Poll Finds Americans Think the TSA Is 'Doing a Good Job' 523
OverTheGeicoE writes "Why is it that airport security never seems to change in the United States? Perhaps it's because most Americans think the TSA is doing a 'good job,' according to a surprise Gallup poll, allegedly commissioned by no one but the kind editors at Gallup. The poll found that 54% of Americans believe the TSA is doing a good or excellent job, and that 57% have a good or excellent opinion of the agency. So why all the criticism? According to the article, criticism of the TSA comes primarily from 'Internet sites, where reporting standards are generally not at the same level as newspapers, where reporters are taught to consider what is told to them with skepticism and to seek responses to charges.' Furthermore, 'the TSA is put into a difficult situation when such charges are posted with little or no fact checking by reporters.' Other sources, of course, have different interpretations of Gallup's results, including questions about whether the poll was biased. If Americans secretly do love the TSA, that could explain why the recent whitehouse.gov petition failed to gather enough signatures for a 'response.' In fact, you'll find so little information about the petition remains on whitehouse.gov that you'll wonder if my link is correct. And these are not the droids you're looking for. Move along."
Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Most of the people either don't travel by air, or travel very infrequently. Those of us who are road warriors are vastly more likely to hate the TSA with vehemence.
Proof the system works! (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they do. That's the whole point of security theatre:
Security theater: term that describes security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve security. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater [wikipedia.org]
54% is LOW (Score:5, Insightful)
Fifty four percent is incredibly bad performance - it's a failure at a high school test.
What if I were to tell you that 55% of Americans think the IRS is doing a good job? It's certainly something I could believe - as the IRS audits less than 1% of Americans each year. Give something to compare it to. Otherwise, this is a puff article designed to make the TSA look good without any evidence WHATSOEVER.
I see nothing strange here (Score:5, Insightful)
Real reason is it depends on how you phrase it (Score:5, Insightful)
The article has a significant bias that's expressed in the spin it puts on the result. Data showing 54% of Americans think the TSA does a "good or excellent job" is not "Americans secretly do love the TSA." It could just as accurately be summarized "Nearly half of Americans think TSA is not doing a good job."
Re:not that surprising to me (Score:5, Insightful)
In other words, people like it when bad things happen to other people but not themselves.
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
..as a proportion of such incidents in countries without that kind of security theater?
Re:TSA does some good (Score:5, Insightful)
"Slippery slope" is a pretty lame argument in the face of grannies in wheelchairs having their colostomy bags searched, and toddlers having their sippy cups taken away, and a thousand other stupid anecdotes we've all heard. The REAL problem with TSA isn't necessarily the screening itself, which could be done pretty inconspicuously, but the sheer ostentation of going through a glacially slow-moving "security" checkpoint run by thugs and bullies.
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
How many terrorists has the TSA caught?
If the number is large, then your question is relevant. Otherwise they are the magic rock that keeps the tigers away.
Re:advertisement (Score:5, Insightful)
a. they're doing a good job
b. they're not doing a good job so when they see people vote for this option, they will step up their security to even more ridiculous levels
Seriously, I don't think it's outrageous to say that people realistically thought if they voted no, security would get more intrusive
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike you, for whom the threat of a jackboot on your neck for trying to go about your business as a free citizen has become comfortable.
Re:I travel and I don't *hate* the TSA (Score:2, Insightful)
Is it a good thing to do a good job at violating people's privacy? The cashier at walmart at least provides a public service. A TSA agent has no legitimate reason to exist.
Re:TSA does some good (Score:5, Insightful)
Why have would-be terrorists resorted to increasingly bizarre and ineffective weapons - the shoe bomb, underwear bomb, and chemical cocktail? If they thought they could, obviously they'd just bring some hand grenades, and you can be darn sure those would work every time.
A lot of TSA criticism comes from people who want stringent security for "those people" but not for "us" - meaning white people, grannies, etc. But if you think about it for a few seconds you know where that leads.
