TSA delays......

[Getonit]

Had to fly with the peasants and unwashed masses today and American (still sucks) sent me email saying TSA was experiencing delays and to arrive 2 hours early....I compromised at 1:30 early.....by golly the line was backed up and they only had one lane open....I am precheck so I zipped through pretty quickly, with only some minor annoyance on unclear policies. My question is, is this delay being experienced nationwide? I am guessing yes, due to the “free” money and lack of anybody wanting to work. Thoughts?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Seriously, do you have a better way to do it? I would like to see an alternative as well. Just saying “privatize it” is not an answer.

Well the first thing would be to convert all airports to the TSA’s own program for using private screeners. Is presently being done at about 17 airports.

See http://realairlinesecurity.org for a concrete set of steps to abolish the TSA and more discussion of why they really don’t help the safety of the traveling public.

They are well described as security theater put in place in a panicked reaction which costs $8bn per year in direct costs.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

In all do respect, your link offers no ideas of how to do it, but rather it should be done.
That is not an answer.

Well more concretely for step 1 the airports need to apply to the TSA’s screening partnership program with a proposal which includes at least one company willing to bid on the task.

It is not hard for local airport commissions to do this.

Step 3 requires the Federal government to repeal portions of an act granting immunity. I think the legislature knows how to do that.

Step 2 requires the airlines to figure out with their insurers how they want to handle security. Certainly they can’t do a worse job than the TSA and if they chose could simply adopt some TSA procedures. Competition in the marketplace has been shown in numerous cases throughout history to be a superior way to solve problems compared to central planning. See Adam Smith to start with.

Do you want some other sort of detail?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Are there data showing that screening is more effective at those 17 airports?

It has been a few years since I looked carefully at this. The data at the time suggested they were equivalent to the TSA itself in terms of catching contraband, somewhat cheaper, and better in surveys of passenger satisfaction.

The latter hardly surprises me given that the company can actually lose a contract versus unionized Federal employees.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Another interesting historical fact is that even the basic metal detectors were essentially forced on the airlines by the FAA 3 years AFTER hijackings in the US reached their peak.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Some readers here may be interested in the book “Terror, Security, and Money” which looked seriously at the issue of the effectiveness of screening passengers to prevent terrorist attacks.

Their conclusion was that if you care about saving lives and that is why you are spending the money on the TSA, there are literally 10X more effective ways to spend the money.

Such attacks are just too rare and possible methods of screening have too low a sensitivity and specificity to work effectively if you want to save lives.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

How do we know that the reason attacks are rare isn't due to the existence of the screening program?

I'm not saying that is the case, because I don't know, but I don't think it's valid to just assume that the rarity of attacks proves that screening is not necessary.

Good point. There are a number of pieces of evidence that argue this is the case.

The first being that the frequency of attacks in which a airplane leaving a US airport is taken down by a non-crewmember has not changed in a statistically significant manner before and after 2001. This argues against the formation of the TSA having a causal role.

Another indirect piece of evidence is that there have been no attacks on the lines to go through TSA screening in the US. I mean a terrorist could kill nearly as many people with a well placed attack on these lines. But yet it hasn’t happened which suggests that there are other factors preventing such attacks.

Other pieces of evidence are the exceptionally poor performance of the TSA in detecting contraband, the myriad ways weapons could be constructed from materials after the checkpoints, as well as the huge security holes in baggage personnel etc.

On the other hand, the TSA had never been able to document thwarting a single attack, not even to classified Senate committees.

Taken together, I think the evidence is fairly strong that the TSA is security theater, as nearly all experts who have examined the issue who are not employed by the TSA have concluded.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I didn’t realize the comparisons were going back that far. I thought it was pre-TSA screening vs TSA screening.

Certainly that is the most direct comparison presently (and as I note above a statistical comparison of before and after the TSA fails to show a statistically significant difference in attack rate at this time. It is a very low rate of attacks and would take a really long time to reach significance.)

OTOH, I think the earlier comparison also shows that there is no good evidence that this type of mass screening does not work. And largely due to the same low rate events being very hard to accurately detect. Likely better to spend law enforcement resources on other measures if one really wants to prevent attacks.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

That's all pretty theoretical.

One possibility that I think your analysis doesn't cover is that, given the highly successful nature of the 9/11 attacks*, one might be justified in expecting an increase in the number of attacks, once it became apparent to would-be attackers that the tactics used were effective. If so, then the fact that "the frequency of attacks in which a airplane leaving a US airport is taken down by a non-crewmember has not changed in a statistically significant manner before and after 2001" could be evidence of a deterrent effect. How much of that is attributable to increased changes in screening, and how much to other measures that were adopted, I don't know, but I don't think we should just assume the answer.

*e.g., 75% of the hijacked aircraft reached their intended targets, and a lot of people were killed for relatively little expenditure

True isn’t that also rather speculative?There are other roughly equally speculative reasons to think that no such future attacks would ever be successful and so would be attackers would abandon that mode.

Thus I think it is fair to say there is no good evidence that the TSA decreases the frequency of such attacks.

The political question then becomes whether it is appropriate to spend that kind of money and invade people’s privacy to this extent absent good evidence.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

We really don’t have good evidence that the TSA works. And it is likely very difficult to obtain such good evidence because of the difficulty of performing properly controlled experiments.

Just as in a marketplace for goods it is hard to predict exactly what product will be most successful in advance.

