New (and idiotic) TSA rules proposed

[SirFozzie]

"I'm sorry, Mom, I can't fly home for Dad's funeral on Sunday, because it's already Friday, and the TSA won't let me fly."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10...nto_data_hell/

Under new rules proposed by the Transport Security Administration (TSA) (pdf), all airline passengers would need advance permission before flying into, through, or over the United States regardless of citizenship or the airline's national origin.

Currently, the Advanced Passenger Information System, operated by the Customs and Border Patrol, requires airlines to forward a list of passenger information no later than 15 minutes before flights from the US take off (international flights bound for the US have until 15 minutes after take-off). Planes are diverted if a passenger on board is on the no-fly list.

The new rules mean this information must be submitted 72 hours before departure. Only those given clearance will get a boarding pass. The TSA estimates that 90 to 93 per cent of all travel reservations are final by then.

[CamEdwards]

Wow. That would have completely screwed me going to Houston to be with my mom when she got her diagnosis a few weeks ago. I can also think of one work-related trip that would have been affected as well.

[Crapshoot]

Yeah, that's bullshit - Business travellers would get screwed, especially in our field.

[Klinglerware]

Hmm, even if you are an American citizen? Can the United States keep you out legally if you are a citizen of the US?

[SackAttack]

Commerce clause ostensibly gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, and ostensibly the Congress has given the TSA authority to make regulations as it sees fit.

So, yeah, I'd guess pending challenge they can.

Doesn't mean they should.

[molson]

Funny that the UK register is the cited source here. Not that I doubt the story, but I guess the strategy is to quickly post a "controversial" story that flies around internet message boards, increasing their web page impressions and ad fees.

Edit - I totally skimmed and missed the 72 hours in the post.

[SirFozzie]

Looks like it's not quite as bad as it looks on first blush (I'm reading the PDF that's linked in that article)

Airlines are required to submit all this information 72 hours before each flight. All these folks will get boarding passes (barring any other trouble)

If someone registers after that for a flight, the airline has to submit all their details immediately after they register, and they will not get a boarding pass till TSA's done their magic checks..

Well, that's no where near GOOD, mind you, but that's not as bad..

Looks like anyone who has to get into the secure area (for example, a parent who is sending their kid on a flight), has to be prescreened the same way.

[Coffee Warlord]

Obey, citizen.

[flere-imsaho]

I can't wait for the first weather cancellations where a whole bunch of people have to re-book/go on standby and a ton of people miss their (new) flights because the checks can't happen in time to get the boarding passes issued for departure.

I wonder if Ted Kennedy's still on the no-fly list. Sounds like he'll be taking the train more often.

Oh, here's another (actually serious) question: where, exactly, is the fine line between someone being on the no-fly list and someone just being arrested for being a suspected terrorist? Does anybody know?

[TroyF]

I don't see how this is going to be that big of a deal at all. Like most things with the TSA, it seems horrible at first blush and then isn't really a big deal. They'll figure out weather issues flere.

[molson]

Originally Posted by TroyF

I don't see how this is going to be that big of a deal at all. Like most things with the TSA, it seems horrible at first blush and then isn't really a big deal. They'll figure out weather issues flere.

It does seem like something like this comes up once a month.

[flere-imsaho]

It's not atypical, in the summer, for a thunderstorm to cause the cancellation of dozens of flights at Chicago O'Hare. The airlines cancel those flights and start booking people on flights that leave a few hours later (when the weather will clear) or the next morning.

You either have confidence that the TSA can handle that load in a timely manner, or you don't.

[Surtt]

Originally Posted by TroyF

I don't see how this is going to be that big of a deal at all. Like most things with the TSA, it seems horrible at first blush and then isn't really a big deal. They'll figure out weather issues flere.

You are now guilty until proven innocent.

[molson]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

You either have confidence that the TSA can handle that load in a timely manner, or you don't.

If they can't, the proposal won't be implemented.

Nobody will remember this thread in 6 months, just like the last dozen threads where people jumped to conclusions soley to make a political statement.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Surtt

You are now guilty until proven innocent.

Huh? This has nothing to do with the criminal justice process. It takes minutes for names to clear or not clear on the no-fly list. No one's being declared guilty of anything. It's a name check.

