The thing I love about the TSA is that their record of failure is so numerically concrete.
FTA: “The experience to date is 50,000 false positives and 16 known terrorists not flagged,” says Thomson. “No known terrorists have ever been flagged.”
That's some pretty obvious and epic fail on the part of the Agency. Why hasn't it been eliminated or reformed by now?
Government's inability to allow its ideas to fail, or at very least its inability to pivot toward success is so disheartening. This has really been on my mind a lot today. I watched "Waiting for Superman" last night and I can't get the images of the poor kids just looking for a decent public education out of my mind. The crimes against humanity perpetrated upon us with our own tax dollars should really be prosecuted with all vigor.
>That's some pretty obvious and epic fail on the part of the Agency. Why hasn't it been eliminated or reformed by now?
My guess is the TSA's long-term purpose is not to prevent terrorism, but to provide the federal government with a means of visibly asserting authority over the travel of citizens (and the opportunity to intervene in the travel of dissidents). Otherwise it makes little sense.
I'm a bit cynical, but I don't think that it's anything quite that sinister. The TSA is just another agency that gives budget dollars and a corresponding amount of power to the bureaucrats and government representatives who run it and a lot of contract dollars to the crony companies that supply it.
Because Americans are so terrified of "terrorism", they don't even have to prove efficacy of their methods in order to continue existing.
It's a whole lot of easy money for a bunch of pigs with their snouts in the trough.
I was visiting friends near the Mexican border in Arizona and we passed by a compound with literally hundreds of parked border patrol vehicles. I was amazed and said "In order to staff these, they must have thousands of field agents", to which the reply was "they have nothing of the sort - that compound is simply there for the TV cameras, to show 'how serious' they are about border patrol. Very few of those vehicles ever get driven"
Note: I've never seen anything of the sort near the US-Canada border, but Canadians illegally sneaking into the country isn't as big of an issue (or as large of a political hot-button) as Mexican illegal immigrants.
But the key thing is there is a difference between de facto functions of an organization (DHS is, de facto, an organization which seeks to control the populace) and the intended functions of an organization (DHS is intended to keep us safe. It does this by seeking to control the populace....).
The first is the domain of the structuralists in Anthropology. The second is the domain of the politicians.
While it can certainly be used for that, Adam Smith had it right a very long time ago. The purpose of the TSA is to purchase millions of dollars worth of useless equipment, lining someone's pocket. Oh, the unions get a little slice too. Oh, and "Homeland Security" gets to expand and have more clout. Like businesses, government loves expansion. Everybody gets a cut and we have to pay for it.
The public demands that Something must be Done. The TSA is Something, therefore it is Done.
I personally assign blame straight on the general public. The general public is a bunch of scared nitwits who can't stand any possibility of any risk when flying on an airliner, even though they literally stand a higher chance of dying on their trip to the airport than on their flight. This irrationally frightened public demands that their elected officials protect them from the imaginary monsters under their figurative beds. Government simply complies with their wishes.
I don't know anyone in the general public you describe. I know a bunch of people wondering what the hell is going, or worse, don't care.
In fact, the only place I've heard of the "general public" proclaiming "something must be done" is in the media. But the media isn't the actual general public.
I see parents lobbying to remove playground equipment that causes occasional scrapes, I see a proliferation of ridiculous warning signs, I see people freak out deeply and in large number over a heavily trafficked "dangerous intersection" that's seen one crash, non-fatal, in years.
People don't seem to like the TSA in general, but they like it more than not having it.
I believe this may be a vocal minority. Just like all of the "children aren't allowed to pray on their own in schools because it might make another student uncomfortable" people. I doubt that a large portion of the population even cares, but a couple of vocal people and a lawsuit makes it a political hot-topic.
They are scared nitwits, but only because they don't demand that the government's unprecedented expansion of surveillance be stopped and reversed. The TSA is, for the most part, despised by anyone travelling. On top of making you show up hours earlier than you would have, they grope you. No one demands that.
