Let us remember a few more things about this:

A pile of things confiscated from passengers is NOT an indication of efficiency against terrorist plans. All that demonstrates is that you cannot see what has flown on commercial aircraft for decades.

When you do not search the luggage, the catering supplies or the aircraft servicers, you do not protect the plane, no matter what else you do.

When you do not do background checks and immediately disqualify the persons who fail the check from aircraft or passenger access, you enable criminal acts.

Lastly: if you claim that patting down anyone protects the USA from terrorist attack, you merely broadcast your ignorance for all to see - for we ship hundreds of millions of tons of hazardous materials daily.

Theater. Don't tell me how stupid you are by claiming it's something else.

The key here, as PJ O'Rourke would say, is that you can't measure outputs. We can't say we're 10% safer or 40% safer or 10% less safe. So all the TSA has to measure is INPUTS: money spent, women gropes, guns confiscated. It's literally the only measure of "success" they can imagine.

Could it be a plan to get people used to the idea that they should stand in line and let whomever is giving the orders do what they please?

Nah, never happen.

Ironically my spell checker wants to change "Nah" to "Bah"

Imagine the terrorism that would have taken place, had it not been for the TSA.

(Apologies to John Lennon, in the people's key oc C)

Imagine there's no haven,
It's easy if you try
No cell below us,
Above us only sky,
Imagine all the people straight to their gates

Imagine there's no groping,
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to probe or pry for,
No no-fly lists too,
Imagine all the people living life in peace

You, you may say
I'm a schemer, but I'm just here on a trip
I hope some day you'll see that
Your job prevents no terror

He wants us to trust that a 400-ml bottle of liquid is dangerous, but transferring it to four 100-ml bottles magically makes it safe.

Bruce Schneier may be a security expert, but he doesn't seem to know much about explosives.

Hint: it's not about the liquid.

TSA hasn't found a single terrorist because there haven't been any to find. The whole terrorist threat has been blown out of proportion. If there were potential terrorists that TSA was effective at discouraging or thwarting, then those terrorists would have attacked other targets - trains, buses, ferries, stadiums, malls, schools, amusement parks...

Really?

When you do not search the luggage, the catering supplies or the aircraft servicers, you do not protect the plane, no matter what else you do.

I don't know about catering supplies, but SFAIK, all luggage is scanned. And on my last flight, my checked luggage also got searched.

Ahh, Jeff again.

Then you should be able to cite the method, and explain why it is that checked luggage gets stolen in the process.

Not to mention how the loaders discriminate between ammunition - which is totally legal to ship by air - and any destructive device.

If you do not have access to your bag, there is no reason for manual search.

Then you should be able to cite the method, and explain why it is that checked luggage gets stolen in the process.

Why?

Seriously, why should I have to be able to cite the method? Why should I have to explain why stuff gets stolen? (I had spare cash and credit cards in there that they didn't steal. Does that make a difference?

Not to mention how the loaders discriminate between ammunition - which is totally legal to ship by air - and any destructive device.

By X-raying the luggage.

If you do not have access to your bag, there is no reason for manual search.

Says you.

Perhaps, though, the X-ray image showed something ambiguous or suspicious. I had a laptop in my suitcase, and I was packed for a two week trip. Maybe the image wasn't clear enough to be for them to be sure what it was.

As not having access to my bag obviating the need for a search, you are right.

Because, as we all know, there is no such thing as suicide bombers.

Guinn won't hear this said, but 'protecting' every airliner as the TSA claims to do is simply not worthwhile, even if they're sincerely able.

They're not.

"Seriously, why should I have to be able to cite the method?"

Because you have the burden of proof in supporting TSA searches.

That's simple logic. It's not an opinion. Look up fallacies while you're at it.

Because, as we all know, there is no such thing as suicide bombers. -- Jeff Guinn at October 27, 2012 7:45 PM

If bombs were effective and simple then the Lockerbie bombing would have been repeated multiple times between 21 December 1988 and 11 September 2001. That's 4647 days or 13 years. Where was the TSA in that time?

[Crid:] Guinn won't hear this said, but 'protecting' every airliner as the TSA claims to do is simply not worthwhile, even if they're sincerely able.

Worthwhile, compared to what?

You have said this before, but, unless I missed something, the alternative has always been a nullity.

[Radwaste:] Because you have the burden of proof in supporting TSA searches.

No, I don't. The TSA has found no bombs, and there have been no airliners that originated in the US over the entire history of the TSA that has been bombed. There have been attempts from outside the US during that period.

One explanation completely consistent with those facts is that the TSA is sufficiently effective to completely deter would-be bombers.

It is a heck of a lot more plausible than asserting their aren't any, which must be your assertion.

[Jim P:] If bombs were effective and simple then the Lockerbie bombing would have been repeated multiple times between 21 December 1988 and 11 September 2001.

What, 10 not multiple enough for you?

Silly morons, dont you people realise the TSA has been so sucessful that they prevented bombing years before they were even created? Right Jeff?

What, 10 not multiple enough for you? -- Jeff Guinn at October 28, 2012 12:36 AM

No three from your own source:

Avianca Flight 203, a Boeing 727 flying from Bogota to Cali was bombed on 27 November 1989. That was Colombia and an assassination attempt, not a terrorist attack. Yes people are dead and it doesn't make a difference to them and the families. It was also not targeted at the U.S.

The other ones prior to 9/11 did damage but they did not bring down any planes.

But the security the TSA provides is theater and not fact. This is the same type of theater as the gun buster signs at the theater in Aurora, Colorado.

There were eight CCW licensees watching the movie that night. They weren't carrying because the theater had gun buster signs up. The criminal didn't care.

Trusting someone else to protect your safety is almost always a false trust and sense of security. I'd rather have 10 CCW holders flying with loaded firearms on an aircraft than a bunch of disarmed sheep that don't want face the fact that the world is not safe and secure.

> Worthwhile, compared to what?

Compared to not having 60,000 people molested, humiliated and delayed by their own government every day for ten years.

[Jim P:] No three from your own source:

No, ten. A bombing doesn't become not a bombing when it fails, or isn't completely successful.

Moreover, you seem perfectly happy to in contradiction to ample evidence that attacking airliners is easy.

It can't be, because if it was, it would happen, a lot.

Unless you are happy to conclude, again in the face of ample evidence, that there aren't any groups out there who have the means and the desire.

It is an undeniable fact that there have been 10 bombings or attempts since 9/11, and everyone of them originated outside the US.

Why?

But the security the TSA provides is theater and not fact.

Nonsense. The scanners will detect a piece of paper. All your carry-ons and shoes get X-rayed. And 100% of checked luggage is screened.

But hey, why take my word for it. Why don't you try to sneak something that looks like a bomb -- a container, some wires, fusing, power source -- through on your next flight.

Tell us how it turns out.

[lujlp:] ... dont you people realise the TSA has been so sucessful that they prevented bombing years before they were even created? Right Jeff?

Wrong, lujlp.

What is different between pre- and post-9/11? (The demarcation isn't exact, but it will serve.) The huge increase in suicide bombings. Before then nearly all terrorist attacks against airliners didn't include the attackers getting killed. Since then, suicide attacks of all kinds have become so commonplace you have apparently become accustomed to them.

Defending against a non-suicidal attack is far easier than if the attacker doesn't care to survive.

[crid:] Compared to not having 60,000 people molested, humiliated and delayed by their own government every day for ten years.

That is a perfect example of arguing a null.

Instead of the current screening system, what?

Something, nothing?

What level of risk are you willing to accept (on others' behalf)?

Oh, and it is worth noting that all the incidents that get Amy bleating have to do with refusing the scanner, which is fast, effective, and has been changed to eliminate all anatomical details from the results.

(BTW, not 60,000. 1.5 million per average day, which amounts to at least 750K screenings per day, assuming every trip by air constitutes two legs.)

Umm, Jeff - haven't looked up fallacies yet, have you?

No.

Jim's point is that you cited things from before TSA existed.

Mine is that to make the claim that TSA prevented something, you must also show that nothing else prevented that something. It's identical to the exclusionary rule in evidence. Claim that God™ healed someone, you must show that it was not Zeus™.

There are NO OTHER terrorist acts occurring in the USA, despite a vast number of opportunities. Either the "threat" does not exist (killing of an ambassador argues against that) or another agency is preventing attacks.

Because TSA groping people for wanting to fly on an airplane doesn't even pass the first giggle test about "preventing terrorism".

Enjoy your patdowns. Hope the guy changes gloves for you.

Instead of the current screening system, what?

Um, hows about the exact same screening as on Sept 10, 2001 + no cutting tools

My father worked for NCS Pearson when they were awarded the government contract to re-do all of the airport security. He did the hiring. He was not impressed by the low standards required for working as a "security agent," and voiced that the people who were being hired had literally just walked out of Pizza Hut and McDonald's for these new jobs. He knew it was a government scam then, but after retiring from the military (served 27 years full-time active duty, commissioned officer) could not find a job so took that one. They were lucky to have him.

