In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.
'Once a system is set up to solve some problem, the system itself is new entity which engenders new problems relating the development, operations, and maintenance of that system'
This is why these hit pieces are completely unfair to the TSA. Just about every organization becomes self-preserving as its primary function. Government and non-profit are the most obvious but the bureaucracy of for-profit companies and even individual divisions inside of those companies follow the same rules.
I was just looking over the recent Android handsets via tmobile and was shocked at the nightmare of tacked-on apps and other carrier garbage on them. All these divisions in t-mobile are trying to justify their existence by dropping various apps on the handsets like music managers, music stores, t-mobile tv, AV, security, etc etc. No one wants or needs these and the few that do will find them in the play store.
Look at well run companies like Apple or Google. The iphone and the Nexus have none of this junk. I imagine their corporate culture is a lot less bureaucratic than that of a carrier like tmobile.
>in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself.
I like to think Apple and Google are the former and carriers in the latter.
I think the real issue arises in organizations where self-preservation is actually at odds with, or at least orthogonal to, the organization's stated goal. Take the TSA, for instance (and many government agencies, departments within large corporations, nonprofits, etc.).
The supposed goal of the TSA is to efficiently and effectively protect travelers and the country from criminal and terrorist actions. In theory, if the TSA is doing its job well, it's actually reducing budgetary needs and slashing fat in favor of efficiency. The TSA should be trying to become clever and nimble, moreso than massive and overhead-burdened.
But the self-preservation mandate suggests the opposite. Self-preservation, for a government agency, means making sure you preserve or grow your budget year over year -- because you're fighting other agencies for it. Every dollar you get is up for grabs by other agencies next fiscal, and vice versa. Accordingly, becoming expensive and inefficient works in favor of self-preservation. As any seasoned bureaucrat knows, not achieving results means asking for more money to throw at the problem. If the TSA demonstrated that it was achieving its goals at current budget levels, it wouldn't receive the same budget next year. Or even face a budgetary reduction.
I think most people are resigned to the existence of bureaucracies, despite such problems as rent-seeking, inefficiency, etc, as long as they meet a few basic criteria:
(1) they serve some reasonably obvious positive purpose
(2) the negative effects of what they do aren't too noxious, in particular when compared with (1)
The TSA, it would seem basically fails on both points. Despite the good intentions with which it was formed, it's pretty clear that they don't improve safety in any significant manner (you might find people some disagree about this, because they believe the security theater, but I think the number is dropping). The negative effects of their existence, of course, are legion, (I suspect it's quite hard to find anybody that disagrees on this point!).
So I'd suggest the public probably on average doesn't support the TSA to the same degree they might other bureaucracies, even those that they find annoying.
Unfortunately, of course, the public's opinion on the matter is of little importance once the system is in place...
I like most of what you say. However the first sentence about being unfair to the TSA seems out of place. You're right about self preserving organizing but that doesn't mean we're being unfair. TSA is a horrible organization that needs to be dismantled.
They are absolutely different from most bureaucracies.
Name another bureaucracy that slid its hand up my leg until it encountered The Resistance, or a bureaucracy that prevents me from bringing my favorite deodorant when I travel, or one that can arbitrarily say that I am not allowed to fly across the country.
Most other bureaucracies weren't created out of a misguided attempt to solve a problem that didn't actually exist and aren't an undue financial burden on an already financially strained system.
I realize almost all bureaucracies waste money to some extent, but the TSA is a waste to the tune of $8bn USD per year with no measurable benefits and no evidence that it was ever needed.
Imagine if that money were redirected into social programs, NASA, and educational programs! We could have a major, tangible positive effect in spite of bureaucracy, instead of pissing $8bn into an organization that behaves like an organized crime syndicate.
The TSA is good for a variety of business interests. One specific example is the manufacturers of back-scatter X-Ray machines. They're hideously expensive and pure security theater but, in large part thanks to the TSA, they're in most U.S. airports now. How would you like to own a company that makes a product that doesn't actually have to work in order for you to gross billions?
Now, if this bothers you, you should probably pay attention to the fact that the market for these toys is expanding. Rapidly.