In these circumstances, usually best to let a free market decide. Let the airlines worry about what is best for them and their customers and most successful in the market and hold them responsible for the consequences of judging that improperly. Presently they are exempted from liability. That usually leads to all sorts of bad outcomes.

I certainly don’t claim to know what the airlines would do to manage this risk. I suspect probably some combination of frequent flyer vetting and screening for others. I imagine some of the more ridiculous TSA rules about toothpaste and taking off your shoes would likely be the first things eliminated. I also imagine it would evolve over time.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Lack of evidence is not a valid reason for drawing a conclusion that TSA is effective, AND lack of evidence is not a valid reason for drawing a conclusion that TSA is ineffective.

That raises a good point. Logically speaking, the burden of proof is on he who asserts existence. So if a party maintains that the TSA is effective in preventing terrorist attacks, the burden of proof lies on them. Lacking such evidence, the belief in the efficacy of the TSA becomes similar to a belief in ghosts.

Aside from this logical consideration, this corresponds well to the practical question - if there is no good evidence that the TSA prevents terrorist attacks, why on earth should the government spend $8bn / year on it and be allowed to invade traveler’s privacy in this manner?

Beats me.

Agreed. Me too.

It seems to me we should demand a high standard of evidence before we start having the government force searches on people. Even the current legal justification of the TSA searches as an administrative, rather than criminal, search requires amongst other things that the search be effective in accomplishing an important government objective. Where is the evidence that this is effective?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

I'm neither asserting existence, nor asserting nonexistence. As for your questions, I don't know the answers.

Well you do raise some good points though.

In terms of policy I personally think that the lack of good evidence for a preventative effect of the TSA is good enough reason to have the government stop spending a fortune on it and invading people’s privacy.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

Not true. The gunman attacks at LAX and FLL come to mind quite quickly. I also seem to remember one that was thwarted, I think at MSY.

Interesting. By the LAX attack, do you mean Ciancia's attack on the TSA employees? Not quite a terrorist attack on the passengers waiting in line and was precipitated by the existence of the TSA itself. He clearly thought of them as aggressive tyrants.

Found the shooting at KFLL. Hardly an attack by a terrorist. The murderer was a schizophrenic and "Later in April 2017, the investigators stated that no link to terrorism was found."

Thus these shootings hardly provide evidence that terrorists are engaging in attacks on the TSA security lines at airports.

Can you provide more information about the KMSY incident?

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

At the end of the day, 9/11 was a one-time event in my mind. It worked because we never imagined someone would weaponize an airliner full of people, much less 4 of them simultaneously. It worked because it hadn't been done before. Now we know that, and even the general passenger won't allow it to happen again. United 93 is proof of that. As soon as the passengers realized what was going to happen, they took action. The key now is to look ahead to the next event, and try to predict and prevent it.

As far as the screeners go, TSA or privatization I think is 6 in one hand, half dozen in another. It can be pro/conned to death from both angles. My one opinion is that public safety is easier done by government than private industry. Private industry is going to be profit-driven by its very nature. Doesn't take long before profit takes precedence over life safety. Look at some of the dirty things we've seen from big industry, all to save a dime. Granted government has its own problems, and isn't known for efficiency either.

Many good points about things other than screening to be done to help with safety. And agreed that this was a one-time event almost certainly never to be repeated. But if it was a one time attack mode that can't be repeated and there is no evidence good evidence that mass screening helps prevent such attacks, I guess my main point is that we should stop spending massive amounts of money on screening and invading everyone's privacy, whether that is done by private screeners or government screeners. Moving to private screeners inside the TSA's Screening Partnership Program is just a first step in my mind.

I think the main solution is to let the airlines bear the liability for the use of their equipment as weapons and then make their own decisions about what is needed. I would agree that letting them continue to be immune from such liability and also letting them decide on the rules is a formula for disaster.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

You know what should be done.

Someone needs to get a group of people together, and go around to these airports with the crazy wait times, and demonstrate what COULD happen. Get the local news involved and film it like it's a news investigation like they do, get it some attention, and show that the most dangerous part of flying isn't the drive to the airport, the flying, but the waiting in line. There's 0 security between parking your car and the TSA checkpoint. Show THAT to be the flaw with the TSA - repeatedly, loudly, and send the footage to your congresspeople with a note saying:

"6000 of your constituents could be dead because of you."

And do it WITHOUT the use of firearms.

It is a good idea. A good choice of airports might be DEN. The line area before the TSA there is sort of frightening from a security perspective. Fairly enclosed and with unsecured galleries above on all sides. It would be like a shooting gallery for terrorists.

It might be hard to get news coverage actually. Various people would argue that it would be irresponsible to show such an attack mode and it shouldn’t be covered.

If I were doing this I would definitely carry a firearm at least concealed if legal. There are some crazy people out there who will attack peaceful demonstrators. Or sometimes you can coordinate with the local police who will provide discrete undercover officers to ensure things stay peaceful. For this particular demonstration open carry, where legal, would not likely add to the point. Though if news coverage was otherwise lacking, would likely provoke it.

The other possible downside is that the fearful will then argue that this just shows that the area of TSA screening needs to be even further expanded.

 

[PeterNSteinmetz]

every time my 88 year old mother who walks with a cane goes through TSA she always gets pulled for a pat down.

Haven’t you seen those spy movies where the cane converts to a very dangerous sword. Geez, no wonder they are worried :emoji6: