|
One columnist gets it -- take on the TSA
I read this article in the paper at lunch today and I about stood up and applauded. Sums up what most FTers say on here all the time. At least one columnist gets it:
http://www.washingtontimes.com/comme...2031-5713r.htm "Confusing control and security By Richard W. Rahn Suppose you were a sadist and really hated your fellow men — what type of job would you try to get? Well, you might try to become head of airline security for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), where you could devise a system like the following. You would: • Hire people who are wannabee drill instructors, to order passengers around as if they were new Marine Corps recruits. • Demand passengers show their IDs up to four times before boarding, even though you know IDs are easily forged. • Require people to wait in long lines, even though you know almost precisely how many people will travel through each airport each hour. • Force people confined to wheelchairs or who have implants or pacemakers to go through unnecessarily lengthy, degrading, embarrassing and intrusive physical inspections. • Take away relatively harmless personal items, such as tweezers, hat pins, sewing scissors, etc., while leaving people with items that are much more lethal in trained hands. • Harass small children, elderly women, infirm individuals, and young attractive women by making them go through difficult body motions and inappropriate touching. • And finally, waste taxpayer monies by hiring excessive personnel to ask the same questions over and over or allow them to hang around doing nothing. You would think, of course, what is described above could not possibly occur in a society that calls itself free and democratic, but unfortunately every day millions of Americans are subject to some or all of the above if they try to fly." Read the rest at the link provided. No registration required. |
Well, this isn't the first time the news media has taken on the TSA. Joe Sharkey of The New York Times took them on about 6 months ago, when they were doing the short-lived breast exams. This is a good trend! Now if a few members of Congress would join the fun, we might make progress. Remember that the Washington Times is highly regarded by conservative Republicans, who hold all the cards these days.
Bruce |
Richard Rahn is a pretty famous economist. He recognized the insanity of airport security even before the TSA existed, in September 2001. See this column:
http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/...09-27-01.shtml I really like this guy!!! Bruce |
Originally Posted by bdschobel
Well, this isn't the first time the news media has taken on the TSA. Joe Sharkey of The New York Times took them on about 6 months ago, when they were doing the short-lived breast exams. This is a good trend! Now if a few members of Congress would join the fun, we might make progress. Remember that the Washington Times is highly regarded by conservative Republicans, who hold all the cards these days.
Bruce I'm just happy a Beltway paper is starting to pick up on it. I hope we see more editorials like this. |
It just so happens that I'm writing a paper on airline security right now for my English class, and this column is exhibit A on why the TSA needs to be rehauled. Perfect timing on this being posted...
|
yep
Originally Posted by Superguy
Suppose you were a sadist and really hated your fellow men — what type of job would you try to get? Well, you might try to become head of airline security for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), where you could devise a system like the following.
You would: • Hire people who are wannabee drill instructors, to order passengers around as if they were new Marine Corps recruits. • Demand passengers show their IDs up to four times before boarding, even though you know IDs are easily forged. • Require people to wait in long lines, even though you know almost precisely how many people will travel through each airport each hour. • Force people confined to wheelchairs or who have implants or pacemakers to go through unnecessarily lengthy, degrading, embarrassing and intrusive physical inspections. • Take away relatively harmless personal items, such as tweezers, hat pins, sewing scissors, etc., while leaving people with items that are much more lethal in trained hands. • Harass small children, elderly women, infirm individuals, and young attractive women by making them go through difficult body motions and inappropriate touching. • And finally, waste taxpayer monies by hiring excessive personnel to ask the same questions over and over or allow them to hang around doing nothing. You would think, of course, what is described above could not possibly occur in a society that calls itself free and democratic, but unfortunately every day millions of Americans are subject to some or all of the above if they try to fly." We dont harass anyone. Finally if we had enough people to be excessive, we would have people standing in lines would we? |
It's not a good column. This column doesn't acknowledge real threats and you won't get anywhere until you acknowledge real threats. You have to admit that it is possible for a wheelie, granny or a kid to unknowingly transport plastic explosives on board an airplane if you want to equally complain that screwdrivers, matches, etc don't need to be banned.
If this guy had written a fair and unbiased article, it could have helped. Columns like this will get thrown in the trash bin by the players in DC and it gives those of us fighting the TSA a bad name. It's worse than useless. |
Originally Posted by stimpy
It's not a good column. This column doesn't acknowledge real threats and you won't get anywhere until you acknowledge real threats. You have to admit that it is possible for a wheelie, granny or a kid to unknowingly transport plastic explosives on board an airplane if you want to equally complain that screwdrivers, matches, etc don't need to be banned.
If this guy had written a fair and unbiased article, it could have helped. Columns like this will get thrown in the trash bin by the players in DC and it gives those of us fighting the TSA a bad name. It's worse than useless. |
Originally Posted by eyecue
Wow he better stick to economics because he doesnt know anything about security or the TSA for that matter! We arent nor do we want to be D.I's for the USMC. We dont do ALL the BP and ID checks at the CP. With logic like this, he is saying dont do it at all because it is too easy to fake one. TSA doesnt know "almost exactly" how many passengers are going through CP. There are things like late bookings. People with disabilities have it rough but it stands to reason that a disability is a good exploit. I get less complaints from these people than I do from non-disabled fliers. Besides that, they dont have to fly, no one is forcing them. People with disabilities have more special considerations. We dont take away tweezers and hat pins.
We dont harass anyone. Finally if we had enough people to be excessive, we would have people standing in lines would we? :rolleyes: The guy is right on. |
I agree with Rahn, but I think his article is too inflammatory to make a difference. I think we need more articles that propose solutions. How can screening be more effective, more efficient, and less degrading? What scientific and statistical evidence do we have to support one approach versus another?
The TSA can take the upper hand with any journalist. They can always claim that they have access to secret information that can never be made public. Just like other failures of government secrecy, we need journalists to break down this secrecy and demonstrate that the Agency is not operating with sensible management, intelligent policymaking, or the use of logic. There is one point, however, that doesn't require such a scientific analysis. Rahn talks about "former drill sergeants." Although this is an exaggeration, he touches upon a question I often ask myself, "Why must many screeners be on a 'power trip?'" This behavior predates the TSA but that doesn't make it excusable. How is that screeners in other parts of the world can remain polite, using a normal tone of voice, and a friendly, personable demeanor? |
Looking past all of the inflammatory rhetoric Rahn writes which just appeals to the emotions rather than the logic of some in here, this is my take:
1. TSA screeners no longer ask for IDs at the entrance to the checkpoint. They should be asking for boarding passes, and this is where it may be somewhat frustrating for the traveller. The purpose of asking for the boarding pass is to make sure those who have been selected for additional screening by CAPSS, the dreaded "SSSS," are screened at the checkpoint. If not, then they will screened at the gate. It's much more convenient for both passenger and screener to get it over with at the checkpoint. Otherwise, the only time a passenger will be asked to present ID is whenever there is a truly legitimate reason to do so such as providing information for an official report or when asked to do so by a law enforcement officer for a security-related incident. I've said this before and will say it again, TSA needs to do away with selectee screening. It is a waste of time and effort. However, the 9/11 Commission strongly endorsed selectee screening, so it's a matter of Congressional direction that we still have it and will continue to have it for a very long time. Selectee screening, like it or not, is here to stay. I disagree with the rest of Rahn's article as nothing more than hyperbole and a gross distortion of facts. It seems that he takes delight at insulting public servants as do some of the forum members in here. But if you get past all the emotion, there are some valid points in Rahn's article, few as they may be.2. I agree with Rahn about how TSA should do a better job of anticipating peak periods and adjusting its manning accordingly. I know at my airport our managment staff has tried to tackle this issue with various strategies by rearranging our shifts. We have two main shifts (a morning and evening) augmented by various other overlapping part-time and full-time shifts all designed to accomodate these peak periods. Jury's still out on whether it's effective or not. I don't know if other airports are doing the same thing or not. However, from the Big Picture view, Congress is holding TSA to 45,000 screeners. This means that even if TSA presents a strong case for increasing its numbers based on solid evidence that it still cannot keep up with passenger peak periods, Congress will ignore it and still hold TSA to that fixed figure. In other words, a lot of this is politically driven for a variety of reasons. 3. I also agree with Rahn that our prohibited items list is too narrow, too restrictive and too focused on risk-avoidance rather than risk-management. I don't know how much of this is due to TSA's perception of risk as opposed to Congress' perception. The upcoming ban on lighters was a Congressional mandate. I think now that we've been doing this for a while we can modify the list and begin allowing small scissors, short bladed pocketknives and other innocuous objects through the checkpoint. 4. Because I know this will come up, I have to admit that I did see the validity of some of the complaints about shoes. However, I saw a Coast Guard film demonstrating the deadly effectiveness of a shoe bomb containing less explosives than what was found on Richard Reid and have changed my mind. I will agree that perhaps TSA can mitigate the threat by perhaps performing random shoe screening (say one out of every three passengers who come through or whatever number is satisfactory), but I do not dismiss the threat posed by shoe bombs. |
Originally Posted by stimpy
This column doesn't acknowledge real threats and you won't get anywhere until you acknowledge real threats. You have to admit that it is possible for a wheelie, granny or a kid to unknowingly transport plastic explosives on board an airplane if you want to equally complain that screwdrivers, matches, etc don't need to be banned.
From the article: When I am on an airplane, I am not concerned that the man next to me may have a Swiss Army knife in his pocket, but I am concerned that someone might have brought a chemical bomb on board or in the cargo hold. Personally I think the article has the correct amount of inflammatory rhetoric as it does a fairly decent job of expressing what frequent pax, and screeners who worry about effective security as opposed to the image of security, see day in and day out at the airport. The comments about wannabe-drill-instructors, harassment, and excessive ID/BP checks by TSA employees (which still do happen at some airports) are a bit harsh but reflect the situation at some stations. |
Originally Posted by Bart
The upcoming ban on lighters was a Congressional mandate.
|
Studentff, he also says that the wheelies, kids and grannys shouldn't be "harrassed". Well if you don't want to "harrass" or search these folks, then you could very well end up sitting next to someone with a chemical bomb. You can't have it both ways.
|
Originally Posted by stimpy
It's not a good column. This column doesn't acknowledge real threats and you won't get anywhere until you acknowledge real threats. You have to admit that it is possible for a wheelie, granny or a kid to unknowingly transport plastic explosives on board an airplane if you want to equally complain that screwdrivers, matches, etc don't need to be banned.
If this guy had written a fair and unbiased article, it could have helped. Columns like this will get thrown in the trash bin by the players in DC and it gives those of us fighting the TSA a bad name. It's worse than useless. |
| All times are GMT -6. The time now is 1:49 pm. |
This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2026 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks are the property of their respective owners.