[CU Tiger]

this doesnt apply ( as I read it) to flights thaat begin and end in the US only international flights that
A) Fly directly into the country
B) Have a flight path over the county
C) Cross Over the US

So most business travel (US - US) wouldnt be effected.

[Atocep]

Originally Posted by TroyF

I don't see how this is going to be that big of a deal at all. Like most things with the TSA, it seems horrible at first blush and then isn't really a big deal. They'll figure out weather issues flere.

QFT

This will probably affect .00001% of passengers, one of whom will write a blog about how it ruined thier life and cause another uproar.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by SackAttack

Commerce clause ostensibly gives Congress the right to regulate interstate commerce, and ostensibly the Congress has given the TSA authority to make regulations as it sees fit. And you, the voters, keep electing Democrats and Republicans that want to increase their powers to regulate and centralize.

Fixed.

Vote libertarian-minded.

[Surtt]

Originally Posted by molson

Huh? This has nothing to do with the criminal justice process. It takes minutes for names to clear or not clear on the no-fly list. No one's being declared guilty of anything. It's a name check.

This is the opposite of the no fly list.
They are not screening for risky people, they are banning everyone unless you get their ok.
As a practical matter it will probably be transparent and no one will care but the reasoning is very different.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by CU Tiger

this doesnt apply ( as I read it) to flights thaat begin and end in the US only international flights that
A) Fly directly into the country
B) Have a flight path over the county
C) Cross Over the US

So most business travel (US - US) wouldnt be effected.

That seems correct, and is likely why the register is jumping all over it. It's not going to affect domestic travel one whit.

[Galaxy]

What about business travelers who need to go overseas on a whimp (and that happens a lot)?

[ThunderingHERD]

Sounds to me like this only applies to flights originating outside of the US. I don't really see what the big deal is.

[ISiddiqui]

What, so Canadian travelers don't count?

[Rizon]

"First blush" has been used 2 times in this thread. That is 2 times more than I have ever heard it in my life.

[RendeR]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

What, so Canadian travelers don't count?

When have Canadians ever really counted?

[Raiders Army]

Originally Posted by Rizon

"First blush" has been used 2 times in this thread. That is 2 times more than I have ever heard it in my life.

yeah

[Radii]

Originally Posted by Galaxy

What about business travelers who need to go overseas on a whimp (and that happens a lot)?

That's a first for me!

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

It's not atypical, in the summer, for a thunderstorm to cause the cancellation of dozens of flights at Chicago O'Hare. The airlines cancel those flights and start booking people on flights that leave a few hours later (when the weather will clear) or the next morning.

You either have confidence that the TSA can handle that load in a timely manner, or you don't.

I'm in the minority and I understand it. I don't really have a problem with the TSA. Are some of the rules stupid? Sure they are. It's asinine a nail clipper gets taken and I can take a set of car keys on the plane.

But. . . I just don't have that many problems in airports. They aren't my favorite place to be. I've had bad experiences in them including canceled flights, delayed flights, rude stewerdasses and kids throwing up on me. (I fly at least once a month, most of the time two to three times a month) Despite all of that, airports aren't a miserable experience for me and a vast majority of the time I fly I have no issues at all.

Do I have confidence that a flight canceled due to lighning would get through this process without the passengers being grounded for 36 hours while background checks are done? Yes, I do. As the people on the flight would have already had the checks ran on them, it'd just be a matter of flagging them in the system. 99.999999999% of the people are going to be fine here.

Am I confident you'll be able to go to the airport and grab an airline ticket to Paris on Tuesday morning and be able to fly out Tuesday morning? Yeah, I am. The person who does it will probably be subject to the "special" search. (like pretty much any one way, no luggage traveler gets it now) But you'll catch your flight and be able to do what you always do.

I think the chances are fairly high (like 95%+ high) that nobody will remember this article in six months. There may be one or two stories of how the system failed in its initial rollout. Outside of that, this will be a non story.

I think the chances are equally high that about 15 more of these articles or threads are started about how horrific the airline experience is, how the TSA wants to eat America's children and 4 or 5 examples of the TSA being jerks. (and not a single word of the hundreds of thousands of people who go through screening on a given day that don't have problems with it)

[flere-imsaho]

No offense Troy, but I really wish I had your luck/karma when I was travelling weekly for business.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

No offense Troy, but I really wish I had your luck/karma when I was travelling weekly for business.

I really don't consider it luck. More an attitude.

