# Economist Debate: Is TSA worth the cost? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 31, 2012, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377 "2012-03-31T12:55:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/81 "2012-04-03T13:39:35Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Consider this- what if after you went through security, I offered you $5 to go through another 20 minutes of screening. I’d tell you to get bent. Next question? > [@](#): > > Would you take it? I sure as hell would, and I make a lot more than $15/hr. Why? Your financial desperation and/or low self-esteem are not my concern. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/82 "2012-04-03T13:51:44Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > I don’t know why you continue to miss the entire point we’re making. No one is saying that “time x value=cost” is false. We’re saying that “value” is a very, very small number, and thus cost is very, very small as well. Obviously not, or “we’ll give you an $X discount to put up with waiting for our one cashier to get around to serving you” would be a viable business model. The reason it isn’t is that $X per customer turns out to be higher than the cost of hiring a dozen or so cashiers (enough to have half of them available at peak hours allowing for multiple shifts and absences). Admittedly, cashiering isn’t exactly a one-percenter job, but it still costs the store more than the “very small” amount you suggest. > [@](#): > > At the grocery store, the faster you get through the register, the faster you can get on with life. At the airport, the faster you get through security, the faster you get to…wait for the plane to board. Look, you have to get to the airport an hour before your flight. This argument might make sense if the “hour before your flight” rule had been handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai or derived from Newton’s Laws of Motion or otherwise originated from a phenomenon _independent of the airport security system_. Given that the one-hour rule is, in fact, a _result_ of the airport security system, arguing that it obviates the cost of the system is equivalent to a malpractice-defense attorney arguing that a patient who was accidentally turned into a mental vegetable shouldn’t get a big payout because he’d never know the difference if you stashed him in a cheap human-warehouse institution rather than provided high-quality care. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/83 "2012-04-03T14:02:00Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > What opportunities are given up here? The opportunity to wait at the terminal? Twenty extra minutes of sleep? All of which presumably have no significant value. > [@](#): > > The “next best alternative forgone” is generally not anything that has great value. I understand this is your opinion, even though you resent it when I accept that this is your ridiculous position. > [@](#): > > Then you might have a reading comprehension problem. Yeah, I can see how “the next best alternative forgone is generally not anything that has great value” could mislead me to think that you think that alternatives have negligible value. Whoops. > [@brickbacon](#): > > How exactly was it unclear to you when I said: > > > [@brickbacon](#): > > > > Nobody has said that the time loss has NO value. What I, and some others, have said is that the calculation is wildly off the mark because they selectively treat waiting time as income-earning time. It wasn’t unclear at all. And I have repeatedly pointed out that this is not how they are interpreting this. They, and I, and everyone but you, know that time has a pretty significant value to people. They use it to satisfy their wants and needs, which, as most people expect, they value very much. They value their wants and needs so much, they spend hours and hours away from satisfying their wants and needs in order to earn money which they can use to satisfy them better. Depending on the context, we have different ways of determining how much they value this free time. We might, for example, attempt to pay them to give it up in an experiment. Many measures are indirect. One measure you might consider is how much they are paid to do things they don’t want to do, like work for someone else. This _stands in_ for what is otherwise an extremely difficult measurement to make. Using this is _not_ an assertion that if they weren’t doing what they’d be doing, they’d be working. It never has been. I’ve repeatedly pointed this out to you. You continue on your charade nevertheless. > [@brickbacon](#): > > > [@erislover](#): > > > > What I don’t understand is what your alternative is. How do you decide between two options? I’ve asked this I think at least twice and failed to have any elucidation on your point. > > Because it’s such a ridiculous question, I figured you must be joking. Well since you basically have thrown out most economics, it seems like an extremely pointed question. > [@](#): > > But let me humor you. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > For any decision that is to be decided via rational means, you can try to objectively calculate the personal value you assign to decision A, then weight it against the alternatives. If A has the most positive value or best outcome, you choose A. For decision based on emotions, if you feel A is the best, you choose that. Most decisions will be a combination of both. Sounds great. And how do we know, as a matter of social policy, how the situations we’ve imposed on people have a cost? How do we measure that cost? > [@](#): > > In the case of waiting at the airport, the best alternative (for most) is _not_ getting paid to work, it’s waiting elsewhere. Your stubbornness on this point is admirable. But that only raises the question: what is the cost of waiting elsewhere? **Sooner or later, “wasting time” or doing things “with little value” will have impacted something of value.** You wish to ignore this logical chain of events because it is inconvenient to your point, but that is not my problem and I won’t let the dog go. > [@](#): > > There is no disconnect here. It’s just that your side has decided to inflate numbers in service of a specious argument. It’s just that your side wants time to count only when it is convenient to your argument (when people are actually working) but not when it isn’t (when people are enjoying leisure time—which they worked for!). > [@](#): > > More importantly, 9 times out of 10 that I seem some calculation like this, it’s in a newspaper article read by laymen. The vast majority of people do not make that distinction. That’s why it’s misleading. It’s certainly misleading you. > [@](#): > > Let’s use another painfully simple example. Say I work for the velco association of America, and I want to highlight how bad shoelaces are. For the sake of argument, let’s say I calculate that the average person in the US spends 10 minutes per year tying shoelaces. Using the same monetary value we assigned to airport waiting time, I could say that shoelace tying represents a $1.82 billion loss for the American public. If we were asking, “Should we force people to not use velcro on their shoes because we need it for our super secret spy activities and must divert all market production to that end” then I think that something similar to your proposal would be a decent first-approximation **of the cost of that decision** (though we’d only count the people current using velcro, since that measure is presumably available). > [@](#): > > Now let’s say they quote me for an article about how much better velcro shoes are, and I say, you know, we Americans collectively spend nearly 52 million hours tying our shoes every year. That represent a $1.82 billion dollar loss. We really should switch to to velcro. Wouldn’t that be a very misleading argument? It would, but not for the reasons you think. > [@](#): > > Leisure time has less value than time spent working. I know you think this. It’s horrible, and makes no sense, and doesn’t explain anything people do, and definitely doesn’t explain why we pay people to work in the first place, but you are free to hold ridiculous positions in spite of common sense and economic tradition. I can’t stop you. But I can point out that: 1. We pay people to do work for us. If we didn’t, they would work for themselves instead 2. People use this money not to work more, but to enjoy their leisure time more. It seems that there is a very high value on leisure time, because we cannot easily induce people any longer to work 14 hour days six days a week without paying them significantly more money. 3. People have rioted for more leisure time. They kill for their families. They don’t give a fuck about their bosses. > [@](#): > > This is becoming tedious to correct your mischaracterizations of what I’ve said. Feel free to keep repeating yourself, it’s your hole to climb out of. ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/84 "2012-04-03T14:02:51Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > Yes, and that dollar value is extremely low. As in, less than $1 billion. > > You’re talking about a net cost. I’m talking about a gross cost. **curioushat** suggested that one of the benefits of the TSA was the jobs, income, and taxes that we get from employing people. You said “that’s a cost, not a benefit,” as in jobs, income, and taxes are costs. That makes no sense, no matter what the rest of the calculation turns out to be. > > The businesses in the airport survive solely because people have time to kill and they’re willing to spend money to pass the time. Mothers with kids, I’ll give you, but businessmen with laptops have nothing but time. They’ve got nothing to do but sit in a flying tin can and wait for the hours to pass. They’ve got plenty of time to work there. Next time you’re at the airport, ask a random passenger if they wish the plane would hold off for a minute because they’ve got something really important to do on their laptop, or if they wish the plane were ready to go right that minute. You’ll never hear the first option. > > Ergo, flyers are just killing time 'til the plane’s ready. > > No, the question to ask is: Can you do anything you’d rather be doing, other than standing in line? The answer to that is “no,” because all the things you’d rather be doing are at home or at work or in bed or…anywhere but the airport. No one goes “I sure hope I get through security quickly so I can get to Max&Erma’s before the flight.” It doesn’t matter how short the security line is, you’ll still have to be at the airport an hour before the flight, as the limiting factor is the plane, not the security. > So say what you want about whether the TSA is worth it or not. But don’t add $10 billion to the “against” side because people have to wait. Maybe I am just not getting the jist of the argument but ANY cost that the TSA imposes is too great considering you can’t measure their success. You can measure their failures and they have been plentiful. There have been lots of quibbling about the ‘exact cost’, I say who cares. That there is one is key. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/85 "2012-04-03T16:11:43Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > You admit standing in line is not the same as enjoying a beer at a restaurant. **Even though drinking another beer at a restaurant is an actual thing people spend money on, you are willing to discount this entirely as a “small” figure because they’re not there to drink beer, they’re there to “wait” which has a “small” value.** > > That is ridiculous. Why is it ridiculous? I stand by my statement. Their time has very little value, as the alternative option of paying for a beer, reading a book, or working on their laptop is not appealing at all. If the beer were free, or the book were interesting, or the work had to be done this instant, then I’d be wrong. But it isn’t, they usually aren’t, and it can be done later. > [@rogerbox](#): > > I’ve said this before but as a former airport employee with security clearance to the ramp, the song and dance customers go through is an utter farce. 89 days out of 90 employees just wave a badge to get through a secured door and then put whatever they want in the cargo area of your planes What’s the difference between… 1. That guy could kill us all if he wanted to. 2. That guy will kill us all. Why do people act like “if he wanted to” is an insignificant obstacle for terrorists to overcome? It’s like saying that NFL teams having cornerbacks is stupid because he could let the receiver past him _if he wanted to_. > [@Steve\_MB](#): > > This argument might make sense if the “hour before your flight” rule had been handed down to Moses on Mount Sinai or derived from Newton’s Laws of Motion or otherwise originated from a phenomenon _independent of the airport security system_. Given that the one-hour rule is, in fact, a _result_ of the airport security system… No, it’s not. The one-hour rule is a consequence of ticketing, baggage-handling, and plane-prepping. Security is not the limiting factor. > [@Kearsen](#): > > Maybe I am just not getting the jist of the argument but ANY cost that the TSA imposes is too great considering you can’t measure their success. You can measure their failures and they have been plentiful. > > There have been lots of quibbling about the ‘exact cost’, I say who cares. That there is one is key. No, _you_ can’t measure their success. In the realm of national security, you’re a nobody. But the somebodies out there _are_ able to measure successes. That’s “who cares.” ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/86 "2012-04-03T16:20:23Z")
> [@krunen](#): > > I support security measures that have been subjected to a cost-benefit analysis and found to be effective. I’ve already explained why traditional cost-benefit analysis is inappropriate in this situation. > [@](#): > > I know a lot about computer security. I know that partly effective security will only stop stupid people. Several holes have been demonstrated in airport security and never fixed. From that I conclude that the current measures are not designed to stop smart terrorists. > > A network firewall with a known hole is less than worthless. There are a few differences. First intrusion is usually not catastrophic. Second, those at risk have better security than the average PC owner who never updates his virus signatures. Third, unlikely a hole in a firewall, the holes in airport security are more random. Getting a gun past one guard on Tuesday does not mean you can get one past another guard on Thursday. Finally, some guy sitting in Moscow probing firewalls has a relatively low risk of anything bad happening to him, even if he gets caught. The terrorist caught is going to win a trip to Gitmo. I’m certainly not claiming that security is perfect - there is no such thing. But I remember when unexpected trips to Havana were an almost weekly occurrence, so there is certainly evidence that security works. BTW, if you know computer security I assume you know queuing theory, and so are aware that adding more consumers of tokens on a queue increase throughput and decreases wait times. If the cost of these wait times is so great, this cost benefit analysis, which more traditional methods work for, should be a no-brainer. ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/87 "2012-04-03T16:28:58Z")
Exactly how many terrorist attacks have been thwarted by the TSA? If the number is anything more than “0”, please cite an instance. ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/88 "2012-04-03T16:32:32Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > Maybe I am just not getting the jist of the argument but ANY cost that the TSA imposes is too great considering you can’t measure their success. You can measure their failures and they have been plentiful. > > There have been lots of quibbling about the ‘exact cost’, I say who cares. That there is one is key. Well, maybe you can’t measure the success, but I would tend to believe that the FBI blows up any story about a thwarted terrorist attack. To this date, I can recall the liquid bombers, who were arrested by the British police, not the TSA. So the TSA has no measurable benefits, and instead costs time and money, not to mention personal privacy. ---
**Author:** ![rogerbox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/76d3ee/32.png) [@rogerbox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rogerbox)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/89 "2012-04-03T16:46:22Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > What’s the difference between… > > 1. That guy could kill us all if he wanted to. > 2. That guy will kill us all. > > Why do people act like “if he wanted to” is an insignificant obstacle for terrorists to overcome? It’s like saying that NFL teams having cornerbacks is stupid because he could let the receiver past him _if he wanted to_. I don’t understand what you are trying to convey? ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/90 "2012-04-03T16:47:10Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > Yeah, I can see how “the next best alternative forgone is generally not anything that has great value” could mislead me to think that you think that alternatives have negligible value. Whoops. Nice try. You consistently mischaracterized what I have said. You stated that I implied time has no value. If you need a reminder, allow me to quote you: [QUOTE=erislover] As far as I can tell, your hypothesis supposes their time literally has no value because they don’t earn money. [/QUOTE] I am not saying that. I am saying that valuing time at the rate you might earn working is a stupid way to calculate things. You said that’s not what they are doing, they you deign to explain how else they might reasonably calculate it. > [@erislover](#): > > They, and I, and everyone but you, know that time has a pretty significant value to people. They use it to satisfy their wants and needs, which, as most people expect, they value very much. Nobody is disagreeing that people value their time. The fact that you can pick apart this strawman doesn’t mean your argument holds any water. Of course people value their time. The problem with their calculation is that, on average, people don’t value their time at $34.95/hour. If they did, people wouldn’t routinely work for far less than that. That’s why that calculation is stupid. > [@erislover](#): > > One measure you might consider is how much they are paid to do things they don’t want to do, like work for someone else. Right, so explain why the average person works for far less than the value used in the calculations? > [@erislover](#): > > This _stands in_ for what is otherwise an extremely difficult measurement to make. Using this is _not_ an assertion that if they weren’t doing what they’d be doing, they’d be working. It never has been. I’ve repeatedly pointed this out to you. You continue on your charade nevertheless. Once again, your comprehension problem rears its ugly head. The main reason you are wrong are: 1. The actual opportunity costs are no where near $34.95/hour. 2. Using the value of time of $34.95/hour implies that the time can be objectively valued at that rate. 3. People don’t actual value what is generally free time at that rate. 4. The only time people generally value at that rate is time spent working > [@erislover](#): > > Sounds great. And how do we know, as a matter of social policy, how the situations we’ve imposed on people have a cost? How do we measure that cost? A number of ways. If I want something to be revenue neutral or positive, I need to see if the benefits outweigh the costs. For example, if I am deciding whether to build a shopping center or a stadium. I can see if people are actually willing to shoulder the costs of building them in exchange for better shopping opportunities or access to professional sports. Another concrete is example is waiting in line at amusement parks. Many parks, like [Six Flags](http://www.sixflags.com/america/tickets/flashpass.aspx), have fast passes that give you expedited wait times at the popular rides. They say roughly 3-5% of people buy those passes. First, note that the price is $35. This [site](http://themeparks.about.com/cs/sixflagsparks/a/blfastlanea_2.htm) estimates you could save 4 or 5 hours waiting throughout the course of the day. That means people value their time waiting in line at Six Flags between $7-$8.75/hour, not $34.95. Why is that? If the $34.95/hour is indeed correct, shouldn’t Six Flags charge a lot more? Second, note that the vast majority of people do not buy them. Now, let’s talk about this. If we are to assume, like airport travelers, amusement park customers value their time 34.95/hour, why do so few of them buy the tickets? More importantly, if everyone wanted to buy them, they could just raise the normal price, and use the difference to buy more rides to reduce waiting times. Similarly, if people really feel their time waiting at the airport is worth $34.95, charge them that much, and then hire more TSA agents so that the wait time is proportionately minimized. As the gentleman said, that is more than their entire budget. If people were willing to put their money where their mouths are, they could hire an more agents to reduce the time waiting? Why don’t they do that? Is it because despite what people say, their time is worth, they do not really value it at that rate? Even if you just instituted a tax to raise $5 billion dollars with the effort to reduce waiting times by half. > [@erislover](#): > > But that only raises the question: what is the cost of waiting elsewhere? **Sooner or later, “wasting time” or doing things “with little value” will have impacted something of value.** You wish to ignore this logical chain of events because it is inconvenient to your point, but that is not my problem and I won’t let the dog go. I don’t know what the cost is, I haven’t tried to figure that out. I do know it’s not $34.95/hour though. > [@erislover](#): > > It would, but not for the reasons you think. Please explain. > [@erislover](#): > > 1. People use this money not to work more, but to enjoy their leisure time more. It seems that there is a very high value on leisure time, because we cannot easily induce people any longer to work 14 hour days six days a week without paying them significantly more money. What you have pointed out is that people don’t like working past a certain point. This is news to no one. It also has little to with the absolute value of time. Context matters a great deal here. In context, 20 minutes at an airport is not worth very much. > [@erislover](#): > > 1. People have rioted for more leisure time. They kill for their families. They don’t give a fuck about their bosses. Sure, some people do. But considering the current unemployment levels, plenty of people would work, or would work more. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/91 "2012-04-03T16:56:29Z")
Eris, I have a question for you. What is an hour of my dog’s time worth? For reference, he is a 12-year old Cocker Spaniel mix, currently unemployed, likes to sleep and eat, house broken. What is his time worth? ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/92 "2012-04-03T16:58:07Z")
The TSA is pointless. It stops nothing. So why have it? ---
**Author:** ![Kearsen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/82dd89/32.png) [@Kearsen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kearsen)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/93 "2012-04-03T17:19:24Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > Eris, I have a question for you. What is an hour of my dog’s time worth? For reference, he is a 12-year old Cocker Spaniel mix, currently unemployed, likes to sleep and eat, house broken. What is his time worth? Has the TSA been detaining cute spaniel mixes now? Will the travesties never cease?! And don’t forget to calculate into the equation the loss of personal privacy into these supposed “those people” who actually care about the cost vs the benefit since there might not be one. ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/94 "2012-04-03T17:24:00Z")
I don’t see this as much different from: You’re walking down a public (government owned) street, therefore you may be carrying a bomb and heading off to the white house, thus I need to strip search, cavity search, and surgically search you _just in case_ ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/95 "2012-04-03T18:46:09Z")
> [@Kearsen](#): > > And don’t forget to calculate into the equation the loss of personal privacy into these supposed “those people” who actually care about the cost vs the benefit since there might not be one. From what I understand, there’s no cost there because privacy isn’t really used to earn money. You keep things private all on your own for free. ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/96 "2012-04-03T18:56:51Z")
> [@erislover](#): > > From what I understand, there’s no cost there because privacy isn’t really used to earn money. You keep things private all on your own for free. Do you have a figure on the number of attacks that the TSA has prevented? The number of lives that it has saved? Has it a) destroyed more lives than saved b) saved more lives than destroyed. I’m going with a. Compromises human dignity under the guise of a terrorist attack that has not been a reasonable threat since 9/11 ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/97 "2012-04-03T19:17:25Z")
> [@rogerbox](#): > > I don’t understand what you are trying to convey? That yes, cargo loaders could blow up a plane if they wanted to. And cornerbacks could let the receiver past them if they wanted to. But they don’t want to. And that’s not going to change. So baggage handlers and cornerbacks are safe to trust. > [@curioushat](#): > > Exactly how many terrorist attacks have been thwarted by the TSA? If the number is anything more than “0”, please cite an instance. More than 0. Already did. > [@curioushat](#): > > The TSA is pointless. It stops nothing. So why have it? You’ve consistently ignored the evidence that it has stopped things. It’s been presented repeatedly. Why don’t you reread the thread and click all the links? > [@curioushat](#): > > Has it > > a) destroyed more lives than saved > b) saved more lives than destroyed B. ---
**Author:** ![Chessic\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7c8e57/32.png) [@Chessic\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chessic_Sense)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/98 "2012-04-03T19:23:15Z")
**Eris** , suppose I was asked to total up the value of all real estate in America. Suppose I found out there are 3 trillion square feet of real estate out there. Then I multiply that by Manhattan’s rate of $450 per square foot and came to $1.3 quintillion. Now suppose I had an axe to grind and wanted to make the number as high as possible to make a point. Two questions: 1. Would you call bullshit on my numbers? 2. Where did I go wrong? ---
**Author:** ![curioushat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b9e5f3/32.png) [@curioushat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curioushat)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/99 "2012-04-03T19:28:39Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > That yes, cargo loaders could blow up a plane if they wanted to. And cornerbacks could let the receiver past them if they wanted to. But they don’t want to. And that’s not going to change. So baggage handlers and cornerbacks are safe to trust. > > More than 0. Already did. > > You’ve consistently ignored the evidence that it has stopped things. It’s been presented repeatedly. Why don’t you reread the thread and click all the links? > > B. I read your post, and your citation. The citation, nowhere, makes any sort of claim that it thwarted any sort of attacks. Do you mean to tell me that the 1,200 guns they kept off planes is equivalent to thwarting 1,200 terrorist attacks? Not a single weapon or other item snagged at the TSA led to a thwarted terrorist attack. Sure, they’ve kept some weapons off planes (and some other weird things). However that is not evidence, at all, of preventing any sort of attack that basic security would not have already caught. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377/100 "2012-04-03T20:01:47Z")
> [@Chessic\_Sense](#): > > No, it’s not. The one-hour rule is a consequence of ticketing, baggage-handling, and plane-prepping. Security is not the limiting factor. Ticketing is trivial (particularly given the availability of online pre-printing). Plane preparation is already built into the schedule – the plane is at the departure airport X amount of time before the announced departure, and it makes not a whit of difference to passengers whether X is ten seconds or ten hours. Baggage is the only factor that might require waiting time, and in any case can be avoided either by packing light and carrying everything with you (which people are doing anyway as a result of airline fees) or by accepting the possibility of waiting at the other end (which isn’t really an issue, since you’re at your destination doing whatever you were going to do anyway until the airline delivers the luggage that arrived on a later flight). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/economist-debate-is-tsa-worth-the-cost/617377.md?page=6)