Ten years after the Transportation Security Administration was created, Republicans have a bunch of conflicting, hypocritical nonsense to helpfully spout in order for you to approve of them grifting the system they made in the first place.
Reps. John Mica (R-Fla.) and Paul Broun (R-Ga.) want to give the Transportation Security Administration a series of drastic reforms for its birthday this week.
Days before the 10th anniversary of the TSA’s founding, and also one of the busiest travel periods of the year, the GOP lawmakers took the agency to task Wednesday using a new report titled “A Decade Later: A Call for TSA Reform.”
“Americans have paid $60 billion funding TSA and they are no safer today than they were before 9/11,” Broun said during a news conference at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport announcing the report. Mica, who wrote the the law that established the TSA in the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, agreed. Despite the fact that there have not been any incidents since that day, the TSA has not made flying safer, he said.
“We are safer today, but not because of TSA,” Mica said. “It’s because the American people will not allow an aircraft to be taken over. We saw on Flight 93, and almost every instance of a successful thwarting since, it’s been the passengers, the pilots and the crew.”
I’m no huge fan of the TSA but the notion that the guy who “wrote the law establishing the TSA” saying we’re no safer now than we were on September 10, 2010 is idiocy. The plan here is obvious, defund the TSA to the point it can’t do its job anymore, declare government unable to work, then privatize airport security by farming out everything to contractors to “save money” and create profit for the GOP’s corporate masters. Should anything happen to an airplane, blame the Dems.
The “government can’t possibly work” gameplan is in full effect here, just like similar plans to rid us of the Departments of Education, Labor, Energy, yadda yadda. Why, Zombie Ghost Pirate Bin Laden could steal the treasure of Monkey Island kill your entire family at any time. Government has failed you again!
Besides, real Americans just beat up any terrorists they see and don’t need to rely on others to protect themselves. Get to work making yourself safer, citizen. Alternately, we’d like to sell you this Zombie Ghost Pirate Terrorist repelling rock for a nominal fee…
James Gary
Why won’t people understand/My intentions?
Hunter Gathers
You can pry my tiger repelling rock from my cold, dead hands. Also, let the bears pay the Bear Tax, I pay the Homer Tax.
BGinCHI
At least they didn’t propose making flying illegal.
Baby steps.
Mino
Well, we certainly are safer. Bush and his band of incompetents are no longer running things.
The Moar You Know
Hooo boy. I do not approve of the “bash the government and privatize everything” modus operandi of the GOP, but this:
is provably true.
Gotta say I would be in favor of abolishing both the TSA and (to a lesser extent) DHS.
Also provably true. Worked like a fucking charm last time.
scav
Well, shades of the Big Society! Real ‘mercans don’t go to Emergency Rooms, they recover their sewing kits from the rubble of their crashed SUVs and repair themselves, while directing traffic away from the car crash AND putting out the flames all the while.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
But we are more scared, and I believe that was the point of all of this.
Uncle Clarence Thomas
.
.
But “Americans have paid $60 billion funding TSA and they are no safer today than they were before 9/11” is a true statement. Also too, the Department of Homeland Security, all the wars, all the spying on American citizens, all the beatings of OWS protesters, all the dronedeathing, Guantanamo, official indefinite detention, torture of Bradley Manning, etc., etc., etc. – all the great achievements of the military-industrial-Congressional complex – have not made anyone safer.
.
.
Violet
I’m no fan of the TSA, that’s for sure. It’s security theater and done for no reason other than to turn us into compliant sheep. It sure seems to have worked. The nude-o-scopes and grope-a-thons they use or administer are inexcusable, yet every day people line up to be gawked at and sexually assaulted.
joel hanes, sp4
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
we are more scared, and I believe that was the point
This.
Also, as I remember, TSA was originally created to replace existing private-sector airport security contractors, who were largely incompetent and certainly more unprofessional than TSA, if less obviously fascist.
Round and round we go.
David Koch
The easiest way to solve this is to hand out guns to all the passengers as they board the airplane.
That way if someone tries to hi-jack it, the passengers can shoot the person.
Then after the plane lands, they simply collect the guns for the next departure.
Chris
Oh, sweet Jesus. Blackwater running our airports. That just sounds like all kinds of fun.
Ian
@Uncle Clarence Thomas:
Is someone trolling the troll?? Its actually making sense!