Read my experiences paragraph above. A kid sitting next to me threw up on me during a flight. I'll trade that experience for just about anything you've went through. I'd bet money I've had as many bad experiences than anyone else who travels by air. (ok, people who have been in plane crashes have it much worse than I ever have)

I just do what I'm supposed to do to make things easier. I show up at least 1 1/2 hours early. I have my ID handy. I have my confirmation number. I know what the rules are for carry on bags and make things easy on the screeners. (even with 2 laptops, a digital camera and a PSP or DS I can get through screening in about 45 seconds once I get to the buckets) I eat before I leave the house/hotel so I don't get screwed by the airport food court. And I bring either the PSP/DS and/or a good book. If my flight's delayed/canceled, I have something to do waiting for the next one.

I have my favorite airports (my hometown of Denver for example). I have airports I despise. (Atlanta, you suck) But it really, really takes a lot for me to get angry or have a miserable experience at an airport. I'm in control of the experience I have. And when it comes to travel, I don't worry about the things I can't control. A cancelation or delay is out of my hands.

I'm curious now. Maybe the "bad" experiences I'm thinking of are quite different from yours. What exactly are your bad experiences and how many have you had? Maybe you get analy probed everytime you go through the security checkpoint and I really am lucky I'm not traveling in your airports. Were you listening to an I-Pod in a bathroom stall and got arrested?

[molson]

This has been covered on this board in depth in the past, but I agree 100% with on Troy on this one.

I'm no business traveler, but probably have flown around 8-10 times a year over the last few years, at a wide variety of airports. My average time going through security, after the line, is under 1 minute. Average time waiting in line is about 5 minutes, but never more than around 20 in the busiest times.

Know the rules, don't be a jerk (and be lucky enough not to get stuck behind a jerk), be prepared BEFORE you get to the line, and I don't see how you can't breeze through.

In terms of non-security issues, ya, things do seem to be getting worse in terms of delays, but I never plan a layover less than 90 minutes (and preferably 2 hours+) unless I absolutely have to. These days with airport wifi, airports aren't the black holes they used to be, it really doesn't kill you to play it safe and give yourself some time.

[Eaglesfan27]

As far as the weather issue: If someone was cleared to fly on the initial flight, couldn't that clearance just transfer over to their new flight. I'm with Troy and Molson, this just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Of course, I only fly about once a year.

[AZSpeechCoach]

Fortunately all of the travel that I do with my students has to be done over a month in advance (thank you school district red tape), but if they don't figure out a weather emergency alternative, then a problem like last year in New York with JetBlue would completely destroy our chances of being allowed to travel. It takes me about 5 minutes to get through security in Phoenix with a laptop, coat, belt, shoes, and students; taking things off, putting them back on, figuring out who wandered off, making sure everyone has their tickets, keeping the kids from buying the porn, etc.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Eaglesfan27

As far as the weather issue: If someone was cleared to fly on the initial flight, couldn't that clearance just transfer over to their new flight. I'm with Troy and Molson, this just doesn't seem like a big deal to me. Of course, I only fly about once a year.

That's exactly what they'd do. They don't even check ID on the actual flights anymore. All that is done at the TSA screening station. Once through there, you'd have your all clear and the flights could be changed.

[flere-imsaho]

TroyF & molson: You guys have me a bit wrong here, and maybe I'm to blame for creating this impression, but the fact is that I don't recall having a single problem, personally, with TSA screeners during the 9-10 months I was flying each week. I'd say about 85% of my pain during those months had to do with ATC issuing ground delays for O'Hare, meaning I'd be sitting on a runway at ORD or SFO for a while. Eventually I solved this by taking the first flight on Mondays so that I'd be sleepy and snooze through boarding/taxiing/ground delay, and then getting exhausted during my week in SF so that when I got on the plane at SFO I'd fall fast asleep and not wake up until we were airborne (after the customary ground delay).

Bear in mind, though, that now that the statistics for last year are out, I can now see that I was flying between two of the worst airports for delays during this period and the #1 carrier for delays (as in, had the most), American.

Anyway, I don't want to give the impression that I'm one of these impatient travellers. Quite the opposite. I'd always get to the airport with plenty of time to spare, get through everything with no hassles (including the security line - never any problem there) and then be able to amuse myself (I'm easily amused) in the club/terminal until my flight. In real life, I'm a very patient person.


