Slashdot Mirror
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."
Now if only America wasn't tied down in the pit underneath it.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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?
The TSA is the only agency hated more that the IRS. Considering the head start the IRS had, that is an impressive achievement!
'an insult to real cops.'
Perhaps, if they way cops keep handling these occupy movements are any indication, they don't need any help making themselves look bad.
How many terrorist have they caught? The same amount as my pet rock. Comparing the 'terrorist caught/money spent' ratio of pet rocks vs. the entirety of the TSA, if I were a venture capitalist I'd be looking for the next bright mind to bring these geological vanguards to market. They'd do at least a good job as the TSA, cost less, and as an added bonus airports might be more enjoyable. And they don't infringe on civil liberties. And they don't pretend to effect powers they do not really have. And they will not unionize.
Motherfucking pet rocks are more efficient than the TSA.
'We are trying to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible, because only in that way can we find progress.' RPF
The headline might as well read "Agency universally reviled as useless, degrading, expensive, criminal, nobody has the nerve to do more than nibble around its edges."
If what they've done so far has earned them only these relatively feeble stabs at powers they mostly just took during their time anyway(they didn't used to dress up in cop costumes or grope people on the record), exactly what would they have to do to earn a reorganization, or even a replacement? Execute a randomly chosen passenger once a shift, just to show the terrorists our resolve?
After a TSA employee was arrested for sexually assaulting a woman while in uniform
You see, this is why I take my uniform off first. But they make a fuss about that too.
The problem is that it doesn't. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Administration#Covert_security_tests.3B_gaming_and_failures
You sir (or madam) are the problem with our country. We *do not* trade our rights for the illusion of safety.
Wow. Explosives.
Soooooo........ where are the trials for the people trying to take explosives onto the planes?
You'd think there'd be all kinds of news reports about that, wouldn't you?
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.
Federal Agencies never die, they just get re-spun with more responsibility so they can then complain for more funding when their current responsibilities are abandoned.
The examples given in this slashdot article are not cuts, they amount to normal civil-servant bashing and behavior. The only thing surprising is that the unionization of TSA workers isn't the most frightening thing imaginable.
I swear they give me mod points to shut me up.
The bastards burglarized my luggage the first time I flew after the agency went live.
Fedex has gotten a lot of business ever since.
Some days it's just not worth
chewing through my restraints.
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.
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
We *do not* trade our rights for the illusion of safety.
Homer Simpson: "I wouldn't have thought so either, but here we are."
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.
This is silly. Either you do screening, or you don't. Complete ineptness of the TSA aside for argument's sake, if you take the concept of operations for the TSA at its face they're not just looking for active and willing attackers, they're also looking for unwitting attackers. (That's why you screen Grandma in her wheelchair -- How does Grandma know nobody slipped an explosive onto her person or possessions somehow without her realizing it?)
If you're allowing military through, why not the 800,000 people with TS clearances? Or police? Or...? And how do you know that the person is a member of the military? And even if they are, it's not a foregone conclusion that they're automatically safe. (Nidal Malik Hasan? Hasan Akba?)
Screen everyone or screen no one. You're hard-pressed to make a rational risk argument if you're not doing that.
...that zooming about in a metal box miles above the ground is an inherently unsafe thing to do?
And yet, it is still by far the safest form of vehicle travel.
Moreover, you have to keep in mind the dangers of these security measures. For example, while the risk of death due to the virtual strip search machines may statistically be very low, it is ironically almost equal to the risk of death due to terrorist action bringing down the flight. And of course, as about a million people with two brain cells to rub together have figured out by now, if you have big queues waiting to go through security, you're actually creating a bigger target for anyone who does brings explosives to the airport than a plane itself, and obviously you're doing it before the security checks.
It is never going to be 100% safe... never ever ever.
That is true. It is, however, something like 99.99999% safe, depending on how many miles you count for an average journey (based on NTSB stats for average deaths per passenger-mile). How about we just live with the facts that flying isn't really dangerous compared to many other things we do all the time and that the terrorist threat is tiny compared to many other things that cause actual harm all the time, and we start spending our time and money fixing real problems instead?
I've noticed recently that some people like to quote US budget figures for the wars/homeland security to show how costly these things really are and put them in perspective. I'm waiting for the infographic that compares those figures with what it costs to save a life through better road safety, natural disaster management, medical research, public education, etc. You'd think one good cover on, say, Time magazine would make the point enough to get serious public debate going, but no-one in the media seems to be biting, for reasons I never quite understand.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
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.
