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Abolish the TSA: Glenn Reynolds
[USATODAY] In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the United States took a number of rapid actions. One was the passage of the Patriot Act, which I regarded as a mistake then, and which doesn't seem much better now. Another was the creation of the Department of Homeland Security, a bureaucratic monstrosity that doesn't seem to have done much to keep us actually, you know, safer. It's a bureaucracy. The purpose of a bureaucracy is self-perpetration. Actually doing something is coincidental and often detrimental to the public good... And another was the federal takeover of aviation security by the Transportation Security Administration, which also seems to have been a bust. Can we expand that to include the entire Department of Homeland Security? The net effect of its establishment has arguably been worse than the entire effect of domestic terrorism in the past dozen years. There's now some talk about repealing or revising the Patriot Act, At least one cheer is required for that... and the failure of the Department of Homeland Security to do much good seems pretty widely acknowledged. And what good it hasn't done is offset by the bad. But it's widely accepted -- even by the Government Accountability Office -- that the TSA's army of unionized federal employees is no better, and perhaps worse, than private screeners. You knew it was going to be. As soon as the matter was brought up in Congress, the Dems' concern was union jobs, not flight security. This should come as no surprise. When, as was the case before 9/11, security screeners were contractors employed by airlines, they had every incentive to do a good job: Airlines don't want their planes hijacked or blown up. And they also had every incentive to be speedy and pleasant: Airlines don't want to irritate their customers, or to make flying an unpleasant experience in general. You can now do an entire check-in, to to include baggage check, in about three seconds, simply by running your passport through a scanner. The reason you have to show up two hours early for your flight is so you can stand in line to be screened by TSA. They are neither speedy nor, in most cases that I've seen, pleasant. The occasional stories about someone getting past them--there was a boy who somehow got through the screening without a ticket a few days ago, and managed to get on a plane--emphasize just how useful the screeners have been. The elderly, the lame, the halt are actually screened more rigorously in many cases than the fit. Federal employees have no such incentives, and it often shows. If people miss their flights, or just give up on flying because it's too much hassle, the TSA doesn't suffer. I'd also add that it's the taxpayer who's financing this level of rudeness and incompetence, not the airlines, though I believe they're also hit with assessments. Even if bombs or hijackers get through, the most likely consequence isn't a bunch of higher-ups at TSA losing their jobs -- when does anybody in the government get fired for failure these days? -- but rather an increased budget and more staff "to make sure this won't happen again." The incentives don't align. [Insert Phony Baloney Jobs quote here] Most other advanced nations use private screening services, and their security is just fine -- and, according to most accounts, less of a hassle for travelers. Some American airports, from the Socialist paradise of San Francisco ...where God struck dead Anton LaVey, home of the Sydney Ducks, ruled by Vigilance Committee from 1859 through 1867, reliably and volubly Democrat since 1964... to Jackson Hole, are already trying out that approach. Why not take that national? Because once you've assumed the albatross you can't get rid of it? One reason, of course, is that the TSA's bloated unionized workforce will oppose it. That's the albatross I was referring to, together with their congressional albatross tenders. But the TSA is also one of the most unpopular agencies with the public. The cattle chute-crotch grabbing experience has something to do with that. What's more, as Bruce Schneier notes, it has never caught a terrorist. [Insert Deterrence quote from certified albatross tender] It's not about security, but about "security theater" designed to give the appearance of security. I think the traveling public has caught on to that, and travelers account for more votes than screeners do. But do they account for more donations than do the TSA unions' PACs? We wanted to be sure that something like 9/11 could never happen again, but ... that was already made sure of by the passengers' themselves on United Flight 93... ...as well as a couple months later, when the shoe bomber was roundly thumped by fellow passengers. The net result of that little episode was that we now have to take our shoes off once we reach the head of the line in the cattle chute. The 9/11 attacks worked because they caught people -- used to theatrical hijackings that didn't kill anyone -- by surprise. Once Americans figured out this new game, which took ... only 109 minutes, they put an end to it by themselves. The creation of the TSA didn't do any good, and it costs a lot of money, and it does a lot of harm. Put an end to it. Despite the widespread use of databases and such, there are no safelists in the USA (at least that I'm aware of). It would seem to me, a retired database guy, a simple matter to use the same sort of passport scanner used to check in to check a passenger's information against a safelist (not just a list of names, as is apparently used somewhere in the process). If he/she/it is on it, they would be waved through. If not, then walk through the metal detector and/or get the wand treatment. Posted by: Fred 2013-12-03 |
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