Maybe airports will go back to how they were before 9/11, and we'll realize that it (the TSA) is unnecessary and ineffective, and flying will go back to being a joy again?
It's not completely theater. I've had friends caught with ammo and knives (which they left in their luggage by accident). In every case they simply confiscated it and let them go, so it makes me feel alright that they have at least caught stuff. I find the liquids stuff annoying, but hey.
It's probably in airlines best interests to have security anyway - after all of the high profile (but extraordinarily rare) terror attacks, people are probably more apt to fly with some type of security.
We also know (from actual tests of the system even, not just from people like me claiming it) that people get through with stuff also.
So now you are saying we have a system where sometimes they catch you and they just take the stuff as part of a system where sometimes you just get through with your stuff... so there is no penalty to having some people try over and over again... if the goal is to actually stop stuff getting through then this is all pointless.
your anecdote supports "the TSA are not just pretending to do their jobs". But that's not what we mean by theater- we're saying that them doing their jobs, doesn't effectively reduce the likelihood of airplane terrorism. Especially considering the multi-billion-dollar price tag.
What part of TSA screening do you object to? The ID check, or the actual screening of bags?
It’s true that TSA security has been foiled by various “red team” exercises, sometimes in comical/embarrassing fashion. And, there is probably bloat in the agency, as well as problems with the contracting process for companies selling equipment. No one likes having to take off their shoes, myself included. Maybe policies around liquids and gels should be revisited.
At the same time, I think it’s unknowable how a return to pre-9/11 airport security would fare in today’s world; namely a world where private companies were “responsible” for screening, with the FAA providing oversight. See for example: http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/01/27/911.commis.knife/.
> “At the time of the attacks, commission staffers testified, the FAA prohibited passengers from boarding aircraft with knifes having blades longer than 4 inches, tear gas, mace and similar chemicals.
> Except for guns, large knives, explosives and incendiaries, carriers and screening contractors were allowed to use "common sense" in determining what was prohibited on planes, the staffers said.”
In today’s world, I’m not sure leaving airport security to the “free market” is necessarily a good idea. If there are new types of explosives, will private companies be able/willing to buy new equipment to deal with “improbable” threats?
TSA also deploys agents around the world to screen flights coming inbound to the US that originate in countries that can’t necessarily perform their own screenings. Do we expect private companies to pay Americans to live abroad? Or will they rely on poorly paid locals to do the job, maybe without background checks (if it’s even possible).
From a game theoretic perspective, I think it’s reasonable to assume that TSA provides some deterrent effect. Stringent security procedures do reduce the action/choice set of would-be terrorists. Post-9/11 flights within the US, and to the US, have not been affected by terrorist attacks, incompetent shoe and underwear bombers aside.
FWIW, in Israel, the security process is far more stringent. You have pre-airport physical checks, interviews, passing of luggage through pressurized chambers etc. If you fly El-Al anywhere in the world, there is an extra headache associated with additional screening. But, the record of an El-Al (0 successful hijackings) leads many who travel to Israel to choose El-Al.
TL;DR, everyone wishes there was a way to have secure flights, without having to undergo invasive screenings.
I object to the id check. I shouldn't need an id to travel Domestically.
I object to the search and seizure of my property.
Doing nothing will give us just as safe and secure flights as we have today.
The way to fix 9/11 was to change procedures, not treat every passenger like a criminal.
The "protocol" changes constantly, sometimes even in the course of a single trip through security. My last flight, which was during the shutdown, had a TSA officer take over his coworker. The coworker had been telling us to keep food in bags; this guy told us to take it all out. I've also had an officer tell me to "remove anything electronic" from my body, but "to keep my watch on". My watch was a smart watch, of course; there is literally no way to comply with that direction. (I've taken to just removing these prior to getting there, after this absurd incident.)
I mean, I'm not of a strong opinion either way here, but for me.. the TSA is the least of my hatered of flying. I just really don't like being at 30,000ft.
Taking off my shoes and having some random guy/gal check me out on mm nude-vision honestly doesn't bother me much.
I'm fine with being at 30,000 feet. It's the takeoffs and landings that make me nervous. Especially the moment when you're going at full speed but haven't rotated yet, or just before touching down.
I'm fine with being at 30,000 feet, I'm fine with the takeoffs and landings. It's the tiny seats, horrible service, frequent delays and cancellations and constant fees for every little thing that make me hate flying.
Improving either of these would raise ticket prices. If you want more luxury, pay for a first class ticket.