Personally I would scale back the TSA and the nekkid scans, but as a value tradeoff, knowing it would come at some cost to security.
And planes were routinely hijacked with "hand grenades" prior to 9/11??? The simple truth is that pre 9/11 security measures were more than adequate to prevent a hijacker from bringing guns or powerful, easy to use explosives on board a plane. What they could do (and did) was bring smallish cutting implements (e.g. box cutters).
The problem with 9/11 wasn't in what the hijackers brought on board, but that they changed the rules of airplane hijacking. Prior to 9/11, if your plane was hijacked, you cooperated. That was the best way to ensure that you would survive.
The 9/11 hijackers changed the rules, but the passengers couldn't know that. On one of the four flight the passengers did learn this, sadly too late to prevent the takeover of the plane, but they did prevent the hijackers from killing more people on the ground.
An attack like 9/11 could only ever work once. Now we have reinforced cockpit doors and passengers will not cooperate with hijackers. Any attempt to hijack a plane, without using firearms at a minimum, will be stopped by the passengers who will assume that the hijackers mean to crash the plane.
All this means that the myriad of additional security nonsense on the ground is almost entirely security theater. Initially, this was mostly a case of ass covering (something needs to be done, this is something, ergo this must be done) but lately (as with the 'porno' scanners) this seems driven by a desire to line the pockets of private enterprise with taxpayer money.
tl;dr It is possible to scale back the TSA without sacrificing actual security.
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
You think the creation of the TSA is the only thing that has changed? What about increased cockpit security or the willingness of citizens to fight back? You seem to be assuming that it's all because of the TSA, but the other things that have changed seem to be vastly more effective than simply molesting people airports.
But even if they were effective, I believe they must be opposed. Violating people's privacy and freedoms for safety is not acceptable to me.
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
So you're saying TSA don't do a good job? Then tell me how many buildings terrorists have flown airplanes into recently. Name one!
Oh no the TSA has done an excellent job. Mind, their job has very little to do with terrorists or safety, and everything to do with making Americans feel safe (with a nice side order of funneling money to certain congress/senatorial districts), and they have done a quite good job at that. After all, very few people want a government that looks like it isn't doing anything (Democrat or Republican), no matter what it actually should be, or is, doing.
Re:54% is LOW (Score:5, Insightful)
I traveled abroad for the first time recently to Japan. When I left for home, I didn't have to take off my shoes or my belt, didn't have to go through a full body scan, didn't have to be groped or fondled and generally humiliated. After we landed in LAX and I went through security again, I was standing around with a bunch of guys from my flight as we put on our belts and our shoes, generally redressing in the middle of a crowded airport terminal, and the one said to me "Welcome back to America." Indeed.
Re:not that surprising to me (Score:5, Insightful)
No, people are INDIFFERENT to bad things happening to strangers far away.
Wrong question (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not that they're not doing a "good job"--most interactions with them are fine. It's that they're doing the wrong job.
There are enough horror stories that they get a bad rap, sure. But the bigger point is that they are doing a job that it is stupid for us to be paying for. It inconveniences every traveller in the US and it does not make us significantly safer. Secure the cockpit doors and stop worrying about bombs--if you secure the cockpit doors, all they can do is blow up the plane, and they can blow up a bus so it's a ridiculous waste of money and time to be providing absurd security.
9/11 was (1) an attack that could only work once and (2) about flying the planes. Take away the ability to fly the planes, and the plane is no longer a particularly useful terror target, it's just a target.
Don't get me wrong--I'm happy that there are people working to make terrorist attacks on the US harder. I just don't believe that the TSA is a useful way to spend those resources.
You Don't Invalidate Basic Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
With a popularity poll. A significant portion of that 54% of Americans, when read the Bill of Rights, believe you are describing an antithetical, Socialist manifesto.
How can you judge if the TSA is "doing a good job", if you are among the 44% of Americans who are unable to define the Bill of Rights? [thedailybeast.com]
I for one DO believe the TSA does a good job. That job is one of eroding fundamental protections of basic rights while enriching cronies.