That plus, with the ability of the scanners to see anything and everything you are carrying, the near-complete ability to turn the continental USA into one big lockdown, a sort of free-range prison. Gold, silver, jewelry and other forms of portable wealth will not be able to be taken out of the country.
Some people might want to make a "slippery slope" argument.
And the TSA will call the police if they find drugs while they're scanning for explosives. Apparently people think that cannabis can be hidden inside jars of peanut butter, but the TSA say that peanut butter looks like some forms of explosive when scanned, so they normally check it, especially if it has some inconsistency.
There are links on the TSA blog, but I can't post URLs with this new account.
That's exactly it. As another example, witness the internet porn censorship debate in the UK at the moment. No-one in government cares about porn. Jacqui Smith MP even buys her porn using her parliamentary expense account! What it's really about is putting the machinery in place for real censorship and control later.
The TSA is about establishing the infrastructure for real restriction of movement, using terrorism as a mere pretext.
Because the TSA has many other purposes that are beneficial to politicians:
- Now, there is someone to blame when the next terrorist attack happens (i.e. one poor TSA agent failed to detect something)
- TSA is a jobs program.
- Politicians can say show that something is being done to prevent airline attacks. It doesn't matter if it's effective.
The crimes against humanity perpetrated upon us with our own tax dollars should really be prosecuted with all vigor.
The problem with this is that may of the victims of these crimes are too stupid (EDIT: under-educated / let down by the schooling system) to vote for the right person (or at all) during elections.
> The problem with this is that may of the victims of these crimes are too stupid (EDIT: under-educated / let down by the schooling system) to vote for the right person (or at all) during elections.
Even assuming there was a 'right person' to vote for, your individual vote only has an infinitesimal chance of affecting the outcome of the election, while the upfront investment in informing yourself about all kinds of topics and how they match the platforms of each candidate requires considerable effort. (And that ignores how candidates often then go and do something else once elected.)
They're not stupid. They're either too scared to stand up to government intruding on civil rights, or they've been misled with false promises (which is a consequence of the schooling system).
> Why hasn't it been eliminated or reformed by now?
Because of the way large bureaucracies work. For one, a clearly defined role of prevention means that false positives are essentially not a concern. Second, rigid promotion and pay rules limit rewards and thus incentives: the old "work only so hard not to be fired" ham.
Still, people want to try. But it seems risky to do something different, and if I'm different and it goes bad, then it's obviously my fault. So we'll just keep installing more anti-virus programs and x-ray scanners. At least then we have something to count, and quantifiable bullet points always look good on annual reviews.
First, I think you have to assume that the TSA will always fail and visibly so. If we assume the best, the goal of setting up an organization like that is to increase the barrier to such an attack, not to be the organization that directly prevents it.
This being said, I don't think we can assume the best here. I think it's easier rather than harder to get prohibited items onto airplanes than it was pre-9/11 and that's the real metric of success. Use of shiny new machines without a thorough review of weak spots and clear efforts to compensate is a recipe for bad security.
I don't think it's just a matter of government refusing to allow its ideas to fail. It's also a product of two more major antipatterns here, which is "Never use the tried and true when you could be using the new and shiny instead" and "security is a product, not a process."
Waiting For Superman is a remarkable documentary that I would recommend to anyone who is curious about the many things that are wrong with the American education system, it honestly brought tears to my eyes at moments -- small kids who have to enlist in a lottery hoping that they are allowed to go to the good school.
Well, I didn't cry, per se. I think a bug did fly into my eye right around the time that poor little Daisy didn't get a lottery spot. Total coincidence timing-wise, though. I swear.
As another poster pointed out, the shoe bomber was caught by alert people on the flight.
The shoe bomber got through airport security in Paris.
When people say that the TSA has stopped no terrorist plots, that's the literal truth. All that money spent. All of the loss of our ability to fly conveniently. All of the loss of our liberties. Not a single foiled terrorist plot to show for any of it.
Officially the purpose of the TSA is to deter terrorism, but it's looking more and more like it's just there to intimidate travelers in the US. It's obviously not working for it's intended purpose, so why do they insist on keeping the TSA?
