What is the incentive here to privatize the TSA?

[The Backlash Cometh]

What, exactly, is the advantage to having the TSA privatized? The only thing that comes to mind is that the TSA just recently went into major overload harassing everyone, children, women and men. Lots of the stories we're hearing are coming from anglo-Americans. Is it possible that Republicans are stepping in at a critical juncture, promising to be more efficient with these searches when they really mean that they'll be more "selective" by harassing mostly dark-skinned flyers?

[Poll_Blind]

1. Republicans want everything privatized and no oversight. It's their M.O.

It's the quickest way to destroy the way our society functions, maybe I should be a little more specific, to recast society in the image that they'd like it to be in.

PB

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. They want a tiered system, don't they?

Where the well-connected get certain privileges, and everyone else gets treated like a chattering mass.

[LibDemAlways]

25. The well-connected already get privileges. They fly on corporate or

private jets and circumvent the TSA all together. Those who do find themselves on a commercial flight are not necessarily subjected to the same crap as the rest of us peons. You think they'd x-ray or feel up Old Lady Barbara Bush if she was flying commercially? Not in a million years.

[customerserviceguy]

18. Watching the jackboot TSA develop into the monster that it is

Maybe we should let the Repukes dismantle it, it's what they do best.

"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." - Benjamin Franklin

[The Backlash Cometh]

20. Would you really trust a private corporation more than a government agency?

Wouldn't one of them be mandated by federal rules, and the other by state rules? I don't trust this state for nothing, not even in the election of Presidents, or in the protection of my property. Why would I trust them with my body?

[customerserviceguy]

30. I say, dial it back to pre-9/11

and then it doesn't matter who it is who is doing the groping.

Sorry, but the difference between being violated by a private contractor and by a TSA government employee is about the same as the difference between being harangued by a collection agency and being hounded by the IRS.

[The Backlash Cometh]

31. You can shame the IRS quicker than you can shame a private collection agency.

At least, in my State.

The State regulators are non-existent in Florida. This is a Libertarian State. They just don't publish that fact.

[customerserviceguy]

32. I'd be interested in knowing your techniques for this

And I used to be enrolled to practice before the IRS, once had an auditor visibly shaking during an audit of my client. But it doesn't happen often.

[hatrack]

2. Simple - the equipment is already paid for (by the taxpayers, that is) . . .

So, finagle the contract with your buddies in Congress/Transportation/Homeland Security, pay the help $8.00/hour and just watch the money roll in!

[DJ13]

3. I dont know why any private company would want the TSA

As a government agency they have some protection against lawsuits, but a private company would be subject to one civil litigation after another for violating passenger's rights.

[FiveGoodMen]

9. No, they'll just lean on Congress to change the laws and limit or eliminate their liability

And if Congress won't help them with that, then the Supremes surely will.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. One reason for 9.11 is that it was privately run

But the other is union busting... Simple.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

22. that is bullshit, 9/11 happened for one reason only.

9/11 happened because the default response to a hijacking was to comply with the hijackers and fly the shitheads to Havana or Lebanon or wherever they wanted to go and then go home.

The hijackers actually flying the planes themselves into buildings was a new twist on the theme.

Every attempted attack since then was not thwarted by new security measures or passenger harassment - but by passengers on the plane subduing the aspiring terrorist.

[nadinbrzezinski]

26. And they managed to go through security

since the airlines refused to put in the equipment and procedures that was STANDARD everywhere else. due to COST.

Republicans want to go back to that state since it DOES cost the Airlines to fund this show.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

27. Nobody was looking for X-Acto knifes, with any technology

I think letting airlines secure their own fucking planes is a great idea, 9/11 happened because for thirty years cooperating with hijackers had been official policy everywhere, that will never happen again anywhere.

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Oh yes they were

here is a story, real... actually two... that might tell you how wrong you are.

Story number one, we took a patient to Lindberg Field from one of the Cancer Clinics in Tijuana... so I go though the Magnetometer, which of course beeped, steel toe shoes. I am forced to leave behind my boots, but carried onto the aircraft my rescue knife with a six inch blade and my trauma shears.

Medical Emergency at the Tijuana Airport...

I am NOT allowed to carry any of my equipment, which is carried by a member of the security team. I leave behind at the checkpoint my Radio, and of course that same rescue knife...

Now I am not going to to into why they kept the radio, which came back when we came out, or why they carried my equipment and hovered over us like hawks since we were IN THE STERILE area of the airport.

Just because US Airport Security was a joke before 9.11 does it mean it was a joke everywhere else.

[FiveGoodMen]

6. The incentive to privatize ANYTHING is to remove any trace of democracy.

Corporations are not democratic and no one expects them to be, so...

Take all important public functions and give them to private companies.

After that, let the public vote any way they want; it won't make the slightest difference.

And we won't have the slightest say in how our country really runs.

That's the main point.

(Of course, there's also money to be made)

[Speck Tater]

7. So they can hire pedophiles who can then legally grope teenage girls. nt

[tjwash]

8. Yay...then they can charge passengers a 50 dollar fee for groping them.

Sounds great :eyes:

[Ken Burch]

10. Wouldn't that basically be reverse prostitution?

n/t.

[tjwash]

12. They'll probably just call it a "handling fee"

[csziggy]

13. And then charge ten times that to not be groped

Because you know that a private corporation will set up a system for well heeled people to pay for "pre-screening" so they can avoid the security systems. After all, profit is the ultimate goal, not security.

[Ken Burch]

14. And, even after all that....

the NEXT guys will just happen to get on the next plane with the next box cutters...the next time it happens to be convenient for those in power to have something like that happen...

[csziggy]

21. Or instead of using commercial flights, use private planes

Since 9/11, TWO private planes have been flown into buildings ** while NOT ONE commercial plane has - but there are no additional security requirements for private planes or small airstrips. There is nothing to stop "terrorists" from filling a small to medium size private plane with explosives and flying that to where they want to create an event.

In addition, screening of packages is haphazard at best and many unscreened packages are flown on commercial flights. In fact, it is interesting that the "toner" explosive packages came out just before the "enhanced" passenger screenings started up.

** January, 2002: Tampa, Florida, teenager flies plane into building, committing suicide.
February, 2010: Texas, nutjob flies plane into IRS office, killing himself and one other person.

[Angry Dragon]

11. MONEY

[leftstreet]

15. union busting

[NNN0LHI]

16. Dark skinned people have been getting this same treatment since 9/11

But now that everyone is getting the same treatment it has become a travesty.

Quick, hide the white women.

Don

[walldude]

17. It was a scam from the start..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9577944

check it out.

[Warren Stupidity]

19. It was privatized. It was nationalized because of lack of standards

poor quality, cost cutting incentives etc.

The incentive to re-privatize it is a huge fucking boondoggle of cash.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

23. and the TSA today is a goldmine of professionalism and ISO worthy best practices?

[Warren Stupidity]

24. nope but that is irrelevant to "why privatize'.

The reason to privatize is the usual gang to get another huge cash cow torrent from the treasury directed their way. Same as why privatize prisons, or military services. The corruption of creating a permanent crisis and then turning that crisis into an endless revenue stream is 'why'.

[nadinbrzezinski]

29. Actually it is FAR BETTER than it was

with all it's issues.

And lord knows I am a critic...