Value of the TSA/NSA

Everskyward said:
I would say the chances of dieting in an airliner is pretty good! :)

Hmmm... Did you edit your post while I was reading the article? I liked it better before? :) :)
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I disagree. I've never been able to keep to my diet on a Cathay Pacific business class flight.
 
The de facto purpose of government is to grow. Any other purposes it claims are in furtherance of that one overriding purpose.

-Rich
 
Sac Arrow said:
I disagree. I've never been able to keep to my diet on a Cathay Pacific business class flight.
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But from reading some of your other posts you have an unusual diet!

I've never flown to Asia on an airline, let alone in business class. I flew to Quito, Ecuador once on some Ecuadorian airline and remember the food being unusual, but good. I also remember we landed in evening, in the rain. The only thing I noticed was the houses along the runway. I went to the hotel and when I woke up in the morning and saw the terrain I was... impressed, in a number of ways. I don't know what the safety record of that airline was, though.
 
Doesn't these two sentences from the article pretty much sum up all government agencies, including school systems and courtrooms?

"As things stand, the T.S.A. asks its officers to enforce rules of questionable utility while giving them remarkably little discretion; they’re more like hall monitors than intelligence personnel. That is a huge waste of human talent and a source of inefficiency."

-John
 
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I've been saying the statement below for years. Collective security in the form of passengers who won't back down to a couple of idiots with hand held weapons pretty much insures a failure if they try something on an airliner.

There's no value to an airliner for terrorists, the only thing they can do is bring one down with a bomb. What's a few hundred victims when there are much softer targets out there with thousands of people in confined spaces?

It is time to stop pretending that annoying protocols like these are all that stand between us and devastation. The most effective security innovation post-9/11 was also the simplest: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, which has made it virtually impossible to hijack an aircraft.
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RJM62 said:
The de facto purpose of government is to grow. Any other purposes it claims are in furtherance of that one overriding purpose.

-Rich
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I think the real purpose of government is to insure the continuation of the government, by any means necessary.

Once a government grows larger than is necessary, it begins to feed on citizens to sustain itself, and that feeding grows faster than taxpaying producers can maintain, which makes citizens the target for sustenance for the appetities of the government, it was created to serve.
 
Government of the government, by the government and for the government...
 
John Baker said:
Doesn't these two sentences from the article pretty much sum up all government agencies, including school systems and courtrooms?

"As things stand, the T.S.A. asks its officers to enforce rules of questionable utility while giving them remarkably little discretion; they’re more like hall monitors than intelligence personnel. That is a huge waste of human talent and a source of inefficiency."

-John
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I am no fan of the TSA, but why on earth would you expect a TSA officer to be an intelligence specialist??? Two different jobs.
 
Fearless Tower said:
I am no fan of the TSA, but why on earth would you expect a TSA officer to be an intelligence specialist??? Two different jobs.
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Actually, I don't expect a TSA agent of being able to successfully make a bow knot when attempting to tie his own shoes all by himself/herself. Just one of them getting the shoe on the proper foot without adequate supervision would astound me.

The quote I made was copied and pasted from the article in the link that the OP provided.

-John
 
To answer the implied question in the thread title, TSA = zip, nada, nothing.
NSA has some value but must be closely monitored and the monitor must be closely monitored lest it also be corrupted.
 
John Baker said:
Actually, I don't expect a TSA agent of being able to successfully make a bow knot when attempting to tie his own shoes all by himself/herself. Just one of them getting the shoe on the proper foot without adequate supervision would astound me.
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Agreed....velcro is more their style.
 
Ugh. The timing of this thread is perfect.

I flew from Milwaukee to Atlanta today. @0500 TSA wasn't even running one magnetometer, but had two scanning machines running where all the little lemmings were getting their pictures taken.

I opt out, and I know the score. Of course, one female TSA agent says "You know that uses sound waves, and not radiation, right?" I held back on asking if she took nuclear medicine in her GED classes. :mad3:

Groping ensued, which should have been uneventful. However, after the groping, they swab the gloves they used to grope to see if there was any bomb residue or something. Ding ding ding! The machine spits out something long enough to look like an EKG. Groper calls supervisory groper, and they both take me to a private room for an additional groping by the supervisor, while the original groper rummages through my small flight bag of underwear, socks, change of clothes, etc. swabbing of gloves again, and now the machine says I'm apparently deemed safe to be among the flying public.

****ing security theater. I used to love flying, even in aluminum tubes. No more. This **** ain't worth it. I've never been happier that I no longer have any status whatsoever on any airline.
 
nddons said:
Ugh. The timing of this thread is perfect.

I flew from Milwaukee to Atlanta today. @0500 TSA wasn't even running one magnetometer, but had two scanning machines running where all the little lemmings were getting their pictures taken.

I opt out, and I know the score. Of course, one female TSA agent says "You know that uses sound waves, and not radiation, right?" I held back on asking if she took nuclear medicine in her GED classes. :mad3:

Groping ensued, which should have been uneventful. However, after the groping, they swab the gloves they used to grope to see if there was any bomb residue or something. Ding ding ding! The machine spits out something long enough to look like an EKG. Groper calls supervisory groper, and they both take me to a private room for an additional groping by the supervisor, while the original groper rummages through my small flight bag of underwear, socks, change of clothes, etc. swabbing of gloves again, and now the machine says I'm apparently deemed safe to be among the flying public.

****ing security theater. I used to love flying, even in aluminum tubes. No more. This **** ain't worth it. I've never been happier that I no longer have any status whatsoever on any airline.
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Rule 1: ask them to change their gloves before they grope you. You don't know where those gloves have been (I saw one TSA screener using a urinal with his blue gloves on - he didn't wash afterward, and didn't change gloves going back to the checkpoiint). They are supposed to change gloves at your request.

Rule 2: you can ask them to swab and test their gloves in the ETD before they pat you down. Most will cop a real attitude if you ask that, and some will tell you they don't have to. Seems that they got a bad batch of gloves at some airport that would set off the trace detector - the only way to rule out glove contamination is to make them test the gloves before they grope you.

Milwaukee - isn't that where they copped an attitude and had a guy arrested for calling Kip Hawley an "idiot"?
 
I did see groper #1 pull gloves out of a box. I've never seen the swab the gloves thing, but once I figured out the game, I made sure groper #2 pulled out new gloves out of a box, and he did.

I will use your great idea of making them swab their gloves before the groping begins.
 
Oh, and the Kip Hawley thing was in Milwaukee, but I don't think he was arrested, just detained and delayed. It's still complete bull****, as was my double groping these people. While the two guys didn't show any attitude, for which I was pleasantly surprised, I don't doubt that there's a little policy somewhere to punish those of us who don't want to get irradiated for theatrical purposes.
 
I like when you can pick the Metal detector by just going in a different line. Of course no terrorist would be smart enough to do that.
Yes I also pick that line.
 
Relevant and in the news yesterday:

http://consumerist.com/2013/07/30/t...se-agency-not-following-up-on-all-complaints/

TSA Misconduct Cases On The Rise; Agency Not Following Up On All Complaints

TSA investigated a total of 9,622 misconduct cases between 2010 and 2012. In that time, the annual number of cases increased from 2,691 to 3,408. There are approximately 56,000 TSA staffers, so that means that about 1-in-16 employees of the agency was investigated last year.

...

At 20%, the second largest slice of the misconduct pie belonged to “Screening and Security” misconduct — “Failure to follow standard operating procedures, bypassing screening, sleeping on duty.”

tsaemployees.png
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