People objected to the TSA, but the political climate in 2002 was too much in favor of it.

Sure, but that was then and this is now. I guess it's simply not possible to get it back into the "discourse" as a thing that should be changed.

The problem is we have a culture that often overly accepts protectionist and defensive systems and is highly averse to any risk what-so-ever. When these sorts of systems are put in place, they become far more difficult to remove than erect, even if they're shown to be ineffective, wasteful, or actually add to risk.

You're not going to see many politicians vote against such systems because the second some incident occurs, their stance against protectionism will be crucified by opponents and gobbled up by the general public. This is one reason why the US defense budget continues to balloon. Anyone who pushes to reduce spending can easily be painted to the masses as someone who doesn't care about or want to secure your safety. This dynamic also plays into use of fear for power, so those in power drum up fears and explode risk in their own interest.

> protectionist and defensive systems and is highly averse to any risk what-so-ever

... like masks.

But seriously, a lot of the same people that objected to the TSA madness also objected to the mask mandates.

> But seriously, a lot of the same people that objected to the TSA madness also objected to the mask mandates.

But this time a lot of people who didn't object to the TSA objected to masks.

Taking off your shoes once (maybe twice) a year vs putting on a mask multiple times every day.

I’m not surprised more people actually objected to the latter.

That's the danger with putting measures like this in place as a reaction to a shocking event. Once done it's nearly impossible to undo (Patriot Act, NSA Surveillance Act, etc., are more good examples).

It reminds me of Norway's response to the Utoya massacre. IIRC in a speech at the time the gov said they weren't going to change their system because of one terrorist. (I might be remembering wrong but that's what stuck with me.) The US on the other hand took the opportunity to ram through as many "security" provisions through as possible which are with us to this day and can no longer be questioned as to whether they are indeed necessary or helpful.

It's a worldwide thing. EU airport security is even stricter and they're not going to let go now.

The airport security in Europe and South America is not even close to how it is in USA.

My sample size is two - one departing flight each from LHR and DUB - but they were way less painful experiences than any airport I've flown out of in the US.

Yes so strict that we don't even do the shoe thing or the crotch grab thing here.

While I agree that the US is stricter, the EU has gotten strict as well. There are millimeter-wave scanners in many airports (usually mandatory with an opt-out pat-down, but in some airports you have a chance to just go through the metal detectors), sometimes they make you take your shoes off, X-raying takes ages. The US is stricter only in the sense that the TSA is everywhere all the time, whereas in Europe it's only some places some of the time. At least in Europe you don't have some highschool dropout rifle through your luggage and leave your suitcase open, though (that's happened to me in the US).

It used to be that you'd go through a metal detector and be done with it, and that's still the way it is in, for example, Greece. My local airport (second largest in the country, but still no SFO) gets you from the entrance to the gate in less than ten minutes.

I don't know why we've accepted this bullshit. It's not as if some malicious actor couldn't just hit a train or bus instead and kill just as many people, yet we accept all this hassle and invasion of privacy for exactly zero benefit.

> At least in Europe you don't have some highschool dropout rifle through your luggage and leave your suitcase open, though (that's happened to me in the US).

No but the people putting the suitcase - that you had to take apart yourself - through the scanner will steal things from you - my credit card and powerbank went missing during the process this summer.

What do you mean take apart? When taking your laptop out? I just close it again, that limits opportunistic theft by a lot (though you're the first person I hear having stuff stolen from).

Yeah, I took it out, closed the suitcase and send the boxes on their way. Then they forced me to open it up again and take out my camera, chargers and some cables etc too, I guess they took it during this.

We don't? So the officers groped me just for fun this summer? And my GF's bra had to be undone just for fun too?

> So the officers groped me just for fun this summer? And my GF's bra had to be undone just for fun too?

Probably yes. But for their fun, not yours.

They didn't look like they were having fun, tbh. If I had to grope 300+ people, some of them really not appealing, I wouldn't have fun too.

Then why do you think they do it? It's obviously not for security.

Because they were ordered to do it.

The few times I was in the US I definitely did not have the feeling that EU is more strict.

Aside from the shoes and scanner thing (absent TSA-Pre) in the US, as someone who has traveled a lot in both Europe and the US, is seems pretty much a wash. I've had silly things like a bladeless corkscrew confiscated in Spain but I seem to have the same generally low rate of hand inspections etc. (usually related to having a bunch of cables/electronics jammed together in a bag) in both areas.

In most European countries this is done by private companies and they are really efficient. Rarely waiting time is more than 5-10 minutes in.

Even if it was in the discourse, nobody wants to be blamed as the person who got rid of the TSA when the next shoe bomber or whatever pops up.

We must do something!

This is something, I will do it!

Fill in useless mask mandates or shoe removal as you see fit.

Everyone is against government security until a bunch of guys fly airplanes into buildings.

> while TSA-related impositions that save a number of lives that's close to zero

Are there any good estimates of the total economic costs of this security theatre?

I don't know about the cost but the benefit is close to zero, if not zero. I am positive that the net benefit (because cost is surely positive) is negative accounting even for the number of jobs it creates.

> The source did not give an exact number, but said the failure rate was close to 80 percent. Members of Congress called the results "disturbing" in a public hearing following a private, classified briefing to the House Committee on Homeland Security.

https://www.usnews.com/news/national-news/articles/2017-11-0...

archived at https://web.archive.org/web/20221116171835/https://www.usnew... https://archive.ph/hzA1y

You can make one yourself: How many hijackings of US airlines where there in the 20 years before, and after. The number was higher before, but it was very small.