Having said all of that, the angle I'm coming from here on these TSA threads is one of having a certain skepticism whenever we hear about the TSA's new rules of the week. I guess I have three main points of contention with the TSA:

1. The rules we've seen implemented always seem to be only a knee-jerk reaction to the latest threat that gets hyped in the media. There doesn't seem to be an overall security/screening strategy. It's as if someone in TSA headquarters has a light bulb go off and says "OMG, someone could do X" and before you know it there's yet another hoop everyone has to jump through.

2. I'm skeptical about the efficacy of some of their tools, the No-Fly list in particular. Again, I've posed specific questions about this list above that no one seems able to answer. The No-Fly list, to me, is indicative of a lot of rules that sound good, but, upon further reflection, are of questionable use. Again, if someone's suspicious enough to be on a No-Fly list, are they not suspicious enough to be brought in for questioning, or even arrested? Where's the line here, exactly?

3. We've spent billions of dollars on the TSA, and as noted in #1 and #2, I don't think we're getting our money's worth. The useless "Terror Level" is still stuck at Orange, security lines continue to be annoying due to people who don't understand how to take their shoes off, and we've also got the comedy "OMG Ted Kennedy = terrarist" No-Fly list. It all seems to me to be a misguided reaction (and resultant waste of money) to what's in reality a pretty serious threat.

[TroyF]

flere,

To me there is a HUGE difference in complaining about the methods or usefullness of the TSA and the TSA actually impacting you when you have a flight. The contention at the top of this thread (and thorugh most people I've seen post on this through various boards) is that the TSA makes their life miserable. That everything the TSA does causes widespread delays and pain.

That's not the case. As you pointed out above "never any problem in the security line"

Do I think the rules are great or the money is being spent wisely? Not really. Do I think they are effective? Maybe to a point. I mean, I think they are in a no win. If something happens and they had word of it as a possibility, the media will crucify them. "What, you mean you weren't ready for the possiblity a guy would hide an explosive in his fake limb and the plane exploded, you guys suck!!!"

So if you want to say the rules suck and the TSA is wasting money, I'm good with it.

If you want to say everything they are doing is causing mass chaos and the airport experience is being destroyed by their idiocy? I'll disagree a lot. Very few of the things they do impact the normal traveler in any meaningful way.

[Desnudo]

So what's the benefit of this rule supposed to be?

[molson]

What Troy said - I think I'm just so used to the "Airport security is now anal rape" line of argument that goes around here so often, that's what I responded to even though you didn't say that.

The only thing about air travel that I find unreasonable at this point is when people are stuck in planes on runways for 4+ hours (And that's not a TSA issue). That hasn't happened to me yet, but I'd definitely be pissed if it did.

[molson]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

So what's the benefit of this rule supposed to be?

I'd guess that they're just trying to cut down on the number of people on no-fly lists that fly on planes. Obviously under the current rules, more are slipping between the cracks then they'd like. They'll never keep 100% out, but if they can increase the success rate at minimal (and probably zero) inconvience for passegners, it's worth it.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by TroyF

If you want to say everything they are doing is causing mass chaos and the airport experience is being destroyed by their idiocy? I'll disagree a lot. Very few of the things they do impact the normal traveler in any meaningful way.

Yeah, I think we agree, actually. On the above note, I do think some of the new TSA rules/regulations have contributed to the overall deterioration in the efficiency of the air travel system, but they're a drop in the bucket compared to the main culprit, which is clearly demand overburdening the country's ATC system.

So yeah, the security rigamarole can make it so a few people have to sprint for their planes, but it's nothing compared to dozens of planes sitting out a ground delay because there just aren't enough takeoff/landing slots for aircraft.

Originally Posted by Desnudo

So what's the benefit of this rule supposed to be?

It looks to basically be an extension of the enforcement of the No-Fly List. Instead of airlines submitting their passenger lists moments before takeoff (as is currently the case), the TSA is going to require that the lists be submitted 72 hours in advance, apparently with amendments submitted after this period.

Note that this change only applies to flights flying into the U.S., over the U.S., or making layovers in the U.S. between international destinations. U.S. domestic flights are not affected.

