Why Is there a TSA?
It's not really to make air travel safer.
As protests increase against the offensive pat-downs allegedly designed to make flying safer, we really should not be shocked that government employees are abusing air travelers. Furthermore, it should astonish no one who understands government that what is happening at the nation’s airports is the natural result of giving federal agents near-unlimited power.
In 2002, after enduring a cross-country flight, I wrote an article predicting a number of things that would happen after the government finalized creation of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). I’m sorry to say that my predictions have come true – and then some. I noted that while security screenings under the old system were cumbersome, nonetheless the incentive structure that existed then at least gave one a fair chance to catch one’s plane:
…[W]hile the FAA sets the rules for screeners, the screeners are still employees of firms hired by the airlines. Because of this, they do have an incentive for passengers to make their flights on time. (This does not mean that everyone will make it through security on time, but at least the incentive is there for screeners not to overdo their searches.)
Once screeners become full-fledged government employees, however, the incentives structure will change dramatically. The inspectors will be working for the federal government and will have no obligations at all toward passengers, except to treat all of them like criminals.
Indeed, that is what has happened, and the situation only is escalating, with John Pistole, the current head of the agency, declaring that he is determined to “take TSA to the next level.” Apparently, the next level includes brutalizing passengers whose “crime” apparently is to want to get on an airliner, a practice that Pistole has defended at every turn under the auspices of “fighting terrorism.”
“Protecting” American travelers seems to include brutally strip searching a young boy, threatening people who prefer to leave the airport rather than submit to a nude scan or a de facto sexual assault with fines and imprisonment, and soaking a man in his own urine. In Atlanta a TSA agent grabbed a young child from his mother, took him to another location, leaving the woman frightened and sobbing.
None of this makes flying safer, but that really is not the mission of the TSA, no matter what its PR agents might say. The purpose of government, and especially government agents like the TSA, is to send a message about who has power and authority – and who does not. As I wrote in 2002:
…[I]t is quite likely that screeners and other government security personnel will be more rude toward passengers than they are at present. While some of us have suffered through some brutal searches, I fear the worst is to come. Again, airline employees, while they can be disagreeable, do have at least some incentive to treat their customers with some decency. Federal employees will have none.
When my family and I went through security lines, there was some grumbling, although I could tell that many of the screeners at least were trying to be as fair and helpful as possible, given the difficult situation all of us found ourselves. However, I suspect that when the government takes over all security, anyone who makes even the slightest complaint quickly will be banned from their flight. Look for airport workers to become more surly and less helpful, as their government status will give them power to harass people.
That is exactly what has happened. No one should be surprised that the government “hammers” at the airports see everyone else as a nail.
Comment by Justin on 24 November 2010:
Things aren’t much better here in Canada:
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2010/11/23/16280981.html
Comment by Lucas on 24 November 2010:
Maybe the screening should be more specific and use scientific profiling to actually screen those who are potential suspects.
Comment by Ned Netterville on 24 November 2010:
Hey, not everyone is against the new TSA “security” procedures. Our membership loves them, and those of our members who work for TSA tell us they are excited by the full-body scans and full-body (ahem) pat downs. Signed, Ali Hands, President, ASPPPA (Amalgamated Sexual Perverts, Predators and Pedophiles of America)
Comment by mark anthony on 24 November 2010:
Don’t just “opt out” of naked scanners only to be sexually molested/assaulted, instead. Boycott Flying COMPLETELY, until sanity returns! Please join us: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Boycott-Flying/126801010710392
Comment by Elaine on 24 November 2010:
I believe there needs to be at least a week-long boycott of all airline travel. Hit the airlines in their pockets and then, perhaps, they’ll start lobbying the gov’t to cease & desist these violations of our Constitutional rights. We need to fight back & fight back hard!
Comment by Gary Chartier on 24 November 2010:
Agreed, Mark: the current system is broken, and until it’s radically revamped there’s every reason to deny our support to it:
http://liberalaw.blogspot.com/2010/11/humanizing-air-travel.html
Comment by libra on 24 November 2010:
this is only a test. the test is to see how compliant and cattle like the traveling public is. once this abusive and terroristic treatment is accepted as a standard safety procedure–the next step will be implemented. sort of like cramming down our throats the crown jewel of the thug in chief–obamacare. obamacare will not be implemented fully until 2014 and you know how it is with the national memory. the sheeple will accept anything even another term for the thug in chief as long as for 50% of the population–it costs them nothing and for the other 50%–it will keep them safe.
Comment by Mommag on 24 November 2010:
Isn’t is great to live in a country where we can moan and complain endlessly about anything – including calling our leaders names. And yet, with all the dislike and dissatisfaction, none of the complainers feel the need to propose solutions for these problems. Do you think we don’t need security measures at the airports? What would happen if we didn’t implement these checks? If you were in charge, what would YOU come up with?
