If anything, my mouthwash is now safe from harmful abuse.
If you honestly believe that (your last paragraph, that is), then how can one not err on the side of safety, given the near-nuclear results another hijacking would cause in this country? Even forgetting about the loss of life and property - the massive damage to the economy seems to justify the draconian (in your opinion, I suppose) measures being taken.
Right. Six incidents per week, over 9 years, and every one was mouthwash. :rolleyes:
-Because I consider there to be considerable value in such things as privacy, and relatively unencumbered travel.
-I abhor the widespread belief that we are somehow entitled to a “risk-free” existence, and that our government is supposed to protect us from every injury. There is one very readily achievable way each of us can assure that we will not be the victim on in-air terrorism…
-I’m very aware that our government has limited resources, and that every dollar and hour spent on chasing what I consider the diminishing tail end of air security, could be far better spent elsewhere - whether on anti-terrorism or any number of other programs.
-And I believe the economic costs of terrorism are largely self-imposed. For example, While it is difficult if not impossible to put a price on human life, I firmly belief the events of 9/11 imposed nowhere near the costs on America as our excessive reaction.
I’m not sure what you mean by “near nuclear results.” Don’t planes go down somewhere in the world somewhat regularly - whether from pilot error, equipment malfunction, or whatever? What it this near nuclear result you feel is unavoidable? I simply do not understand your terms.
BOOM
(points at headless retainer-wearing kid)
He did it.
Roll eyes all you want: since we don’t have any idea what the rate was before 9-11, we don’t know if this is an improvement or not. 6 “suspicious liquids” out of eighteen million travellers per week is something like .0000002% of travellers: seems like noise in the system. I don’t know about your politicians, but mine would be trumpeting it to every news organization in the country if they even thought the TSA had caught a terrorist – especially now that “TSA” is starting to become a bad word.
And…they’re not. Ignore planes for a moment: we’re a free country with almost no border security. Hundreds of thousands of farmhands without a second grade education make it into the country every year, despite increasingly ridiculous efforts to stop them. If “NCIS” were real life, we should be seeing dozens of terrorist attacks every year – instead we get a couple idiots a decade trying to ignite their clothes. As goes the old joke about tiger repellent – it works best when there are no tigers to begin with.
If Isreal laughs at us for security theater, there’s a good reason to pay attention. These are people who have been dealing a much more real and present threat of terrorist attack for many decades (largely successfully) – and they think we’re being over-the-top moronic about this.
Unlike most of the people on these boards, your responses are reasoned and thought out, and perhaps as Al Gore might say (in a stilted monotone), “and I thank you for them”.
Last question first: my near-nuclear results means that, should there be another successful attack a la 9/11, the results on the American psyche, combined with what would surely be a devastating effect on the economy (as both leisure and business travel ground to a halt), would be nearly as drastic as setting off a nuclear device/dirty bomb in some city; we’re talking off-scale, bury-the-needle on the disasterometer.
Honestly, I agree with you that it’s not Government’s job to make our existence risk-free. And that resources are limited. But you said yourself that we don’t have enough facts to do an honest cost-benefit analysis. And I agree with that:
How many terrorist plots have our security procedures prevented? How many would-be jihadists would have attacked via the sky, but for the TSA, and instead tried something else (and perhaps failed: the Times Square carbombing attempt comes to mind) TSA says that the new machines would probably have picked up the underwear explosives that were scheduled for airburst over Detroit - do we know if they would have tried again if but for the machines? Do we know if they would try again in the future without our countermeasures?
No. You’re right, we can’t know.
Think of it this way: If you vaccinate your kid against polio, you have no idea if he/she would have caught the disease otherwise. Does that make the vaccination worth the money? The new TSA process is our vaccination, of sorts.
So I suggest that the negative consequences are so great, in light of a possible attack, that the new TSA procedures are worth it, and worth it two ways:
- catch/deter terrorist attack
- provide the American public a security blanket under which commerce and day-to-day life can continue, with some sense of protection (a bonus benefit)
I doubt Israel’s system would work here. And Dana makes some good points today in the WaPo on why not
Israel spends $56.75/passenger on security. The US spends $6.93/passenger. Where’s the money going to come from?
And then he goes on
Bottom line: we can’t afford their system, nor would the Americans stand for it.
A couple of points to make in this thread.
First of all, I don’t believe the “six artfully concealed prohibited items per week” includes liquids that someone has left in their carry on. I must see six people getting liquids taken from them every single time I fly. There are a scary number of people out there that don’t think bottled water or aerosols of hairspray or deoderant count as a liquid. And there’s an even scarier number who still seem utterly oblivious to the rules. They just get tossed in a bin. (The liquids, not the clueless people).
Secondly, there is a misconception that the liquid rules are a post-9/11 reaction. They are not. Between 9/11 and August 10th 2006 liquids were fine. The only post 9/11 changes noticeable here in the UK were on small sharp items, like nailfiles, nail scissors, tweezers etc which were suddenly deemed dangerous.
The liquid rules came in on August 10th 2006 when UK authorities uncovered a specific plot to blow up airliners using liquid and gel based explosives.
Just a couple of final thoughts:
-I don’t think there is any practical possibility of a recurrence of 9/11, so long as we deny terrorists access to the cockpit. So while a plane going down is still horrible - worse if somehow done over a big city - I think very simple and inexpensive steps prevent planes from being flown into buildings.
-I think the nation’s reaction to a powerful punch like 9/11 says something about it’s character. My preference would have been for us to say, “That’s all you got?” and go about our business - while allowing our armed forces free rein to rain remote terror on them while putting as few boots on the ground as possible.
-A few of weeks ago I recall there being a HUGE amount of news about a couple of “bombs” being found. I believe the originated in Yemen and were discovered in Europe, on their way towards Chicago? I didn’t pay too much attention, but I did notice there were many many articles and broadcasts and on-line mentions of the devices, the intentions, etc. Given the attention given to the discovery of these devices, it would really astound me to learn that the TSA was finding potential explosives on a regular and ongoing basis and keeping it all under their hat.
-My personal preference would probably be that we increase the costs of air travel to cover the needed security. Of course, I don’t fly much. Instead of TSA funded from the general fisc, add an extra $50 to every ticket to cover an armed on-plane marshall on every flight. Put the TSA money into improving trains, and encouraging teleconferencing for business. Yeah, I know cheap air travel supposedly results in some economic gains that benefit all of us. But it also has some significant environmental and (many believe) security costs.
Yes, Linus – that’s exactly how we’ve been (correctly) describing the TSA’s security dinner theater.
I very much doubt that anyone who is unfamiliar with the Economics 101 distinction between fixed and marginal costs (hint: using the Israeli system for exactly one passenger would cost more than $56.75) has any “good points” to offer about the practicality of any program whatsoever.
Read a couple of articles over the weekedn about some idiot teen in the Pacific NW who wanted to stage an explosion in a pubic plaza at some holiday event. They gave what impressed me as a mighty short list of terrorist threats which have been defeated over the past year or so. If those are the biggest/only plots to have foiled, ISTM that we are mighty safe. And if those are the only successes the gov’t has to publicize, I just can’t believe they would remain silent about bombs discovered by TSA.
This is like the argument for UFO sightings: Surely, out of all the UFO sightings, they can’t all have been Venus or weather balloons, some of them must really be aliens.
You guys always seem to think that TSA’s only job is to run the metal detectors at the airport. You’re missing a hell of a lot of behind-the-scenes work that they do. There’s the No-Fly list, for one, that diverted a plane earlier this year. Now I realize that this incident may seem like a failure, and that’s why it made the news, but at least the plane was diverted instead of allowing it to continue to its destination. And there are a ton of success stories about that program as well.
There’s also the facility security that they do. They plan for situations like CBRN threats and mass casualty events. They make sure that the resources are on hand and trained for that kind of stuff.
There’s a lot that they do that people never think about unless they work in the industry.
Those are some key words - “the industry.” There’s plenty of money to be made (and spent) protecting folk from their fears - warranted or otherwise.
It is one of those things that is very difficult to discuss intelligently, as the government is loathe to release spending and program specifics due to “security concerns.” But even if I were to agree with you that TSA accomplishes a ton of good “behind the scenes,” that wouldn’t change my opinion that the stooges in the airport are not accomplishing anything sufficient to outweigh their costs.
What are the success stories of the No Fly List?
Do I understand correctly that you’re counting a plane that was needlessly diverted due to the mis-identification as a positive of this list, if not an outright success? That sounds completely backwards to me.
I’ve only ever heard of the idiocies it’s generated like the little boy who’s on it. And of course, Bruce Shneier’s humorous description of it as “A list of people so dangerous we can’t let them on airplanes, yet so innocent we haven’t found a single crime to charge them with.”
Well, it kept Cat Stevens out of the country for a few years…
The opening paragraph of this story:
(emphasis added)
Yes, in much the same way that Benedict XVI may seem like a Catholic or the location of bear crap may seem like the woods.
The plane was diverted because of a mistaken identity – after the person mistaken for a suspicious character was allowed to get on the plane in the first place – and this is what you cite to support your case? I’ve seen six-year-olds make better cases for the assertion that space aliens emptied the cookie jar.
(But then again, as noted by Chronos above, the proposition that none of those cases were actual space aliens is as silly as the proposition that all of the contraband confiscated by TSA was mouthwash and whatnot.)
Which is the danger of the false positive; if false positives outweigh true positives (i.e. every alert turns out to be a bogus threat) even the people operating the system will come to have no confidence in any result. It is hard enough to maintain morale in a force when they’re constantly insulted and have to (mostly) tacitly accept belligerent, surly behavior from an unhappy public, however deserving it may seem. It is even worse when they never show a clear success of their primary mission.
The biggest problem with the methods employed by TSA and other agencies is that they’re focused on objects and names; they look for specific devices, or names on a list, and ignore patterns and behaviors that are indicative of an actual threat. This means they’re always looking back at the last threat–hence, why we have to take our shoes off–and not at the next potential threat; say, a bomber who deposits a device in the security line and then excuses himself to go to the bathroom, or someone taking potshots at airport security from afar, or any of a large number of soft targets that have nothing to do with airlines. That the closest thing we’ve seen to date of this type of thing is a disgruntled teenager who was shined on by federal law enforcement in what can only be described as a publicity stunt.
It is a fair statement to say that the TSA security theater has deterred more attacks like the 11 September 2001 hijackings. Then again, the long-overdue security measure of locking the flight deck doors has already made that point moot. It does seem to have reduced the number of half-wit would-be terrorists from lighting themselves on fire, though the large number of gaping security holes, like the fact that you can take a quart-sized bag of liquids or gels on the plane virtually uninspected for explosive content indicates that while TSA is overly scrupulous in some areas, the attitude is not consistent across the board.
Stranger