Practically the result will probably be to make last-minute flight bookings (usually the result of last-minute deals, but also for business travelers) into the U.S. less common.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by molson

I'd guess that they're just trying to cut down on the number of people on no-fly lists that fly on planes. Obviously under the current rules, more are slipping between the cracks then they'd like. They'll never keep 100% out, but if they can increase the success rate at minimal (and probably zero) inconvience for passegners, it's worth it.

Of course, this all begs the question as to what the value of the No-Fly List is if, as you say, people are slipping through the cracks. If you want to argue that it's a CYA exercise by the TSA (it would be bad if someone blew up a plane when no No-Fly List existed, and they would have been on it if it did), then I'll certainly agree with that.

Plus, the No-Fly List only catches the stupid terrorists. You know, the ones who fly under their actual names. And we already have other rules to combat the stupid terrorists, from stricter security screenings to reinforced cockpit doors to heightened security measures on the planes themselves.

[molson]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Of course, this all begs the question as to what the value of the No-Fly List is if, as you say, people are slipping through the cracks. If you want to argue that it's a CYA exercise by the TSA (it would be bad if someone blew up a plane when no No-Fly List existed, and they would have been on it if it did), then I'll certainly agree with that.

Plus, the No-Fly List only catches the stupid terrorists. You know, the ones who fly under their actual names. And we already have other rules to combat the stupid terrorists, from stricter security screenings to reinforced cockpit doors to heightened security measures on the planes themselves.

True it's not a perfect science, but you do what you can.

And remember too that a no-fly list doesn't only have to cover terrorists. I believe it includes people who are otherwise a safety risk (violent schizophrenics who have caused problems on planes before, etc).

[Surtt]

Originally Posted by Desnudo

So what's the benefit of this rule supposed to be?

Right now you can fly unless you are flagged on the no fly list.
If there is a screw up and the feds do not get the passenger list everyone can still fly.
If someone slips through the cracks, no one is the wiser.

Under the new proposal, you can not fly until you are OKed.
So if you slip through the cracks, you can not get on the plane.

[Telle]

I suppose part of the question has to be how long does it take the TSA to clear a person? To me it makes sense for them to have the airlines submit the names in advance and have 95% of the passengers pre-cleared. Then they only have a handful to do at the last minute. And if it only takes a moment or two for the grand majority of those people to be cleared as they're buying their last-minute tickets, then it's not a big deal. But if we're talking hours and pretty much eliminating the ability of people being able to fly internationally at a moment's notice, then that could be a big problem for businesses.

[chesapeake]

I know the article refers just to international flights, but the proposed rule for TSA's Secure Flight program indicates their intent to apply the 72-hour rule to domestic flights as well. You can find all the details on TSA's website:
http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/layers...ght/index.shtm

For international flights, I have no problem with a 72-hour rule, all the document checking, and not allowing boarding until you have been cleared. Note that it does not appear that the proposed rule precludes ticket purchase inside the 72-hour window. It could be implemented that way, but there could also be a procedure whereby purchasers inside that window can be screened as they show up if sufficient time and resources are available.

For domestic flights, I think there are some serious problems with the government preventing travel until it approves you. I don't think they have that right.

[molson]

Originally Posted by chesapeake

For domestic flights, I think there are some serious problems with the government preventing travel until it approves you. I don't think they have that right.

But this wouldn't change that though, right? The government could always keep you from flying, all this does is make the checking process more efficient.

If you disagree with no-fly lists in general, fine, but I don't think these new rules change anything.

[flere-imsaho]

I think I've previously not made a good, articulate case for why I think the TSA is such a waste of time and money. However this weekend's New York Times had an editorial on the subject, with which I agree fully.

Six years after the terrorist attacks of 2001, airport security remains a theater of the absurd. The changes put in place following the September 11th catastrophe have been drastic, and largely of two kinds: those practical and effective, and those irrational, wasteful and pointless.

The first variety have taken place almost entirely behind the scenes. Explosives scanning for checked luggage, for instance, was long overdue and is perhaps the most welcome addition. Unfortunately, at concourse checkpoints all across America, the madness of passenger screening continues in plain view. It began with pat-downs and the senseless confiscation of pointy objects. Then came the mandatory shoe removal, followed in the summer of 2006 by the prohibition of liquids and gels. We can only imagine what is next.
To understand what makes these measures so absurd, we first need to revisit the morning of September 11th, and grasp exactly what it was the 19 hijackers so easily took advantage of. Conventional wisdom says the terrorists exploited a weakness in airport security by smuggling aboard box-cutters. What they actually exploited was a weakness in our mindset — a set of presumptions based on the decades-long track record of hijackings.

