TSA Facing Death By a Thousand Cuts 493
OverTheGeicoE writes "The Transportation Security Administration is getting a lot of negative attention, much of it from the U.S. government itself. A recent congressional report blasted the TSA for being incompetent and ineffective (PDF). A bill to force the TSA to reduce its screening of active duty U.S. military members and their families was approved unanimously by the House of Representatives. After a TSA employee was arrested for sexually assaulting a woman while in uniform, a bill has been introduced to prevent TSA agents from wearing police-style uniforms and badges or using the title 'officer.' The bill's sponsor calls these practices 'an insult to real cops.' The FBI is getting involved by changing its definition of rape in a way that might expose the TSA's 'enhanced pat-down' screeners to prosecution. Lastly, public support for the TSA's use of X-ray body scanners drops dramatically when people realize there is a cancer risk."
Friggen finally (Score:5, Interesting)
Must be an election year coming up, because the government's actually doing shit about stuff we've been complaining about for the past... two, three years?
Re:Devil's Advocate Apparently... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can you show that the TSA has actually prevented that rather than just creating ridiculous rules after an incident happened?
Re:About Time! (Score:5, Interesting)
The IRS brings Income in.
The TSA is spending it like a waterfall on stuff that even DARPA says doesn't work and shouldn't be funded.
The TSa will soon become another under funded agency.
Something has to take its place. (Score:5, Interesting)
The TSA is a bureaucratic, money-sucking nightmare that entirely fails to live up to the promises of the politicians who created it. It is incompetently managed and its policies are inept, ineffective, capricious, opaque, invasive, disrespectful, and I would argue they are also fundamentally unconstitutional.
All that said, though, the question remains: if the TSA were to vanish overnight, what would take its place? What SHOULD take its place? These are not easy questions to answer--if they were, we'd be on that path by now, but instead the Kabuki dance that is this "security theater" gets more bizarre by the day. The reality is that certain fundamental questions of how best to address and ensure basic passenger safety without infringing on essential personal liberties remain unanswered, let alone the question of how to do it efficiently (both in terms of financial cost and human resources). Of course that is not to say no ideas have been proposed, but the point is that we've let the genie out of the bottle and we cannot go back to the way things were done before. The TSA may or may not have to be dismantled, but something must serve the function of providing basic safety. After all, our corporate overlords who pull the puppet strings of our politicians, can't seem to stop meddling with foreign countries, so it seems unlikely that the rest of the world will soon stop hating us.
Long overdue (Score:4, Interesting)
The bastards burglarized my luggage the first time I flew after the agency went live.
Fedex has gotten a lot of business ever since.
Re:Heh (Score:4, Interesting)
That actually is kinda funny. If you were following Usenet/CompuServe at the time those seasons aired, especially the Night Watch ones, people were actually complaining that it's "unreasonable" and that "Stuff like that would never happen in AMERICA".
And JMS' responses to them were that these things all happened fairly recently (at the time they were references to the Red Scare and McCarthyism-era politics).
He also said that he knows it's not likely that it'll ever happen again because we're so vigilant and attached to our freedom now.
Re:What cut? They're not being cut. (Score:5, Interesting)
Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may steal from it at night." So they created a night watchman position and hired a person for the job at minimum wage for a budget of $25,000. Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job without instruction?" So they created a planning department and hired two people, one person to write the instructions and one person to do time studies. Departmental budget $150,000.Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality Control department and hired two people, one to do the studies and one to write the reports. Additional Department budget $200,000. Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get paid?" So they created two positions, a time keeper and a payroll officer, then hired two people. Additional Departmental budget $300,000Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of these people?" So they created an administrative section and hired three people, an Administrative Officer, an Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary with office space, travel allowance, and yearly training seminars. Additional Departmental budget $750,000.Then Congress said, "We have had this entire department in operation for one year, and we are $1,400,000 over budget. We must cut back." So they laid off the night watchman.
Re:About Time! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:My Pet Rock Is Better (Score:4, Interesting)
The number of terrorism attempts since the TSA has started isn't zero, the underwear and shoe bombers off the top of my head. The TSA has missed all of them.
Re:Oh look, the pendulum. It swings back. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have a better alternative. There aren't that many commonalities left in America these days except for a common language (and not even that in many places), so instead of trying to "focus on commonalities", let's agree to go our separate ways and split the country up into some smaller, more manageably-sized units. This country is too large, and history has shown that large nations and empires never last that long, and end up breaking apart or collapsing due to infighting and corruption. Infighting and corruption are about all that's going on in our government these days, so it'd be better to amicably break up now before things get really bad and some people riding elephants invade.
Re:About Time! (Score:5, Interesting)
The TSA is the only agency hated more that the IRS. Considering the head start the IRS had, that is an impressive achievement!
Agreed. A big reason I hate TSA never seems to be reported on: theft. I'm a frequent flyer (several times per month) for over a decade now, so I have a good sample size here. Ever since TSA was created, I've regularly had shit stolen from my luggage. I never had this happen to me a single time before TSA. It's so bad I never check in my bag unless I absolutely have to, but sometimes I have no choice. Last year, for example, when coming home for Christmas, some jackass in TSA stole all the Christmas presents I bought for my family that I had to put in my check-in bag. I've given up on reporting this because they just don't care. I've never had any thing stolen out of my luggage returned to me and never been given any indication that there was any follow up. I doubt they even report it for their statistics.
Re:My Pet Rock Is Better (Score:5, Interesting)
Those that pass, go through easily
Exactly. I remember reading an interview with an Israeli security screener. In a nutshell, he said that "Once I trust you, I'll let you on the plane with dynamite. It's not dynamite I'm screening for - It's you." I experienced Israeli security once - I felt like I was interacting with a highly skilled, trained professional. I've never felt that way at an American airport.
Re:About Time! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know how posted this, but I read it on here and found it to be a very good idea.