When my daughter worked for an airline, I could fly standby almost free, but I didn’t have a seat. I could get a similar pass at the airline desk to go to the most likely gate. I more than once wound up flying out on a different airline from the one planned.
In somewhat timely news, on January 3 the TSA missed a gun which managed to make it onto an Atlanta to Tokyo flight. The passenger informed Delta, who informed the TSA.
WAG on my part, but the passenger probably just forgot about it but then realized having a gun in Japan (and probably trying to bring it back) was probably a bit of a problem and shouldn’t have happened in the first place.
Um, when our son was a baby we carried milk through the TSA checkpoints with no problem. They pulled the bottle aside for special handling, and they checked it for explosives residue, but they let it through.
I’m not sure where I was comparing costs of prevention to past costs. Instead, I (and others) said simple, inexpensive steps could prevent recurrence of the types of attacks that occurred on 9/11. The rest impresses me (and others) as purely theater, with little benefit in preventing future incidents.
However, that theater does not come without costs. Not only monetary (which I suspect might exceed the cost of a limited number of air accidents, but I’ve not seen the analysis.) I don’t think it fair to simply characterize standing in line as an inconvenience which can be avoided by passengers spending additional money. There is also a “cost” resulting from making civilians perceive/fear a greater degree of danger than “reasonable.” And causing them to accept as “normal” being treated as potential criminals, needing to meekly submit to (at OHare at least) often confusing and rude commands barked by uniformed and armed quasi-military personnel.
Even if we are only talking money - what are annual expenditures on TSP? Around $7.5B? Now what portion of that budget results in what degree of incremental safety? If the first $1B achieves 99% of the desired results (just WAG), why not send the remaining $6.5B elsewhere, where there will be greater gains in public health and safety, and less costs in inconvenience and instilling unnecessary fear? Expand health care/nutrition subsidies, gun buy backs, or any number of other efforts to enhance public health and safety. Or DON’T spend it - unless you want to view TSA as a subsidized pubic employment program.
I’d suggest there are numerous steps government takes to enhance driving safety. And if the gov’t wished, they could do more. I’d also suggest there are other potential threats, which the individual is relatively helpless to prevent (lead in drinking water?), that the gov’t could spend add’l money on, potentially yielding greater health/safety benefits with fewer non-monetary costs.
I’m simply suggesting viewing TSA efforts on a straightforward cost/benefit analysis. If you argue that infinite expenditures are warranted to avoid a single potential air death by terror, then such discussion is impossible.
On one occasion, one TSA employee in one airport followed TSA procedures for handling milk. Therefore, on every occasion, every TSA employee at every airport followed TSA procedures. Got it.
I remember in the 80s-90s, when I used to travel for work I’d often buy a 5th of gin at my destination to be able to mix myself a couple of drinks in my hotel room. I’d return home w/ a partially filled bottle in my carryon. If the seal was unbroken, there was no issue. If the seal was broken, the screeners would simply ask what it was, possibly take a sniff - ISTR offering to take a swig of it. Then I could order a tonic water and mix myself drinks on the plane. Different times…
I’ve had similar discussions to this thread with people who genuinely believe that it is a fair trade off to spend huge amounts of money on airport screenings to potentially avoid a few terrorist deaths, instead of similar amounts of money on something else to likely avoid many accidental deaths. The explanation being that terrorism is deliberate actions, so it is worth spending all that money. [Picard face palm meme] Yes, it is impossible to have reasonable discussion with somebody arguing from the position that the benefit is worthwhile, regardless of cost.
Screenings are the last ditch effort to prevent terrorist (and other criminal) action on airplanes, and should not be thought of as a main method to stop and catch terrorists. If a plot has gotten that far, then we’ve already lost. All the terrorists have to do to avoid the screening is decide to attack something other than an airplane.
The resources spent on exceptional screening would much better be spent on intelligence gathering and traditional policing. Not that those don’t also have problems, but catching terrorists in the planning and organization stages has had much more success, and is effective for plots against things other than airplanes.
Do you have any evidence that TSA employees do not routinely Follow TSA procedures for handling milk? Besides a youtube video, without cites? So, you have a youtube, wit a isolated incident, thus you assume the TSA is failing ther.
And here is the TSA’s response to that isolated incident:
https://www.tsa.gov/blog/2010/12/07/tsa-response-tsa-breast-milk-screening-video
*Nearly a year ago, a passenger going through airport screening on two separate occasions requested that her breast milk be visually inspected and not screened by the X-ray machine. She filed a complaint with TSA regarding her screening experience. TSA investigated the matter and sent a letter of apology to the passenger in March of this year. The passenger has flown since these events occurred and has provided TSA a written confirmation that she no longer experiences issues.
…
We extend our sincere apologies to any passenger who may have experienced discomfort and inconvenience during the screening process. We appreciate hearing from passengers and encourage you to share your experiences with us. Although the proper screening procedures were followed at the time, we acknowledge this particular passenger experienced an out of the ordinary delay, and have worked with our officers to ensure we proceed with expediency in screening situations similar to this.*
Cite for my using the word “routinely”? (I could tell you the answer, but I’ll follow your example and insist that YOU provide the cite. 