In years past, a takeover meant hostage negotiations and standoffs; crews were trained in the concept of “passive resistance.” All of that changed forever the instant American Airlines Flight 11 collided with the north tower. What weapons the 19 men possessed mattered little; the success of their plan relied fundamentally on the element of surprise. And in this respect, their scheme was all but guaranteed not to fail.

For several reasons — particularly the awareness of passengers and crew — just the opposite is true today. Any hijacker would face a planeload of angry and frightened people ready to fight back. Say what you want of terrorists, they cannot afford to waste time and resources on schemes with a high probability of failure. And thus the September 11th template is all but useless to potential hijackers.

No matter that a deadly sharp can be fashioned from virtually anything found on a plane, be it a broken wine bottle or a snapped-off length of plastic, we are content wasting billions of taxpayer dollars and untold hours of labor in a delusional attempt to thwart an attack that has already happened, asked to queue for absurd lengths of time, subject to embarrassing pat-downs and loss of our belongings.

The folly is much the same with respect to the liquids and gels restrictions, introduced two summers ago following the breakup of a London-based cabal that was planning to blow up jetliners using liquid explosives. Allegations surrounding the conspiracy were revealed to substantially embellished. In an August, 2006 article in the New York Times, British officials admitted that public statements made following the arrests were overcooked, inaccurate and “unfortunate.” The plot’s leaders were still in the process of recruiting and radicalizing would-be bombers. They lacked passports, airline tickets and, most critical of all, they had been unsuccessful in actually producing liquid explosives. Investigators later described the widely parroted report that up to ten U.S airliners had been targeted as “speculative” and “exaggerated.”

Among first to express serious skepticism about the bombers’ readiness was Thomas C. Greene, whose essay in The Register explored the extreme difficulty of mixing and deploying the types of binary explosives purportedly to be used. Green conferred with Professor Jimmie C. Oxley, an explosives specialist who has closely studied the type of deadly cocktail coveted by the London plotters.
“The notion that deadly explosives can be cooked up in an airplane lavatory is pure fiction,” Greene told me during an interview. “A handy gimmick for action movies and shows like ‘24.’ The reality proves disappointing: it’s rather awkward to do chemistry in an airplane toilet. Nevertheless, our official protectors and deciders respond to such notions instinctively, because they’re familiar to us: we’ve all seen scenarios on television and in the cinema. This, incredibly, is why you can no longer carry a bottle of water onto a plane.”

The threat of liquid explosives does exist, but it cannot be readily brewed from the kinds of liquids we have devoted most of our resources to keeping away from planes. Certain benign liquids, when combined under highly specific conditions, are indeed dangerous. However, creating those conditions poses enormous challenges for a saboteur.

“I would not hesitate to allow that liquid explosives can pose a danger,” Greene added, recalling Ramzi Yousef’s 1994 detonation of a small nitroglycerine bomb aboard Philippine Airlines Flight 434. The explosion was a test run for the so-called “Project Bojinka,” an Al Qaeda scheme to simultaneously destroy a dozen widebody airliners over the Pacific Ocean. “But the idea that confiscating someone’s toothpaste is going to keep us safe is too ridiculous to entertain.”

Yet that’s exactly what we’ve been doing. The three-ounce container rule is silly enough — after all, what’s to stop somebody from carrying several small bottles each full of the same substance — but consider for a moment the hypocrisy of T.S.A.’s confiscation policy. At every concourse checkpoint you’ll see a bin or barrel brimming with contraband containers taken from passengers for having exceeded the volume limit. Now, the assumption has to be that the materials in those containers are potentially hazardous. If not, why were they seized in the first place? But if so, why are they dumped unceremoniously into the trash? They are not quarantined or handed over to the bomb squad; they are simply thrown away. The agency seems to be saying that it knows these things are harmless. But it’s going to steal them anyway, and either you accept it or you don’t fly.

But of all the contradictions and self-defeating measures T.S.A. has come up with, possibly none is more blatantly ludicrous than the policy decreeing that pilots and flight attendants undergo the same x-ray and metal detector screening as passengers. What makes it ludicrous is that tens of thousands of other airport workers, from baggage loaders and fuelers to cabin cleaners and maintenance personnel, are subject only to occasional random screenings when they come to work.

