"Send In The Clowns!" Like That'll Make You Forget That The TSA Clowns Are Delaying You Into Missing Your Flight
Passengers are missing their flights by the thousands because of the long lines of passengers waiting to be scanned and groped by the repurposed mall food court workers providing pretend security. (Passengers waited up to three hours at O'Hare.)
The explanation you usually see for this is that they are understaffed.
(And gee, who could have predicted that more people would be traveling in, say, June than February?)
I saw a video with a rumor that they have been staging slowdowns. I haven't seen any proof of that, but boy would I love to find some.
Anyway, back to the clowns -- the NY Post Editorial Board writes that the airports are trying to make passengers feel better about spending hours and hours standing in line:
You're stuck in an airport security line that's just not moving, seemingly a mile from the scanners, worrying whether you'll make your flight and if you have any hope of getting on the next one.Relax, here comes a mime to entertain you! No, wait, it's a "comfort animal" . . .
Yes, they're adding insult to injury: Airports across the nation are hiring "entertainers" to calm the crowds left seething by Transportation Security Administration bungling.
Musicians in Atlanta, miniature horses in Cincinnati, "therapy dogs" at scattered other hubs and, yes, clowns in San Diego. (You just know some air-rage case is going to assault one of those clowns.)
At Chicago Business, Megan McArdle notes that the number of passengers at O'Hare isn't up all that much, yet screening lines were running "at least 90 minutes."
As far as I was able to tell from where I stood, all the scanners seemed to be operating, making me wonder what, exactly, extra people would have done, since no matter how many staffers you assign, only one person can pass through each checkpoint at a time. Besides, the number of passengers is not actually up at O'Hare airport that much, according to the latest numbers I could find.So I tend to place more credence on the second explanation: The TSA has slowed down screening after last summer's humiliating failure to detect almost any of the contraband in a security audit. I was fortunate enough to have enrolled in TSA Precheck, which had a blessedly short line. Nonetheless, I spent more than 20 minutes waiting to get through.
...But this is the essential logic of bureaucracy. The TSA will suffer terribly if a terrorist slips through with a bomb -- or even if the auditors make it through with a fake bomb. On the other hand, what happens to them if there are long lines? Not much. They've got to be there for eight hours, so why should they care if we are too? This is why government agencies tend to be much more attuned to remote risks than the real and persistent costs they impose on the rest of us.
First and foremost, the degradation of our civil liberties and of any notion in the public that we should stand up for them.
McArdle does the economic analysis:
A rational cost-benefit analysis might well dictate that it's better to accept some higher risk of threats than to accept the lines. O'Hare runs something in the vicinity of 150,000 domestic passengers a day through its domestic operations. Even valuing the time of all those passengers at minimum wage, a 90-minute line costs more than $1.5 million in lost value. Now, OK, some of those people didn't wait that long, but call it $1 million. Call it $500,000. Then multiply that times many days, many years. Even with an absurdly low value on the time of the passengers, that's hundreds of millions in costs -- at just one of our nation's many airports.But that's not how political and bureaucratic logic works. If the TSA loosens up its screening procedures to the point where almost everything gets through, the lines move -- but then there's not really any point in having the TSA.
Which is a conversation worth having. This security theater since Sept. 11, 2001, has probably done less to deter terrorists than the reinforced cockpit doors and passengers' new awareness that a hijacking could end in fiery death rather than, as security expert Bruce Schneier likes to say, "a week in Havana." There's a reason that the shoe bomber and the underwear bomber were subdued by their fellow passengers.
Moreover, even if the TSA does help us perfectly harden airplanes against attack -- well, as Paris demonstrated, you don't need to get on an airplane to kill a lot of people. Terror attacks can always shift to softer targets -- like, for example, vast airport security lines where hundreds of people are forced to stand crammed into a very small space. It would be a much better use of our money and time to invest in catching terrorists before they get to their target.
And she guesses like I do:
I'd bet that in the next six months, the TSA will be rewarded for the longer lines by having its budget and headcount increased.
Here's the line at Midway...looks to be about a half mile long.
Here's some of the disgusting abuse that goes on -- searches, sans probable cause, of people only guilty of needing to travel for business or wanting to visit grandma.
And here's how easily the TSA's scanners can be defeated -- thanks to Jonathan Corbett.
Given the brazen power and money grab that the TSA administrators have been perpetrating since day one, I'm going to guess this is their way of holding our feet to the fire for more money and authority.
Gog_Magog_Carpet_Reclaimers at May 18, 2016 9:33 PM
For me the sad part is that my kids, most millennials, many many people etc., just think this is natural and okay.
jerry at May 18, 2016 9:37 PM
"Musicians in Atlanta, miniature horses in Cincinnati, "therapy dogs" at scattered other hubs and, yes, clowns in San Diego. "
No cats? I'm calling that a Title IX violation, since it seems to mean whatever the fuck people want it to these days.
the other rob at May 19, 2016 5:53 AM
Exactly. Don't like delays? Give the TSA more money to hire more agents.
Because throwing bodies at a problem is the easy solution on which too many government bureaucrats rely. Instead of doing the hard work of thinking of a non-body solution, which might involve justifying an investment in technology (which might involve a presentation to senior management using math). It's easier just to hire more people.
