The Corrosive Effects of the TSA and Airport "Security"

I've spent my entire career helping people and businesses mitigate the effects of extreme weather and other natural hazards, usually with considerable success.

So, as a very frequent flier, I have watched the TSA anti-terrorism train wreck unfold on three levels:
  • A, perhaps necessary, temporary security enhancement immediately after September 11 so people would not abandon air travel that,
  • Predictably degenerated into a bureaucratic mess that inconveniences and, because so many of us shift to driving for trips of up to 9 hours, even kills 500 Americans each year, while
  • Causing the largest erosion of our rights as Americans in my lifetime. 
Security expert Bruce Schneier has a terrific essay that I urge you to read in full. 

Because the cockpit doors are locked, because there is now some inspection of checked luggage (the only real improvement, when they aren't stealing from the bags), and because the passengers will attack any attacker (just as they handled the allegedly crazed jetBlue pilot two weeks ago) the chances of a successful terrorist attack like those of September 11th -- while not zero -- are small. 

Yes, there may be another attack on aviation or some other industry. But we are the "land of the free and the home of the brave." It is time to resist terror with indomitability. 

This is an election year. Please ask those campaigning for your vote what they are going to do to fix this mess. 

Comments

  1. I used to work for them. The organization has grown like the Hydra of myth, extending it's tentacles into places that it has no business. I read their blog and they say give us a pat on the back, we found knives in checked luggage. An item in checked luggage has no threat to the aircraft. Yes, it's a weapon but it's out of reach for the passengers. It's to the point of locking my carry on bags so no one will take anything out. This isn't the future I dreamed of when I was a young girl. Not even close.

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