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Knockabout: Because, if you had actually read the rest of his post, you would have gotten that the point is not to shut it down, it is to transfer operations to private companies, who will be less accountable and cost more because the company will have to make a profit.
The Moar You Know
@joel hanes, sp4: The old private security companies would never have dared to lay hands on a passenger. They called the cops if it came to that. So I would disagree about the “more unprofessional” part. As to them being incompetent, I’m not buying that as nobody ever did a comprehensive test of airport security back then. I don’t think anyone’s done it to this date, for that matter.
I do know that lots of stuff got through the old system, but a lot of stuff gets through the new systems as well. As I said, no one has ever bothered to quantify it.
Feudalism Now!
Bad form, Zandar, using Oingo Boingo lyrics in a blog post was outlawed in early 2003.
TSA could be run cheaper and more efficiently by private companies. Plus, vigilante citizens have proven more effective since 2001. Why does the gubmint want to stifle the next burgeoning Batman?
TSA is security theater, but it is a much better theater troupe than the collection of underpaid and under-trained bozos we had prior. (not that TSA workers are paid all that much, but it beats minimum wage security)
jl
If we still had that olde timey individualistic self reliant American giterdonness action, some would have figured out a way to flap their arms and fly. And then patent it.
The poor GOPpers only seem to be self contradictory and incoherent because their
pitch linesfantasiesdelusionseasily obtained utopias if we would have if only we would acknowledge their wisdom, are so far from the government created mess we see all around us.Chyron HR
@Knockabout:
Since the TSA is bad, paying Blackwater to handle airport sercurity instead must be good! Stick that in your hipster pop culture bong and smoke it, Zandar!
KG
we really aren’t any safer…
people who use to be spread out around the airport are now conveniently in one central location should someone decide they want to kill a bunch of people.
reports have shown near 100% (and in some cases 100%) failure rates on tests during high travel times, which makes all of it basically irrelevant.
TSA is now and always has been a waste of money and resources designed to make us think we are doing something. Another example of this is the screening you have to go through to get into almost any courthouse in the country. Everyone goes through a metal detector, every bag is run through an x-ray machine. Same song, same dance, slightly different rhythm.
Villago Delenda Est
@David Koch:
Collecting the weapons from the wreck will not help for future incidents, as they’ll be needed for ballistics tests to figure out which one caused the explosive decompression that precipitated the “landing” of the plane in the middle of an elmentary school playground in Terre Haute.
jl
@Feudalism Now!: I think the point of the post is not to judge the TSA, but point out that the GOP talking points are nothing but security scare theatre (as opposed to TSA security theatre), and if they were in charge we would get unskilled minimum wage security theatre provided by contractors who rake off fat profits.
And anyone who criticized the resulting mess would be deemed a security risk because they were trying to defame and undermine the perfect system.
At least that was my take on the post.
G
@The Moar You Know:
there was a window, post 9-11 pre tsa
that you forget about. there were pat downs by private airport people.
and one of the main tests for “secondary screening” was “is she hot?”
hence the flight attendeants unions pushed hard for the TSA as getting groped in the name of security multiple times a day seemed rather counter productive for security.
TSA was done to standardize proceedures and at least do some security work instead of just oogling and groping the attractive women.
It hasn’t been a great success, and largely makes people feel better rather than be safer. But there was a real reason to do it. Much easier to coordinate a single top down system than a ton of independant security contractors too.
Villago Delenda Est
@Knockabout:
Um, the Rethuglicans INSISTED on creating TSA 10 years ago.
Now, because the administration is from the usurper party, they want to shut it down.
Should another Rethuglican be installed in the White House in the future, these two same fuckwits, if still in office, will be calling for the restoration of TSA.
There is not one word in there about how THEY made a mistake by demanding that TSA be established. It’s like the shitty economy created by the criminal negligence of the deserting coward malassministration, through tax cuts for the parasite overclass, wild spending on utterly illegal wars of aggression, and hiding the numbers “off budget” so that when an honest man was elected, who ended the charade, Rethuglicans could scream about how HE was the one who made the deficit worse.
iriedc
I think we are somewhat safer. Surely anyone who tries to hijack a plane with boxcutters won’t make it past coach.
Knockabout
Private security contractors have nothing to do with the argument. Since we’re always saying “We need Republicans who understand that the national security state has failed” and we have them doing that right now, I want to hear Zandar’s argument as to why he’s either not supporting Mica and Broun on this, or his argument as to why we still need the TSA.
It’s not off topic and it’s certainly not an unreasonable request. If he’s the newest B-J front page superstar he should be able to handle it, right?
Feudalism Now!
@The Moar You Know: No actually they did, prior to the forming of the TSA. The GAO regularly reported on aviation security, 68 times since 1986.
http://www.gao.gov/docsearch/featured/transportationsecurity.html
The security was mostly untrained, poorly compensated, indifferent and inconsistent.
Argenbright Security, a company that provided security for Newark and Washington Dulles, had problems before in May 2000, because they hired 1,300 untrained security guards, including several dozen with criminal records, for Philadelphia International Airport.
Knockabout
Now VDE, you’re doing his work for him. I want to hear what Zandar has to say.
How about it, rookie?
jl
@Knockabout:
So, no TSA, then the individual airlines would handle security? Or airports? And that would be guaranteed to be better than TSA? Or there should be no passenger or carry on screening at all, and the feds should prohibit it?
Or maybe we have some pissed off air travelers here venting?
IIRC, the current TSA was a creating of Lieberman with Dept of Homeland Security, and the GOP. And some of its maladies are a result of nonsensical political compromises.
Aet
This is pretty much a classic Argument From Ignorance, isn’t it?
The Moar You Know
@Feudalism Now!: Thank you, that is an excellent link.
iriedc
BTW – if you think TSA is bad, I have a standing rant about the security foolishness we have to put up with to go to a Smithsonian museum in DC.
Knockabout
jl: Yes, individual airports should handle it in conjunction with the airlines. Don’t like airline security? Fly a different airline. If a plane is hijacked, you’re out of business. You competitors will learn and work to make security better and cheaper.
But I digress. Where, pray tell, is Zandar?
Knockabout
And finally it looks like we’re all in agreement that the TSA is awful and needs to go, but we differ on what should replace it.
But I really do want to hear why Zandar is defending the TSA on a progressive blog. I’m beginning to think he’s not what he seems to be.
Chyron HR
@Knockabout:
Zandar’s a small fry. You should take your libertarian grievances up directly with the Priests of the Temples of Syrinx.
scav
I have a feeling Knockabout has to buy a separate seat on the airplane for his sense of entitlement. “My question has not be properly addressed until I hear what I want to hear from the person I want to hear it from! Until then, I win!”
ETA: “I don’t deal with mere minions, I insist on the being waited on by the Chef!”
Aet
Knockabout: I hope you’re being sarcastic, because that may be the dumbest thing I’ve heard in a very long time.
The Moar You Know
@Chyron HR: Worst Church Ever. They have a hell of a band, though.
@Knockabout: You’re not going to.
You may be new here. The only front pagers that frequently comment on their own posts are ABL and Doug. John sometimes does but very rarely. The others don’t.
Hey, speaking of front-pagers, where has Dennis been?
daveNYC
@Knockabout: And if you’re on a plane that’s hijacked, then you should have done more research before you bought a ticket?
Knockabout
TMYK: Yes, I agree. Nowhere to be found. I’ve noticed his lack of defense for a number of badly written posts he’s been called out on.
Seems he’s just nothing more than a symptom of how bad this place has gotten, another thin-skinned man-child with delusions of competence. Even you have to admit he’s not very good.
Hungry Joe
@David Koch: Or, for an additional charge, you can keep your gun. Each airline will have its own customized models. Collect the whole set!
Knockabout
daveNYC: airlines have dealt with fatal air crashes since the beginning. More likely than a terrorist hijacking. Airlines that cut corners on safety get outed and dealt with by consumers. Why wouldn’t the same apply to security? The airlines that do a good job stay in business.
Why is the TSA needed?
Gustopher
We are safer. The cockpit doors have been improved, making it near impossible for a passenger to hijack a plane.
Other than that, it’s basically been a big waste.
Knockabout
And I see we’re on to the next front page outrage and my request has been ignored. Zandar is a sad little man, is he not? No better than those he criticizes.
amused
@Knockabout: Always the bridesmaid, never the bride, right? Poor dear.
Roc
I’m sorry, but this sort of knee-jerk “a Republican said it so I assume the worst and take the opposite stance” is weak-sauce.
