What will really happen if Texas passes the TSA anti-groping bill?

If you are going to use something as the latest bulletin, then you should use actual news instead of blog posts. The legislation is still alive, but there has been some significant changes to the language.

http://www.star-telegram.com/2011/06/27/3182576/texas-lawmakers-revive-tsa-anti.html

The Florida diaper incident seems to be singularly ill-timed from the TSA point of view.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/06/27/national/main20074643.shtml

It occurs to me that one way to tell the difference between a bureaucrat with a badge and an actual police officer is that police officers sometimes exercise something called “common sense”.

Do you believe that local police officers never conduct absurd searches or disrespect members of the public? Or that no TSA officer has ever used common sense? Or that state officers are always better trained than Federal ones? Or do you not really have a point here?

You seem to be unclear about the meaning of the word “sometimes”. Perhaps you should look it up in a dictionary.

It is also pretty clear that TSA doesn’t want people that can exercise judgement. Their answer is that if they exercise common sense then the terrorists will start slipping explosives into grandma’s diapers. I don’t say that no TSA agent has ever exercised common sense, but if it happens too often they will be looking for another job.

Succinctly put. Who do those of us who agree with this stance vote for?

Joel,

Honestly I don’t want TSA screeners on the frontline (a fairly low paid worker) having a huge amount of leeway to “exercise judgement” and to ignore policies because they judge that an individual could not possibly be a threat - “look, he’s an old man on dialysis … what kind of threat could an old man on dialysis be? Let him through without a search.”

Indeed if “common sense” routinely means that grandmothers with diapers on get through with a lesser search than do others, then, yes, an older woman may be recruited to wear a diaper.

Being a screener for the TSA has to suck as a job. You are dealing with a stressed group of people who often see you as an obstacle to making it to your gate in time to load (even though of course they are the ones who didn’t allow for enough time). And you are paid well below the median salary in this country (but at least it’s a job). The fact that most of them are polite and professional, even when dealing with nasty people is pretty amazing. Yes, there will be stupid things done and policies that need to be improved upon - such as training staff about how to deal with medical devices and disability issues better. But giving front line staff wide discretion over who to just pass through without following standard procedures seems like a very bad choice.

Dripping,

You want the TSA to not pat you down? Then lead a movement that accepts that every so often a plane will blow up and that more aggressive attempts to lower that risk either have too high of a false positive rate (which they do) or are too much of an affront to your modesty (really?) or too high a cost. Rationally those are reasonable arguments, but somehow I don’t think Texas Republicans, or too many others for that matter, would go or it. The public wants no risk and no increased cost and no inconvenience and no one searching them because they no that they are not terrorists. (Do I look like a terrorist?)

Will any one run on your endorsed platform?

I doubt it. And I don’t wonder why either.

I fail to see how that makes them any better than your average telemarketer, unless you want to give them points for being stupid enough to think they’re helping.

I certainly would not claim that the average TSA screener is any smarter (or “better”) than the average telemarketer. Both are smart enough for the job most of the time: Follow a script. Be polite even to the person who is nasty. Follow procedures. The telemarketer has a slightly different skill set required - they need to be more flexible - sales takes thinking on your feet, making a connection. The screener needs to have been able to learn what is a suspicious object and what is not, and to be firm (a telemarketer has to take “no” as an answer; the screener must not) - a more concrete set of tasks.

If you expect more than that then be prepared to pay a lot more to travel by air.

They are helping. Is it a worthwhile use of resources? Is it worth the inconvenience, the “affront” to modesty, the cost? Those decisions are above their pay grade.

DSeid,

Your own statements have proven what kind of person you are and what kind of country you want to live in. A world where is it better to follow regulations that they know are wrong than trust their own judgement.

To other people reading this thread I suggest reading the book, “The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America” by Philip K. Howard.

http://www.amazon.com/Death-Common-Sense-Suffocating-America/dp/0812982746

Why yes, I do hope my own statements demonstrate what sort of person I am.

And indeed, I am not an anarchist and do not live in Anarchia. Within a fairly broad space I do believe in following laws even when I personally think they are silly. My own judgement may be that going 75 mph down an empty street at 3 am is perfectly safe, and that proceeding at a red light after stopping and seeing no traffic is coming as far as the eye can see is reasonable, yet I will not do those things. I pay taxes even when I disagree with how the money is spent. I stand in line and take off my shoes and have no problem getting patted down so long as the person is polite about it, even though I personally think that many of the security measures gain little actual security and cost too much in both dollars and time. I live within a society with other people and as a member of society I comply with many rules and recognize that I do not get to decide everything. And I am happy that others are constrained by laws even when they disagree with them, that companies have regulations on worker safety and pollution limits for example. Despite the fact that some laws are dumb I actually prefer the concept of living by them as opposed to every person using their own best judgement.

You don’t?

Again, the issue in this case is who gets to make the choice of what is appropriate, the Feds or an individual state? Do you think that individual states each deciding what security is appropriate for airline travel (including across the country) makes more sense than a decision being made at a Federal level and consistently applied across all the states?

BTW, there are about 810 million airline passengers in America per year, of all sorts, elderly in wet diapers who can’t go through the scanner, kids who squirm, adults with ostomies, people in a rush, and so on. Keep that denominator in mind when dealing with an anecdote or two. My sense, and personal experience, is that the TSA staff are the most polite and professional of the staff I come into contact with while travelling. America has decided, in its usual poor risk assessment manner, to invest significant resources in an attempt to make a low risk lower; I for one am pleased that at least most of the time the silliness goes pretty well. If only the airline staff were as polite and helpful.

