Homeland Security Cuts Causing Extreme Delays And Missed Flights (chicagotribune.com) 302
An anonymous reader writes: The Chicago Tribune reports on "a growing backlash over extremely long airport security lines," which the Transportation Security Administration is blaming on a loss of 4,622 screeners. "In the past three years, the TSA and Congress cut the number of front-line screeners by 4,622 -- or about 10% -- on expectations that an expedited screening program called PreCheck would speed up the lines. However, not enough people enrolled for TSA to realize the anticipated efficiencies."
Passengers in security lines waited one hour and 45 minutes at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, with other airports reporting wait times of 90 minutes, and crowded lines "snaking up and down escalators, or through food courts, and into terminal lobbies." Some flights have even delayed their take-offs just to wait for more of their passengers to clear security. (One Dallas-Fort Worth flight waited 13 minutes, resulting in 23 more passengers who made it onboard -- while another 29 passengers still had to be rescheduled for later flights.) "We encourage people to have the appropriate expectations when they arrive at airports,â said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Friday, saying the screenings were necessary to ensure passenger safety. "Contemplate increased wait times as you travel."
Johnson also said the TSA would increase the use of overtime, hire 768 new officers as soon as mid-June, and use more threat-sniffing dogs. Meanwhile, a TSA computer glitch caused 3,000 pieces of luggage to miss their flight in Phoenix, prompting city officials to investigate replacing the TSA with a private security contractor.
Passengers in security lines waited one hour and 45 minutes at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, with other airports reporting wait times of 90 minutes, and crowded lines "snaking up and down escalators, or through food courts, and into terminal lobbies." Some flights have even delayed their take-offs just to wait for more of their passengers to clear security. (One Dallas-Fort Worth flight waited 13 minutes, resulting in 23 more passengers who made it onboard -- while another 29 passengers still had to be rescheduled for later flights.) "We encourage people to have the appropriate expectations when they arrive at airports,â said Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson on Friday, saying the screenings were necessary to ensure passenger safety. "Contemplate increased wait times as you travel."
Johnson also said the TSA would increase the use of overtime, hire 768 new officers as soon as mid-June, and use more threat-sniffing dogs. Meanwhile, a TSA computer glitch caused 3,000 pieces of luggage to miss their flight in Phoenix, prompting city officials to investigate replacing the TSA with a private security contractor.
Appropriate expectations? (Score:3, Insightful)
I expect that the children playing security theater in the airport will grow up and go away. Maybe find something useful or meaningful to do with their time. Is that not an "appropriate expectation"?
ineffective security theater (Score:4, Insightful)
how much longer are we going to put up with this ineffective security theater (search security breach TSA) that is but a total waste of time?
Re:ineffective security theater (Score:5, Insightful)
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The problem is the voters are dumb.
Re: ineffective security theater (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: ineffective security theater (Score:5, Insightful)
The suppliers and consultants working for TSA pay for their campaigns.. You annoy then with letters or emails then vote however you want.
Who so you think they will side with exactly?
Welcome to democracy 2.0
Re:ineffective security theater (Score:5, Informative)
The cure (Score:5, Insightful)
This isn't trolling - it's truth. If enough people simply stop flying, it will change. Not only the airlines but mega corporations like Disney will have their way.
Last time I flew was - holy cannoli - 2002. I'm a little shocked at that because I really didn't think about it until I typed it. I still go on vacations, and even though I love the act of flying, Idon't miss the modern flying experience very much.
And it's pretty simple. If you still fly when you don't absolutely have to - you are okay with all of this.
Re:The cure (Score:4, Informative)
I enjoy driving, so now I spend a couple days driving to my destination. I pick the wife up at the airport, we do our thing, take her back to a different airport, she flys home and I drive.
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So when exactly are you going to apply for a job as a TSA screening officer, they are looking for 768, after all it is like winning the lottery or are you just bullshitting. So people should be banned from joining unions or perhaps having a government jobs means becoming a second class citizen with less rights or well, seriously. Perhaps you can just kick a random fireman, soldier or policemen in the nuts for you jollies, as they do not deserve the protection of unions and they should be regularly 'sacrifi
What a maroon (Score:3)
So when exactly are you going to apply for a job as a TSA screening officer, they are looking for 768, after all it is like winning the lottery or are you just bullshitting.
