Time to Close the Security Theater

[|Elflocko|]

[size="5"]Time to Close the Security Theater[/size]

[size="4"]Jun. 30 2011 - 2:27 pm


You’ve probably heard about what columnist Gene Healy calls “the TSA’s latest ritual humiliation of an innocent traveler.” Just for the record, I don’t rest any easier knowing that the TSA is keeping me safe from wheelchair-bound 95-year old leukemia patients who might be hiding bombs in their adult diapers. Naturally, people are calling for reform. Keith Olbermann, for example, called for TSA administrator John Pistole to be fired.

Some of the fury over this continues to miss the point, though. The problem isn’t that the TSA is harassing the wrong people. The problem is that the TSA is harassing anyone. The TSA is encroaching on fundamental liberties and providing no discernable benefit. I’ve written before that the TSA should be abolished. The latest outrage is just more evidence in the case against a government administration we would be better off without.

The Transportation Security Administration does not provide transportation security. It provides what security expert Bruce Schneier calls “security theater.” The effect of the all the trimmings and trappings at airport security is to give travelers the impression that the government is going about Very Serious Business. The net effect, though, is perhaps a trivial increase in safety achieved at massive costs in terms of time, treasure, and lives: it is well known that driving is more dangerous than flying. By making flying less convenient, we encourage people to drive more. Substitution away from flying and toward driving costs lives, on net.

Naturally, the TSA responds to incidents like these by saying that the agents are highly trained and that they have followed proper procedure. This indicates a signal failing for the agency: if “doing it by the book” involves touching people in ways that would be considered sexual assault in virtually any other context or telling a 90-year old breast cancer survivor to remove her bra lest it contain explosives (as happened to a friend’s grandmother), then the book needs to be shredded and rewritten. Better yet, it needs to be replaced with a competitive market for air travel in which the airports, the airways, and the airliners are in private hands.

Some might object that private firms will have incentives to cut corners on safety. It is a legitimate concern, but competitive mechanisms tend to weed this out. It is important to remember too that just because competitive markets might not provide the best of all conceivable worlds doesn’t mean that government intervention can.

I’m coming to believe that one of the most dangerous phrases in the English language is “well, it could happen.” Yes, it could. But so could…well, anything. Just because something is possible doesn’t mean it is worth worrying about. Every day, we face much greater risks than terrorism without anxiety because the probability is so small. People have claimed that terrorism represents an “existential” threat to the United States. National security expert John Mueller puts it this way:

[i]“Until 2001, far fewer Americans were killed in any grouping of years by all forms of international terrorism than were killed by lightning, and almost none of those terrorist deaths occurred within the United States itself. Even with the September 11 attacks included in the count, the number of Americans killed by international terrorism since the late 1960s (which is when the State Department began counting) is about the same as the number of Americans killed over the same period by lightning, accident-causing deer, or sever allergic reaction to peanuts.”[/i]

This hardly suggests an existential threat, let alone a threat that justifies harassing leukemia patients and breast cancer survivors at airport security. Unfortunately, we’re going to have these problems for as long as we have a TSA. No amount of “reform” will fix it–unless, of course, that “reform” is abolition.[/size]

[Jim Finklestein]

He had me right up to [quote]Better yet, it needs to be replaced with a competitive market for air travel in which the airports, the airways, and the airliners are in private hands.

Some might object that private firms will have incentives to cut corners on safety. It is a legitimate concern, but competitive mechanisms tend to weed this out. It is important to remember too that just because competitive markets might not provide the best of all conceivable worlds doesn’t mean that government intervention can.
[/quote]
If we have found out anything after the whole bank failure debacle, it's that corps can and will cut corners to save money.

[|Bunghole|]

Why oh why do we not adopt the Israeli model? Someone please tell me how it wouldn't work here.

[|Elflocko|]

[quote name='Jim Finklestein' timestamp='1309477830' post='999330']
He had me right up to
If we have found out anything after the whole bank failure debacle, it's that corps can and will cut corners to save money.
[/quote]

Yeah, I wasn't a big fan of that part myself. Another statement folks arguing against the TSA make is "Give security back to the airlines!!!" totally forgetting or unaware that the the airlines were in charge of security in the 60's when hijackings hit their zenith in regard to numbers. We need a healthy dose of common sense.

Which means we're totally fucked...

[|Elflocko|]

[quote name='Bunghole' timestamp='1309479120' post='999335']
Why oh why do we not adopt the Israeli model? Someone please tell me how it wouldn't work here.
[/quote]

Because then they would have to hire employees with greater than a double digit IQ and pay them more than $12 per hour.

[Enon Bengal]

[quote name='Elflocko' timestamp='1309480074' post='999343']
Because then they would have to hire employees with greater than a double digit IQ [b]and pay them more than $12 per hour[/b].
[/quote]
Probably still cheaper than what it's costing us tax payers...

[|Elflocko|]

[quote name='Enon Bengal' timestamp='1309480975' post='999348']
Probably still cheaper than what it's costing us tax payers...
[/quote]

It's only cost us trillions, our dignity, our freedom...