Except that’s not what the site says. It did not compare costs based on airport screenings and that’s what we’re discussing.

Dseid,

you have established that you are an authoritarian who wants every law to be obeyed to the letter and everything is in ordnung and anyone who believes differently than you is an anarchist. It is okay to harass millions of children and grandmothers because someday some terrorist may try to use one of them to smuggle explosives on a plane. It is okay to expel children for drawing pictures of guns and bringing Tylenol to school because one day they might bring a real gun or ecstasy to school.

What you don’t realize is that the terrorists are winning. They have found the perfect weapon to destroy us and it is the TSA. They hate the fact that we live in a free society and they try to destroy that freedom and reduce us from citizens to subjects that have no rights, but only privileges granted by our masters.

Al Qaeda doesn’t even seriously try to destroy planes any more. They get some dupe and stuff some explosives in his shoes and the TSA does the rest. They get another dupe and stuff some explosives in his underwear and the TSA does the rest. They let us find memos about blowing up trains and the TSA does the rest. The next thing is to get another dupe and stuff explosives up his anus and put him on a plane and the TSA will do the rest.

I’m not following what you’re saying. Can you clarify?

I’m taking it that your point is that El Al-like security would not be as expensive as that article makes out. If so, do you have some citations to support your point?

DSeid’s contempt for the American [del]bourgeoisie[/del] public and genuflection before the authorities who gently suffer to bring safety and order to their lives, does speak volumes.

“Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision he makes and should just support that, you know, and be faithful in what happens.” – Britney Spears

Cite? I defy you to find security experts not on the government payroll who thinks the TSA searches are anything other than theater.

Fascinating.

Please enjoy your attempts at ad hominem. But also please address the actual questions:

  1. Should decisions regarding the nation’s air security be made at a state by state level, or should they be made at a Federal level? This question’s answer should be independent of whether or not you agree with the decision made.

  2. How much latitude to use what they individually consider to be “common sense” should individual screeners be given?

My, apparently authoritarian, answers, are:

  1. Decisions regarding the nation’s air security do not make sense to be made in a patchwork state by state fashion. It is a national issue and consistency across all portals of entry into the system is required.

  2. Allowing screeners wide latitude to ignore policy in favor of their individual belief of what constitutes common sense is a recipe for all sorts of disaster, including discrimination. You don’t do a pre-flight check depending on the common sense of individual mechanics deciding what is an is not important to let slide that flight, and for a reason. An attempt to prevent the uncommon event requires a certain rigidity to following proper procedures.

Do have answers to the questions or are you merely going to call me names?

The digression - I have been accused of preferring a “world where is it better to follow regulations that they know are wrong than trust their own judgement” and, within a wide space, I agree. I do think that we all need to comply with many laws that society and our duly elected representatives have decided upon, even when they go against our own judgement. Obviously there are circumstances in which refusing to comply with the law of the land is justified, but those are not a daily occurrence. Having to consent to being scanned and perhaps patted down as a condition of travelling on a commercial flight just doesn’t even come close to that level in my mind. To me that is just another thing to roll my eyes over and nothing more.

Which parts of that do you disagree with? Should we each individually not comply with laws that go against our personal view of common sense? Or is having a body scan, or a professional business like pat down (not a sexual assault by any means) just that offensive to you, beyond your personal pale, so much so that it is not part of that wide, or for you perhaps, not so wide, space?

Another subject is how effective security measures are and if the level of efficacy is worth the costs of all sorts. furt’s “cite please” is a reasonable request and it is true that the data that proves how effective or ineffective security measures are is lacking. That said even his cite notes that “security theater” may have real benefits. The challenge is perhaps best met by arguing from the extreme: if there were no security efforts made do you think that there would be as few events as there are now. If someone could walk on a plane with no search of any sort, do you think it is very improbable that some idiot would not walk on with a gun or bomb, if just to gain a moment of fame before he died? Some level of security is worth it, and those who provide it are doing some good. Some level of security brings little marginal gain, and at excessive costs. Again, I think we are way in that territory with our curent attempts, but the decision is not mine to make, or Texas’s. The public overall wants security theater and our duly elected representatives and those who they have appointed and hired have responded to the will of the people.

I don’t know where the author came up with the cost difference but further down in the article it’s pointed out it’s not a cost comparison between airports.

States actively deal with interstate commerce so they are just as capable of doing the job. That has nothing to do with the concept that what is currently going on is expensive security theater.

They should be trained to look for terrorists.

Your answer is not authoritarian because you want the decision to be made at the federal level. Your answer is authoritarian because you would rather have a bad decision made at the federal level than a good decision made at the state level. You care more about respecting the chain of command than you care about doing what is right.

Gruman,

Please give your answers. So far I can only infer that your answer is that the level who should be entrusted to make a decision is whichever one gives an answer you agree with. States should comply if you agree with the decision, whether or not they do, and not comply if you disagree and in each case they are correct to do so.

Magiver, you in one breath complain about the cost, and then suggest a method that has been documented to cost much much more and still can’t guarantee anything.

Just in from The Texas Tribune.