The TSA is provably a giant, expensive waste of time and liberty. We’re safer thanks to cockpit doors and a citizenry that understands the new terrorist playbook. None of that involved the TSA.
The TSA should absolutely be reformed or abolished and I applaud anyone holding or running for public office who dares to speak out against it. The expansion of executive power and recession of liberty in knee-jerk response to 9/11 were and have been a shameful blemish on our country. Correcting those mistakes should not be turned into a damned partisan political game.
zagrobelny
I live in Florida so I know Mica is a corporate shill and has tried these kinds of anti-TSA stunts before. Despite their obvious motives, maybe the best way to confront their tactics is to let them win. TSA is bloated, ineffective, and anti-civil liberties. If sending some money to private security is what it takes to kill it, I am all for it.
AA+ Bonds
This has always been about preventing TSA from unionizing. See the excellent series at http://www.exiledonline.com by the folks who broke the story about the Kochs in the first place, Mark Ames and Yasha Levine.
(I see the libertarian slugs are out in full force on this thread, leaving slime trails everywhere they go. Ignore them. Couple days back on NPR, I laughed to hear a guy breathlessly and improbably describe himself as “left-liberal-progressive” and then start gasping about NPR’s “masters at the Brookings Institute” who were squelching the divine message of Ron Paul.)
Mike G
Right, because the FAA doesn’t exist, and airlines set safety standards purely out of free enterprise competition and virtue.
And who exactly does the ‘outing’? Is it the stenographers of our corporate-friendly press? Or is it (gasp) the FAA?
If you want to see what airline safety is like in the absence of government regulation, there are a few African countries you should check out.
AA+ Bonds
@Roc:
What a libertude, dude! I bet everyone here would love to go back to private airline security, the kind that failed to stop 9/11.
No? You wouldn’t? Do tell.
You got three choices:
1) bottom-line-oriented private security
2) no security at all
3) the TSA.
AA+ Bonds
@Knockabout:
I really love your “let a bunch of people die first” model of transportation security. Maybe you should go talk to Israel about it, I hear they’re always looking for fresh new ideas.
AA+ Bonds
FULL LIBERTARIAN FUCKSHIT ALERT: THIS IS A TOP KOCH-FUNDED SOCKPUPPET ISSUE, so be prepared for any thread about it to attract a gaggle of poorly-paid undergraduates feeding anti-TSA lines directly from the Kochs to you.
You can easily pick out the fakes in the thread above. Just keep an eye out, because on occasion the sock-puppeteers aren’t as dumb as the couple we’ve got here so far.
Chris
@Roc:
Which unions had been pushing for prior to 9/11, but were repeatedly rebuffed on because the Galtian Ubermenschen didn’t think it the safety of the lowly, working-class leeches was worth the investment.
Three thousand dead people later, I don’t know how many union bosses called up their CEOs and went “how about now?” on 9/12/2001, but I sincerely hope someone did.
burnspbesq
Having gone through security in the last 30 minutes, I am in no mood to think objectively about the gaddam futhermucking waster of my time that is TSA.
burnspbesq
@Chris:
“lowly, working-class leeches”
Say what, now? Airline pilots are more highly paid than any group of unionized employees other than motion picture actors and pro athletes.
Try harder.
The Moar You Know
@AA+ Bonds: I love it when some supposed newbie comes on here and is obviously familiar with both the commentariat and the culture.
I suspect a while ago that someone figured out that this blog attracts a lot of folks who vote Democratic but are far more independent-minded than partisan Democrats (read “potential swing voters”) and this place has been getting quite obviously ratfucked ever since. There are some issues that draw a lot more attention than others.
Cronin
You, sir, win the day for the Monkey Island reference alone.
Zandar
The muroidea, they will not perform intercourse on themselves without assistance.
And my argument is pretty plain in the post.
Exeunt stage right.
Fin.
The Moar You Know
@burnspbesq: My father retired from the industry a few years ago. That was most assuredly true then. Not 1% material but definitely top 10% for most, at least towards the end of their careers.
That is not going to be the case in the next ten years. You would not believe how these guys are getting fucked on pay. You’ve got guys flying commuter planes who are making about 9 bucks an hour. I think I’d prefer the guy whose life I’m literally entrusting to them to make quite a bit more than that.
Omnes Omnibus
@Zandar:
Pursued by bear?
khead
@Cronin:
I also applaud the Monkey Island reference.