> That is a perfect example of arguing a null.

Aw-con-trary/dairy. Your thesis, that these people have protected us, is the one that's untestable.

> Instead of the current screening
> system, what?

Courage and stoicism. Recognition that government isn't Dad, and Dad isn't supposed to chase the goblins from under the bed anyway.

There's going to be another successful attack on a place whether or not we terrorize everyone. Afterwards, we'll find the people we need to find.

Meanwhile there have been (365 * 10 * 60000 =) 219,000,000 inexcusable assaults on Americans by their government... Assaults which — we clearly see – have weakened their sense of responsibility and proportion.

Not tolerable. Not forgivable.

Something, nothing?

No, ten. A bombing doesn't become not a bombing when it fails, or isn't completely successful.

Only three happened in prior to 9/11 from Lockerbie. I can tell reading comprehension is not your forte'

If bombs were effective and simple then the Lockerbie bombing would have been repeated multiple times between 21 December 1988 and 11 September 2001. That's 4647 days or 13 years. Where was the TSA in that time?

Moreover, you seem perfectly happy to in contradiction to ample evidence that attacking airliners is easy.

I never said it was easy. But the TSA is not and never was needed. I'll post more on that in a moment. But really that paragraph makes no sense.

It can't be, because if it was, it would happen, a lot.

But it hasn't happened often. So what has the TSA really done differently than before 9/11? Groped people for no reason? I was porno-scanned, groped, luggage thoroughly searched just because I didn't want a 10ML (smaller than a shot glass) clearly marked vial of medicine not to go through the X-Ray machine because I was worried it could be damaged.

If you think that is right, I don't want to be near you. What if they say you have to be strip searched? On the open floor in front of everyone?

You have no grasp on reality.

For all you regular readers of the Goddess' blog you can skip past this post. I'm going to post my regular rant about not needing the TSA. For all you new readers, please read it carefully and refute any statement or misstatement. ;-)

=================================================
The TSA was not needed one hour and one minute after Tower II was hit!

The paradigm, the norm, the expected, what everyone was taught to do was to sit down, shut up and wait for the plane to land and the negotiations happen. That was the model from Entebbe onward.

The passengers on board did not really know what was about to happen on September 11, 2001 at 8:46:30 when Flight 11 struck Tower I.

Even the passengers on Flight 175 probably didn't realize what was about to happen when they struck Tower II at 9:03:02.

The Pentagon crash of Flight 77 at 9:37:46 may have been still a matter of ignorance.

At 10:03:11 on September 11, 2001, United Airlines Flight 93 crashed after the brave souls counter-attacked and caused the hijackers to crash the plane.

The time difference is 60 minutes and 9 seconds from Tower II being struck to the crash of Flight 93. The shoe bomber and panty bomber were taken down by fellow passengers as well. Recently, JetBlue's Flight 191 pilot was taken down by the passengers once he was out of the cockpit. Additionally how many times have you heard of passengers' concerns and diverted flights?

The TSA is and has always been a joke, no make that a total stupidity, that has wasted our country's fortune going down a rabbit hole.

If you don't believe me look at the 9/11 timeline.

There will never be another 9/11 style attack unless the attackers can arrange planes full of geriatrics, and even then it would be doubtful.

Oh, and someone brought bombs being an issue. If bombs were effective and simple then the Lockerbie bombing would have been repeated multiple times between 21 December 1988 and 11 September 2001. That's 4647 days or 13 years. Where was the TSA in that time. There was one successful bombing that was done in Colombia and two unsuccessful attempts in that time.

[Radwaste:] Jim's point is that you cited things from before TSA existed.

Wrong.

To repeat myself again:

What is different between pre- and post-9/11? (The demarcation isn't exact, but it will serve.) The huge increase in suicide bombings.

Every airliner bombing, or attempt, since 9/11 has been by splodeydope. Of all the bombings prior to 9/11, only one, in 1962, killed the perpetrator, who apparently had no agenda beyond suicide.

Since you are such an expert on fallacies, how about telling me which one I committed?

There are NO OTHER terrorist acts occurring in the USA, despite a vast number of opportunities. Either the "threat" does not exist (killing of an ambassador argues against that) or another agency is preventing attacks.

You are kidding, right? Right? Tell me you are kidding.

If I remember correctly, there was a terrorist shooting at LAX that killed 3.

And, once again relying on memory, there was a Maj Hasan -- you might have heard of him -- who killed 13 and wounded 29.