You know when you're about to step through one of these scanners at an airport, but now one can drive right past you in your car without your knowledge! Despite their lack of concrete results in airports, the back-scatter X-Ray machine market is exploding into new form-factors, and it's all thanks to U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The horrible punch-line to this is that these back-scatter vans face an almost impossible task. It's hard enough to tell bombs from batteries in the controlled setting of a an airport security check-stop. Imagine trying to distinguish bombs from the random things people keep in their cars! The crews operating these vans must generate so many false-positives that, in order to reach the point where they can actually provide some real measure of security, they would need to be supremely competent, supremely dedicated, and entrusted with extraordinary powers to search suspicious vehicles. All of the above are improbable. I will eat my shorts the first time one of these back-scatter vans actually finds a real car-bomb.
The image of the RadPRO SecurPASS in that link is outrageous with respect to actively exposing individuals to x-ray radiation. Inmates are x-rayed every time they return from work detail.
Why do we have to learn the lesson over and over again that x-ray radiation causes cancer? I hate the arguments that it only hurts us a little bit each time.
So they think patting down 5-year-old girls and 90-year-old grandmas and grabbing my testicles each time I have to fly - not actually making the country more secure? Banning cupcakes and handbags with gun-shaped emboidery is actually not protecting us from terrorists? I can't believe it...
It's not free, it costs over 8 billion a year. In my tax bracket, that's about $180 a year for me. Of course, for more affluent folks it's more, reaching into thousands for highest income levels.
As for the questions where you can sign up - I'm sure there are fine establishments around which for a modest sum of money can fulfill some of your fantasies. I can't help you with that though, as my expertise with such matters is limited to rumors and hearsay.
The whole trick of designing institutions is to make sure that when they act for their own self-preservation (as they will and do) they will simultaneously be achieving the goal we want them to be achieving.
So, ensure that organizations that fail to achieve their goal go away? This isn't complicated: if you want to keep your job, you need to do it, and meet some sort of standard in doing so.
The problem is we've somehow managed to create organizations that continue to exist even when they completely fail to accomplish the intended tasks. Once your method of self-preservation shifts from "functioning" to "lobbying", the whole thing needs to be dismantled.
The TSA is fortunate in that they have other people lobbying on their behalf, but that doesn't change the fact that they exist due to legislation rather than effectiveness.
How do you design institutions to correct for this, anyway? In general, if you set up an institution to solve a problem, there is an incentive not to actually solve the problem because it would eliminate the need for the institution's existence...
HN has quite an anti-TSA bias. The TSA has problems, but so does every large organization. I suspect HN'ers glare at the TSA because they travel frequently, and it would benefit them disproportionately to cut down on travel time and inconvenience. This is like the trucking lobby arguing for fewer restrictions on driver safety--the perspective is not exactly objective.
A fair point. I spent only about 30 seconds on this, but found: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4943959, "Surprise Gallup Poll: People Think TSA Does A Good Job". This is a poor article: it's merely reporting on a public poll of the TSA. I didn't expect the public to be so approving; I expected views of TSA to be like views on taxes: they're necessary, but everybody still hates them. But perhaps the public is so scared of terrorists on planes that the TSA is comforting to them.
It's not a report on TSA efficacy, but I didn't look for one; such a report is would not be worth much due to the difficulty of proving a negative: the TSA's objective is not to find 100% of contraband, but to prevent terrorist attacks. There have been no terrorist attacks (excepting the shoe bomber, but there have been no shoe attacks since shoes started to be inspected), but does that prove the TSA is effective? Hard to say.
This is a false equivalence argument. Taxes may be necessary, but that does not mean each particular tax, in every particular form is necessary or right. Security may be necessary, but TSA in its current form is a waste of time, money and effort.
>>> There have been no terrorist attacks (excepting the shoe bomber, but there have been no shoe attacks since shoes started to be inspected), but does that prove the TSA is effective? Hard to say.
It's not hard to say. The answer is "no, it does not prove that". Just as the fact that you weren't eaten by a magic dragon does not prove I have protected you from it all these years. Proofs don't work this way - if something didn't happen, you can not just tell "it's because at the same time something else was happening".
