The way I heard it, the TSA was created by an accenture proposal. GWB's administration told the airline companies they needed to step up security for people admitted into airports, in response to 9/11. The airlines used the aforementioned proposal to suggest that instead of the airlines paying for individual security, the government do so for everyone, standardized, and pay for it as well. For god knows what reason, the government agreed.

The end result, is the airlines have no desire to improve the process. If you get angry at the security theatre, you think to blame the government, not the airline. The government and DHS has no desire to improve the process, they just want to keep costs down, while simultaneously making sure they are publicly notable to justify their existence.

Want to fix it? What if we: made the airlines pay for and run their own security. And make the DHS audit those security practices, instead of implementing them. Just one of many possible ideas.

> The end result, is the airlines have no desire to improve the process.

That is not entirely true. Delta have spent money to improve the TSA process in Atlanta (I believe mostly by adding automation and more areas for people to unload their belongings) and have also spent money at other airports to relieve TSA congestion.

I work for an airport and have heard many times that the airlines have considerable frustration with the process - it's not uncommon to hear people say that they would rather drive than fly due to the hassle of security. Airlines are usually very aware of lost revenue due to these kinds of factors.

I completely agree re where the blame lays.... my understanding is that the TSA have actually asked for additional funding to have more staff on the lines but Congress has denied this. The TSA is not actually a requirement either - airports can run their own security but my understanding is that they would still require TSA oversight so any cost savings are negligible.

> my understanding is that the TSA have actually asked for additional funding to have more staff on the lines but Congress has denied this.

This wouldn't help my complaint, fwiw.

My complaint isn't the lines.. i experience long lines all the time, i'm used to it. My problem is this feeling like suddenly, we're all criminals.

We're cattle, on the verge of being violated, and all it will take is a sneeze or an awkward look.[1]

To me, they are like "bad cops". You can meet a good cop and even if you did wrong (speeding ticket/etc), you feel comfortable and at ease (hopefully) around his/her professional attitude and behavior. The bad cops though, they just have this aura of unwarranted power, and you just hope they don't desire to spend some of it on you. That is TSA in the majority of cases to me.

The line isn't the problem for me.

[1]: edit, this isn't true of course, but it's how i feel.

The TSA is the closest I've felt like basic training since I've left the military.

I will only fly my 1h fligth if I am alone. if I have others with me, I always try to convince everyone to drive 6h each way instead.

All of Congress no doubt use PreCheck or Clear or equivalent to spend as little time as possible in lines. If it were a level playing field, rather than thinking it's valid to buy trust as if it's a product to sell, I'm convinced we'd see improvements however incremental.

> Airlines are usually very aware of lost revenue due to these kinds of factors

Good to know. My own point at which airlines are worth the hassle has increased from a 6 hour one-way drive to 14 since the security "improvements" began. Which means that I'm regularly spending ~6-8 additional hours on the road simply to avoid an ~2 hours of airport security unpleasantness[1]. Driving > 6hrs generally costs more too. And it's still worth it to avoid the security process.

[1] even better - once through security I can look forward to a cramped, unpleasant experience for the duration of the flight (6'2" guarantees miserable - the $20/inch of legroom option notwithstanding).

> The end result, is the airlines have no desire to improve the process.

Airlines are competing against other forms of travel (I, for example, mostly just drive everywhere I can these days, though this is only in part due to the TSA checkpoints: there's tons of stuff to hate about air travel if you can avoid it) and travel as a concept is competing against other activities (whether leisure or business: if you don't enjoy travel, you are less likely to just randomly hop on a plane and go somewhere; you take more phone calls and watch more television).

Airports are also competing against other airports, and usage of TSA employees is optional: when I was still bothering to fly in and out of the Bay Area I chose SFO over SJC because I preferred the private SFO security guard over real TSA employees. The incentives might be mild (as again, there are tons of other things for them to optimize), but they definitely do exist; if nothing else, "correctly optimize the number of employees to manage long lines" seems like a big win.

https://skift.com/2016/05/27/more-airports-may-ditch-the-tsa...

> Still, airports that have switched to private firms say they consider the contractors more responsive and better able to adjust staffing to address traffic surges and lulls.

> Delta and United airlines will spend as much as $4 million each hiring extra workers to manage the lines at this busiest airports.

>when I was still bothering to fly in and out of the Bay Area I chose SFO over SJC because I preferred the private SFO security guard over real TSA employees.

This seems crazy to me - the security line at SJC takes about four minutes to get through and you can park about a hundred feet away from the checkpoint. SFO takes FOREVER to get through.

If the government is setting the requirements and doing the implementation then it would seem appropriate to blame them.

> Thankfully I do think security personnel would not just immediately abandon their posts in the US when something like this happens.

I hope you don't mean the unarmed minimally trained TSA staff that earn next to minimum wage. I highly doubt they'll protect you over themselves. Hell, many of them are obese (this is America) and physically unable to engage in such a scenario.

The ones who idley stood by while that guy attacked people with a machete last year?

To be fair they don't even have non-lethal armaments, but it does again point to how useless the operation is in the face of a person who isn't just mad because their flight is delayed.

Core problem: how do you measure effectiveness of deterrent methods. Actual or avoided incidents? Feeling of safety of the public? Most likely how happy the insurance companies are afaict

Well us who like the scientific approach would have incrementally added layers to the security onion, but in the real world, that kind of trial and error costs human lives.

Makes testing expensive

This has been the thing that always confuses me about the TSA. They create bottle necks that essentially concentrate people to a small area. Forget a major airport like LAX or LaGuardia, medium sized airports have more people in those lines than on a flight. If the threat level was anywhere above basically nil this would have to change. Plus if you want to get in it's easier to fly a small plane in. All I can think is that TSA in its current form has caused more danger than it has prevented. It's security theater if red team almost always wins.

Calling most TSA workers "security personnel" is fundamentally inaccurate. They aren't hired to provide security; they're hired to organize queues and identity things in X-ray scans.

The choke points are definitely an issue at airports but also at sporting events, where masses of hundreds of people are crowded around a gate getting in to the stadium.

I think they need to setup a maze system where passengers/fans queue in to a system where can be scanned as they go through and directed to lower and higher risk areas something bullet/blast resistant where people can be physically isolated from each other (and from gaining access) as they pass through security and everyone can be locked down (or automatically directed to exit the facility) if an event happens so there isn't a free run through security. And make it large enough where people can get in to the system quickly so you don't have large groups of people standing waiting outside. Something with lots of angled areas as you enter and get you isolated, scanned directed in to the facility or over to higher security area for further processing.

You can't engineer away this problem. Too many places humans gather in large numbers. This is just throwing away money.

Can every church and store and mall and stadium in the world do this? If not it won't do anything. And if so, then we move on to other ways.

The bottleneck being a top target is the elephant in the room, that's why they don't mention it. And it's a grossly classist system that makes most people sitting ducks by virtue of being in that line much longer, than people who are willing to pay to be trusted more and spend less time in line.