What a foolish question. Why would I take a starter job anywhere for any reason? Not everyone on Slashdot is young enough to do so. Now if these jobs existed 3x years ago do you think I'd have served in the Army? Do you think I'd have struggled to put myself through 8 years of College as a restaurant manager instead of taking a TSA job? You are not performing mental gymnastics, you are just being a stupid prick.
So people should be banned from joining unions or perhaps having a government jobs means becoming a second class citizen with less rights or well, seriously.
Awe, is someone so enraged that they can't hold a single concept for more than a second? Go
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Your other rants are just an asshole being an asshole. You can't get away with that shit in the civilian world. None of it would get you in Leavenworth, just dishonorably discharged. That will warn others that your an asshole with poor impulse control.
I actually started the procedure to get into West Point, but was bumped because of my poor eyesight. I have brothers who serv
Re:The cure (Score:5, Insightful)
Please tell me if visiting my relatives who live 6000 miles away is absolutely necessary.
It's easy to say "don't fly" -- for someone who doesn't fly anyway.
Re:The cure (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a relative who lives 1,700 miles away and I'm driving to see them this week.
While not the same situation as you, I have made adjustments so I don't have to fly.
Being considered a criminal when I have done nothing wrong doesn't sit well. All this has done is give a would-be terrorist a ready, easily accessible and indefensible juicy target. If the whole point of this setup was to make people safe it has failed miserably.
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I have a relative who lives 1,700 miles away and I'm driving to see them this week.
Great, I'll just tell all my relatives in SE Asia to move here so I don't have to fly. That's totally practical, I'll call them right now and tell them to start packing.
Oh wait, that would make them immigrants and President Trump won't like that, will he?
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Wow. 1700 miles is about 28 hours of driving, not excluding stops. And presumably you are doing it twice (there and back) in one week. That's impressive, and makes me realize just how awful air travel in the US must be.
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I used to drive 700 each way to visit my family rather than fly.
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It really isn't. You're getting information from a guy who hasn't flown since 2002.
Security is much worse at Heathrow than any American airport. They are extremely anal about every little thing, and damn slow, too.
Americans have a 3 or 4 weekend when half the country is flying somewhere, and the spoke-and-hub setup the airlines use tends to crowd the crap out of major airports. Outside of those major airports, and outside of
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Leave Friday morning (around 7 A.M.) and arrive at their location Sunday afternoon. Stay there until Thursday morning when I start my trip home. Did the same thing in October of last year.
8 days total length of time and I will be stopping at a few sites on the way back.*
It's not so much that air travel is awful, I have flown, it's that it's gotten to the point where the groping and proctology exams have made it unbearable, especially when I've committed no crime.
* I'm returning on Saturday and will have t
Re:The cure (Score:4, Insightful)
I have a relative who lives 1,700 miles away and I'm driving to see them this week.
While not the same situation as you, I have made adjustments so I don't have to fly.
It's not too difficult on trips of that length. drive a similar distance a few times a year. I just get up really early, drive through the night and arrive not exactly fresh, but I have my own vehicle, not a rental, and can enjoy music on the way down. I don't miss the couple hour wait at each stop, the groping, waiting on the tarmac before and after the flight, the wait at the luggage merry go round, the wait at the rental car place.
And if I missed my flight because of the delay I really don't miss the hassle of cancelling the hotel.
All in all, on trips from say the northeast to the south, you don't save a huge amount of time by flying. Yes, the in-air part is relatively short, but the rest of it makes for a huge delay.
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Is it necessary to live 6,000 miles away? Or do you live 6,000 miles away because it has been so easy to visit them? Would you move closer if it were no longer so easy to visit?
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Is it necessary to live 6,000 miles away? Or do you live 6,000 miles away because it has been so easy to visit them? Would you move closer if it were no longer so easy to visit?
1) Yes, it is necessary.
2) Don't be a fucking idiot, this is why they invented airplanes.
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The furthest you can drive in the US is about 3,500 miles, so the GP's relatives must live outside it. I'm in the same boat, I couldn't move closer if I wanted to due to immigration laws and the difficulty of getting a good job in that country.
