government.

Transitioning the TSA away from the intelligence/law enforcement branch of the cabinet would go a LONG way towards alleviating a lot of this scope creep from a search for WEI to all manners of criminality.

I'm reminded of how the FCC has been given the ability to establish rules & policies regarding "communications" within the US however they're stymied at numerous points in their charter by the multitude of entities that are associated with "communication" - Internet service providers, ad-supported broadcasters, pay-supported broadcasters, end users. All parties with a vested interest in the outcome are (generally) involved in negotiations and suits are filed, settled, or decided to create the path Congress (perhaps not 100%) envisioned.

Why can't we have the same thing with airport/airline security?

Somewhat tongue in cheek: the customer is locked into a duopoly of choosing between "Charter Airlines" or "Verizon Airlines" depending upon what level of security they've chosen to apply to their flights.

What liability?

Do you really believe the US government will allow itself to be sued for damages in the event of another incident? And do you think the scumbags "in charge" of TSA will ever be personally accountable for anything with the present system?

Agree, hell. The federal government needs to leave the airline/airport security racket immediately and inform the airlines and airports that once again the liability is all theirs. No agreement? No common carrier/operator certificate.

I was in ATL terminal A centerpoint Skyclub yesterday, a woman with a heavy eastern European accent was talking on her cell phone and going on an on about the idiots at TSA.

No need to replace the TSA, just the DHS and TSA senior leadership. Then, from the top, dictate some sanity at the checkpoints, like this:

Primary: WTMD, baggage x-ray, ETD as necessary. No more carnivals.
Secondary (alarms, SSSS, and random pickings): bag check and European-style security interview
Tertiary (interview "fail"): choice of pat-down or NoS

I see lots of pros and few cons. The primary rolls back most of the security theater that was added by that idiot Kip Hawley. The secondary replaces a physically invasive screening with a psychologically stressful, but more effective, one. Existing BDOs can be re-trained to conduct interviews. Maybe they'll actually start being effective in this new role. Relegating body searches to tertiary restricts the most invasive procedures to the smallest subset of flyers. I'm aiming for fewer than 20 physical searches per day, nationwide.

Yes, an interviewer can abuse power and kick a passenger to tertiary if they don't like his/her attitude. As this already happens today, we're not making the situation any worse. As for language barriers for international visitors, yes, that's a legitimate issue.

Sounds like most here are not too pleased with the TSA and I can only imagine a vast majority of the general public would feel the same. Can we actually do something about it? Something at least to get the ball rolling? I mean all of the "security theaters" have only gotten worse ever since DHS & TSA were created, and I can't imagine what it would be like 5 to 10 years from now if they are allowed to continue unfeathered. Any ideas/suggestions?

LAX

Wait! I believe they do screening at Port Authority terminals only for buses & trains, too.

Out of the many things that failed on 9/11 airport security was not one of them.

Speaking of technology didn't the puffer machines WORK? (I know they broke down) Wouldn't it make more sense to work the bugs out?

Prohibition against passengers taking box cutters. Next?