Off topic: can you edit the title to "Things the TSA doesn't want you to see"? This is the preferred format for titles beginning with a number: http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Abolishing the TSA would not mean that there would be no security at airports. There was security at airports before the TSA, as there will be when the TSA ultimately disappears.
No one is suggesting a false dichotomy like you mention. It's not TSA vs no TSA. People just want a TSA that relies on reasonable measures instead of an overreaching branch of government.
Edit: Or, maybe they're pissed enough that they want to do away with it altogether, but that doesn't mean there'd be no one else doing airport security.
Where is your proof that terrorists have been deterred? Or are you assuming this is something which cannot be disproved? Your argument invokes a logical fallacy, particularly an appeal to fear and an appeal to consequences.
Actually it does because it is upon that logical fallacy that the counter argument is entirely built upon. In a general way, a logical fallacy would not imply that he was wrong if it was simply acessory or lateral to the issue. Correct me if I am wrong, please.
A ⊢ B is invalid (without any other premises) but proves nothing about the value of B.
Indeed even if we have
A → B, A ⊢ B and can show that the initial premise is false (which reduces then to the above) we still can't say that the assertion of B [being true] is incorrect only that the logic is unsound.
In traditional style:
All men are Greek, Aristotle is a man ∴ Aristotle is Greek
Despite the premise being provably false (under ordinary interpretation), thus the argument being unsound, the truth of the conclusion is nonetheless still possible and indeed in this case there has been an Aristotle that is/was Greek.
Bringing it back to the current question the ancestor comment claimed something along the lines of (hard to check because it's deleted and in any case I'm paraphrasing):
Terrorists are deterred by airport security checks, TSA provide such security checks ∴ terrorists were deterred
Despite the premise being unclear and thus the logic lacking in rigour nonetheless it is still possible that indeed terrorists were deterred by the TSA.
I don't think you're talking about the same things: a claim of logical fallacy implies that the argument is wrong, but doesn't make any direct claims against the truth of the conclusion. For example, my saying "you should be scared of the TSA, therefore 2+2=4" is fallacious, even though the conclusion is true.
That's not to say that making a claim of fallacy isn't an indirect attack on the conclusion, especially when the only arguments supporting that conclusion are fallacious...
You said: Actually it does [mean he's wrong] because it is upon that logical fallacy that the counter argument is entirely built upon
Wrong is the wrong word :)
What you're looking for is "invalid". An argument is valid if and only if the conclusion follows from the premises. In other words, if the premises are true then it cannot be the case that the conclusion is false. Since a logical fallacy adds nothing to an argument, the conclusion does not follow from the premise. Since the conclusion can therefore be false, even if the logical fallacy is true, the argument is labeled invalid.
Just for completeness... A more strict standard is soundness. An argument is sound if and only if the argument is valid and the premises are true. If an argument is sound, then the conclusion is necessarily true. Obviously, the argument invoking a logical fallacy as its premise is unsound because it is invalid.
It is also perfectly possible for the conclusion to be true even though the argument itself is invalid and unsound.
If you still would like to apply the label "wrong" to it, then I'd say, "The argument is wrong, even though your conclusion happens to be true."
(Note: I can't see the post that started all of this off as it has been deleted, so I'm not making any comment on the truthiness of his/her conclusion)
Like the ten screeners arrested for smuggling in the past 18 months? If terrorists were interested in taking out a plane, TSA would be the easiest way to get a bomb aboard.
They'd bribe the screeners and tell them the bomb was drugs.
No TSA would place security with the FAA which would be world's better. FAA is already doing a great job handling air traffic control and airline safety so they would do a far better job than the criminals, perverts and pedophiles that work at TSA.
The problem with bribery is you don't know who you can bribe and who you can't. The TSA screeners I personally know I am pretty sure wouldn't take bribes. There are enough professionally minded individuals in the organization to make that more or less out of the question.
Also my experience is there is a huge difference in per-airport culture just as there is with customs and immigration.