> There have been no terrorist attacks (excepting the shoe bomber, but there have been no shoe attacks since shoes started to be inspected), but does that prove the TSA is effective? Hard to say.
No, really, it's not. Of prevented terror attacks since 9/11, TSA has prevented exactly 0% of them. The shoe bomber was on the plane with the bomb when he was subdued by fellow passengers. The underwear bomber also made it onto the flight.
One could make the counter argument that some terrorists are discouraged by the difficulty and no longer try. For example, how many plane bombings have their been since Lockerbie? None. Does that mean that we should stop inspecting luggage? Probably not.
> One could make the counter argument that some terrorists are discouraged by the difficulty and no longer try.
Well, let me know if you actually get around to making the argument. In the meantime, consider the basic economics of an attack as laid out by someone else: If the other passengers on the flight realise that you're up to something, every single one of them has a clear motive to take you on in the fight to the death. Hi-jacking a plane has gotten orders of magnitude more difficult after 9/11.
> For example, how many plane bombings have their been since Lockerbie? None. Does that mean that we should stop inspecting luggage? Probably not.
Good thing, then, that the suggestion on the table is a return to pre-9/11 security, not abolishing it.
EDIT: pre-9/11 security, plus the few things we've realised actually makes sense - such as reinforced, locking cockpit doors.
Blowing up a plane by embedding a bomb in a body cavity is still plenty easy post 9/11. The terrorist need only head into the restroom and detonate the bomb under the cover of privacy. Bomb making technology and the willingness to be martyred in a plane attack have increased since 9/11. This is the type of attack that full body scanners attempt to prevent.
> Hi-jacking a plane has gotten orders of magnitude more difficult after 9/11.
Yes. It's important to remember that pre-9/11, the standard expectation was that in a hijacking, passengers would be hostages, not victims. As such, people were specifically instructed not to intervene. That's clearly out the window now.
I find it more likely that terrorists don't think it's worth doing in the first place, security or no. Killing a few dozen people in mid-air might startle a bunch of people on the ground and ground a few flights for a while, but it doesn't actually accomplish anything. The only people that would actually do that are mentally-unbalanced, suicidal people who are just trying to kill themselves in the most spectacular way they can; i.e., not a terrorist.
I think "terrorists" of the "trying to kill us all" variety are trying to bring forward some kind of message or dispense some kind of "justice" under their belief system. To achieve any of that with violence requires there to be an intense, sustained effect on the public and a way to link it back to their concept of justice. The 9/11 attacks accomplished that, but the shoe bomber and underwear bombers wouldn't have if they had succeeded. Their explosive charges were too small and too incompetently assembled to cause the kind of mass panic that "terrorists" are after.
Instead, we have a different breed of terrorists: the "keeping you scared because it benefits them directly" terrorists. The TSA and Homeland Security. The true terrorists in this plot. Keeping people afraid of some vague, non-specific threat because it profits them and those they support.
For airports in Europe (which is where the two flights in question originated), this is basically true. For airports in other parts of the world, not so much.
In any case, that doesn't change the fact that it's incorrect to blame TSA for incidents on flights that TSA wasn't responsible for screening. The relevant factoid for the point the person upthread was trying to make would be how many such incidents have occurred on flights originating from a US airport.
Ok, I've upvoted two articles. This link (http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4944163) gives me a blank page. Also, I'll note that the second article is also pretty faint praise. It's the travel agency industry association praising a TSA pilot program to allow pre-screened frequent fliers to go through security more quickly. In other words, to make the experience of flying less awful for their best customers. They don't say the TSA is doing a good job, only that this program will be an improvement.
Now, on to bias. Having an opinion is not bias. An honest examination of the facts can lead to a conclusion that isn't neutral with respect to a given issue. Do you think the HN community is disregarding important facts in coming to it's anti-TSA position?
Also, yes, it's self-serving to want less waste of government money, and less hassle in flying, but only insofar as HN members are also members of the public. I don't think anyone here holds the position that we should reduce security for their personal convenience, on the theory that a successful terrorist attack would probably kill someone else.