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It's ~4,600 miles for me to reach my parent's house by car, ~3,700 by direct shot. Of course, about 2.4k of it is in Canada(going from Alaska to Florida).
Why do I live so far from family? Military service sent me to Alaska, Mom developed a medical condition where she can't stand the cold, so my parents moved to Florida. Bam, we're living about as far from each other as possible while still both being in the USA and on the same continent.
Wait am moment. Checks Hawaii. 4.6k miles. I could be in Hawaii
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But driving to Hawaii is a lot of fun anyway, even if it takes forever to get there...
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"I would have to cut through Canada."
And have the uplifting experience of dealing with US border Patrol clown show instead of the airport security clown show. The Canadian are border folks polite, competent, and quick. The US frequently are anything but.
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You do realize moving closer would mean moving to a different country again, don't you?
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Please tell me if visiting my relatives who live 6000 miles away is absolutely necessary.
Visiting relatives is overrated. Skype ftw. And if they don't like it then they can come to me.
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Please tell me if visiting my relatives who live 6000 miles away is absolutely necessary.
It's easy to say "don't fly" -- for someone who doesn't fly anyway.
Exactly. I have family in SE Asia. Driving there isn't an option.
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Please tell me if visiting my relatives who live 6000 miles away is absolutely necessary.
It's easy to say "don't fly" -- for someone who doesn't fly anyway.
Exactly. I have family in SE Asia. Driving there isn't an option.
To visit or not is an option, however . At the risk of defusing my inadvertant shitstorm, is there some sort of cultural issue going on? I lived close to my immediate family. Worked out okay. My relatives that moved away were just people I spoke with on the phone occasionally.
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Please tell me if visiting my relatives who live 6000 miles away is absolutely necessary.
If they were that important, why did you move 6000 miles away?
It's easy to say "don't fly" -- for someone who doesn't fly anyway.
I also said that you are willing to put up with exatly whatever they wish to do. You might bitvh about it, but everyone bitches. You at base level accept it.
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Are you really that naive? You must've lived a very privileged life to not understand that tough choices have to be made frequently, including moving away from family that you love dearly.
In the grand scheme of things, waiting in line at the airport security is really not that high on most people's list of deciding factors on where to live and work. It doesn't mean they "accept" it. World isn't such a neat black and white place.
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Are you really that naive? You must've lived a very privileged life to not understand that tough choices have to be made frequently, including moving away from family that you love dearly.
Privileged? Naive? Fuck . My family members that I loved dearly, I stayed near. Took care of them as they ran down to expire. Don't even preach to me about how much you love someone, but you cannot stay around them. Because you left them. You made your priority, and I made mine. Don't dare call me priveliged or naive, I am neither.
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Yes, you are a privlidged fuck. You were lucky- your life and your career allowed you to do that. Not everyone can. Sometimes the money you can make by moving to where jobs are is enough to make the difference between your family eating or not.
Or sometimes you love someone but the better life for you is elsewhere. If they love you too they understand that and urge you to go. Congratulations for your luck at life that it wasn't the case for you, but understand that you are the exception, not the rule.
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Did it ever occur to you that I moved 6000 miles away from my family before the insult that is today's airport "security"?
Yes, I do accept it. The alternative is not visiting my family. The alternative is not going to my parents' funerals. The alternative is not being able to do my job.
I accept it because the alternative is worse for me. Perhaps you are one of the 55% of Americans who don't have passports and live a parochial life, missing out on the many interesting things the world has to offer that are
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Did it ever occur to you that I moved 6000 miles away from my family before the insult that is today's airport "security"?
Yes, I do accept it. .
That's really all you have to say. You accept it. I don't hold that against you, although it seems my comments enrage you and a few others. Now - I may have my opinions on people who move away form their families. Certainly all of my wife's and my siblings did. Really, none of them had to, but they did. My wife and I stuck around and took care of our parents. That is what we chose to do.
I certainly had job offers out of state - none out of country due to my profession. But my family was more important. A
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Please tell me if visiting my relatives who live 6000 miles away is absolutely necessary.
Will either you or they die if you don't visit them? No? Then it is not absolutely necessary, no matter how much you enjoy it.
Re:The cure (Score:4, Insightful)
Flying has become miserable on so many fronts. I minimize it, and dread it when it cannot be avoided.