Remember, our government is still working on Windows 7 platforms. Technology is not what the government is comfortable investing in, body count is. And a body count based solution has the added benefit of increasing the size of a bureaucrats's empire.
Unions whispering in an agency chief's ear to hire more union members and promising an easier contract negotiation the next time doesn't give any incentive to find a non-labor-intensive solution to the issue.
When you're limited to providing a minimum-wage level hourly wage, expecting high mental agility from your employee base is unrealistic. There may be many people at that wage level who are smart, well-informed, and quick, but the vast majority are not.
It's difficult to put in place complex psychological profiling methodologies when your main employment criterion is a high school diploma or GED. And it's difficult to hire people capable of putting such methodologies in place when the work you're hiring them to do is rote, repetitive, and limited in variety because of union work rules.
Conan the Grammarian at May 19, 2016 6:31 AM
Screw-ups at the IRS, the VA, ObamaCare, HRC's Email server, and plus w/TSA? Wow!
You'd guess the gov't could do all of this and no one at the top gets fired.
So yeah. Long lines. Damn shame, but whats'cha going to do. Fire someone? Bring in a PRIVATE company to replace the UNION workers? Snort.
(By the way, papers in the West say the Wall is too high 'cause people are getting hurt climbing over it. Damn White Privilege at work.)
Bob in Texas at May 19, 2016 6:36 AM
" The TSA has slowed down screening after last summer's humiliating failure to detect almost any of the contraband in a security audit. "
They have changed something about the body scanners. I'm not sure what, but it started around Christmastime last year. Since then the damn things have falsed on me nearly every time I've been through one, and that almost never used to happen to me. And it's totally random: one time it will be my ankle, the next time it's my upper back, and then the next time it's my waistband. I haven't changed anything about the way I dress to go through security.
Cousin Dave at May 19, 2016 7:23 AM
"Given the brazen power and money grab that the TSA administrators have been perpetrating since day one, I'm going to guess this is their way of holding our feet to the fire for more money and authority."
Yep. That's government funding logic. If you are doing a poor job and you're behind schedule, it's because you don't have enough resources, and you have a good case for a budget increase. If you are doing a good job and everything is going well, and heaven forbid you don't spend all the money appropriated to you, you are sure to get a cut in the next cycle.
Cousin Dave at May 19, 2016 7:25 AM
...and Heaven forbid you're flying American, where you'll have to wait 45 minutes to print your boarding pass and check your bag before you can even go to the security line, because their self-check stations are always down.
I *hate* flying.
ahw at May 19, 2016 8:17 AM
I wonder too if this isn't some ploy to get people to sign up for precheck so that they have even more information on us.
Daghain at May 19, 2016 9:36 AM
Anybody else following the Egyptian Air flight that went down? It originated in Paris. CNN pointed out that a bunch of workers- like baggage handlers- were fired a year or so ago because they had connections with either radical Islamist or terrorist organizations...
ahw at May 19, 2016 10:43 AM
I remember many of the same problems before the 9/11 attacks when passengers were screened by private security. The lines are new, but I'm not inclined to think that going back to private security is going to solve all our problems. Still, it's an option and I'm glad some airports are looking at it.
I wish there was a way to make the airlines responsible; they're the ones with the real profit motive here.
Kevin at May 19, 2016 10:44 AM
"Anybody else following the Egyptian Air flight that went down? "
It's being followed intensely where I work. All day we've been keeping an eye on the news channels, and checking Aviation Herald every so often for updates. So far, it doesn't scream terrorism to me. Things happened over a period of 20 minutes or so, so I don't think it was a bomb. It may have been a hijacking and cockpit struggle. But I'm also seeing reports that there were volcanic ash warnings in the area.
Cousin Dave at May 19, 2016 1:42 PM
AH is a resource previously unknown here, thanks for suggesting it.
Crid at May 20, 2016 12:12 AM
"It may have been a hijacking and cockpit struggle."
In early coverage, CNN mentioned, then tiptoed around the Egyptair 990 crash, claiming that no one knew what happened on that flight.
Yes - yes, we do. 990 was crashed on purpose by a religious zealot (guess what kind). The incident report is quite clear at JACDEC; an easier read is here.
Radwaste at May 20, 2016 5:58 AM
Amy Alkon
https://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2016/05/send-in-the-clo.html#comment-6484266">comment from RadwasteThanks, Raddy.
Amy Alkon
at May 20, 2016 5:59 AM
Doesn't anyone do pre-check? We (2 adults and a child, all with the same last name), flew from Portland airport, changed at Seattle, arrived in San Jose CA airport. We flew Delta. We did the precheck online, only had carry-on luggage. We used one of the kiosks to check in. The precheck line was separate from the line which looked like the one above. Our stuff was scanned on the conveyor belt, we walked through a scanning machine, and that was it. The whole thing took about 5 minutes.
Samm at May 20, 2016 4:54 PM
No cats?
Cats wouldn't put up with it (see the expression 'like herding cats'). Plus, they would violate the no sharp objects rule.
There are so many places I'd love to visit in the US. But never going to happen now. There is no way I'm putting up with shuffling through an hour queue for 'security'.
Although I'd probably quite welcome the groping at the end. Is there any TSA themed porn yet? There must be.(Is that a suspicious package, or are you just pleased to see me?)
Ltw at May 20, 2016 8:08 PM
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