Now someone tell me which character I should be in Skyrim.
I’m kinda lazy nowadays….
Joe
Sorry, Z, but you’re off base. This is one place where I can make common cause with the honest conservatives. TSA has got to go.
gaz
@The Moar You Know: Post #5 from you is so totally spot on.
I was reading this article, and when I came across the offhand support of TSA, all I could think of was “where have you been for the past 10 years?” – wherever it was, it probably wasn’t any place near a modern American airport…
I applauded heartily when a regional airport or two got the spine to evict TSA from their premises on 4th ammendment grounds…
That’s encouraging – even if the source was surprising to me…
http://consumerist.com/2010/11/airports-looking-to-replace-tsa-screeners-with-contractors.html
old, but still encouraging, I think. People are tired of this security theater nonsense…
gaz
@AA+ Bonds: Really?
How come I’ve felt the same way about the TSA that I always have – since it’s inception…
We’re not talking the FAA here, after all.
Just the security theater failure that screens pilots but not baggage handlers. The one that can’t seem to get their heads out of their arses to identify real threats. How do you spell FAIL? I spell it TSA…
And it’s not because of some PAC or some advertisment I have never seen. It’s because they suck. They’ve always sucked. They always will suck. Top to bottom, they have core problems with the org.
gaz
@Violet: Next time I fly, I’ll be wearing this:
http://shirtoid.com/28243/i-got-to-second-base-with-a-tsa-screener/
I think it strikes a good balance – I don’t actually want to accuse or berate a lowly govt functionary like a TSA screener , but I think this kind of skirts that, while making the screener slightly uncomfortable as well – at least hopefully.
if nothing else, it gives me teh lulz
bjacques
*ting, ting* Ow!!
tramp, tramp, tr-tramp!
C’mon, c’mon dere bhoy!
*honk honk* Yoohoo!
Weeeeeellll, if it ain’t de little Princess!
She’s beautiful!
You said it, brother! My boss just be dyin’ to stick his fork in dat dere tomato!
Is your boss the king of the Sixth Dimension?
No, dat be de little Midget King! Hahahaha!!
danimal
All I have to say is that I appreciate the song reference in the title, Zandar.
Pink Floyd, the Stones and the Clash are a little played out on this blog.
MosesZD
Actually, I agree it doesn’t make us safer. It’s a dog-and-pony show and any credible terrorist organization would account for TSA in their operations.
MosesZD
Or, in other words:
A report on undercover operations conducted in October 2006 at Newark Liberty International Airport was leaked to the press. The screeners had failed 20 of 22 undercover security tests, missing numerous guns and bombs. The Government Accountability Office had previously pointed to repeated covert test failures by TSA personnel. Revealing the results of covert tests is against TSA policy, and the agency responded by initiating an internal probe to discover the source of the leak.
TSA was more interested in who ratted them out than fixing the fact they’re fucking incomptent in the extreme.
In July 2007, the Times Union of Albany, New York reported that TSA screeners at Albany International Airport failed multiple covert security tests conducted by the TSA. Among them was a failure to detect a fake bomb.
Feel safe now? Guns get past. Knives get past. Bombs get past. But in the groping of children and adults and generally being d-bags they’re pretty good…
In December 2010, ABC News Houston reported in an article about a man who accidentally took a forgotten gun through airport security, that “the failure rate approaches 70 percent at some major airports”.
So, in my book, getting rid of the TSA and going back to the older, more sane system would be a benefit. Because, clearly, what’s going on right now isn’t effective.
Ol Froth
I have a real problem with those who claim the security screeners failed on 9/11. They didn’t. Prior to that horrific day, small knives were not prohibited items. Only knives with a 3″ blade or longer were prohibited. The hijackers knew this and selected their weapons accordingly. Even if the screeners detected the knives, they would have been permitted to bring them on board, because there was no prohibition. 9/11 was an imagination failure, and the ability of the hijackers to exploit the prevailing mindset at the time that when on a hijacked plane, you be compliant with the hijackers’ demands.
The private security people who manned the checkpoint at the airport I worked at were tested at least weekly (sometimes even more frequently) at detecting firearms and bombs. If a screener failed, they were retrained. If they failed repeatedly, they were fired. When TSA took over, the testing continued, until the local TSA bigwigs decided the failure rate was too high, so they eliminated the testing.