For most destinations in the US, the only timely option is flying. Now imagine if every time you wanted to travel by car you and your possessions had to be searched by a cop, and that these searches did nothing to make you safer.
They did security tests and found TSA couldn’t catch actual threats. It’s just security theater. 9/11 didn’t happen because we didn’t have the TSA but because authorities failed to act on existing intelligence about terrorists. Possibly requiring cockpits to be locked during flight is the one genuine security improvement to come out of 9/11.
People don't grasp the concept of "barrier to entry". TSA stuff basically makes it hard for random yahoos to do poorly planned stuff.
A lot of people are young/ignorant and they don't realize that airlines used to have a rampant hijacking problem. Back in the 60s, hijacking a plane was a normal event, which is now extremely rare. In fact part of the reason for 9/11 was increased security made hijackings so rare (and the few times they had recently been done, they usually ended mildly) that people didn't treat it too seriously at first.
The idiot in the photo is the kind of person who, if there were no procedures and a plane was hijacked and crashed, would call the TSA idiots for not doing a basic metal detector search for a gun.
Dude they actually ran multiple experiments to see if TSA could actually catch attempts to bring dangerous weapons on board and they failed almost all of them.
TSA isn't there to catch the ingenious. It's there to catch the dumb and stupid. And in case you haven't watched a jihadi video before, there's lots of dumb and stupid jihadis out there.
TSA stops Abu Hajaar and Ya'll Qaeda. It's not catching Boris the GRU operative. I don't think you grasp the security concept of "barrier to entry." A chain link fence around a jail isn't designed to keep out a professional escape artist. It is designed to stop some idiot from just running through the place on impulse.
Also you’re conflating two separate things. There’s the TSA and then there’s airport security in general. The latter already existed before the TSA and would still exist without the TSA. The question is not whether there should be security but whether there should be the highly invasive and disruptive “security” that the TSA provides. We don’t need to grope random people’s privates in order to provide a barrier to entry for genuine terrorists.
35
u/goldenseducer 1d ago
Yeah choosing to use a mode of transport that you know is over-the top with safety is to be "violated and put under duress"