Maybe I'm the only one, but I feel like in a way the TSA is going backwards instead of forward (moving on from 9/11). After 9/11, airport security was considerably tightened, lines became longer, ID checks were strict, and we even had National Guards patrolling the airports. Reports surfaced nation-wide in 2003 about screeners groping women, and the CAPPS II disaster came and went.

In 2004-2006, things began to loosen up - while shoes were required to come off, TSA backed off with Secure Flight, lines became shorter, TSA improved their pat-down process, and they were generally less invasive (little behavior detection, ID checks performed by airport contractors, etc).

Nowadays, we're seeing increased longer lines due to TSA taking over ID checks, the whole liquid fiasco, Secure Flight being in process, increased SPOT, more "propaganda" on their website giving statistics, reports of TSA taking down your personal info, and just a more invasive TSA... then the whole report on that woman who had problems going through security due to her piercing.

So, do you think TSA is going backwards - becoming more stricter than before? Longer lines (which I think is contrary to their goal to get you through the checkpoint as fast as possible), or are things actually improving compared to before? I'm not sure.

Discuss.

In very few words YES!

They are not going backwards - they are dissolving into psycho mode. A PR machine which is spinning constantly on damage control, morale going through the toilet, uncontrollable attrition, constant criticism from everyone from Congress to the man on the street, threats of budget cuts, talk of being disbanded, etc. The agency is almost becoming unglued.

Their act is not improving - it's like watching a creature in its last violent spasms before dying.

My only hope is they die soon - and this time, Congress gets it right and puts the right people in charge of Aviation security, with the right mission, the right tools and the right management.

I'm happy to report that my Naturalization ceremony is coming up in a few days - after which, I will begin plans for the 527 Group - shall we say, to put a little pinch in their IV line.

The traveling public should be so lucky.

However, as long as filth like Kip Hawley and Communists like Michael Chertoff are around, airport "security" will continue to be something resembling drunken, brain-damaged, poo-flinging monkeys trying to hump a football.

^^ LOL and AMEN. Thanks Spiff i just shot original Dublin Dr Pepper all over my keyboard from reading that.

You might want to check out Patrick Smith's ASK THE PILOT column in this week's Salon. It includes this passage...

<<< In Latin America, for example, our TSA requires local security personnel to set up gateside screening tables exclusively for flights to the United States. After passing through the standard metal detector and x-ray station, which does not enforce a liquids ban, passengers get in line to have their carry-on bags hand-searched for any oversized containers. Those headed elsewhere are exempt from such nonsense. These gateside checks are not only tedious, but useless. In South America recently I was sitting in a crowded gate and witnessed something hilarious -- or maybe sad is the better term: At the screening tables, a handful of contract guards were ransacking carry-ons, but there was no frisking or pat-downs of passengers themselves. So, as the line snaked forward in agonizing slow-motion, people would simply reach into their bags, remove any toothpaste or other personal effects they'd rather not forfeit, and slip them into their pockets!

Over the past six years I have written upwards of twenty columns on the airport security and the TSA. Through it all I've found myself searching for a word -- a single word that might possibly encapsulate the nonsense that we go through, from the pointy-object confiscations to the shoe removals to the childish folly I just described. Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, there is no single word that can simultaneously account for things wasteful, pointless, humiliating and immature. Neither is there a word to describe the level frustration some of us feel when we are demanded, at the risk of confrontation and hollering, to treat obviously silly rules with unmatched seriousness.

What we're dealing with is, to some extent, human nature. At this point the TSA is the kind of self-perpetuating beast that inevitably results when a bureaucracy is granted lots of power and little actual purpose. But also, we have also spent six years living in a state of institutional denial. Our government, willfully or otherwise, refuses to admit a basic and irrefutable premise: that the attacks of September 11th were not, in fact, caused by a failure of airport security. >>>

You can read the full story here, for free....
http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/...skthepilot270/

Watch for the "Skip this Ad" or "Enter Salon" link on the gateway page.

[END]

People do this in the US as well. Toothpaste, shampoo, etc. typically isn't going to set off a WTMD.

What he said.

The TSA was a knee-jerk panic reaction to a horrible situation, but as bad as that situation was, nothing good has ever been known to come out of knee jerk panic reactions-the TSA is a prime example of this.

Coming from someone on the inside of TSA, I would have to say it has gotten better (with only my airport as reference). I am not talking about the shoe/liquid policies, or the ID crap, or anything else that the public is aware of. I am only talking about being a TSO, the benefits, the pay, the ability to move up w/in the TSA or another gov't agency. The inside management has improved, IMO. The TSA was real quick to hire and throw just anyone into positions in the beginning. The management that I work with now are people who actually moved up through the system, they are more knowledgeable about the job of the TSO and the screening practices.

As far as the policies that are in place... I still agree with the shoe removal, though I think it could be enforced differently. The banning of small pocket knives should have been done away with when they allowed scissors. The liquid policy is ridiculous, the SSSS system is out dated and needs to be done away with. I am ok with ID checking, but it should be just that. No need for us to be involved with Visa's or anything else along those lines. We have our noses in too many places, and really should only have to focus on the security of the aircraft and the people on it.

Yep, incrementally worse. Like the frog-in-the-pot slowly brought to boil.

Folks, it's an election year. The party in power is desperately concerned about losing the Presidency - and the current Administration has demonstrated the effectiveness of the politics of fear. Like negative campaigns, it isn't going away.

Better for you, worse for us. Sorry if that isn't all that comforting a story to the general public

The TSA is fitting the classic aviation mode of being re-active instead of proactive (the sudden burst of inspections on AA, DL and WN are proof of that).

When the TSA started, it was done with the premise of keeping OBL off the planes. Since AQ has moved on to other things, the TSA must come up with new, inventive ways to keep itself relevant.

Enter the ID checks, SPOT nonsense, checking the San Diego Trolley, Amtrak and "standing at the ready" BS for something out of their scope. Not to mention the shameless, embarrassing things like "mythbusters" and beating their chest about finding prohibited items.

Since they have failed to catch all the prohibited items they are supposed to catch, they have basically moved the goalposts on their mission.

To directly answer the OP's question, I'm not sure the TSA has really gone "backwards." Largely because I don't think it ever stepped forward.

....Whoa, cowboy...they caught the Nipple Ring Bomber just yesterday...God, I feel safe.

Sorry, but your hypothesis and the whole thread is just entirely subjective. You're talking about the impression of the TSA 2k1-3, 2k4-6 and then now? Find some hard and fast data and then make a post. A lot of people here will always say the TSA is worse now than ever as it is their hobby to do so. Gropings when this first started?

New screening processes that get a lot of media attention due to September 11 are going to get a LOT of press. Any complaints are going to be very visible in the media. Does that mean there were more complaints then than now? Who knows? Were screeners doing anything different then vs. now or was it purely a reaction from people who had never had that level of screening before?

We're seeing increased lines now? Are we not also now seeing increased travel? Have you done any statistical analysis to show that there are increased lines? Have you been able to isolate that these lines are due to a change in the screening process and not an increase in passengers? That's pretty much the premise of your whole argument. If you don't have any of this, the thread is really pointless conjecture.

I'm not sure if you noticed, but the liquids ban was in place in 2006. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...092500275.html
That means not only have you not proved that lines are longer, but the "whole liquids fiasco" really isn't a 2007 onwards thing. In many ways, it was worse in 2006.

I don't see how the uniform that someone wears while checking my ID hurts my travel process. The ID checking is not a rate taking step and thus has 0 bearing in my weekly travel. Neither do I really care about what the TSA has on their website. I'm not forced to read it, so how is that invasive? Also, ONE woman has an issue going through a metal detector ONCE wearing large pieces of metal jewelery and it's the TSA being invasive? They had her take them out. They didn't make her undress and walk around the terminal. I'm not sure how this has any bearing on me or my travel week.

In summary, you haven't proven that travel or lines are worse now than they were previously. Your correlation of this unproven idea to causation by the TSA only makes the thread worse. Of the terrible things you see the TSA doing now, some were around before, some have no bearing on travel times and another is a completely isolated incident that in reality is the travelers own fault.

I have flown right after 9/11 and have flown heavily since 2003. The biggest change in air travel is definitely how busy the routes are. The planes I fly on are filled whereas before there was a lot more room. TSA didn't before and doesn't now have a strong bearing on my week. I habitually leave my house 1 hr 15 mins - 1 hr 30 mins before my flight.

Who would the right people be in your opinion?