Airports toy with the idea of tossing the TSA

[RamboLiberal]

Source: MSNBC

A new year has brought new resolve for airport managers who are fed up with the Transportation Security Agency.

"The TSA has grown too big and we're unhappy with the way it's doing things," said Larry Dale, president of Orlando Sanford International Airport. "My board is sold on the fact that the free enterprise system works well and that we should go with a private company we can hold directly accountable for security and customer satisfaction."

Dale isn't alone. Airports in Los Angeles, the Washington, D.C. metro area, Indianapolis, and Charlotte, N.C., are also considering tossing the TSA.

Full-body scanners and enhanced pat-downs have spurred a loud outcry from an angry public, as well as some big hitters on Capitol Hill, and airports are looking at moving away from federal TSA workers and moving toward private contractors.



Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40888102/ns/travel-news/

---

No fan of TSA but the private "Mickey-D wages" private security was a joke before and the day of 9-11.

[bbinacan]

1. I say

bounce the TSA. It's a cluster fuck.

[muntrv]

2. 'Cuz private security always works better than gubmint. Look at 9/11/2001.

[shanti]

3. DO IT!!!

it's worthless! they should phase it out though.

[Ruperto31]

40. "It" won't make any difference.

Rent-a-thugs will have to follow the same procedures as T&A thugs. The only difference is that they will get paid less and therefore be even meaner.

[Whoa_Nelly]

4. Airports are gittin' a-skeered 'cuz peoples is stayin' away

I plan on not flying anytime I do not have to fly. It is a very screwed up deal with the TSA.
But, do the airports get to make that decision? And, if they do, and also hire private contractors, will that increase the additional airport fess that get attached to the customers' tickets?

[LisaL]

18. As far as I understand it, there are a few approved private

security companies airports can pick from. So, yes, absolutely airports can make these decisions and get rid of TSA.

[LibDemAlways]

5. And what the private security was replaced with is also a

joke. The TSA needs to be dismantled and rethought. The current approach assumes everybody from the tiniest infant to the most elderly senior citizen is a potential terrorist. It's just ludicrous and does nothing to make anyone safer.

[Sonoman]

6. Good. The really bad dudes won't use aircraft again.

That would be crazy when they can fuck with more critical infrastructure.

All those other "foiled acts" were a joke.

The Shoe guy would merelt have roasted his soles.

The Underwear guy just roasted his nuts.

And there is no ordnance person on the planet who could mix an effective liquid explosive in an airline lavatory.

It's all bullshit.

Sonoman

[Tempest]

7. They'll be cutting their own throats

The private contractors will be paid for by the airlines (no way will subsidies be tolerated in today's D.C. climate), which means air fares will rise. I've heard estimates of $150 a round trip ticket.

Consumers are price inelastic right now and will stop traveling by airline when possible. I've been taking Greyhound for several years now as a cheaper alternative.

Then they'll have to contend with high speed rail in some states in a few years. If airlines are seen as too expensive, people will flock to the the rail system. Even if it's for a short time, the financial damage to the airlines will cause several to go out of business based upon their precarious finances now.

Just my 2 cents.

[LisaL]

25. Nope. The article says that cost is the same.

[Robb]

8. Right on cue.

Someone here was predicting this months ago, I can't remember who. It's a perfect excuse to start bringing soon-to-be-idle PSCs from war zones into gigs on U.S. soil.

Great. :(

[lib2DaBone]

9. I have heard MANY people say they quit flying because of TSA...

It's not the groping or pat downs or illegal searches or Gestapo tactics airports are worried about..

As usual.. the only thing that gets their attention is MONEY.

[2Design]

14. I have quit flying

[Ruperto31]

41. I wish I could.

But the only human transportation where I live is by plane.

[goforit]

10. Airport travel is waaaaay down too.

[BladesOfAiur]

11. Do airports even have the authority to boot the TSA?

I am just curious.

[tinrobot]

12. Yes, they do.

The issue is that the TSA is "free" courtesy of the US government, so it's the cheap option.

If they were booted, the airport would have to use it's own money to provide an equivalent level of security screening.

[LisaL]

17. Absolutely.

They can pick from several private security companies instead.