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Flying has become miserable on so many fronts. I minimize it, and dread it when it cannot be avoided.
Exactly. Let's go back in time to 1991. I was on a cross country flight from SeaTac to Pittsburgh. SeaTac often gets fogged in, and this one lasted a few hours longer than usual.
The stewardesses were led by a woman who was an absolute sweetheart. She managed to keep things pretty light, no one was pissed off, and when we finally got in the air, they opened the bar. Free drinks for everyone. No one got drunk, but everyone was relaxed and pretty happy. During the flight I had to use the restroom, and the
Re: The cure (Score:2)
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My family lives 1,100 miles away. My wife's family lives 2,500 miles away. Not flying cuts, on average, two days off any visit to my own family. For my wife's family, it's completely impractical to drive. For me (and others with distant family,) that's well worth the (generally overblown) drawbacks of air travel and security theater.
Good. This sort of thing doesn't bother some people as much as it does others.
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This is pretty much what I do as well, and for the same reason.
When we went to Hawaii we flew because there basically is no other way to get there. But, otherwise, nowadays for vacations we either drive or take Amtrak. If the TSA ever turns Amtrak into another instance of security theater run amok, then we'll just drive everywhere.
There are worse ways to spend your time than in a car, seeing the vast expanses of America.
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There are worse ways to spend your time than in a car, seeing the vast expanses of America.
It's a magnificently beautiful country, I get to spend some time with the wife without so many distractions, since we both have very different schedules, and you get to meet interesting people along the way.
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Re:The cure (Score:5, Interesting)
The answer is to absolutely forbid ever absolving the airlines of liability for loss of life if they loose a plane due to negligence or letting on a bad guy.
Establish a fairly simple standard set of security criteria. Let the airlines voluntarily submit to independent testing of their defenses. If they pass (with periodic re-inspection) then they get some bonus, like protection from *criminal* liability for an accident. This way, small private charters can forego the standard compliance without undo risk because they basically know their clients.
Seriously, we aren't even trying to solve this. I haven't heard a new political idea about just about anything in decades.
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Don't fly. This isn't trolling - it's truth. If enough people simply stop flying, it will change.
That's great, but the last time I tried to drive to SE Asia it didn't work out.
Also, if you want to go across the country for business or vacation, driving simply isn't practical. For example, if you have a 2-week vacation and you spend 3 days driving out and 3 days driving back...you're left with 8 days out of your 2-week vacation. Yippee.
Plus you'll be wrecked by the time you get there (take a day to recuperate) and wrecked by the time you get back (another day to recuperate). Now you're down to six days
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Also, if you want to go across the country for business or vacation, driving simply isn't practical.
Is someone making you drive across the country? If yes, then by all means fly. Besides, I didn't say you weren't allowed to fly. Just a solution if the rules don't suit you. The rules do suit some people, and apparently you are one of them.
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"Sometimes flying is the only practical way to go"
That's correct, although back before I decided that the whole horror show with airport security, seats that are too closely spaced for an average height male, and a complete inability to stick to published schedules really wasn't much fun I encountered more than one situation where crossing the US by air took just about as long as driving. The only positive thing I can say about flying today vs flying half a century ago is the airport food has improved imme
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Skipping the TSA isn't as hard as you think.
(If you can buy and M3, you have a choice)
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From Wikipedia:
I dunno about you.. but 400k is a bit hard for many, even if you found an older one with a few issues for half the price, that is still a large amount of money for something you probably aren't going to use every weekend... and that aide from the storage and maintenance costs.
I'm going to stick with driving the 1600-1800 miles from WA to MN and stop to see a few folks on the way with the wife & kid along for the ride.
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$995-$2461 for a Piper J3 Cub in 1938 to 1947 was one thing. The median income in 1940 was $956, so it was a big chunk of change. But still, that was only a little more than a single year of gross income, and taxes were pretty damn low[*] for people earning the median at that time.
[What follows for 2012 is about as close to the present day as I could find information for]
But $398,100 for a Cessna 182T in 2012 is another thing entirely. The median income in 2012 is $33,276. That is 12 FRIGGIN YEARS OF GROSS
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Deviously clever!