The Roman Empire lasted in some form until the fall of Constantinople. Also, "managably sized units" is not a good reason to split a nation--delegation and limited local governance is possible, and in fact is embodied in our systems of state and local government. Caesar noted that Management of the few was generally the same as management of the many, IIRC. You can have a million people in a city, they have some interests that will be different than those in the countryside, and you need a way to reconcile those interests into a common social contract when it is appropriate--failure to do that raises transaction costs and take value away from pretty much everyone.
In addition, small government *does not* protect against corruption. State governments are far more corrupt than the federal government.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Also, "managably sized units" is not a good reason to split a nation--delegation and limited local governance is possible, and in fact is embodied in our systems of state and local government.
What we have here is a conflict between theory and practice. In theory, it shouldn't matter how large the government is, because you can break it up into smaller regional units that govern themselves to a large extent, and let the top level government only handle affairs that concern the entire nation as a whole. In practice, it doesn't work. The national government draws more and more power to itself over time, increasing its size and duties, until every single issue has to be decided on the national level instead of allowing different regions to do things differently. Then lots of infighting results because people from different regions with different local cultures can never agree on all the issues and constantly fight over them at every election, continuously changing the law back in forth as different groups gain a slight majority and have the ability to alter the law, and do this instead of focusing on new issues. Meanwhile, as "power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely", the greater concentration of power in the larger nation and its national government draws more corruption (since obviously, that corruption has higher potential profit; what good is it going to do for you to bribe some government official in Andorra, for instance?), and corruption increases exponentially.
In addition, small government *does not* protect against corruption. State governments are far more corrupt than the federal government.
Right, that's why corporate lobbyists spend so much time and money there trying to pass laws and get defense contracts. Try again. Smaller governments have less potential for corruption to be profitable for those who engage in it. As I said before, what good would it do you to bribe someone in Andorra's government? If you're some corporate lobbyist, not much, because there's not many people there and not much money flowing through it, compared to the USA.
The Roman Empire lasted in some form until the fall of Constantinople.
It's hard to say the Roman Empire "lasted" after the city of Rome was sacked. Yes, another smaller empire lasted for some time after the fall of Rome, but it wasn't the Roman Empire, it was an offshoot of it in a different region. That would be similar to the USA collapsing, and Alaska continuing to call itself "the USA" even though the rest of the nation either became smaller independent nations or were annexed by Mexico or Canada. Just like USA/Alaska, Constantinople wasn't even originally part of the Roman Empire, it was conquered later when they grew really large. AFAIC, you can't have something called "the Roman Empire" if it doesn't include the Italian peninsula and most especially the city of Rome. It reminds me of that little rebel Catholic Church organization that calls itself "the real Roman Catholic Church" even though no one else thinks they are.
While I agree with this in principle I can't support it. With 50 states we now have far too many voices for any to be heard above the roar, this country worked much better when there were 13 states and even then it took years to amend the constitution. With the 50 we now have it is impossible, so government has abandoned the amendment process and instituted bureaucratic decree. The existing states should band together in regional clusters and those clusters should be governed by the national government. I can't support that happening though because I would end up living in Jesusland.
The reason we subjugate ourselves to law is to better procure justice. If law does not accomplish this purpose then it m
The "true red-blooded patriots" can think whatever they want, but all their willpower isn't going to overcome basic economics. If the economy collapses, no amount of patriotism or talk of "united we stand!" is going to make it better. Heck, we even have "red-blooded patriots" in many states doing things that are pretty close to outright rebellion against the nation and federal government: many states have passed laws forbidding themselves to follow the Real ID Act, Montana passed a law saying they can make machine guns if they want, stamped "Made in Montana", as long as they aren't sold out-of-state, plainly in direct opposition to BATFE policy, Arizona and the federal government are suing each other over immigration enforcement, etc. It seems like the "red-blooded" ones are the ones itching the most to cause division (not that I disagree with causing division; obviously with these and many other issues, Americans in many regions simply can't agree on anything, so I think it's better to simply break apart so that they don't have to agree).