So, by all means, post information that might challenge the opinion of the community. We might learn something. But also, let's keep forming opinions and defending them. That's the point of all this discussion, right?
The difference is that there is no objective evidence that the TSA's airport security checkpoints benefit anyone; there is more evidence that the checkpoints actually put us in danger. There is also the matter of having my tax dollars poured into such a dubious program while simultaneously being siphoned away from non-secretive programs that benefit everyone.
Actually, there is some evidence of benefit: there has not been a successful terrorist attack on a US commercial aircraft since the TSA was formed.
Is that evidence good enough to say that the TSA is effective? Not really; terrorist attacks could have declined for other reasons.
The only way to be sure of the effectiveness of the TSA would be to keep relaxing TSA restrictions until a terrorist successfully attacks a plane, and then ratchet them back up to the minimum point necessary to prevent it again. Will they do that? No. So, the only alternative is to over-protect to some degree.
For example, should we still screen checked baggage for bombs? There have been no luggage bombings since Lockerbie, so maybe they're not necessary anymore. These checks are certainly expensive. I think the answer is obviously yes, because such an attack is "too damn easy."
However, it's terribly difficult to draw the line when things get less obvious, because the odds of an attack increase as the difficulty of such an attack decreases. How many plane bombings would there be if all you had to do was click on a link in a web browser? A hundred thousand (or the population of Gaza). Now what if it required an hour of work to be successful? Tens of thousands. A week? Hundreds. A month? Tens. When will it drop to zero? Hard to say.
I would be more worried about someone bombing the security line at a major airport than about bombing a plane. I would also worry about the access to glass in an airport -- ask any prisoner if you are wondering why.
"the only alternative is to over-protect to some degree"
You are still assuming that the TSA's airport checkpoint program is protecting us at all, which I would say is a dubious claim at best. Locking the cockpit doors on an airplane is a good measure. Putting an armed guard on certain high-value target flights is a reasonable measure, although I would be a bit concerned about a clever terrorist's ability to identify the guard and take his weapon. Screening luggage for bombs is reasonable, although I think an airport is just as good of a target for bombing as an airplane would be, so I am not sure how much good it does.
The checkpoints, however, are next to useless for security. There is an endless supply of things that can be turned into weapons on the other side of a security checkpoint, and you don't have to be an evil mastermind to find them. They even let you bring dangerous items through the checkpoint, like the 9-cell lithium-ion battery in my laptop (would you want to be on an airplane where someone punctured or ignited such a battery?) -- for that matter, the laptop itself, which has lots of sharp aluminum inside and which could be disassembled fair easily.
What the checkpoints do is to remind people that they are not in charge and that their rights mean nothing at the airport. I had this experience myself, twice. First, I was told that I could had to wait over 10 minutes to receive a pat-down after refusing to walk into a scanner, and that I would not be allowed to use the metal detector that just opened -- all the while, my luggage was left on the other side for anyone to steal. The second time, my teammate who traveled with me tried to take a video recording of the pat-down procedure, and the guard stopped (but did not allow me to put my arms down), claiming that it was necessary for security to not let a video be taken (but when I pointed out that there were literally dozens of people watching from the waiting area ten feet away, his eyes glazed over -- he was just reciting the line some superior had told him to recite). These are not measures that enhance security, but they certainly are a psychological attack; I doubt they are carefully planned attacks, but rather they are an intended consequence of giving people who have absolutely no training in security or threat mitigation the power to make decisions at a security checkpoint.
After a single bear wandering into town has drawn an over-reaction from the residents of Springfield, Homer stands outside his house and muses, “Not a bear in sight. The Bear Patrol is working like a charm!”
Lisa sees through his reasoning: “That’s specious reasoning, dad.” Homer, misunderstanding the word “specious”, thanks her for the compliment.
Optimistically, she tries to explain the error in his argument: “By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.” Homer is confused: “Hmm; how does it work?” Lisa: “It doesn’t work; it’s just a stupid rock!” Homer: “Uh-huh.” Lisa: “… but I don’t see any tigers around, do you?”
Homer, after a moment’s thought: “Lisa, I want to buy your rock…”
So if those who see the problem can't bring it up, who can? Martin Luther King didn't exactly have an objective perspective either when he campaigned for civil rights reform?
Extreme example, yes, but change is brought about by passion, not waiting for some grey blob of objectivity to decide you're right, and passion is rarely objective.
Well, readers of the Economist are likely better aquatinted with the TSA than the average person. They are also significantly better educated, and better equipped for rejecting the essentially emotional arguments in favour of, and accepting the logical arguments against.
I'd say that the Cato/Reason brand of Libertarian bias against Federal institutions is pretty irrelevant to how terrible the TSA is in practice. The problem isn't so much the criticism of the organization but the solutions put forth (break the unions, privatization = more secure inherently, etc.)
Yeah we do, but there's a reason we're biased against the TSA.
It's because we believe they fundamentally undermine the 4th amendment, and they are a market distortion forced upon us that results in a subpar consumer experience.
There's nothing wrong with being biased towards our inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Welcome to America's permanent big government state. This is a prime example of excessive government bureaucracy, and it demonstrates how inefficient and wasteful many of these govt. programs are but exist anyway to keep politicians happy. The only reason TSA is getting called out for its unnecessary bloat is because the public despises what they do.
I highly doubt the employee headcount of the federal government is a good indicator of efficiency. I would say not at all. There could be 10 total government employees but that wouldn't signify more well-oiled machine. My initial assertion stands true. The government is bloated, inefficient, and wasteful (now more than ever). TSA is merely a good microcosm for the system as a whole.
Side note: it's appreciated (expected?) to provide sources when throwing out stats.
I think the headcount of the bureaucracy, relative to the size of the country being managed, is a very relevant metric of the efficiency of the system. I mean after all, in a private company it would be pretty impressive if the company nearly doubled in size without adding substantially to the number of managers.
The point isn't that the federal government isn't large, it's that it's a complete mispreception to assert that the TSA is a good microcosm of the federal government. The TSA is a traditional bloated bureaucracy, with tons of government employees doing not much of anything. That's not what most of the federal government looks like. I've worked in a federal agency and in the private sector, and if anything the federal agency was better run and more leanly staffed.
In reality, 95% of federal expenditures are just checks to other people. Checks to farmers to subsidize agriculture, checks to states to subsidize highway construction, Social Security checks, Medicare reimbursement checks, etc.
The fact is that people rant up and down about how bloated the federal government is, but nobody can ever point to non-trivial ways to reduce spending. And the reason is that it's not a matter of simply firing a bunch of bureaucrats that sit on their ass doing nothing--there just aren't very many of those people. Rather, it's all about not writing those checks. Writing a $20 billion check to subsidize suburban commuters instead of $40 billion, cutting grandma's social security check by 20%, etc. That's where all the money goes.
Probably, yes. But at least private entities can be (and frequently are) killed by customers starving them of their income - this can happen passively by simply not buying their products anymore. Public sectors ones need politicians to actively invest political capital in not just removing it, but figuring out what it was meant to do in the first place, how to do it better and then setup a new entity that's better - so there's very high friction to take on the task. Obviously, also, anyone who takes on TSA opens himself up to being labeled "soft on national security".
Of course, there are many anemic private companies that are kept alive for various reasons long beyond their reasonable lifetime, but generally this holds. Private companies come and go much faster than public sector ones.
That said, I'm not sure airport security is necessarily a good fit for a private company.
I think a good example to point to would be Pinkerton security, which for example guards some military bases when needed for things like air shows. They are highly trained at security. The TSA seems to hire almost anyone that is breathing and hasn't been to prison. They seem completely unconcerned with security and more concerned with being rule-bent weirdos.
I'm not saying that the guards couldn't be privately employed (which is the case in SFO, for an example) - as long as they have to enforce TSA stupid rules, that doesn't matter (anecdotal evidence suggests the guards in SFO are friendlier than average, but this can have many causes).
I was referring to making security a private concern in the same way operating an airline is a private concern - that I struggle to see how would work: How do you align the long-term interest that a terror attack doesn't occur with the short-term horizon of an industry that bankrupts itself every decade?
On the other hand, FAA seems to be mostly sane and evidence-driven, so they might take on the task of creating and maintaining the regulatory framework that private airport security would operate under.
I flew yesterday and found a rifle bullet+cartridge on the "secure" side of the TSA checkpoint. Yet somehow the gift-wrapped paperbacks in my checked luggage were deemed suspicious and unwrapped. Useless fools.
You know, it's not entirely unreasonable that someone could package a bomb to look like a gift-wrapped paperback. So if their technology can't distinguish your book from a potential explosive via X-rays alone, it may have to get opened. Explosives detection results in false alarms, unfortunately, but as far as I know most countries do it and it rarely results in such inconvenience to passengers.
The rifle cartridge is obviously on their contraband list, so it should have been caught. Someone probably brought it through accidentally. .22 LR?
My SO once bought a small blender (less the blade) through in her hand luggage - I understand and respect why they asked to take a closer look at that. But if a bomb is indistinguishable from a paperback, then a bomb is indistinguishable from a bag full of clothes. Which means that the current level of security is woefully inadequate and only by opening up all luggage and carefully sifting through every one inch layer of material can we find hidden bombs.
Rather, this seems like a perfect example of the self-perpetuation suggested in the article. It takes a while, so there's a line, it look very meticulous and the victim isn't going to complain, or he might risk finding himself on a do-not-fly or do-harass list.
It was sitting on the ground at the end of the table where you collect your belongings and repack your laptop. I showed it to TSA agent and went on my way.
While the TSA is messed up and all that, Americans shouldn't be too quick to turn to private companies. Private companies would be profit focused, this means that any way to minimise costs will be taken which may compromise security. I give you Blackwater in Iraq as a good example
I hope we get someone profit focused, because if they repeatedly violate our rights, then we (or the airlines) can do something about it and fire them, therefore removing their profit. In the current system, the incompetent TSA suckles on the taxpayers teet regardless of the quality of their work. The politicians justify their existence with the biggest lie ever used to take our rights: safety.
Also, since when is "profit" a bad word? Using the means of free trade to improve one's situation is the foundation of civilization. People act as if the quest for profit turns you into some sort of Scrooge McDuck figure who counts dollars and stashes money away never to be seen again.
The pre-2001 screening was perfectly fine, and would still work today (maybe excepting the improvements to detecting plastic explosives, although I imagine that screening would have picked up the detonators just fine). The other major improvement to security was locking, reinforced cockpit doors, which should have been the standard on all commercial aircraft from the start.
What went wrong during 9/11 was that passengers assumed that a hijacking was a financially-motivated detour, rather than a political/religious attack on our ways of life (and prior to that day, there was no reason to assume otherwise). As such, there was very little resistance to the hijackers as people didn't want to get cut by a relatively small knife. Had they had even the faintest idea that failure to resist could have resulted in what happened, you can say with 100% confidence that things would have gone down differently.
Basically, that trick was good once and once only, regardless of the change in security policy that it brought about. And let's face it - only an idiot would try that again; there are targets with far higher value (and probably much more exploitable security flaws) if someone wanted to send a message again.
> only an idiot would try that again; there are targets with far higher value (and probably much more exploitable security flaws) if someone wanted to send a message again.
Specifically, the large gatherings of tightly-clustered people waiting at a security checkpoint are much more vulnerable than any plane full of passengers.
The number of times I've wanted to find a non-harmful way to prove that point (smoke grenades come to mind)... but the risk to me is not worth it, and all it would do is introduce some sort of pre-security screening that completely fails to solve the problem.
There are good private companies and bad ones. A good company is going to cut costs where costs need to be cut without sacrificing the quality of the product/service. I'm sure there are a number of good security companies that would provide excellent security, and do it cheaper.
at times I wonder if this is not the unwritten goal of many agencies. We have an incredible duplication of effort on the part of many aid agencies and no progress is usually attempted to weed that out, how would we even begin with this one?
this reminds me of another article written a little while ago http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-18/how-airport-...
which discussed how it is incredibly less safe to drive than to fly (even with terrorist attacks) and that the increased security of the TSA is making more people drive instead, which has caused a lot more accidents and deaths because of it. both interesting.
