Back in November, we quoted Bruce Schneier who claimed that the new TSA full body scanners won’t catch anybody. This is significant, because if we are going to unconditionally surrender our right to privacy, expose ourselves to dangerous X-rays, and pretty much roll over, it would be nice if we were doing all that so that we could actually be just a tiny bit safer.
The bad news is that an undercover TSA agent was able to pass through security at Dallas/Ft Worth airport in Texas, not once but multiple times, carrying a handgun. In fact, the agent was able to get through security every single time she tried. That’s 100% failure.
Do you feel any safer now? Or just another example of the public interest being stepped on by the revolving door between government and business, which allows crap like Michael Chertoff profiting from decisions he made while serving as the head of Homeland Security?
UPDATE: An Alaska State Representative refuses to submit to a TSA grope. We need more people willing to take a stand like this.
3 Comments
Unregulated capitalism always creates artificial demand. The point becomes not to supply what people want, but to find ways to force them to buy whatever it is you happen to have.
Actually, we need to get rid of TSA. Let the airports hire, train and manage their own security. Regulate it to the correct standards, perhaps even have a small group of TSA like officers as inspectors at each airport. The airports will do it more efficiently and it will save us a big chunk of tax dollars (TSA’s budget has been increased by $508.7 million, to $8.2 billion for 2011)
http://homelandsecuritynewswire.com/dhs-2011-budget-increased-3-percent-436-billion
Here’s a few more highlights on what they will be spending:
$734 million to deploy up to 1,000 whole-body-imaging scanners
$374 million on Explosive Detection Systems (EDS)
$60 million to purchase 800 portable explosives trace detection (ETD) devices
$71 million requested would fund 275 more explosive-sniffing K-9 teams
DHS also wants to increase the number of TSA behavior detection officers by 350 at a price tag of $20.2 million
Funny that readers call for more regulation when the Feds’ stranglehold on aviation created TSA in the first place.
Abolish the TSA and forbid government at any level from interfering w/ aviation — an industry that politicians have heavily regulated since its inception. And one they’ve subsidized just as heavily. If the airlines have to stand on their own two feet to attract customers rather than relying on our taxes to bail them out, the industry would transform itself overnight. Customers would be treated that way, not as criminals, w/ the effective, unobtrusive security that protects your mall, supermarket and favorite restaurant.