"Our job is to stop a terrorist attack."
 

Quoted by Gale Rossides, in her statement to Congress. TSA's job is to stop a terrorist attack.

Mind-boggling. Can anyone just scream mission creep?

It isn't just TSA. The "legacy" DHS agencies as infected with the same paranoia. Last week I was having breakfast with a senior ICE official. We got to talking about transition matters, and he expressed concern that there would be a terrorist attack between November and January.

If we aren't careful, we are going to wake up and find that we have given away our civil liberties.

That's your problem: you look for bombs, not for bombers.
You can not solve everything by technique and with rules.

This doesn't seem like a controversial statement - of course their job is to prevent a terrorist attack. We can argue about how well they do that job, and what collateral damage they create while doing it, but that's their job.

The statement I found absurd was the following:

Our Officers work in an environment in which 99.9 percent of the people they see every day are not a threat

So, she's implying that 1 in 1000 passengers is a threat? If that's the case, and given that there are about 770MM emplanements each year, then 770k passengers are a threat, which means that (with 10MM annual departures), 7% of flights have a terrorist on board. Either that, or TSA is turning away 770k/year and keeping them from flying. Neither seems remotely plausible.

Also, on the issue for which she was testifying (performance-based pay) I tend to agree with them - it's a good thing.

Who's determining the performance standard though? How many wheelchair bound grannies you refer to secondary isn't a plausible benchmark.

I'd rather let TSA look for the bombs and trained professional LEOs look for the bombers. TSA isn't even effective at looking for bombs.

True ... to a point. However, TSA paints itself as on the front lines of the War on Terra. That's not the case. While they're a cog in the wheel, they tend to overstate their importance and they're using it to justify mission creep into other areas to prevent terrorism. They have a narrowly defined mandate and they're exceeding it greatly.

I agree. If they know that, why do they treat everyone by default as a terrorist until proven otherwise rather than a normal person until proven otherwise? The mindset change alone would do wonders.

It ignores the other half of the equation though. If you're going to pay for performance, you need to hold people accountable for not performing. TSA isn't doing that. We see many bad apples and stories in the news that show that the bad apples continue to work and aren't held accountable.

Additionally, we have the PERFORMANCE part of the equation. TSA isn't performing. So why should we pay them more when they have a very low failing grade?

Uh, we already have.

Well, if that is your job, you fail miserably at that.

Now get back to your job which is to keep prohibited weapons and bombs from getting by the security checkpoint or onto the planes.

And if stopping a terrorist attack is really your job, then it's really time to ship you and a huge proportion of your colleagues to Iraq and Afghanistan.

That was my first thought. My second is, am I the only one having some sort of bug when trying to quote?

Mike

It seems to be fixed now. I was having trouble earlier though.

There was some sort of database glitch. I've seen it before with FT. Fortunately it seems resolved for now.

The Threat TSA Fears Most
 

This is 2000 Threat Passengers per day.

She is correct. She said "threat". She did not say to who or what, as in a "threat to the plane or a threat to the safety of the other passengers."

An OBL Approved Tewwowist is a threat. To the plane.

A non sheeple concerned passenger is also a threat. To the TSA mission creep. To the continued future of the security theater of the TSA. To the future of her overpaid job.

With 178,000 members, I'll bet about 2000 Flyertalkers fly every day.

Hello Fellow Traveler Threats. :D

What utter stupidity. No one can stop all terrorist attacks. For a good explanation why see this paper by Mueller (hat tip to Schneier).

america is not ready for that paper yet. another 10 years of humiliation and a few comprehension improvement initiatives later, and we'll be ready.

TSA's job is not to stop a terrorist attack
 

Cestmoi123, I think you are mistaken. TSA's mission statement indicates that their job is to "protect the nation’s transportation systems to ensure freedom of movement for people and commerce". In the course of doing their job, they might need to prevent such an attack, but to say that TSA's job is "to prevent a terrorist attack" is no more accurate than to say that the U.S. Department of State's job is to prevent a terrorist attack.

This extreme hysteria over the perceived high risk of someone who opposes U.S. policies using terrorism as a means to strike back against the empire is ridiculous, and after years of having that idea pounded into our heads by our government, much of the American public is going along with it without questioning its validity. In less than a decade, the threat of terrorism has been woven into the fabric of our society. It's sickening.

In that same speech, Gale Rossides also stated, "Our Officers work in an environment in which 99.9 percent of the people they see every day are not a threat"

Each of these statements is quite revealing about how TSA perceives their role and how they perceive their relationship with those whom they are employed to serve.

In a comment posted to a recent TSA blog entry, I quoted the TSA mission statement, then asked:Christopher and the other TSA bloggers have not responded.