Insane "Flying with Firearms" Story... San Francisco

[SHA-hi]

Re: Insane "Flying with Firearms" Story... San Francisco

xor:
You caught me, I'm saying he's grump xor an old man.

The problem with the airports is most certainly not the customers, it's the TSA people themselves. Poor training, low intelligence, the random application of arbitrary rules, the total lack of proper dissemination of information from the upper echelon to the front lines. Dumbing down the frontlines even further and adding yet another layer is only going to lead to even more problems.

Just the idea of having a self service security line at the airports is bad, since it most certainly would be gamed.

From what I've seen in the way TSA comes up with new things to look for is that they're working completely on a reactive model instead of a proactive model, which means they will always be behind the curve in detecting new types of threats that they haven't seen before.

So the problem you've described is something I would expect in a monopoly organization. Normally people suggest privatization in the face of this, but I could see more problems with this than a DIY security screening. I'm starting to think we need the masses to gather and start a revolution. Everyone gets a SkyCar.

[streaker69]

Re: Insane "Flying with Firearms" Story... San Francisco

xor:
You caught me, I'm saying he's grump xor an old man.



So the problem you've described is something I would expect in a monopoly organization. Normally people suggest privatization in the face of this, but I could see more problems with this than a DIY security screening. I'm starting to think we need the masses to gather and start a revolution. Everyone gets a SkyCar.

You see privatization a bigger problem than a DIY? I think you might need to study the problem a little more and realize the actual dangers that we face.

Of course, I could be wrong, so I'd love to hear how you propose to do a DIY security screening in explicit detail.

[Deviant Ollam]

Re: Insane "Flying with Firearms" Story... San Francisco

The problem with the airports is ... the TSA people themselves. Poor training, low intelligence, the random application of arbitrary rules, the total lack of proper dissemination of information from the upper echelon to the front lines.

i would interject here, just to state that (in my view) the problem with the TSA is split roughly 50/50 between the front lines and the decision makers. in each camp, you have good and bad folk... but they're all a part of the problem.

here's how i break it down:

Decision Makers

The Useless Ones - These are the people who implement asinine policies. They try to keep people safe by guarding against the previous attacks. Thanks to them we have the shoe rule, the liquids/gels rule, and the no blades rule, among other things.

The Dedicated Ones - These are people who either don't understand how real security works or who are afraid for their jobs and allow themselves to get shouted down at every meeting. Either that or i'm just being wishful to think there are dedicated, good people at the upper echelon of the TSA.

Front Lines

The Useless Ones - We've all met them... the power-trip, "i am the law" uniformed bureaucrats who confiscate water, tell you to throw away bottle openers, and insist that you can't have a spare laptop battery

The Dedicated Ones - See, i've actually come across a lot of decent, dedicated TSA folk. unfortunately, due to inane policies from upstream, much of what makes these people such "angels" to travelers is the fact that they bend the rules to make life easier. that's great, if someone is using common sense once in a while to deal with an oddball situation. however, the TSA has so many stupid rules that it's just become sort of a culture to bend them a lot of the time, and that's not so good. front line staff aren't trained for that, and it's a bad habit to be in... at least in my view.