Because campaigns are run for the good of the candidate, not the good of the country or the people. If the campaign thought that promising to fix the TSA would be a net positive to attaining their goal of winning the election then they would do so.
The same analysis explains why very few important issues are discussed, and why even then, they are spoken of in a series of talking points previously gauged to insure a net positive result.
Why do people accept this reality when talking about the TSA, but not other government agencies? All government agencies are like this, especially the Federal ones.
The TSA is a pet issue of the upper-middle class because they annoy and harass them frequently and they are an easy and relatively safe way to push back against a police style authority. They're a figurehead of what was lost after 9/11.
The TSA is also an obvious waste. They aren't that much different before hand although, their function were covered by a hodgepodge of regulations usually dictated by the FAA and private airport security employed at airports US wide.
The upper-middle class tends to set the agenda for the media in general. They're also the archetype of what are depicted in TV shows and so on. Why the recent school shooting became a national outrage is probably because they were a middle class school. The death toll also added to it.
I wish you didn't use that sneering tone. Class warfare by the upper class is a real thing, but trivializing every item as "pet issue" of this or that class doesn't help anybody and makes you look like a loony.
Airport security in the US is now significantly worse than anywhere else, and it has nothing to do with class.
Dude, poor people don't fly. It absolutely has to do with class.
The systems set up to serve the poor are significantly worse than the TSA in every way, and I say this as someone who hates the TSA with a white hot passion. But the blogosphere isn't filled with tirades about how stupid, ineffective, wasteful and absurd the process is for obtaining food stamps, for example. Or getting a menial job, or getting adequate legal representation, or fighting slumlords, or getting police protection, or any number of things.
We hear about the TSA much more often because it overwhelmingly affects the wealthy.
Reread what I wrote: Class warfare by the upper class is a real thing, but trivializing every item as "pet issue" of this or that class doesn't help anybody and makes you look like a loony.
I'm not saying it's not true that some topics get more attention because they affect a certain class, but that if the problems are real (and we agree the TSA is a problem) and do not depend on class divide (and the TSA does not, at this point, depend on that), in strategic terms there is no point in bringing up the topic.
Getting annoyed by airport security has everything to do with class - you need to fly often enough to find it annoying.
We don't talk about stop and frisk over and over again on HN because most of us don't live in areas where we are subjected to that police behavior every time we go out for a walk.
He was asking why so much media _attention_ was being focused on the TSA vs other government agencies, not how the US compares to the rest of the world, or if it was class warfare.
It's really true that the media uses the upper-middle class as the focus group. The upper class, the %0.1, is too alien, too small, too smart, too international and thus too unrelatable for most Americans, so the upper-middle sets the tone instead.
You also have to separate UCSIS, the scary border organization with teeth and a horrible attitude, and the TSA, the organization that takes your water bottles away.
Also, you need to have money to fly a lot, and that starts around upper-middle class.
The TSA is more actively harmful to the freedoms we (supposedly) cherish, and is a strong push towards a surveillance society and a police state. Many other agencies are equally unproductive (or actually do something useful, just in a very inefficient manner), but not actively working against something we care about.
The TSA is also extremely visible in the public's eye.
How many people do you know that have complained that the CIA was spying on them, vs. how many people do you know who have complained that they got government-groped?
And many other agencies aren't _actively_ working against things we care about -- that is, obstruction per se isn't generally their goal. But they're still obstructive just the same.
I take it you don't care about a quasi-reasonable budget, the kind without a deficit of ~1/3. Or about the economic growth lost when tax dollars siphon it out of the broader economy. (Or even away from alternative quasi-productive government infrastructure projects.)
Unsurprising, really; there are entire political parties based on the premise of not caring about those things, and in many countries. ;)
People say the same things about the DEA and IRS quite frequently. (Short-sighted people also say it about things like NPR, NASA, and the EPA.) Complaining about government waste is one of the great American pastimes.
In any bureaucracy, the people devoted to the benefit of the bureaucracy itself always get in control and those dedicated to the goals the bureaucracy is supposed to accomplish have less and less influence, and sometimes are eliminated entirely.