[2Design]

13. They will still be required to do Sexual Assaults and molestations THEREFORE it is not the

solution must get rid of the Homeland Security and its draconian ways

[Ruperto31]

42. Good post. n/t

[glinda]

15. Just more of the same of making independent "policing" all over America.

This is very very bad.

[tomhayes]

16. Whatever new private comapny they hire will have to do the SAME THINGS

Scanners - yes.

Enhanced pat downs yes.

Same exact stuff.

Unions? No. That's the real goal.

[LisaL]

19. Well excuse me if I am not rooting for TSA.

[Kablooie]

20. I'm sure we'd all rather be felt up by those Blackwater guys.

[HEyHEY]

21. FUCK THAT - privatization is bollocks for something like this

I hope the government tells them to get fucked.

[LisaL]

22. Actually, the government allows aiprots to ditch TSA and

pick a private company instead.

[HEyHEY]

23. That's insane

[LisaL]

24. WTF makes it insane?

I would be perfectly happy if more airports ditch TSA.

[HEyHEY]

26. Putting public secutiry in the hands of private interests is insane

They will cut corners in attempts to save money, that's one thing you DON'T want on public security

[LisaL]

27. They aren't going to "cut corners."

They still have to follow the same procedures TSA does. Number of airports are already using private security companies.

[HEyHEY]

28. Everytime a public service is privatized we hear the same thing

"They won't cut corners"

Everytime, they do. Look at private prison guards, privatized electricity, privatized ferry systems.... list goes on.

Time's gonna tell on this one, you'll see... every time it happens.

[LisaL]

29. Because of TSA I really don't feel like flying anymore.

So I am not sure what it is you think I am going to see.

[HEyHEY]

30. A major fuck-up due to poor managment, penny pinching or incompetence

that's what you'll see.

When california privatized power, you got enron and massive fires and brownouts. In my province when they privatized the natural gas and oil pipelines we had a massive spill in the first two years.

But why should we look at the history of privatization? Those TSA guys are jerks!

[LisaL]

31. Hmm... Some airports have been using private security

from the beginning. Apparently most passengers can't even tell the difference.
"Airport officials say most travelers don't know if the screeners performing pat-down checks work for the TSA or a private company. So far, no airport that joined SPP has opted back into the federal screening program."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40888102/ns/travel-news

[HEyHEY]

58. Yes, SOME have been

But once it becomes more widespread, there's more of a chance of screw-ups.

[LisaL]

59. As opposed to TSA where there is no chance of screw-ups?

:eyes:

[HEyHEY]

61. Less of a chance, yes

Have you not read my above posts on this. You know what? I don't even fucking care, it ain't my country. But, you go ahead and allow the private sector to go on taking over legit law-enforcement responsibilities and watch what happens. If you're too daft to know of the history of privatization of public services, or actually look into, that's your problem, not mine.

[high density]

62. I hope they cut corners

I am tired of being strip searched and/or groped to get on a plane. It is not providing any safety/security and it is wasting a lot of money on equipment and personnel.

[HEyHEY]

63. Guess what, the private sector would likely charge the same and do a shittier job.

[Ian David]

32. Now it's going to be someone from Labor Ready, National Guardian or Blackwater touching my junk. n/t

[Ruperto31]

43. Yup. Thugs are thugs. n/t

[missTheBigDog]

33. Wait...

Because the private companies did so well prior to 9/11??

[crazylikafox]

35. my thought exactly

Doesn't anyone remember the minumum wage flunkies sleeping at the xray machines prior to 9/11??? This is just another plan to line the pockets on their contractor friends and relatives.

[zipplewrath]

36. Double check your facts

As I recall, the guys that boarded the planes on 9/11 weren't carrying anything prohibited. Box cutters were allowed as carry ons. I was carrying a pocket knife all the way up to 9/11 and never had it confiscated. Showed it to them every single time.

The screw up was that the government had several opportunities to detect that these guys were in country, and making these plans, as well as training for them, and never stopped them. The time to stop these guys is before they ever get to the airport.

[RamboLiberal]

45. Well at Dulles the alarms went off on the hijackers

But they were still allowed to get through security. Who knows what happened at the other airports or for sure that it was just boxcutters the hijackers were carrying.

WASHINGTON — Security screeners at Washington Dulles International Airport who allowed some hijackers to board the flight that crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, drew criticism Thursday from the commission investigating the terror attacks.