Re:54% is considered a good grade? (Score:4, Insightful)
I deposited a check recently. The next day, I was surveyed on my banking experience. They wanted to know how helpful the teller was at selling financial products not related to check depositing; whether she smiled, and so on. Each grade less than a 10 was followed up on-- as if her job depended on my unwillingness to cakk her stellar.
It's like ebay--anything less than a five star rating results in financial penalties.
Using that standard, 54% is a flunking grade.
Re:Not Applicable to all. (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a boat.
TSA to sell rocks shortly (Score:2, Insightful)
I think what you meant to say was:
Homer: Well, there's not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is sure doing its job.
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thank you, sweetie.
Lisa: Dad, what if I were to tell you that this rock keeps away tigers.
Homer: Uh-huh, and how does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work. It's just a stupid rock.
Homer: I see.
Lisa: But you don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I'd like to buy your rock.
Re:Real reason (Score:4, Insightful)
So you're saying TSA don't do a good job?
No, he was saying the TSA doesn't do a good job.
Then tell me how many buildings terrorists have flown airplanes into recently. Name one!
Did you quit beating your wife today?
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
No, the TSA's job is to make Americans think they should feel safe, while actually making them feel less safe (by making sure they are aware of the 'danger'), thereby justifying the government to spend more money on safety against terrorists.
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I've traveled a fair amount and have had no issues with the TSA.
Well, certain individuals like to be used for sex in prison, but that doesn't mean raping everyone else is OK.
The TSA does not increase security. They are so busy looking for "oversize" 4oz bottles of shampoo that commonly show up that they miss guns that rarely show up. They are so busy patting down grandmas and children there is no time to evaluate those that may pose a threat.
It is OK to admit that the TSA makes you feel better because they are "doing something". However, it is completely false to believe they are doing anything useful.
EARLY-LIFE MIND CONTROL WORKS! (Score:5, Insightful)
Interestingly, younger Americans âoehave significantly more positive opinions of the TSA than those who are older,â Gallup said, noting that 67% of people between 18 and 29 rate the agency as excellent or good.
"And that," put in the Director sententiously, "that is the secret of happiness and virtue - liking what you've got to do. All conditioning aims at that: making people like their inescapable social destiny."
-- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 1
Re:You Don't Invalidate Basic Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Not Applicable to all. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Real reason is it depends on how you phrase it (Score:3, Insightful)
The article IS crap. First off because what you just said, but it also compares apples with wallnuts. Websites that post news, journalists that report all TSA's "good job" state facts, if they weren't, then we'd see all kinds of trials in addition to all this. What THIS article states, is the "impression" the citizens have of TSA. You see, he's comparing reality with imagination.
One other thing that irks me is that in the article (yes, I read it a little) is that approval from the younger segment is even higher at some 69%. Could it be, because they don't remember the times before 9/11? They don't really know what they've lost?
But we probably shouldn't care about the article at all, I mean, just look at the writer's description, if that doesn't tell you who paid for the poll and it's answers, I don't know what will.
" Ted Reed, Contributor Covering airlines from Miami and Charlotte since 1989. "
Right ...
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the point is, the Israelis are (probably quite justifiably) rather paranoid, so they're an extreme case. So if they, of all people, think the TSA is a joke, then they really are a joke. If anyone is going to go to extremes for anti-terrorism security, it's the Israelis, so if you're doing something to avoid terrorism that the Israelis aren't doing, then you're going too far.
Re:Real reason is it depends on how you phrase it (Score:5, Insightful)
But the problem, as I see it, is that if less than half the population doesn't see something as a problem, it's simply not going to be addressed in this political climate, especially when we have two very bad, and and very similar (to each other) parties in power. The only way unpopular stuff gets changed in this country any more is if a very large majority is pissed off about it. A significant minority is mad about something? Too bad. They're not enough to count at the polls.