Comment by bitbender on 24 November 2010:
Mommag – What we don’t need is security theater, knee jerk reactions to statistically rare events and the rape of our constitutional rights at the hands of ill-trained megalomaniacs. You may be willing to give up your rights for the illusion of safety but, I’m not. The body scans won’t find anything in body cavities. Are you willing to submit to body cavitity searches after a single nut case brings a bomb on board a plane that way?
Mark anthony is right. When airlines can’t fill seats, they will wake up and get in the act. In the mean time I’ll take the third option and just not fly at all.
TSA is not about our safety. It’s about bigger, more intrusive government. It’s about lying to the public with security theater. Any security system you devise can and will be circumvented.
And consider this: everytime the government tramples on our rights and alters our way of life, the those who despise our way of life win.
Comment by Ed Holden on 24 November 2010:
To Mommag: The point is that I want to be in charge . . . of me! I don’t believe that the President of the USA is in charge nor should he be. Neither should the state in general be considered to be “in charge”. We each take charge with our choices. We each choose whether to walk, bike, drive a car, ride a train, fly on an airplane or transport ourselves in any other way. We each also choose the company we prefer which provides the transportation. The providers will figure out a way to provide for our safety and/or any other service or feature we each as customers require or desire (or go out of business). AARRGH! Don’t get me started!
Comment by Bubba4u2 on 24 November 2010:
Ok, Lets look at the percentage of flights that have been hijacked since the inception of commercial air travel. The number is soo minuscule that if one where to do a serious risk analysis it would not even calculate into the equation. You have a better chance of being hit by lightning, bitten by a shark or attacked by a bear than one does being involved in a plane that is hijacked. So the cost to risk ratio does not warrant all the “security”. Then let’s look a 9-1. That changed everything as far as passenger conduct. Prior to 9-11 we where all told/trained that if we were involved in a hijacking to sit there and just be quite so as to not draw attention to ourselves. The the hijackers would fly us around and use us as a negation tool to get what they wanted. Then once the hijackers got what the wanted or a our release was negotiated we would all be sent one our way. Since 9-11 we know better and if some idiot tries something they will get policed up and receive a good beating by the passengers. There are numerous examples of this. Also there are too many unanswered question stemming from 9-11, watch 9-11 in plane sight or any of the other videos pertaining to 9-11 controversy. I can honestly say that the whole TSA body scan etc. is all eye wash to “make us feel safe” while usurping our freedom and dignity.
Comment by brad on 24 November 2010:
There are more that 700 million air passengers every year, and how many people have died since 9/11/01? Other than the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber, how many people have you heard about trying to blow up planes? The 9/11 attacks were committed with box cutters, which standard metal detectors find and which are now banned. The cockpit doors are now reinforced and locked, and the pilots, many of whom are former military, are allowed to carry handguns. Passengers now know that compliance with hijackers is not the safest alternative.
@mommag: So to answer your question, the solution I would come up with is to eliminate the TSA and return to having the airports and airlines provide security. I would allow them to decide the appropriate level of search, balancing time, cost, privacy, and risk concerns. And since I was in charge, I’d also end our practice of nation building and meddling in the affairs of other countries that causes people to hate us so much that they’re willing to blow themselves up.
Final note – more than 50 million people were killed in the 20th century by their own governments. Nazis, Chinese, Stalin’s purges, Khmer Rouge, … The Nazis in particular were democratically elected, and they began chipping away at the rights of the people. So I’ll take my chances with the terrorists.
Comment by Dr. Steve on 24 November 2010:
I understand Janet Incompetano has implied TSA will next move on trains, buses, and maritime. I guess we will be able to drive, until electric cars with a 50 mile range are also imposed.
Stand there, shut up, and do as the State instructs.
Comment by R Middleton on 24 November 2010:
Just when you’d like to think it can’t get any worse. “Butt bomber” Abdullah Asieri packed a pound of explosives up his rectum in a bid to kill Saudi Prince Mohammed Bin Nayef. The assassin killed only himself. Posted: 3:34 AM, September 30, 2009 http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/item_hKiF3TDJkgYItnBQkJXmTN
Comment by James Madison Fan on 24 November 2010:
I think the solution is not to over react.
I can come up with a dozen scenarios on a par with 9/11 that we can’t protect against so why all the hysteria about airplanes?
Tim McVay took out a bunch of women and children but you don’t see us doing background checks and anal probes every time someone rents a U-Haul. Should we have a waiting period before you can rent or buy a big rig, tanker, bread truck, bus, or over sized RV because it – might – be turned into a giant bomb?
Any place where people gather in large groups is a – potential – target so what are we going to do next? Start strip searching kids as they enter Disneyland? Can we stop the madness?
The solution to 9/11 was 9/11.
Until that date the “wisdom” of the PC was “Don’t be a hero.” As if being a hero was a bad thing. If the men on those flights had been taught to act like men rather than sheep they would have over powered the Islamic nutters and we’d be morning the injury or death of a dozen heroes instead of a couple thousand victims.