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Former road warrior here. (Score:4, Insightful)
I used to spend almost half my time on the road. I used to have nightmares about air travel, but it was never about plane crashes, it was about horrible mess-ups on the ground -- delayed or canceled flight causing me to miss my connection. That kind of thing.
Then a funny thing happened: sooner or later all of my nightmares ended up coming true.
I've missed key meetings with clients because the airlines couldn't get me to my destination on the appointed day. I've spent the night trying to sleep sitting up at Chicago Midway. I once spent 23 hours and 53 minutes in the loving embrace of the air travel system, just to cross the continental United States. I've flown across the continent sandwiched between two sweaty three hundred pound men, and I'm no lightweight myself. I've flown to Chile on a ten hour flight that allowed smoking. I was supposed to be on the flight that flew into the South Tower of the WTC on 9/11, but my trips was cancelled at the last minute so I could attend a bullshit meeting at Oracle in Nashua NH, which of course didn't happen because we spent the whole day glued to the TV in the conference room.
After having had almost every kind of bad air travel thing that can happen short of a crash or a hijacking, and having dodged one very major bullet, I just take all the crap air travel throws at me in stride. Flying will always be unreliable and inconvenient. Oh, you can learn the tricks of the trade, like "Never book an itinerary that involves Newark in any way," but there's no way to get around the fact that flying will always be inconvenient and unreliable, because the airlines will always promise more than they can deliver. So you show up ridiculously early in case of security snafus, bring plenty of stuff to read, and roll with the punches. It's like Hamlet said: there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so. A screwed up itinerary is just an opportunity to catch up on my reading.
The poster is right: if you have any option other than flying, choose that instead. I'll even take a four hour bus ride over a one hour flight, provided it's a non-stop bus. But if you have to fly, you just have to put up with it, because it'll never get much better than it is now. Sure, the TSA should fix their manpower problem, but even if they do flying will never be like what airlines promise it will be.
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Last time I flew was - holy cannoli - 2002. I'm a little shocked at that because I really didn't think about it until I typed it.
My wife and I stopped flying shortly after 9/11 and the resulting security theatre hassles. We've vacationed by driving cross-country with a travel trailer - visiting family a couple thousand miles away in a multi-week round trip.
I think I've flown twice since we decided to stop: Once on business for an employer, once to attend my mother's funeral (too far to drive in the time a
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You are confusing a private corporation and the government. Governments are immune to pressure from not buying. The government that imposes the TSA isn't going to care whether the airlines lose money, so has no reason to stop--and they're certainly not going to let anyone open a competing airline that skips the TSA, as would happen if you were boycotting a company over something that companies had control of.
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I stopped flying 2007. All trips since then have been by car, though I am planning a train trip this summer.
I plan to at some point take the Trans-Canada Train for a long vacation.
Time to get rid of the TSA (Score:5, Informative)
We need to get the government out of the passenger screening business and let the airports do this screening. Airports actually try to do a good job serving airport customers. And airports will be no worse than the TSA at detecting threats and providing security.
The worse it gets for travelers at airports, the easier it will be to get rid of the TSA.
TSA wastes more human life than terrorists could (Score:5, Interesting)
Flights per year in US: 800x 10^6. Assume 2/3 of those go through TSA.
Average time spent in line at TSA: 20 minutes
Average human lifetime: 40 x 10^6 minutes
800 x 10^6 * 2/3 * 20 minutes / (40 x 10^6) = 267 human lifetimes
The TSA wastes at least 270 human lives every year. Even if we had no security at airports, terrorists would never kill that many people EVERY year.
That does not even factor in the billions of dollars that it costs to run the TSA.
Re:TSA wastes more human life than terrorists coul (Score:5, Insightful)
You forgot the extra 500 deaths due to people driving rather than flying, which is more dangerous on average.
Another solution (Score:2)
As for the worse it gets the easier it being to get rid of the TSA, well that's kind of the point. It's called "Starve the Beast" and it's a strategy for privatizing public utilities and services for profit. Works too.
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The problem is a 3rd party. The airlines should be responsible for security. They have the incentive to not loose planes, and not have their company liquidated to cover liability for loss of life due to negligent security practices leading to a major catastrophe. Of course it was the Feds who took that liability away.