Heck, let's look at this very issue. Are any candidates talking about it? The only one I've heard recently was Rand Paul, and he's just a senator from one (not terribly large) state, and doesn't really represent any party or group, and is kinda on the fringe. Romney isn't talking about it at all, and given the Republican party position (aside from Rand of course, who with his father basically disagree with the other Republicans on nearly everything), is likely to be a big proponent of TSA, despite his lame claims of being in favor of "small government". And Obama certainly isn't talking about it, since all the recent TSA abuses have been under his authority. So it's not like you're going to be able to elect someone who'll make a change. If you tell Obama you don't like how the TSA is operating, he'll just laugh in your face and say "what are you going to do, vote for Romney?"
Re:Wrong question (Score:4, Insightful)
Unless Joe Terrorist steals a business jet somehow, he's not going to kill many people flying a typical Cessna 172 into a sporting event. Sure, it'll be world news and all, but the death toll really won't be very high; terrorists don't want to go to all that trouble just to kill a dozen or two people at the most. Just think about all the effort they have to put into it: they have to go to flight school and learn how to fly the thing in the first place (which is even worse if they try to steal a business jet, as those are much more complicated to fly), then they have to figure out where to steal one from and how, and time it so it happens when a major event is underway, and then avoid being shot down by F16s when the plane is reported stolen and the nearest airbase scrambles their fighters.
It'd much easier for them to just get some assault rifles and go to a mall on black friday and shoot hundreds of people, much like they did in Mumbai, India several years ago. Americans would be terrified of just going to the mall. Honestly, after the enormous success they had in Mumbai, I'm surprised they haven't done this here yet.
Re:You Don't Invalidate Basic Rights (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder what percentage of that 54% have ever flown on an airline and more specifically since the TSA took over security?
Hard to decide whether to mod or post...
That's been my impression for quite a while now. If you fly with any regularity, the TSA looks like nothing more than security theater that just applies patch after patch every time someone is noticed to be trying to do something nefarious through one of their gaping security holes. I flew a lot both before and after sept 11, and have been either mid-trip or within a few days of a trip during a lot of the policy changes (e.g. only passengers past the security checkpoints, the 3 oz of fluid thing, underpants man, and more). They slap a patch on in reaction to an event, and while it looks like they're doing something, it really has no effect other than to increase cost and time involved, with no improvement in safety or security.
A while ago I came to the conclusion that all of this stuff is some sort of weird proxy for people's fear of flying. If we were really concerned about terrorists then public places would look a whole lot different than they do. The reason we don't have more terrorist attacks has nothing to do with all the TSA stuff and everything to do with there just not being very many terrorists.
Re:Real reason (Score:4, Insightful)
Everyone has bomb shelters in Israel because they have enemy forces who are a very short distance away willing and able to lob bombs at them. When you live in this situation, having access to a bomb shelter is a fact of life.
We're not talking about copying everything the Israelis do in their day-to-day life, but looking at their airport security model should help us fashion a more effective TSA than the "What Lobbyist Has Paid A Congressman To Buy Machines For The TSA Now" method or the "Change Procedures To Look Like You Have Countered The Latest Terrorist Tactic" method (e.g. taking off shoes after the shoe bomber strikes).
Re:Not Applicable to all. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nope. I am not independently wealthy, and I live up to my ideals just fine. You can live a thoroughly fulfilled life without boarding a plane.
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
We've reached the point where you need to consent to being irradiated or molested in order to get onto an airplane. If you don't think we already live in a dystopian novel you simply have no clue.
Quietly putting up with unecessary nonsense does make you a sheep. Although I suspect you don't have any actual experience regarding the subject at hand.
It's easy to be dismissive when you aren't an aggrieved party.
Re:TSA does some good (Score:5, Insightful)
I've got news for you, while you're busy pointing at the evil, evil right wing, the usual suspects you vote for are busy implementing the same or worse.
Time to get over this red-team/blue-team bullshit or you are part of the problem.
Re:Real reason (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Real reason is it depends on how you phrase it (Score:5, Insightful)
What one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces.