and don't forget the impending extinction of free thought and common sense.

Mizzou,
Do you work for the TSA?

The superficial point is to stop nasty things getting into airline cabins. Nasty people are apparently OK.

The underlying reason is an exercise in national collective pysche, a reaction to and attempt to expunge the shame and humiliation of Sept 11 2001. To what extent it has worked is a matter of individual opinion.

Cue: CSI Miami theme.

I've seen the same thing happen (multiple times, by accident) with pocket knives. Once they re-screened the bag in question and didn't find it. The traveller (not me) noticed the pocket knife when unpacking at their destination.

I think it's clear we've lost sight of why we do this because the reason hasn't jumped out at any of us.

If you jump back to 1973, people got tired of being hijacked to Cuba. Actually, this was a localized event (SE USA). For example, nobody flying from LAX-SEA had to worry about being hijacked to Cuba.

For the airlines, screening for weapons used to hijack an airliner started out as a liability and risk issue. A diversion to Cuba was a diversion that added physical risk and inconvenience. More violent Middle Eastern hijackings upped the ante as the decade rolled on. I recall, here in the US, there were a few isolated violent incidents. I remember that there was a PSA flight on which a guy snuck a gun on board, shot the pilots and then deliberately crashed it into the San Joaquin valley near Fresno. The guy apparently had a death wish resulting from severe depression. Although the stakes have changed quite a bit, I've got to believe the airlines' main reason for screening is economic.

For the government, it's always been a political issue. We started out by wanting to avoid political embarassment in front of Castro by flights visiting Havana. The government had to do "something" that officials could hang their hats on when it came time for reelection. This has evolved into today's TSA, whose main role in life is social engineering and demanding compliance. This is certainly doing "something."

I don't think anyone objects to basic screening. I certainly don't from the economic/liability/added risk perspective. The "national security" reasons we've convinced ourselves exist are just just a few of many dozens of national security threats. If you were to rank-order them, I'm not sure turning airliners into cruise missiles would make the top ten. So, I see very little value-added coming from the "threat" reasons why we screen. Screening for bombs in cargo or checked luggage is really an economic issue. The reality is that an airliner blown to bits raining small pieces of itself over a wide area is not much of a national security threat, but it sure is a huge economic threat to the airline whose asset gets blown up.

Over the last several years, we've had hoards of government people descending on our airports telling directors and CEOs how to do their jobs and dictating what's important. Security screening is just one of many things that an airline or airport executive worries about. By forcing Dirty Harry wannabe's on these folks from the FSD down to the individual screeners (not even counting all the HQ pukes), we've created an adversarial environment rather than a cooperative one. Real security, in its proper context, results from a cooperative relationship between security and the enterprise. The government ought to be an enabler to the transportation industry, not a hindrance.

Just out of curiosity, I wonder if there are any figures out there of recorded violent incidents on airliners before there was any weapons screening? To be meaningful, these data would have to be normalized to incidents per something in order to be relevant to today.

I know I've mentioned this anecdote before, but it bears mentioning again. A friend of mine flew ROA-CLT-AHN, then AHN-CLT-MEM, and MEM-ATL-EWR. He had about a 5" fixed-blade knife in his laptop bag in one of its many pockets.

Three trips through the TSA checkpoints, PLUS two hand inspections of his bag at the gate, PLUS a random hand-inspection at the gate, failed to find this knife. He discovered it when unpacking in NJ!!!

wow!
What an insightful, balanced, smart, and well written post. I am very impressed.

I hereby award you my coveted :-: :-: :-: :-: :-: rating for responses.

Now I can fly happy again, knowing that I will never get angry or frustrated with the TSA morons again.

bless you


ENM

PS Reading your post makes me regret not finishing the 10th grade. DOH!

Why do comments like this still get made on these message forums?

People know that people from TSA post here and it can be considered a insult to them. You have good questions and make good points but someone that has to directly insult a whole group of people like that loses something in that argument.

No.

Screenerx,

1) Have you ever been through airport security in the US of America since 2001?

2) Have you ever eaten at a McDonalds?

3) In your opinion, what set of employees demonstrate a higher level of reasoning, use more common sense and a generally have higher IQ?

Well, in fairness, reasoning isn't part of the job description for either position. The difference is really that McD's recognizes that it is a customer service organization and the TSA doesn't.

True. And again, in fairness, I have had (in the same day, at the same airport, no less) TSA customer service outshine McDonalds, and vice versa.

Both groups of people have the ability to make things go smoothly when meeting or exceeding their job expectations, and turn things to hell when they fall short, no matter how much mental heavy lifting is required.

The TSA really doesn't have the frosty shake thing going yet, so they are still miles behind the McD's customer experience in my opinion.

Well, I thought I could ignore this post, but it looks like that's not going to happen.

How haughty of you, Elite Nomore, to insult screeners or anyone in the service industry with your arrogant attempt to make some sort of connection between low intelligence and low paying jobs. Of course, it would have helped had you used an actual word seeing as how "underbrained" simply doesn't exist in the English language. It appears that your attitude towards people in the service industry is one of regarding them as beneath you or not worthy of your respect. It certainly reflects a contempt and a predisposition you have to abuse people in these jobs. Don't you think the world would be a better place if you treated others with a sense of decent respect regardless of their job? Why the insults? Why not discuss a topic without making it personal? Does putting yourself above or others beneath you fulfill some sort of desperate need for self-importance?

Did you want to get a rise out of the TSA screeners you know who participate in these discussions? Is this hit-and-run name-calling the sort of adult behavior that makes you better than us? Is this your measure of self-worth? Is this how you define being a man? Just asking, pal. No need to respond. I truly don't care. Just wanted you to know that it's difficult for me to attempt to answer your basic question, which is a good one, without ignoring the blatant attempt on your part to insult screeners and anyone else whose paycheck is apparently lower than yours.

But then again, it's an assumption on your part. Some of us do know how to invest our money, and some of us choose this job because we truly enjoy it.

Even if it means dealing with people like you.

Probably because, like many of us, he has had a number of infuriating interactions with TSA personnel who simply do not follow procedure nor treat passengers in anything resembling a respectful and courteous manner. Those kinds of impressions last much longer than the good encounters, logical or not it's a fact of life. Since we are not allowed (under penalty) to 're-educate' such screeners on the spot, venting here is a tempting substitute.

But I agree, this forum ought to be able to recognize it happens, will continue to happen and that it is not necessary to waste bandwidth simply for the purpose of hurling epithets (particularly if they are not innovative ones ).