We mess up the incentives and then wonder why society is broken--only to try and solve it with further distortions. We really have no idea what we are doing.
Re:Time to get rid of the TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
9/11 happened because the standard reaction at that time was to let the hijackers have control. They were just going to fly and then land somewhere you weren't planning on.
Now people know better and anyone trying to hijack a plane will likely end up dead before they can do much of anything.
Re:Time to get rid of the TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
The security used to be private, and let through 9/11. That's one of the basis of the TSA, though there was nothing let through that wasn't on the government's allowed list.
That's EXACTLY the point. The hijackers used box cutters which weren't on the list of prohibited items. 9/11 was NOT the result of a failure of airport security personnel. There is thus no rational basis for the existence of the TSA. Pre-9/11, I don't recall any significant security lines. The biggest worry was the line at the ticketing desk if one needed to check luggage. (Otherwise, back then, you could just check in right at the gate. No boarding passes were necessary to get through security.) Now, you need to get the the airport hours ahead of time (even for a 1 hour flight) to make sure you get through security in time to catch your flight. I didn't realize airports were allowed to fire the TSA and go back to their own security, but I don't understand why all airports don't do this right now!
Re:Time to get rid of the TSA (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, the lock would have stopped 9/11, but many other things would have stopped it as well.
I didn't realize airports were allowed to fire the TSA and go back to their own security, but I don't understand why all airports don't do this right now!
They aren't. It's a bluff. The FAA could shut them down. For now, those who could call the bluff appear to be waiting to see what happens. If nobody calls their bluff, everyone will start doing it.
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Sure they are. Kansas City International contracts with Akal Security [bizjournals.com] for screening services, and had used another private contractor for years prior. There are still a few TSA agents at the airport as Akal works under federal oversight, but the screening personnel themseves are Akal employees. I saw it myself when I flew through there back in November.
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The TSA has to give them permission and sets the standards. Several major airports made the request after the last big Fuckup by the TSA and the TSA refused to allow them. This is the loophole congress gave the TSA the ability to stop the airports from dropping out of the program.
Fact is we are outnumbered. There are plenty of Americans that want the TSA to exist and to harass people. There is huge public backlash at any mention of reforming the TSA. And that's the scary thing.
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That's one of the basis of the TSA, though there was nothing let through that wasn't on the government's allowed list.
And the TSA routinely misses 90% of what inspectors try to sneak through. And they're not trying to sneak through bottles of water and nail clippers. They're sneaking in actual knives, as well as 'simulated' but realistic bombs and guns.
As wait times approach infinity... (Score:5, Funny)
End the theater (Score:5, Insightful)
End the bullshit security theater. Do enough to keep serious explosives off (the crotch-bomber was no threat to the flight as a whole), basic metal detector.
People know now hot to cooperate with hijackers, and have started reacting appropriately (beating the fuck out of anyone attempting it). Cockpit doors are locked now. Those two changes alone were all that were really needed to improve airline security.
Taking away bottles of water and baby formula, stopping people with pocketknives, making everyone take off their shoes and gut half their luggage for the xrays are all a waste of time. They have caught NO THREATS yet. They have failed every single test to actually sneak stuff through.
End it.
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Re:End the theater (Score:4, Interesting)
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End the bullshit security theater. Do enough to keep serious explosives off (the crotch-bomber was no threat to the flight as a whole), basic metal detector.
People know now hot to cooperate with hijackers, and have started reacting appropriately (beating the fuck out of anyone attempting it). Cockpit doors are locked now. Those two changes alone were all that were really needed to improve airline security.
Taking away bottles of water and baby formula, stopping people with pocketknives, making everyone take off their shoes and gut half their luggage for the xrays are all a waste of time. They have caught NO THREATS yet. They have failed every single test to actually sneak stuff through.
End it.
The problem at the root is those in government no longer fear the people and feel safe in defying the will of those who elected them.
Make it socially unacceptable and physically dangerous to work for the TSA in any capacity and still live/shop/travel/school among regular folks. Make the experience of working for the TSA either as an hourly-wage worker or top administrator on par with wearing a swastika-emblazoned KKK hood/costume 24/7 while living in Harlem and being unarmed.
Put up a website with names, pho
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"They have caught NO THREATS yet."
