TSA Screening Barely Working Better Than Chance

rwise2112 writes "The General Accounting Office (GAO) has completed a study of the TSAs SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques) program and found the program is only slightly better than chance at finding criminals. Given that the TSA has spent almost a billion dollars on the program, that's a pretty poor record. As a result, the GAO is requesting that both Congress and the president withhold funding from the program until the TSA can demonstrate its effectiveness."

Comments

Fuck the TSA

[sexconker]

Fuck 'em. Disband that shit ASAP.

Re:Fuck the TSA

[sjames]

Honestly, with the addition of locks to cockpit doors and passenger awareness of the problem, we can roll the rest back to pre 9/11 levels. It worked just fine for the most part, and the locks and passengers no longer being instructed to sit quietly and enjoy the stopover in Cuba would have taken care of 9/11 just fine.

Re:Fuck the TSA

[pluther]

I wish I had modpoints left.

But, this is an accurate assessment. it became obvious within days of the attacks that these two measures were about the only thing that would have made a difference. Every thing else is pure theater.

Re:Fuck the TSA

[rahvin112]

That plane was full of hero's. They knew they were dead, they called family and said goodbye. They were determined that they would not be used to kill thousands.

As others have said, the TSA hasn't stopped anything. There have been two major incidents since 9/11 where terrorists boarded planes with bombs. Those terrorists weren't stopped by billion dollar security measures, they were stopped by other passengers beating the shit out of them. Between the air marshals and the other passengers I don't believe terrorists could take another plane unless they controlled more than 50% of the seats.

Disband the TSA. It's a terrible waste of money and a downright infringement of rights.

Purpose of the TSA

[Anonymous Coward]

Neither Congress nor the President will withhold funding because the purpose and effectiveness of the TSA is not defined by how many criminals it catches. The purpose, rather, is to condition the American public to accept ever increasing government restrictions on our various freedoms. By that measure, the TSA is reasonably effective.

Re:Purpose of the TSA

[AthanasiusKircher]

These aren't wannabe tyrants. They legitimately believe their ideas would make life better.

You may want to take a history lesson at some point. Go read about the fall of the Roman Republic and how it gradually morphed into a dictatorship. Almost every step along the way was a guy trying to "make things better for the common man," and many if not most of them actually had noble intentions. Take a look at the sequence, from Tiberius Gracchus and his brother Gaius, Marius, Sulla, and Cinna all the way to Pompey, Crassus, and Julius Caesar, most of them were "progressive" reformers, trying to help the downcast and improve the plight of people in Rome in general.

Plato knew this too, and placed democracy as just one step away from a dictatorship in his classification of governments. The quest to help people can easily turn to a quest for power (since the downtrodden tend to give away any power they have to someone who will given them anything)... and pretty soon you find yourself with a tyrant or at least a "noble, well-meaning" dictatorship at first.

All through a sequence of people with good intentions and ideas to "make the world better." So was Hitler. Seriously -- this is one place it might actually be appropriate to bring him up, along with just about every other wacko dictator in history. Almost all of them started from a place where they legitimately believed their ideas would make life better.

"Tyrants" don't have to be "wannabe." They just happen when somebody's "good ideas" turn out to be really bad for lots of people.

And like all people, when they do something they don't believe in, they rationalize it. They convince themselves that it is for the best. You do this too. We all do.

Yeah, the issue is that you need to draw the line somewhere. There has to be some action you can't rationalize just to make your vision for the world come true. Unfortunately, I seriously think that most people who have the initiative to get very far up the ladder in government usually are the people who don't have that "line," or at least it's so malleable depending on circumstances that they'll do whatever to maintain their position or power or ability to try out their "good ideas" for the world.

So, no, I don't and cannot rationalize the way "rights" have been rapidly redefined in the U.S. in recent years. Most of our public officials are clearly even embarrassed themselves by what they're doing, since they bury their actions in secret documents and clandestine actions or try to hide things in piles of legislation.

It doesn't take a grand conspiracy to erode rights, and it doesn't take a "wannabe tyrant" to end up with a really, really bad government. It just takes a series of gradual shifts, and people doing what they can to -- as you put it -- "spread their good ideas to more people."

The danger is when people like you fail to see that a sequence of such bad trends can accumulate into something really bad, without necessarily a grand conspiracy of any sort.

Re:yes and no

[sjames]

Had flight 93 had a lock on the cockpit door (a measure that I DID say is appropriate), it wouldn't have crashed at all. None of the other planes would have crashed either had they had locks. The problem is entirely solvable by a trip to the hardware store.

As for weapons, one of those dinner plate sized belt buckles will mess you up before you can even get close enough to someone to harm them with a box cutter.

So yes, I absolutely positively *DO* advocate a return to pre 9/11 when people were free(ish).

If you like, the cabin crew can have guns.,/p>