And an attempted bombing in New York that failed, but not due to any detection beforehand.

And that is since 9/11. I can think of at least a few more examples from beforehand.

[Amy:] Rad is correct.

No, he is wrong twice: couldn't see an obvious distinction, and he has a decidedly flexible notion of the phrase "NO OTHER terrorist attacks ..."

Which puts him on about the same level of credibility as your "expert" is on explosives.

[lujlp:] Um, hows about the exact same screening as on Sept 10, 2001 + no cutting tools

Who the heck is talking about guns, or cutting tools?

[me:] > That is a perfect example of arguing a null.

[crid:} Aw-con-trary/dairy. Your thesis, that these people have protected us, is the one that's untestable.

You don't understand what I mean by arguing a null. My assertion is that unless we screen passengers sufficiently to keep this off of airplanes, then Islamists will start blowing them up.

You are arguing a null because you don't offer up any alternative. Is there another way? If there isn't, how many blown up airliners are an acceptable cost?

All kinds of things in life aren't testable. But my thesis is completely consistent with the facts: using splodeydopes, Islamists have successfully (and by successful, I mean they got a bomb on the plane that, if it functioned properly, could have brought the plane down) attacked US airliners; Islamists, for various reasons, consider airliners extremely high value targets; and none of those attacks have occurred in the US. In this case, absence of evidence is evidence of absence, particularly when there is ample evidence of presence elsewhere.

Only three happened in prior to 9/11 from Lockerbie. I can tell reading comprehension is not your forté

Apologies; I was entire period since Lockerbie. You, however, completely missed the germaine point since 9/11: suicide attacks.

Groped people for no reason? I was porno-scanned, groped, luggage thoroughly searched just because I didn't want a 10ML (smaller than a shot glass) clearly marked vial of medicine not to go through the X-Ray machine because I was worried it could be damaged.

Let me make one thing perfectly clear: I have never said the TSA is efficient, only that the TSA is effective. The scanners are effective and completely devoid of anatomical details. All luggage is scanned.

If you think that is right, I don't want to be near you. What if they say you have to be strip searched? On the open floor in front of everyone?

Speaking of logical fallacies, that is a pretty good example of reduction ad absurdum. Although it might be a better example of a straw man. That's toughie; could even be both.

The shoe bomber and panty bomber were taken down by fellow passengers as well.

After they would have been dead, Mr. Reality.

---

And after all this, I can't help but notice everyone of you willingly undergoes all manner of medical procedures far more invasive than a mere strip search.

Which is perfectly OK when you have skin in the game.

It takes 1250 colonoscopies to prevent one death.

Yet all of you will, should you make it past fifty, willingly submit to having a snake shoved up your fundament.

But walk through a scanner to save someone else? Hell with 'em (which is basically the crid option).

If bombs were effective and simple then the Lockerbie bombing would have been repeated multiple times between 21 December 1988 and 11 September 2001. That's 4647 days or 13 years. Where was the TSA in that time. There was one successful bombing that was done in Colombia and two unsuccessful attempts in that time.

Just in case I didn't get through the first time, on 9/11 the weapon delivery system changed.

About which you haven't said a darn thing.

Who is talking about cutting tools Jeff? I thought you were

The TSA wasnt implemented to prevent suicide bombers you slack jawed sheep fucker, it was created to prevent another "9/11 style attack"

If you are to fucking stupid to understand what happened on 9/11 let me remind you, 19 hijackers across four planes took control of the cock pit buy using box cutters

NOT SUICIDE BOMB VESTS just box cutters

They then flew their commandered planes into buildings

NO BOMB WHAT SO EVER

Who is talking about cutting tools Jeff? I thought you were.

Then you have less reading comprehension than my dog.

And that isn't the only kind of profound comprehension disability you have.

> You don't understand what I mean by
> arguing a null.

Sure do... And don't understand why you accuse others of making the error you later concede you're making.

I affirm that the TSA is useless, that it would and will stop no one seriously intending to drop a plane. Furthermore, the preparedness of passengers to respond to threats was a much greater brake on the less serious of those you call "terrorists" than the professional forces could ever be.

There are teenage boys in America who can't get laid, and it will be the pattern of their lives. They will trouble us in this topic in two ways.

In the first way, they will seize Islam from the comfort of their California suburbs as an exotic cover for their social incompetence. They'll spend two weeks in Saudi Arabia, after which someone will send them home on an airplane with explosives disguised in a can of deodorant, which will fail to detonate. Is such a person a terrorist? OK, how about if he doesn't bring an explosive on board, but merely frightens an old woman flying home from Paris by wearing a shitty beard? Is he still a terrorist? If someone steaks popcorn on the way to their gate, will you call them a terrorist?