We live in an age where we don’t question authority. Seat belt laws? As long as we’re safe. Red light cameras? As long as we’re safe? Porno scanners and groping your most intimateparts? As long as we’re safe.
“Cowards die many times before their deaths. The valiant never taste of death but once.” – W. Shakespeare
Where does this fear mongering end? What are the limits? If the Islamic nutters blow up a Wal-Mart and kill a couple hundred people do we submit to molestation by the geriatric greeters on the way in to buy toilet paper? If this sounds absurd then please explain how it is more ridiculous than some agent putting her hands in my grandmother’s crotch at the airport? I defy you to differentiate between the two.
The solution, Mr. Mommag, is the Fourth Amendment which protects against unreasonable search and seizure. The question is if we have the courage to demand it or if we will allow the homogenous, sterilized, PC monster we have created to swallow yet another of our ever diminishing list of rights without a protest, much less a fight. When this one has been consumed which will be next? The Fifth? The Second? The First?
As long as we’re safe?
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” – B. Franklin
Comment by Marilyn on 24 November 2010:
I sent this weeks ago.
A letter to Southwest Arilines
You have wonderful service but I will never fly again as long as I
have to deal with the TSA terrorists. I will not risk cancer by
having x-rays nor be sexually assaulted by those nasty bureaucrats. Twice in El
Paso I was treated so badly that I found the first chair and sat and
cried.
I have been taking the Mexican bus where I am treated like your
airline treated me, but the government bureaucrats at the airport are
just like most of the rest of the bureaucrats that I have ever had the
misfortune of having to deal with.
Does the government hire bullies or do they train them?
Comment by Joe Schmoe on 25 November 2010:
“Isn’t is great to live in a country where we can moan and complain endlessly about anything – including calling our leaders names. And yet, with all the dislike and dissatisfaction, none of the complainers feel the need to propose solutions for these problems. Do you think we don’t need security measures at the airports? What would happen if we didn’t implement these checks? If you were in charge, what would YOU come up with?”
The fact that Homeland Defense couldn’t shoot down a few hijacked planes is makes these security measures even considerable, which shows you exactly where our efforts ought to be targeted. And of course the very ego and arrogance someone displays when they propose their idea as the be-all and end-all solution to a complex problem like terrorism makes you wonder whether their idea is even worth considering at all, and that’s the whole problem when someone like the government decides to impose their blanket solutions.
My personal recommendation is something I call it the Nuke Defense (since no nuclear power has ever been invaded before): basic freedom of arms on airplanes. Statistically the innocent outnumber the terrorists on a flight: give both sides guns (well, give the innocent guns since the terrorists usually have weapons already) and you won’t see another terrorist attack. You don’t need assault rifles or explosives but what’s the issue with a handgun?
But what about the underpants bombs? Well, what I said isn’t everything, but it’s a start. Besides, people exaggerate the airplane terrorism problem: even before the 9-11 era security measures being in an airplane was next to getting your eye poked out in terms of death rates…
Comment by Joe Schmoe on 25 November 2010:
Also, kudos to the poster who provided this link: http://liberalaw.blogspot.com/2010/11/humanizing-air-travel.html
Has a decent list of solutions.
Comment by Pat Fields on 25 November 2010:
Too much evidence (such as x-rays of flight crews and children) exists to suggest that this whole apparatus is being erected for an entirely different purpose than ostensibly put, so I began wondering what invisible objective is ultimately behind the initiative.
Consider that government’s core instrument of control centers on its exclusive definition and subsequent regulation of money and credit. Currently, both domestic (more than 60 million American adults have no bank or credit accounts) and foreign rejection of its ‘money’ appears imminent. Clearly, when circumvention of government’s ‘money’ passes a crucial minimum tolerable level, it will lose its derived funding stream and quickly ‘starve’ financially.
The only realistic basis on which daily trade can formulate a ‘black market’ to avoid crushing taxation and vast denial of natural Liberties, would be to utilize classical gold and silver money in the alternative. Money that is impossible to conceal from … x-ray machines … through which ALL must regularly be forced to pass!
Is it 1984 yet?
Comment by Heather on 26 November 2010:
If more and more allegations appear the TSA will have to reconsider these new measures imposed at the airports. Even some government officials have expressed their beliefs that there should be a way to limit the number of people who are going to be put through surveillance.
Comment by Pete on 27 November 2010:
In a recent Rasmussen poll, less than 39% believed we are still a const. republic. The last firewall before an armed rebellion is jury nullification of the federal courts. When required to serve on a fed jury resolve to vote not guilty in all cases.
Comment by Mother Hubbard's Dog on 29 November 2010:
Smart terrorists will now be targeting buses and trains.
Comment by Kevin Sullivan on 8 December 2010:
To date, exactly how many actual terrorists has the TSA stopped from boarding airplanes? Zero. How many criminals have the detained? That depends on which side of the TSA you are on.
Real criminals and terrorists either work for the TSA or fly on private, corporate, or government planes that are not subject to TSA scrutiny.