In fairness, many decades ago a few months after "they" got tired of retrieving aircraft and passengers from Cuba and installed metal detectors, the guy in front of me in a boarding line at Denver was found to be carrying a pair of handcuffs. He declined to explain why and was hustled off by two large security people. I guess that counts as catching a threat ... maybe.
The real purpose of security checks? (Score:5, Insightful)
FTA:
"the screenings were necessary to ensure passenger safety"
I rather suspect the screenings are 'necessary' for two reasons having nothing to do with passenger safety:
-- To further grow the thriving empire that is government-mandated security theatre, so more people can draw bigger salaries and have better job security as they pretend to contribute to the good of society.
-- To expand and reinforce among the population the knee-jerk response of obedience to the dictates of authority, regardless of the pointlessness and impracticality of said dictates.
A little bit of make work (Score:2)
Blue Flu Tantrums Paralyze The Nation (Score:2, Troll)
It's as if the police union are on strike and the city is gridlocked because there are no cops to guide people through intersections. No one feels comfortable reminiscing the days when mere traffic lights (common sense small delay procedures like airport metal detectors) managed the intersections, And things moved along. It's time to roll this shit back. The problem is that no one has the courage to do it. We've been led on by stages.
1. Everybody 'needs' insurance to operate. So the shots are called by the
How can I get in on this? (Score:2)
"...prompting city officials to investigate replacing the TSA with a private security contractor..."
Oh yeah, I'm sure this will go swimmingly. Can you imagine how much a private security contractor will charge for this nonsense? It'll be 5 times what the TSA costs now and be just as bad if not worse.
Oh, you missed your flight due to long security screening lines? Too bad, just call $big_company (like Halliburton, perhaps?) and complain. Then you'll be told that there's no refund or compensation, and yes, yo
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know; competition very often produces much better results for a better price. If the private security contracter charges more for a lower quality product, Phoenix won't continue using them. Simple as that. And if they work better and faster than the TSA, why would Phoenix continue to use the TSA?
As for how to "get in on this boondoggle" try this [monster.com]
Re:How can I get in on this? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know; competition very often produces much better results for a better price.
The ground reality is that there will be very little competition for such contracts - the TSA replacement initiative will be created/overseen by politicians (the airlines/airports can't arbitrarily decide to switch to private providers, as far as I know), and they are going to write language/requirements so that only one (or at most a few) companies are capable of handling the project. There will be very little true competition - it basically will look like the US internet situation today. If more than one company can meet the requirements, they'll divvy up the market between themselves (mostly geographically) to avoid directly competing.
You must be new here (Score:3)
You must be new here (earth). For most of my life, airport security was by private contractors hired by companies that want your business- airlines and airports. There wasn't a two hour wait and cost was far lower.
It's interesting to me that so many people guess what might happen if ______ (something that's happened a lot). We know exactly how private security works, we had it for decades. A lot like people who make predictions about the effect of ignoring the second amendment- we don't have to gues
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah! Just like hammers are so much cheaper for the military than they are for regular people because Government is Awesome and so thrifty!
Re: (Score:3)
This is standard Republican neoliberal economics.
1. Cut funding for a government service.
2. Service deteriorates.
3. Privatize the service (of course, it's much more expensive now but that's OK since it's going to private corporations.)
Open the gates (Score:2)
When the wait time hits a certain threshold, open the gates and just let everyone walk through until the line clears.
Getting things done is more important than having a show of security that shuts down business. If you don't like it, go home and hide under your bed. Wait. The odds of being killed in a car crash on the way home are higher than the odds of a terrorist attack. Go hide under the seats by the ticket counter and wait for the government to come mother you.
Re: (Score:3)
A slight modification that I would suggest is to pass people by random number generator with a dynamically scaled threshold. This prevents a DoS by just packing the line with a sudden surge of confederates, and it also normalized the fact that some people don't get searched at all.
Then how about getting rid of the shit? (Score:2)
I mean, it's nice that you want to find a job for the unemployable, but could you maybe stuff them somewhere where they don't get into the way of others?