These are individuals with full access to aircraft, inside and out. Some are airline employees, though a high percentage are contract staff belonging to outside companies. The fact that crew members, many of whom are former military fliers, and all of whom endured rigorous background checks prior to being hired, are required to take out their laptops and surrender their hobby knives, while a caterer or cabin cleaner sidesteps the entire process and walks onto a plane unimpeded, nullifies almost everything our T.S.A. minders have said and done since September 11th, 2001. If there is a more ringing let-me-get-this-straight scenario anywhere in the realm of airport security, I’d like to hear it.

I’m not suggesting that the rules be tightened for non-crew members so much as relaxed for all accredited workers. Which perhaps urges us to reconsider the entire purpose of airport security:
The truth is, regardless of how many pointy tools and shampoo bottles we confiscate, there shall remain an unlimited number of ways to smuggle dangerous items onto a plane. The precise shape, form and substance of those items is irrelevant. We are not fighting materials, we are fighting the imagination and cleverness of the would-be saboteur.

Thus, what most people fail to grasp is that the nuts and bolts of keeping terrorists away from planes is not really the job of airport security at all. Rather, it’s the job of government agencies and law enforcement. It’s not very glamorous, but the grunt work of hunting down terrorists takes place far off stage, relying on the diligent work of cops, spies and intelligence officers. Air crimes need to be stopped at the planning stages. By the time a terrorist gets to the airport, chances are it’s too late.

In the end, I’m not sure which is more troubling, the inanity of the existing regulations, or the average American’s acceptance of them and willingness to be humiliated. These wasteful and tedious protocols have solidified into what appears to be indefinite policy, with little or no opposition. There ought to be a tide of protest rising up against this mania. Where is it? At its loudest, the voice of the traveling public is one of grumbled resignation. The op-ed pages are silent, the pundits have nothing meaningful to say.
The airlines, for their part, are in something of a bind. The willingness of our carriers to allow flying to become an increasingly unpleasant experience suggests a business sense of masochistic capitulation. On the other hand, imagine the outrage among security zealots should airlines be caught lobbying for what is perceived to be a dangerous abrogation of security and responsibility — even if it’s not. Carriers caught plenty of flack, almost all of it unfair, in the aftermath of September 11th. Understandably, they no longer want that liability.

As for Americans themselves, I suppose that it’s less than realistic to expect street protests or airport sit-ins from citizen fliers, and maybe we shouldn’t expect too much from a press and media that have had no trouble letting countless other injustices slip to the wayside. And rather than rethink our policies, the best we’ve come up with is a way to skirt them — for a fee, naturally — via schemes like Registered Traveler. Americans can now pay to have their personal information put on file just to avoid the hassle of airport security. As cynical as George Orwell ever was, I doubt he imagined the idea of citizens offering up money for their own subjugation.

How we got to this point is an interesting study in reactionary politics, fear-mongering and a disconcerting willingness of the American public to accept almost anything in the name of “security.” Conned and frightened, our nation demands not actual security, but security spectacle. And although a reasonable percentage of passengers, along with most security experts, would concur such theater serves no useful purpose, there has been surprisingly little outrage. In that regard, maybe we’ve gotten exactly the system we deserve.

[Buccaneer]

flere, the same could be (and have been) said of every new major federal legislation/action - mainly a very expensive, wasteful, contradictory response to an alledged problem because people feel that the federal govt MUST do something about the problem.

TSA is just one of many examples and the solution is to get out of the mindset that the federal govt can solve problems by throwing a bureacracy and billions of dollars at them. This include not electing or supporting those candidates that favor continuing this mindset.

[JonInMiddleGA]

So much sand, such a little vagina.

I'm sorry but complaints about airport security efforts (incredibly lax though they may be) seems to be the ultimate in self-centered whining.

[Cringer]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

flere, the same could be (and have been) said of every new major federal legislation/action - mainly a very expensive, wasteful, contradictory response to an alledged problem because people feel that the federal govt MUST do something about the problem.

TSA is just one of many examples and the solution is to get out of the mindset that the federal govt can solve problems by throwing a bureacracy and billions of dollars at them. This include not electing or supporting those candidates that favor continuing this mindset.

Describes the trucking industry pretty well.