A surveillance video obtained by news organizations on Wednesday showed that security screeners did not appear to question the hijackers about utility knives, which investigators believe they were carrying as part of the takeover plot.

The 9/11 commission report cited one expert describing efforts by airport screeners as “marginal at best,” and said hijackers who set off metal detector alarms shouldn’t have been permitted to proceed until the suspicious items were found.

The video represents the only footage known to exist showing any of the Sept. 11 hijackers boarding their final flights that fateful morning. It shows most of the hijackers in Washington were pulled aside to undergo additional scrutiny after alarms went off at metal detectors but then were permitted to board American Airlines Flight 77.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5485376/ns/us_news-security/

What little we know about tactics and weapons comes from phones calls made by passengers and flight attendants. As Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out, the evidence is incredibly paltry. No one on United Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center, reported anything about weapons or tactics. One flight attendant on American Flight 11, which also crashed into the World Trade Center, said she was disabled by a chemical spray, while another flight attendant said a passenger was stabbed or shot. On the Pentagon plane, American Flight 77, Barbara Olson reported hijackers carrying knives and box cutters but did not describe how they took the cockpit. And on United Flight 93, passengers reported knives but also a hijacker threatening to explode a bomb. The box cutter-knives story isn't demonstrably false, but it serves to divert attention from the other weapons and to mask the fact that we don't have any idea how the hijackings happened.

http://www.slate.com/id/2088092/

[bikebloke]

34. Will anything change with rent-a-morons?

Will travelers still have to choose between irradiation and molestation?

[Ruperto31]

44. Nothing will change, except it might get even worse.

The private screeners will get paid less and will therefore be even meaner.

[Dash87]

37. The problem is, the TSA is just as, or even bigger of a joke.

[Bragi]

38. Privatized TSA is GOP goal

Supporters of a privatized TSA here will be delighted to know that they won't have any difficulty getting a glorious bipartisan consensus on this, as below:

GOP House chair pushing TSA privatization while contractor is campaign donor

Rep. John L. Mica (R-Fla.), the incoming chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, has written to 200 of the nation's largest airports, urging them to consider switching to private companies.

"If you look at performance, have they ever stopped a terrorist? Anyone can get through," Mica said in an interview. "We've been very lucky, very fortunate. TSA should focus on its mission: setting up the protocol, adapting to the changing threats and gathering intelligence."

What the Post doesn't tell you, until the end of the story, is that one of the big private contractors is in the House Transportation chairman's own district.

Covenant, based in Mica's home district in northeastern coastal Florida, has airport screening contracts in Sioux Falls, S.D., Tupelo, Miss., and seven small airports in northern and eastern Montana. Its deal at San Francisco International is by far its largest. Covenant employs nearly 1,100 people in the bay area, who make up nearly all of its 1,150 workers. The last four-year contract, from 2006 to 2010, totaled $314 million. A new contract has been put out for competitive bids. Meanwhile, Covenant is operating on a two-month contract ending in February.

Full story -- http://www.americablog.com/2010/12/gop-house-chair-pushing-tsa.html

[and-justice-for-all]

39. We recently traveled abroad...

went through Indianapolis, Chicago and Schipol (Amsterdam) airports and I must say, it was not that bad at all. Even while going through costumes in Chicago on the way back was a breeze. We had no issues and we were not sodomized by the TSA or any other security.

[RamboLiberal]

46. Pre 9-11 Screening - Low Pay High Turnover

Low pay, high turnover for airport screeners
September 15, 2001|By Marshall Wilson, Chronicle Staff Writer

At San Francisco International Airport, the people who clean the food- court tables earn more than those assigned to assure no one sneaks a bomb, gun or knife aboard a jetliner.

In fact, nearly everyone who works at SFO or any other airport earns more than the people responsible for checking passengers and bags for explosives and weapons.

But the $10 an hour that screeners earn at SFO is big money compared to the $8 an hour they make at San Jose International or the $6.70 at Oakland International.

"I've never been in an airport where I've found that the preboard screener is paid more than the person working at the newsstand," said Charlie LeBlanc, managing director of Air Security International, a consulting group. "It leads to extreme amounts of turnover."