Exactly how much heartache do you think government can and should protect us from? Why would they ever bother, when federal paycheck is so good whether they succeed or fail?


I further affirm that most TSA employees are bitter, undereducated, overweight, over-paid, careerist fuckballs who will scurry like rodents for every bit of power they can accrue over other human beings.

Specifically, consider the woman who molested Amy a couple years back, and consider how many lonely men will now aspire to work for the TSA to enjoy giving just those kinds of pat-downs... But for anticipated thrills, not momentary resentment. This brings us to the second kind of young man who can't get laid.

For most of my life, that kind of stupidity was just not tolerated in the United States of America. If you were not-too-bright, or cowardly, or plainly underdeveloped socially, there was nowhere you could go to put on a badge and feel up women under cover of authority. This was perhaps one of the things that made our society unique in human history. Of course, thousands or hundreds of thousands of men pressed their luck... We've always read stories of priests and dentists and doctors who got carried away when women were under sedation or otherwise incapacitated. But those stories were always of prosecution.

Well, not any more. I've not read ONE story of a TSA agent prosecuted for misconduct, and it's just not possible that they're not out there. We've taken a huge step back in our country, and of course, women are going to bear the brunt of the retreat: We're allowing a very particular kind of creep, the anti-social fifth grader, to believe he has an adult future of irresponsible fulfillment IF ONLY HE CAN GET A JOB AT THE AIRPORT.

> unless we screen passengers sufficiently
> to keep this off of airplanes

Well, let's follow your link. Two lines pop from the screen:

a flight from Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Pasay City, the Philippines, to New Tokyo International…

United States prosecutors said the device was a "Mark II" "microbomb"…

So, it wasn't even a United States flight, but the United States did the investigation.

Of course… Of course we did. This happened and we responded. We get the call whenever these things happen, and often do the best investigation even when we're not asked to participate. So your line viewed whole is confounding:

> unless we screen passengers sufficiently
> to keep this off of airplanes, then
> Islamists will start blowing them up.

It's the word "start" that's so weird... You're offering a terribly weak version of the 'The Slippery Slope', as if there were still some genie who we've kept in a bottle, threatening mischief we'd not be able to answer.

I'm reminded of my hero Lomborg, who chides the global warming fearmongers for talking about rising sea levels as if we'll have no way to respond... For talking as if the world's poor are going to stand fast and immobile at the shoreline, decade after decade, as the water rises to their ankles, their knees, and eventually moistens their crotches, even if their Alzheimers is too severe for them to notice.

Well, no! By the end of this century, the impoverished shore-dwellers will be much richer, just like the rest of us, and they'll have resources to apply to the problem. (And the problem will be inches or fractions of inches, not whole leg-lengths.)

And so it is with airliner attacks. Another one will happen someday. Those deaths can never grow to be a pattern. We won't permit it, any more than we permit the mechanical failures which occasionally claim so many more lives than terrorism does. When the attack comes, we'll find out who did it, who his friends are, and who put up the money. The last time it happened, we pummeled Al Qaeda in two massive, essentially ongoing wars: They might well regret 9/11. Any success you might attribute to those attacks comes more from TSA than from anything Bin Laden could ever have imagined.

> All kinds of things in life aren't
> testable.

And we cannot speak conclusively about those things.

> Islamists, for various reasons, consider
> airliners extremely high value targets

I'm thinking it has something to do with a disproportional fearfulness, the basis of which has yet to be explored in this forum. (Ahem.) Lightning kills people. HURRICANES kill people. And on and on...

> In this case, absence of evidence
> is evidence of absence

There's no reason to think so. There's no reason to think we must compromise rationality with respect to airline travel.

> And after all this, I can't help
> but notice everyone of you willingly
> undergoes all manner of medical procedures
> far more invasive than a mere
> strip search.

For much, MUCH better payoff! If these humiliating, schedule-choking, embarrassingly cowardly and unnecessary assaults provided useful information about our own health, your case would be much stronger, covalent with those for fluoridated water and other public blessings.

But no. Monsters like the she-beast Napolitano thrive in government, bringing uncounted thousands of horrific fuckoffs to the federal payroll, where their diabetes will be treated at our expense.

She is not doing this for you, Jeff.

You want to talk about learning disabilities Jeff?

You, a guy who advocates for a program that spends billions acomplishes nothing, and preforms worse that the private firm the airports used to hire?