If I was trying to to smuggle a bomb onto a plane, I'd take a more direct approach. I'd apply for a job as a TSO before making any other concrete plans.
But FAA security wouldn't exactly fix any of the problems in your scenario, except as far as they are consolidated and perhaps more accountable to their employers...
No offense but what you said was grossly insulting to the good people who do work at the TSA. There are bad characters in ANY organisation. I fail to see why the TSA would be magically exempt.
>There are bad characters in ANY organisation. I fail to see why the TSA would be magically exempt.
I agree with this statement: any organization in this position is vulnerable to attack.
However, it should be noted--as was the grandparent comment's intent, I believe--that the TSA, rather than providing additional security, appears to be introducing an additional vulnerability.
Anybody who is willing to grope, harass, and intimidate innocent people (part of the job description) is a bad person!!! Good people (i.e. those who are not morally bereft), would never work for the TSA!!!
How is the entire concept flawed just because of a small percentage of employees ? Because that would also mean that every industry that involves someone in a position of power is also flawed.
You will never be able to stop these things from happening. You can just contain and minimize the risk.
Because when you're guarding against events that are literally one in a billion, it defeats the whole purpose if your setup allows corrupt employees to sneak contraband through screening.
How do you know? As a counter-point, there have been several groups of people trying to blow up aeroplanes since the TSA was created. Many were stopped using good-old-fashioned detective work. None were caught by the TSA.
Indeed, I think it would be a violation of due process to keep people deemed suspicious from flying.
[Edit: I mean to say "travelling" rather than "flying." However I do think there are due process issues there, just not as severe.
The big one is that there has to be a reasonable way to challenge one's inclusion on such a list. This is particularly important where first amendment issues like speech and religion may be considerations.
I don't know that a court will hear that anytime soon. I think to prevail someone would have to go through the administration, not prevail, sue the agency in federal court under the Administrative Procedures Act, and fail under that act, before you could get to the question of what process was due.]
Due process only applies to arrest and trial (as in you can't be charged for theft of a candy bar and held in jail for 36 months until your trial begins).
It's still not "right" how some people are on the infamous do-not-fly list, but it is essentially "no shirt, no shoes, no service". Flying isn't a right given by God or the Government, it's a capability (not really even a privilege), that anyone with enough money to buy a ticket can do until someone else says no. American Citizens are given the right to speak out about the government and own firearms, but we aren't given the right to travel to New York from Los Angeles in 5 and a half hours.
Being held for questioning (detained) at security when flying is a whole other matter.
I didn't say "fly" but rather "travel" as did the parent to whom I was replying. This is important because, well the TSA isn't just for airports anymore. [edit: mea culpa, I did say flying. I will fix it.]
There may not be a right to take a particular mode of travel but the overall right to travel has been recognized by the Supreme Court as a fundamental part of the system of federalism in the United States (this is why it's a 10th Amendment matter).
Edit: I don't know if one could argue that denying flying to/from Hawaii or Alaska is the same as denying travel to/from those states though. That might be an interesting argument. I am not aware if any case that addresses whether that would be constructive denial of that vested right in the same way that denying passports to suspected communists is....
Also it occurs to me... due process does apply to all sorts of administrative detentions, and I would be surprised if it wouldn't apply to things like no-fly lists.
That's totally incorrect because "the terrorists" also know that the TSA is terrible. Bad security that everyone knows is bad has absolutely no value. If the TSA was clueless was it was a secret, then you'd be correct.
FTA: “The experience to date is 50,000 false positives and 16 known terrorists not flagged,” says Thomson. “No known terrorists have ever been flagged.”
That's some pretty obvious and epic fail on the part of the Agency. Why hasn't it been eliminated or reformed by now?
Government's inability to allow its ideas to fail, or at very least its inability to pivot toward success is so disheartening. This has really been on my mind a lot today. I watched "Waiting for Superman" last night and I can't get the images of the poor kids just looking for a decent public education out of my mind. The crimes against humanity perpetrated upon us with our own tax dollars should really be prosecuted with all vigor.