-----

At Boston's Logan International, where two of the planes used in Tuesday's hijackings took off, the entire staff was replaced twice during the 11-month survey period.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2001-09-15/news/17616434_1_screeners-oakland-international-passenger-screening

My point in OP was let's not let the bastards go back to this either!

[Starbucks Anarchist]

47. We're lucky compared to other countries.

I flew from India last week and changed planes in Dubai. I had to go through the normal metal detector, but before I could get into my gate, they had mandatory patdowns for *everybody* -- no machines available (despite the insane amount of money in that country). The women were segregated into their own line and taken into a small booth, but the men like me were patted down in the open. Then they rifled through our carry-ons.

[LisaL]

48. And how exactly does that make us "lucky?"

Do you think the fact that both men and women can be patted down in the open makes us lucky, or what?

[Starbucks Anarchist]

49. No, it's the fact that here, patdowns are optional and done randomly.

In Dubai, everybody (and I mean everybody) is patted down. Period.

My comment about the gender-specific differences was just an observation.

[LisaL]

50. I am not sure what you mean by "optional."

Even after going through the scanner someone can still be patted down.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

51. I was referring to people who opt out of the scanner.

In which case the patdown becomes mandatory.

Few people go through both, and even then, they can request a private patdown in a separate area. In Dubai (if you are a man), that option does not exist. And like I said, everybody there is patted down. It is *not* done randomly like it is here.

I'm frequently amused by the hyperbole on this site regarding things like this. Yes, the procedures can be invasive, but the methodology is better than in places like Dubai. Since the majority of Americans have little contact with foreign countries, they have a limited worldview when it comes to things like this. It's like when I hear cries of how we're turning into a third-world country. Yes, things are bad now, but anybody who's actually been to a third-world country knows it's hyperbole.

[LisaL]

52. Yea, we are really lucky.

We have an option of an x-ray scanner. I realize that TSA is claiming that radiation is low and harmless, but who exactly is verifying these claims? That ignoring all the privacy issues that come with the scanner.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

53. The FDA, for one:

The United States Food and Drug Administration has created a comprehensive web page providing safety information about backscatter X-ray body scanners.<32> The web site states that:

Since general-use x-ray systems emit ionizing radiation, the societal benefit of reliably detecting threats must be sufficient to outweigh the potential radiation risk, if any, to the individual screened. The dose from one screening with a general-use x-ray security screening system is so low that it presents an extremely small risk to any individual. To put the radiation dose received into perspective:

1. Naturally occurring ionizing radiation is all around us. We are continuously exposed to this background radiation during ordinary living. In 42 minutes of ordinary living, a person receives more radiation from naturally occurring sources than from screening with any general-use x-ray security system.
2. The national radiation safety standard (see below) sets a dose per screening limit for the general-use category. To meet the requirements of the general-use category a full-body x-ray security system must deliver less than the dose a person receives during four minutes of airline flight. TSA has set their dose limit to ensure a person receives less radiation from one scan with a TSA general-use x-ray security system than from two minutes of airline flight.
3. A person would have to be screened more than a thousand times in one year to exceed the annual radiation dose limit for people screening that has been set by expert radiation safety organizations.

[LisaL]

54. Oh really?

"The FDA has not field-tested these scanners and hasn't inspected the manufacturer. It has no legal authority to require owners of these devices — in this case, TSA — to provide access for routine testing on these products once sold, FDA press officer Karen Riley said."

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013733774_scanners22.html

[Starbucks Anarchist]

56. I'd hardly trust such a poorly-written article:

A spike in the intensity of the scanning beam, or a slowdown or pause in the timing of its sweep across a body, could cause significant radiation damage, according to a radiologist and two radiological health physicists.

Really? Which ones? What are their names? This is very shoddy journalism.

[LisaL]

57. By all means, trust the TSA claims then.

[LisaL]

55. And by the way

"TSA also frequently cites a study it commissioned by the noted Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL). But the Hopkins work did nothing to ensure consistent safety of those exposed to radiation from the scanners."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013733774_scanners22.html

[Rosa Luxemburg]

60. so would privatization be any better?

[HEyHEY]

64. According to DUers, yes

How soon we forget how privatization fucked up everything else because we don't like the TSA touching our privates. Short-sighted and right wing bullshit.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

65. yes