Locking the airplane cockpit door, along with awareness that hijackers will kill you (as opposed to fly you to a different country and you are free in a couple days if you stay quiet) are also factors. I don't know how to separate them from anything the TSA does, but I have to believe those are both more important.

> Locking the airplane cockpit door

A change which contributed to the complete loss of an aircraft and all aboard when the pilot left to go to the toilet and the copilot locked the door to crash it into a mountainside. The law of unintended consequences in full effect. Had such a change not been enacted that flight likely would have survived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525

I long ago concluded that TSA is mostly a jobs program, not a security program.

I’m not against government jobs programs. Just wish it was something useful day to day, like healthcare, versus security theater.

I'd rather just provide UBI. Pay them to do nothing instead of paying them to make everybody else's lives worse.

This is payment and structured days, which ensures that people have a good reference for applying to other jobs.

It's somewhat better than a UBI

It'd be better than UBI if they weren't making everybody's lives worse in the process.

Who is them?

A UBI is going to normalize condition and make “them” see there’s even more to participate in.

Sounds like you still prefer maintenance of a steerage class, assuming you’ll be a bit higher on the totem pole. But I mean, real talk is you’re still just one of billions. How you feel the world as-is is a meaningless measure for how you would fit into a UBI world. And I have no particular obligation to your sensibilities. shrug emoji You’re a “them” to me is not an unreasonable statement.

I think you're overthinking it and "them" here is the TSA employees. UBI by definition means everyone.

Also I have no idea what "normalize condition" means?

Oh I meant something like equality of condition.

"Them" is TSA employees, as the other user explained. The rest of this is a lot of pretty aggressive assumptions about me that are entirely unfounded.

Or at least something useless but harmless, like smashing rocks into gravel with hammers. That would be much better than harassing and hassling everybody trying to go on a vacation.

The problem fundamentally with the mask debate is that surgical masks barely make a difference in transmission. If we were serious about mask wearing to prevent respiratory viral transmission, we would be wearing well-fit N95s like 3M Auras, which are virtually impossible to fit improperly and are way more comfortable than surgical masks. They are also far more effective at preventing airborne/droplet viral transmission. This, in my opinion, is one of the biggest mistakes the CDC (and other institutions) made, and it had dire consequences: millions of people died and a majority of Americans lost trust in this institution for its poor recommendations.

In the beginning everyone thought COVID is only droplet transmission and in that case regular masks work really well because it prevents someone carrying the virus from spreading dropdlets. It doesn't even have to be very tightly fitting because droplets will get attached to the fabric. Later there were some evidence that it can become aeresol in some high concentration situations like hospitals, but for all practical purposes in everyday life its droplet.

The problem is not that they are ineffective but that people followed them poorly. I've seen countless people wearing them super ineffectively like leaving their nose completely out, and many people when they wear surgical masks they don't bend the metal bar to fit to their nose and instead basically have like a canopy instead of a mask which of course doesn't do much.

> Later there were some evidence that it can become aeresol in some high concentration situations like hospitals, but for all practical purposes in everyday life its droplet.

That's not true. There are good studies, followed up with full contact tracing in the environment it happened in, that show aerosol transmission in everyday situations (such as planes and restaurants)

Additionally on the poor fitting masks, triple layer surgicals are more effective (not effective enough) when double masking (which that situation is surgical first, cloth second.. this is the same as using a mask brace to ensure a tight fit)

However, the findings from Aaron Collins found that yes, they are better with a mask fitter.. but they still fail to qualify at the same level as an N95, KN95, or KF94 level of protection. (Those are the levels of protection you require when dealing with airborne based contaminants) On top of that it made it more difficult to wear.

That was later yet. At least in the public mind - some leaders who should know better were saying things that they should have known were false.

Are you suggesting that less than N95 masks do not reduce COVID-19 transmission?

Yes. Surgicals are not meant for protection against airborne contaminants.

While that is true, surgicals do provide some protection. They cut your risk down significantly when worn correctly, though proper N95 (and other similar standards meant for airborne contaminants) will reduce risk a lot more.

I am surprised to see this type of reply in 2022. When I Google "do masks reduce COVID-19 transmission?", I get huge number of hits for peer reviewed published scientific papers. And most of the papers are focused on less-than-N95 masks. For the ones that I reviewed, the answer is overwhelming "yes", and a statistically significant reduction.

So we have a few issues with that query.

Do they reduce COVID 19 transmision is basically the same question as does a book stop a bullet. Yes. Is if sufficient? No. (Safe vs Safe-er)

With aerosols, it's a lot out there, they're light, move from low pressure to high, and they float. (You need better protection, and you have to ensure that the filter does it's job, surgical don't and can't do that.. although the CDC tried to hack their way through that with "fit adjustments")

With droplet, it requires those being projected, more affected by gravity, and it requires an entry point into entering you. (They're heavilier particles, and typically this is less likely to spread)

All of the masking in the US is regulated by OSHA for the work world. (And is only for the working world.. no N95s for children) That's why N95s are required in hospitals (with workers, and only for workers are N95s required to be fit tested) in this case. Unfortuantely with a lot of the papers you see .. they tend to minimize what other country's population standards. I think they (KF94s, FFP2s, KN95 [if you have a trust worthy regulation body] etc) would be a better fit for the general population.

Someone decided to make masks a partisan issue. TSA enjoys pretty much bi-partisan support from politicians.