Comments on: Bureaucracy flops? What a shock

By: Rick Hull

Rick Hull — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 20:26:01 +0000

It hurts so good! Cheers!

By: Mitch Kordonowy

Mitch Kordonowy — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 19:37:52 +0000

Thanks for making that more concrete for me Rick.
I love being wrong when I am correctly righted. It’s almost like academic masochism.

By: Rick Hull

Rick Hull — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 18:59:54 +0000

Mitch, not only that, but your original point is was not the counterpoint you thought it was. Most readers here would emphatically agree that even TSA’s premise was massively flawed, as you rightly pointed out. It is an argument *against* the powers that have been granted to the TSA. It’s a fundamentally ineffective approach. Both your original point and Mica’s points reinforce each other.

By: Rob Mandel

Rob Mandel — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:43:01 +0000

yes, my mistake. thanks.

By: Van der Lubbe

Van der Lubbe — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 10:16:18 +0000

Fiasco? Only if it’s not part of the Chertoffian jigsaw to turn America into a giant prison-camp. In that optic, it’s been very successful.

By: El Tonno

El Tonno — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 05:43:00 +0000

You mean a “Totenkopf”

By: Mitch Kordonowy

Mitch Kordonowy — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 04:14:06 +0000

I concede on myself; there is a way that the TSA, as it was described to be upon it’s initiation, could have helped prevent Omar and Richard, and that’s in the intel department, which they severely lack.
Hmm…I was a little too hasty gents.

By: Rob Mandel

Rob Mandel — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 03:53:48 +0000

I was at LAX in early august and went through the pre-flight humiliation. My favorite line was from the TSA agent who addressed the line and said “If everyone complies with the rules, it will go much more smoothly.” And I looked at his collar to see if there was a red star on it. (I’d also mention a totenkampf, but that would be, well, you know…) Then I thought of Boetie and voluntary servitude.

See, it doesn’t matter what the TSA has become, it’s become that way because we’ve allowed it to. In ten years why haven’t we risen up en masse and said “NO!!!” And when the molested kids and old women, why haven’t we said “ENOUGH!!!”

I had my luggage opened and inspected (I’ve kept the TSA notice that they left) because I brought baseball equipment and fly fishing tackle in it. Those damn terrorists who play baseball with their kids and relax by fishing. I feel so much safer. I really do.

By: Walt D.

Walt D. — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 02:01:49 +0000

Los Angeles TSA has Federal employee screeners – in a controlled test they only detected 20% of packages they should have detected.
San Francisco TSA has independent contractor screeners – in a controlled test they detected 75% of packages they should have detected.
Say no more.

By: Mitch Kordonowy

Mitch Kordonowy — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 00:10:07 +0000

Does the TSA operate outside of the US? Specifically, if I am Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, or Richard Reid, and I am boarding a flight from Amsterdam, or Paris, enroute to America, do I encounter any TSA agents?

If not, these quotes : ” “Everything they have done has been reactive. They take shoes off because of [shoe-bomber] Richard Reid, passengers are patted down because of the diaper bomber, and you can’t pack liquids because the British uncovered a plot using liquids,” Mica said.

“It’s an agency that is always one step out of step,” Mica said. ”

Mean absolutely nothing concerning the TSA as far as any logical argument goes. If they didn’t encounter TSA before they took flight, how would the TSA be able to stop them, even acting to the most extreme proactive, preemptive, measures?

That being said: I nonetheless dislike the TSA and wish for it to be abolished because it really hasn’t detected any threats in 10 years.
Airports also have the option to opt-out of the Screening Program: http://www.tsa.gov/what_we_do/optout/index.shtm