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TSA Facing Death By a Thousand Cuts
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."
The TSA was formed in 2002, so unless you were pre-emtively complaining there's no need to keep going after nine years.
Is 1563649 a prime number?
...to 1970 when Richard Nixon launched the War against Liberty by dropping a nuclear bomb onto Freedom
I don't care. There are two things necessary to prevent another 9/11:
1) Strengthen the door to the cockpit.
2) Have the passengers beat the living shit out of hijackers rather than comply and wait for the authorities to negotiate.
Both changes were accomplished immediately right after 9/11.
Are you sure #2 was accomplished? Really?
I'm not sure if you've actually flown in a plane lately. They're actually relatively small inside. Movement is cramped. You're not intended to move. You're intended to sit down, shut up, and enjoy the flight.
So let's put five hijackers on the plane. Let's assume they got knives through security somehow, and they're at the front of the plane. They're already standing up and they're armed with a close-range weapon which can be wielded with a near-negligible loss of agility compared to bare-handed combat. They're also trained in the use of this weapon AND in bare-handed combat if things go wrong.
Now, I don't care how much a badass you're pretending to be. One-on-one, unarmed and unprotected vs. a guy with a knife, very tight quarters that hinder maneuverability, zero element of surprise, the unarmed person WILL lose. Period. All it'll take is one stab, one swing, one anything; hell, even a punch to the gut or a kick to the junk will ultimately end you. You don't have room to dodge, you don't have the flexibility to dance around, and the guy with a knife is trained to kill you with a knife. Either that one hit will be fatal or you'll recoil in pain enough that you wished it were fatal, and one quick strike later, the hijacker will be happy to oblige that wish.
Of course, those tight quarters also give the hijackers a disadvantage if rushed by overwhelming numbers. And unless the hijackers booked the ENTIRE flight, those numbers will, in fact, be quite overwhelming. So, in that case, the hijackers will lose the battle.
However, someone has to be at the front of the mob. While the hijackers can't possibly be trained to defeat ten to a hundred times their number in tight quarters in what amounts to a mass bum rush, they HAVE been trained to avoid fear. Meaning, barring an armed US Marshall with a ranged weapon advantage, they will strike the first person that comes after them for the glory of whatever they believe in, regardless of who's coming right after them. Maybe they'll get the second person, too, before they're brought down by sheer numbers and mass, who knows? I'll grant they wouldn't survive much past that, though.
So, taking all that into account, are you ready for near-guaranteed death on a plane by being the first to stand up?
Ask the person sitting next to you on the plane. Are they ready?
How about the people in the next row up? The row behind you? The other side of the aisle? The flight attendants? The screaming baby strapped into a seat? The frail old people who can't fight back? The spoiled rich brats who won't fight back?
The answer for 99% of America — actually, for human beings in general — is a resounding "no". We sort of like to avoid certain death.
The hijackers know this statistic. They're counting on it. Odds are in their favor, in fact.
Still confident about the hijacker's chances?