No fair peeking at the Spoiler!)
No, until now the only instance of ‘routin*’ in the thread was Voyager’s mention of “George Carlin routine”
So … in conclusion:
(a) You managed to Google one of the incidents without my help. Well done!
(b) You confirmed my point, which was that TSA doesn’t always follow their own regulations, exactly as I claimed all along.
(c) The victim, who IIRC is a lawyer, escalated her complaint and got TSA management to retrain the faulty employees!! Yay! Go TSA? Go lawyers?
This wasn’t one occasion. We travelled with our son on many flights.
I’m not saying they always followed procedure. But in our experience, covering numerous examples, they usually did.
Wow, somebody, once had a issue! And you berated another poster for saying “Um, when our son was a baby we carried milk through the TSA checkpoints with no problem.”
So, you had nothing but a crappy youtube about a isolated incident. And then you dismiss anecdotal evidence, even tho that was all you had.
Wow! This sub-“debate” has descended into gibberish. People are leaping to false conclusions and imputing opinions groundlessly.
“Last Tuesday John Smith walked across the street without getting murdered. Therefore guns are not a problem in America.” “Bill ate an aspirin and his headache went away. Health crisis solved!”
If y’all must indulge in utter nonsense, at least try to make it humorous, okay?
Do you have a cite that intelligence gathering is short on money? I’d be in favor of increasing it if so, but not out of the TSA budget.
For air travel, we’ve probably reduced accidental deaths as far as we can in the US. For other types of travel we can certainly put more money into infrastructure, but that is capital spending, not immediate spending like TSA, and the amount needed dwarfs the TSA budget.
But the biggest fallacy is treating terrorist attacks as random events. If we relaxed security, why would the terrorists not attack the weaknesses - the way they have attacked large crowds at gatherings. That the terrorists have moved from airplanes to crowds shows that security is indeed working.
I’m sorry - where have the common attacks on crowds been - at least in the US? The Boston marathon? Vegas? Given the prevalence of guns - and vehicles - it amazes me that there aren’t more. Any committed terrorist with nothing more than a few guns and rudimentary explosives could take out 10s of people in any air terminal - or big city commuter station, or crowded mall, or amusement park…
Or another way to look at it - the attempted shoe bombing was successful because one loser with a lousy explosive in his shoe has succeeded in requiring millions of people to remove their shoes for security, adding to annoyance, slowing lines, and increasing costs for everyone. The inevitable response from the TSA to the shoe bombing might have been part of the reason for the attempt. Even if it doesn’t work, it does, because we are so predictable in how we’ll respond.
There’s more than one way to win a terror war. If you can make your enemy’s population paranoid and tie them down with endless security regulations, you can call that a win.
The TSA has not stopped a single attack we know of. When tested, they routinely let through a high percentage of obvious threats like guns in a carry-on bag. A drug smuggler might be deterred by a 20% chance that his drugs will be found, but a terrorist organization that can get 80% of its attacks through security is going to be very happy.
The real reason we haven’t seen more hijackings is because they only worked because they exploited the old system which told people that in the case of a hijacking they should just sit quietly and wait for authorities to deal with it. That loophole allowed a few guys with box cutters to take over an entire airplane full of people.
Today, those terrorists would have to get through a locked door, and by the time they managed that they would be swarmed by passengers. NO ONE is going to allow terrorists to take over a plane without a fight anymore, because no one wants to ride a missile to their deaths. Back when the biggest risk of a hijacking was that you might have to catch a flight home from Cuba it was a different story.
We are spending billions to protect ourselves from the LAST threat. In an open society, that’s a ridiculous thing to do, as there are always soft targets to be found. Harden one, and the focus of terrorists will shift to another.
What happens when terrorists start derailing trains? Or attacking water treatment plants to release massive clouds of chlorine gas or something? Just add more security to those specific targets? Where does it end?
I’ve wondered why they haven’t done more train derailments. They’re spectacular, the barriers to entry are low and it doesn’t seem that risky. What gives?
That confuses me as well. A dozen terrorists with portable welding rigs and $20 worth of steel could bring rail traffic to a near halt. And the only way we could stop them would be to somehow monitor every mile of rail on the continent, which would be nearly impossible. I’ve wondered why rail hasn’t been hit since 9/11.
Maybe all they care about is body count, and American rail is mostly freight. But stopping freight movements would be just as damaging, and it doesn’t explain Europe, which has both lots of terrorist wanna-bes and lots of passenger rail. Does not compute.
Hard work, somewhat specialized equipment and training. How many welders, for example, are also terrorists? My best guess, anyway.
There have been terrorist attacks on rail in Europe.
But attacks on air can be much more spectacular. Consider 9/11. It wasn’t the airplane crashes themselves that made them so bad, but the destruction of the World Trade Center. Nothing like that can happen with rail.
And nothing like that can happen w/o access to the cockpit.