End the pre-check fee (Score:2)
I already get "free" precheck about half the time I fly. If they can automatically qualify me for pre-check without making me pay $85 and visit a TSA office to enroll, why don't they just continue to do that? Though I don't see why I sometimes get free pre-check on an outbound flight but not on a returning flight, have I suddenly become a security risk in the 2 days since my outbound flight, or are they just trying to give me a taste of pre-check so I pay to enroll?
Re: (Score:2)
have I suddenly become a security risk in the 2 days since my outbound flight
Yes, it's absolutely plausible that anyone who got a chance to first-hand experience a different country (like one that is less violent and less obsessed with going to war) might immediately be turned hostile against his country of origin and become a terrorist, returning only to bomb someone. And the only plausible answer to that can be more paranoia and hostility towards people arriving. </irony>
Instead of contemplation, just tell me. (Score:4, Interesting)
Here's an idea for the people who seem to love to spend money on technology - have a system where I can take a look at the current (and expected) wait times before I leave for airport.
While I'd still hate long waits, right now I have no idea if I'm going to be done in 10 minutes, or an hour. Maybe you could tell us? I'm sure you will come up with a "security" reason why us plebs shouldn't know how long the lines are going to be, and instead have to guesstimate the wait time.
It might in fact work out better if you use an appointment type system - recently I was in line with a person who had come to the airport two hours before his flight, and someone whose flight was going to depart in the next 15 minutes. When you make wait times unpredictable, you are creating these type of situations.
Re: (Score:2)
In fairness, if they could project more than 20 minutes in advance they would likely open additional lines. Since they need to shift staff between positions, one bad rotation and a single line can drop to 20% of its normal throughput. If that change is poorly timed-- going into a rush as an example-- it can have a quick and terrible impact. The obvious opportunity there is more matrix flow between positions so people can route around the problem...
It wouldn't seem that hard though to track bags per minut
Pure BS. (Score:2)
There are three primary causes for delay by TSA:
1. People checking IDs spending too much time per passenger. Often being friendly or helping out, but also people that are just slow. (Why the process isn't primarily automated is beyond me.) Other issues arise when people don't know what they are doing.
2. Baggage scanners with inadequate aptitude to review data presented to them on screen, potentially being overly conservative. From what I can tell, this is sometimes caused by screeners that are highly
Starve the beast (Score:2)
I like L. Neil Smith's approach. (Score:2)
In _The Probability Broach_, an alternate-universe Science Fiction novel where the "North American Confederacy" is a minarchist "government" evolved from the pre-Constitution, Articles of Confederacy - based, United States, where pretty much everybody goes around armed all the time, a (private-enterprise zeplin) airline has a weapons checkpoint in the boarding path.
What they check is that, if you're carrying a projectile weapon, it is loaded with frangible rounds that won't penetrate the walls and internal
Budget shenanigans (Score:3)
So, really, this was just congress cooking the books with the budget by cutting something that would have to be restored. PreCheck (or, rather, the Trusted Traveler programs that give you access to PreCheck) require an in-person interview. Last time I checked, the next available appointment at SFO (the only location for this in the Bay Area) was November! Plenty of people have signed up, but there isn't enough capacity to process the applications.
Congress should have realized that enrolling millions of people in a new program would require significant funding.
Re: (Score:2)
I shall do just that, during the ample time for contemplation afforded by the longer lines.
Just make sure you get to the airport early (12 hours before takeoff should be about right) and enjoy a leisurely day in the TSA line.
Re: (Score:2)
The pre-check lines have never been under-used when I fly, I always find a wait there. Sometimes a long wait, as I have heard of recently.
The only problem with Pre-Check was what the article mentioned, they thought they could process people faster because so many would be using pre-check, that they let a bunch of workers go. Oops! Now we all pay for incompetent forecasting that seems like it could easily have been modeled.
That is why, but you need not wait (Score:3)
I'm sure that's why a lot of people do not sign up for pre-check, because the wait to get an interview seems way to long.
In reality though you can do it pretty much any day, you just may have to wait a bit longer - just show up and say you'd like an interview, there are often openings as the interviews are pretty short and they usually have time between each one.
Re: (Score:3)
Yeah my pre-check "interview" (if you can even call it that) was at most 5 minutes. Walked in, said hi, showed my passport, then placed both hands on the glass fingerprint readers. Done. They said I should have my KTN within 24 hours, and by the time I got home and checked it was already there.