> frequent delays and cancellations
Shit happens. Bad weather, human error, random acts of God. Airlines aren't delaying or cancelling flights on purpose. What do you want them to do differently here?
> constant fees for every little thing
Again, the fees are there because the tickets are so cheap. Look at the airlines who don't have fees - like Southwest. Their ticket prices are always slightly higher than the competing airlines - like United - that do have fees.
Airline profits have been rising over the past several years or so[1] due to lack of competition after a long period of industry consolidation[2] and the rise of anti-consumer practices (extra fees, less leg room, etc). This occurring even during the period where oil prices were dropping to pretty steep lows[2]. There's plenty fat to trim, and suggestions that it has to be this way are unfounded[3]
[3] - https://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherelliott/2018/10/07/t... - point being that airlines could offer better service, but don't because there's no financial incentive to do so. This is where regulation needs to step in to fix broken incentives.
> If you want more luxury, pay for a first class ticket.
It's not just luxury, it's also safety, though I blame regulators here. The minimum standards are demonstrably laughable if you look at the details about testing "safe" evacuations.
> Shit happens. Bad weather, human error, random acts of God. Airlines aren't delaying or cancelling flights on purpose. What do you want them to do differently here?
Several things:
* Staff appropriately so that pilots don't run so close to the edge of their allowed hours that a small delay results in a cancellation because they've been on duty too long.
* More/better preventative maintenance. Airplanes are flown way too long with equipment MEL'd down to no redundancy, then the airline acts surprised when the no-longer-redundant thing also fails.
* More slack in general. I know it's not reasonable to expect them to waste planes sitting in hangers at every spokes, but a few planes kept in reserve at major hubs would go a long way to preventing massive knock-on delays. For that matter, so would extra gate crews, so planes aren't bottlenecked there as well.
Very disappointing comments in this thread. We get it that you all hate TSA but come on, these screeners are working without pay and most of them probably have dependents and families to take care of. Not to mention they worked without pay over the holidays too. A little empathy would be pretty nice.
Well one bit of good news is that one of the two screeners at LGA who argued over which of them was getting the shampoo they confiscated from my wife's carryon luggage will have clean, full hair in their poverty.
Honestly, I'm all out of empathy for people who grope crying, frightened children by their genitals, people who trigger sexual assault survivors, and people who treat transgender individuals as less than human.
TSA agents do all of the above as a matter of course.
Hate the game, not the player. None of them enjoy this stuff any more than you do - it's just their job. Let's instead look to the impact of our national policy of security theatre, where the illusion of activity (even when that activity is unpleasant, offensive, and arguably immoral) is preferable to just admitting there are some risks we can't prevent.
This is fantastic! The TSA is a cancer on the aviation industry in this country. If the default security experience was the one we get with Precheck, I imagine things would be a lot better - but reducing things further from that should be possible too. We spend far too much money, and far too many lives, on security theater. And the TSA is a major part of that. (IIRC there were two meaningful improvements in security following 9/11 - the introduction of reinforced cockpit doors, preventing aircraft takeover, and the knowledge of passengers that hijackings lead to death, not a free trip to Cuba, and so resisting is actually a good idea)
I see all these comments about TSA being theater, and while I don't disagree, we should remember that these are real people with families to support.
A Government job is historically seen as a "safe" income. These employees (whatever you think of their job's worth) are currently out of pay with no idea when they'll be paid again.
Given how many American's live paycheck to paycheck, it's not a stretch to imagine that there's kids out there going hungry tonight because of this failure.
I don't see why a government job should be any safer than a private sector job, unless we explicitly state that the government's job is explicitly to be the employer of last resort for people who can't find jobs otherwise.
Is there something that makes a TSA employee different from, say, a food service sector employee?
That's certainly not how I want my tax dollars to be spent and I'm not sure most people would either if the question was explicitly posed this way.
I think you can acknowledge that TSA is theater while still having empathy for the people that work there. I would imagine most people don’t want to work there and they probably understand the faults in the system more than most.
Why are they going in to work at all if they aren't being paid? Are they covered by some kind of special security law that means they need to keep working in the shutdown?
I don't often do this, but it's literally the first line of the article:
"Hundreds of Transportation Security Administration officers, who are required to work without paychecks through the partial government shutdown..."
Edit to add info, answer the followup question and less snark...
Yes, they're considered to be essential but they aren't getting paid because the 2019 TSA budget wasn't approved yet. Some other dept's were approved already and do have budget, etc. As usual with a big org like that, it depends. But the original article sure doesn't explain why.
"Excepted employees include employees who are performing emergency work involving the safety of human life or the protection of property or performing certain other types of excepted work."
Yeah I read the same article as you but what requires them? People asking them? Or some sort of actual law? Or just they'll be fired if they don't? Can they quit or not?
Please define "required". Are FBI agents actually going to drag them out of their homes and have them arraigned on criminal charges if they don't show up for work, or will they just be fired/reprimanded/put on a PIP?
But the short answer seems to be (from a cursory skim) that they are considered AWOL and that this is a reprimand/PIP/firing kind of situation. Same thing as just not showing up for work. They're not allowed to use previously accrued sick days or leave during a special situation like this. Obviously if it happens at a large enough scale, they probably won't just fire everyone, but there's a certain amount of game theory going on here to be sure. If SOME people don't show up, maybe management will let it slide, if LOTS of people don't show up, who gets in trouble?
They get back-paid eventually, whenever the shutdown ends. But many are probably living paycheck-to-paycheck and can't afford to wait. The article posits that at least some are calling out to work other jobs that can actually give them a timely paycheck.
well I guess that would also be fraud wouldn't it. because the government will give them back pay because I guess they still get paid when sick. So then they have gotten paid on their second job and their sick days.
Words have power. If we are going to speak of fraud, let's focus on those who are playing games in Washington. Let’s not use criminalizing language to describe the behavior of people who are getting the short end of the stick and attempting to make ends meet by whatever means necessary.
Living paycheck to paycheck is difficult and anxiety-inducing. It's awful how the livelihoods of people all over the country are subject to the whims of elected officials.
Being a pickpocket is also difficult and anxiety-inducing, and I have a lot of sympathy for everyone for whom that is the only way to make ends meet. That doesn't mean I think theft should be legal.
In particular, if a TSA worker successfully finds another job to replace the income they can't get from the TSA, they should quit, rather than misrepresent their situation to later cash in on paid sick leave.
The problem as I understand it though is that they aren't allowed to quit in the current situation. So if they take a second job to make ends meet they would be forced into fraud (a crime) or admit they didn't work when legally required to (a crime)[1]. Of course maybe the work they are taking is under the table, which I didn't think of till now.
1: Note not a lawyer, and just assuming these would be criminal actions.
on edit: made text italic on accident, removed formatting.
really!? I didn't realize I was the person in charge of criminalizing things in the U.S, a country where I don't even live anymore and of which I was never a citizen!
At any rate I did not say they were bad people, despite working for the TSA, I pointed out that the particular action would be technically fraud (I believe) and if caught would probably be punished as such. Thus, although I did not say this flat out, I am wondering if it is actually happening all that much.
So the reason I phrased my comment about fraud in the form of a question, is because I believe it would rather easily be caught out. I am as a matter of principle reluctant to classify groups of people as being just stupider than I in such an obvious fashion.
Finally I've certainly been poorer in my life than any employee of the TSA currently is, and probably poorer than almost all of them have ever been, and even if I am not poor now I do not need any lessons on the matter.
NOTE: The parent comment was changed, without noting change in comment, which of course makes most of this comment seem somewhat off-kilter. I have edited and put in this note.
I didn't downvote you, but interestingly when I first read your comment I had that negative reaction, then after seeing this response and rereading the comment I could see it as just neutral/analytical. For me at least, it's like a Laurel/Yanni in text sentiment.
I guess I could have expanded more in the original text but obviously didn't see the need for it, not putting in anything I considered a value judgement made me blind to others perhaps reading it as one.
however the reaction I got to what I considered a relatively simple observation has put me out of sorts.
You could have the decency to put an on edit note in your edited comment, especially when you make such major changes to the comment.
on edit: parent comment now has noted its edit, although I still believe the edit changed significantly the nature of the comment, and not just clarified it.
Many hourly jobs actually don't get paid for sick time off, or sick hours are accrued as a benefit that you use-or-lose. The former scenario is obviously not fraud, but even in the latter scenario they've earned the pay they're getting while sick from prior work.
Ok, I didn't know that about the American system (most of the years I lived there I did not work so I probably never had occasion to encounter this situation). So if one of the those two scenarios apply here it probably wouldn't be prosecutable as fraud.
on edit: just woke up when I wrote this, changed worked to lived because otherwise did not make sense.
Most of the government employees I know feel it's an honor to serve their country and do so with loyalty and pride. In past shutdowns, they've all gotten paid retroactivly. It's not always about money.
