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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

That aligns with my theory that these insane flight-security rules are mostly supported by constituencies that don't actually fly. If you take national polls, you get high support; but I bet if you restricted the polls to people who had actually been on a plane in the past year, you'd get much lower support. Instead, we have our flight-security policies dictated by terrorist-hatin' paranoiacs in Kansas and Montana who rarely themselves fly on planes, but love the idea of any policy that'll supposedly be tough on terrorism.

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I don't think this is quite right. The problem is that the TSA's incentives are all screwed up. Any time some idiot manages to sneak a weapon onto an airplane, the TSA leadership gets attacked for it, whether or not they could have reasonable predicted it. But there's no penalty for instituting a new policy that is massively inconvenient (or embarrassing) for travelers but doesn't actually make people safer. So there's a one-way ratchet effect, where they keep adding new layers of security theater but never retire old ones. And because they're insulated from political accountability, there's nothing travelers can do to push back.

Public opinion is rarely coherent or rational. Most voters think Congress spends too much, but if you poll individual big-ticket spending items, almost all of them are popular. Similarly, I imagine many of the specific "security theater" measures wouldn't poll very well, but "more secure airports" is overwhelmingly popular, and that's the level of abstraction at which the TSA's mission is set.

You argue:

And because they're insulated from political accountability, there's nothing travelers can do to push back.

But also say:

Any time some idiot manages to sneak a weapon onto an airplane, the TSA leadership gets attacked for it.

This seems to be a contradiction. They are accountable, but not for wasting time with useless security theater.

I developed a similar theory independently this week after learning about the loss of Feingold in Wisconsin, the only senator to vote against the Patriot Act.

One possible solution: extend TSA inspection authority to interstate RV travel.

That one was surprising, although in a general Republican-wave election I suppose a Democrat losing in a swing state can happen for various reasons. But I couldn't figure out who was actually supporting Ron Johnson (the new Senator). Just people who hate taxes? Libertarians were mostly not in favor, because Johnson had a really wishy-washy position on the Patriot Act, e.g. take a look at this RedState (conservative/libertarian site) analysis of his views: http://www.redstate.com/pompadour/2010/06/23/local-grassroot...

Or maybe that was actually the reason, because people take tough-on-terrorism as more important than civil liberties?

from what I understand, the reason Feingold lost, was because Johnson outspent him something like 10 to 1, mostly from the 8-9 million he donated to his own campaign. This is mostly from seeing reddit headlines, so that may very well be bs.

Hmm, the numbers I can find show somewhat more even spending, so I'm not sure that's the reason. Ballpark estimates I'm seeing thrown around are something like $20m spent by the Feingold campaign, $17m spent by the Johnson campaign directly, and another $5m spent by anti-Feingold third parties.

Maybe the 10-1 figure is for outside money? It does seem that almost all the third-party, from-outside-Wisconsin groups doing ad buys in the election were doing anti-Feingold ad buys.

Reddit politics has been making up its own reality for a while now.

It ain't perfect but it's closer to real reality than much of what's on Fox News.

I don't know about that. The person who flies once or twice a year probably don't care that much and appreciate the security theatre- all part of the drama of flying. Definitely those that never fly would support unlimited security restriction - like those who don't work support higher taxes.

I recently was at a conference, and was pulling my old laptop from my bag. I joked to some people standing around that I use my old laptop in case the TSA decide they like it more than I do. One person looked at me seriously and said 'why would they do that'. I responded with 'well, it's not like anything they do makes any sense at all'. Most people laughed at my joke but that one person looked offended.

I'm guessing that person was the visible representative of a population who thinks the TSA is doing important work and actually improving things.

I don't know what the answer is. Everyone is painted into a corner by this : any politician that mentions disbanding the TSA is going to be slammed by opponents for being soft on terrorism. Soon enough the TSA employees will have a srong union and lobby against any changes and actually ask for more. The only way around would be an eventual change in technology that busts the old paradigm apart - like a new way of getting onto planes, or a whole new transport system. If you look at shipping, there are practices and laws which date back 400 years. I don't think all this cruft being attached to air travel is ever going away. Maybe with another big war when there is not enough resources or something. 'TSA abandoned for war effort' - that type of thing.

>like those who don't work support higher taxes.

Warren Buffet doesn't work?

>any politician that mentions disbanding the TSA is going to be slammed by opponents for being soft on terrorism.

Has the TSA ever stopped even a single real threat? Ever? If they haven't [1] then how could disbanding them be seen as being soft on terrorism. Nothing they do appears to actually be related to terrorism.

[1] I can't remember anything. All the bombings I've heard about got past them. And I hope no one starts this nonsensical "oh they stop hundreds, we just never hear about because they're so good!" nonsense. These are clearly "bottom of the barrel" workers.

The premise was that nobody but people who work support higher taxes. It was that people who don't work probably support higher taxes, because they get benefits with no cost to them personally.

It doesn't matter what the TSA does - the fact is they were invented as a response to terrorism. Thus removing them would be an opportunity for an opposing politician to use the attack of 'being soft on terrorism'. I think the TSA should be abandoned - I shudder to think of the lost actual dollars in funding, as well as the lost productivity of millions of air travelers going through a couple of minutes of invasive screening.

As for 'prevention' - many western nations have been victims of Terrorism attacks since 2001 - including the UK and Spain. None of these countries have/use TSA style screening or restrictions. None have had an airline-based terror attack since. That should tell you about the need for the TSA.

Fun fact, defense spending was always criticized and cuts were always proposed, even at the height of cold war. But since 9/11, it's never considered because proposing something like that would label you as soft on terror.

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