Or we could return to the Federal model the US is actually based on instead of this rule from Washington thing we're doing now. Return the States to their rightful place and make the national government small as it should be. Then people can move to the State that best reflects their view of the world. That is how things were supposed to be in the first place, no? :)
I was raised on the command line, bitch
"Nemo me impune lacesset"
Flying is statistically safer than driving. People like me are choosing to drive long distances because they do not want their children subjected to enhanced pat-downs (or is it pats-down?). Statistically, more people driving longer distances should cause more injuries and death due to traffic accidents. Any slashdotters have an estimate of the expected increase in fatalities, or perhaps an effect that might counter this increase? Either way, I wish they'd just respect the 4th amendment.
He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.
Oh bullshit! you ain't sticking the hogs with them damned longhorns, what are you nuts? Hell we don't want them shitkickers either, you give them to Mexico! We'll take TN and MS along with OK and LA thanks ever so!
As for the TSA what is killing their asses is the YouTube. Being giant douchebags really isn't easy when everyone and their dog and their dog's squeaky toy have a camera in their phone, and its kinda hard for a congress critter to stand up for the TSA when all of their constituents have been passing around links to the latest TSA goon attack, like the screaming 3 year old or the 96 year old they went after for having a soggy nappy.
That is why i've been plastering links and writing my congress critters having a royal shitfit over the blacklisting of websites. We finally have a way to watch the watchers thanks to 24 hour cell phone cameras so its less likely that a goon, be they police or TSA or anyone else for that matter can pull shit without everyone seeing it. if they can just pull the plug on any website it would be too easy to make those 'bad old videos" go away. does anybody here believe the MSM would have done squat about the TSA? nope YouTube and a thousand other video sites to the rescue!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I know the security theatre I'm hearing about in the US airports has kept me away for the last decade. On two occasions I found ways to get around going there for work trips and at another point decided the USA may not be such a fun place for a holiday at the time. The TSA would find me boring but I'm sure they would still find some ways to make my visit unpleasant.
That's just my opinion but I've got an idea that others share it.
The problem is with interstate commerce. I know libertarians love to blast that part of the Constitution, but it does serve an important purpose. For example, maybe Mississippi decides they want absolutely no environmental protections. Corporations will move their factories there, and start dumping their toxic wastes into the river. Only now the people in New Orleans have to suffer for their neighbors choices. If the states were each independent countries, that sort of thing would lead to serious border conflicts, sanctions, and maybe even war. Instead we have the federal government to unite us and pass nationwide standards. We're already in a race to the bottom with third world nations. The last thing we need is to start a race to the bottom between ourselves.
Or how about immigration? What if Tennessee decides that they want to let in all comers? Do we build a wall around the state, station guards at every border crossing?
Or the FCC? As nice as it might be to have different radio standards in Philly, Newark, NYC, and Stamford, the laws of physics don't allow it.
Entitlements might be better left to the state, but it would be a bureaucratic nightmare tracking people's moves across the nation (so that someone doesn't spend most of their life in a low tax state and retire in a high entitlement state).
There are some cases where we would be better off giving the states more control, but in many ways the old federal model simply can't work in the modern world.
China has frequently fractured into a patchwork of local states run by strongmen. This happened as recently as the 1920s during the Warlord Era, but has been happening every few centuries since the decline of the Zhou Dynasty. Besides this, China has been home to many minorities which have occasionally been independent. Tibet and Turkmenistan are the most obvious modern examples.
Russia effectively didn't exist until the collapse of the Mongol Empire(s), and could even be argued as a primary effect of the power vacuum created by that collapse after the previous consolidation. The Rus simply reconsolidated in an imperial conquest, and those holdings were reconsolidated a second (or third, depending on your perspective) time when the communists took over. However the identities of the locals were largely unaffected even over the centuries of Russian and earlier Mongol rule, which is what lead to the many breakaways after the USSR's collapse.
The take away to these lessons from history is that the 'empire' only lasts so long as the people at the core of it have the will and the power to rebuild it over and over. That is the case with China and Russia (to a far lesser extent). It *almost* happened with Rome, people are largely unaware that the Byzantine Empire was on the verge of a massive campaign to retake the West that was only scuttled by the cruel twist of the arrival of the plague from Asia. Hard to say how different history might have been if such an effort were successful.
I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
Teamwork is socialist. In a capitalist society, we're *supposed* to be fighting one another. We don't come by optimal results by joining together - we do so by pitting everyone against one another and eliminating all but the strongest.
Why do you hate America?
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."