I used to think that until I went on a multi week trip where I had lost my ID. I went through TSA without any ID about 7 times and developed a strong respect for the agents I encountered along the way. I was a difficult case and they treated me with respect and worked hard to get me through the process. I've never been a big fan of the government, and the TSA has flaws no doubt (I hate security theatre) but I think the vast majority of the agents are good apples. They chose to serve in an "essential" service, so that was a choice. Government shutdown's aren't a new thing anymore and they still choose to serve with honor and dignity to their role. I'm happy to agree to disagree.
I believe they technically have to let you fly domestically, even without an ID. I’m not saying they weren’t nice people, but it’s not like they bent the rules. My brother has flown this way several times and you just need additional screening.
> Most of the government employees I know feel it's an honor to serve their country and do so with loyalty and pride.
It's not really up to them, though.
Folks deemed "essential" like security screeners, the Coast Guard, etc. are expected to still come to work. Non-essential employees are furloughed, and it's actually illegal for them to volunteer their time.
> Natter noted that the Anti-Deficiency Act, the 129-year-old law that forces the government to shut down without an appropriation from Congress, also makes it illegal for furloughed workers to volunteer — even though many end up getting paid whether they work for not. "It really ought to be rewritten to be more relevant for the 21st century," he said.
Maybe. This shutdown though seems extraordinarily petty. I can definitely see how agents could be especially upset that their livelihoods are being jeopardized based on Trump's temper tantrums.
Because they will be paid, eventually, for this work, once the government is funded. But since Trump said today that he's willing to keep the shutdown going for years, maybe it's time for these people to search for a paying job.
Any, if they feel the political cost of following Trump isn't worth the benefit.
They'll make a stubborn show of defiance but in due course some deal will be struck and some defections will occur because holding the government hostage to fund a wall to keep the Mexicans out is insane. Trump may be willing to fight to the bitter end for that but I guarantee no career Republican politician is.
Anyone know how to actually block autoplay video these days?
I tried firefox's "media.autoplay.enabled;false","media.autoplay.ask-permission;true","media.autoplay.block-event.enabled;true" but none of this seems to work anymore. uBlock origin doesn't seem to do this in any super easy way (that I tried).
I put a small amount effort into this; digging around in the source of a few sites, reading event traces, trying to work out the relationships between elements and so on. I'm not really a front end guy so I'm not sure if i'm failing due to ineptitude, things being generated and deployed in a way that makes them hard to read, or if they're deliberately obfuscated. Sounds like you believe the latter. Securing video start metrics from user interference must be... ahem, pretty highly incentivized.
a half a day of googling for people who have solved the problem, and experimenting with 3 different chrome extensions and some under the hood settings.
i'm a back-end developer, but it seems like unless you're going to go as far as using the noscript extension, there's no way to stop the various video injection scripts. but I only used Chrome, so if Firefox is better I honestly might consider switching. I know Firefox has a mute-all-tabs-by-default setting/addon , which mitigates a lot of my problems with web video.
I'm eagerly waiting to see an analysis comparing the number of incidents on flights within the "lower security" understaffed period and regular "high security" time. That kind of an experiment would have no chance being performed under normal circumstances.
Also, if someone's goal was to inflict maximal damage on the US, striking whenever there was less effort put into security would be exactly what you'd want to do - regardless of whether the change actually affected security. So an increase in attacks might not actually reflect an increased vulnerability to attack, if that makes any sense.
In most cases I imagine they just don't want to work without getting paid but I can also see the extra stress of not getting a paycheck also making people sick.
Also wonder where this might lead? Will they be forced to get doctor's notices?
What happens when airports are overflowing with passengers and they are late boarding, will airports / airlines move to "privatize" security:
I hate the TSA, but this shutdown affects things like ATCs who actually provide value for air transportation or you know, many of the other government agencies hit by this shutdown.
I hate to disagree about ATC with someone named Sully but I do believe the FAA has its own funding/appropriations bill(s) and revenue sources and is not tied into this general omnibus funding shutdown going on now.
While some parts might (I am do not work for FAA so I do not know), ATCs are not covered. This article [1] covers it better then I will.
I will only add that I do have multiple friends who are ATCs who are currently planning to not get their next pay check (the 14th) due to how things are going. They aren't hurting yet, but it's definitely stressful for them.
This will probably lead to more congested air travel, which may have some economic consequences. Little things like this all over the place will start to add up, and the blame will fall squarely wear it belongs - on Trump, who passed on his own party’s funding.
