US House 'Creator' of TSA Wants To Kill It 681
U.S. Representative John Mica (R-Florida), the sponsor of the original House bill that helped create the TSA, has become an outspoken opponent of the agency. In a recent interview, "Mica said screeners should be privatized and the agency dismantled." Mica seems to agree with other TSA critics that the agency 'failed to actually detect any threat in 10 years.' Mica is the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman and receives classified briefings on TSA. Perhaps we should trust him more than most people on this topic.
In an older ABC news article (ignore the unrelated video) Mica describes how he deals with security checkpoints. "He won't go through a full body scanner at an airport because 'I don't want them circulating pictures of my beautiful body' all over. He said he opts for a pat-down, and just 'closes his eyes and imagines a beautiful female.'"
Killing it... (Score:4, Insightful)
...to replace it with privatized equivalents.
Not really better is it?
USA (Score:5, Insightful)
USA is on MY no-fly list.
Yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
Too big (Score:5, Insightful)
The TSA is a bureaucratic monster that has grown to big to dismantle (or indeed, even control anymore). It's already starting to branch out into areas that are far beyond its mandate, all in the name of "security", of course. We'll always have that little bogeyman.
Re:Privatization? (Score:5, Insightful)
Just what we want, to pay more for less security.
Would be hard to pay more or get less than we currently do.
Re:Got my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Before everyone proclaims hallelujah (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Killing it... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not really no. The point of the TSA - a government agency that assumes accountability for security of air travel is good. The implementation as a long parade of security theatre which reacts as though past specific plans are guides to future threats is disastrously wasteful and ineffective, not to mention a drain on the economy when no one wants to travel for fear of being repeatedly groped, poked, and prodded by people in blue gloves who hate their jobs,
Or perhaps... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah... (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair the idea is that the private screeners will have a vested interest in getting passengers through quickly (since they'll be paid for by airlines/airports) and will have no financial interest in tighter security (which is good, since nothing implemented post-9/11 has helped, so it's plenty tight enough.)
To be even fairer, screening used to be entirely private and it was just as effective and less intrusive without costing anything remotely close to $8 billion a year.
Re:Got my vote (Score:3, Insightful)
If a private company gropes you, public opinion forces them to change or they go out of business from driving away airport travelers. If the government gropes you, they tell you "tough shit," which is what the TSA has been saying for the last 12 months.
It intrigues me that so many people still don't understand the huge disadvantages that come with government control, especially when they bitch so much about corporate monopolies. Governments don't have to compete for you as a customer because you're forced to use them, and you're required by law to fund their paychecks.
Re:Got my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
If there is only one provider of the service, it does not matter if it is government or a private company. If you must use them or not fly it will always be "tough shit".
Re:Got my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Trust him?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Instead of trusting the guy that originally worked to create the monstrocity, how about we trust the guy that fought against it originally? We had one outspoken guy in government saying we do not need to give up freedoms for temporary safety the day after 9/11..
Rep John Mica says 'I helped create it. It sucks. We should privatize it.'
Rep Ron Paul says 'I voted against it. It sucks. We should get rid of it.'
I believe the new cockpit doors did more to combat terrorism than all of the air marshalls and TSA screeners combined.. and the doors did not do much.
Re:Got my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
This argument would be more convincing if market competition in America actually worked the way free-market fundamentalists swear it works.
BTW, there's also a theory about how when the government gropes you, this is supposed to hurt their poll numbers and therefore their job security. You might even call it the central idea of representative democracy. Unfortunately that mechanism is just as broken as the "competition" one.
Re:Before everyone proclaims hallelujah (Score:5, Insightful)
This guy is spouting Republican talking points, saying the program is "creating too much bureaucracy" and "being wasteful government spending". Notice he doesn't actually care about the loss of privacy and rights. If he could contract a private company to strip search everyone and save money on the budget, he'd probably do it. Heck he might even be able to spin it off as "helping the job creators." Just because someone agrees with you an issue doesn't mean he agrees with you for the same reasons nor that you'd like the solutions he'd propose.
Frankly, who cares what the instigator thinks as long as the action is accomplished? Security was private before the TSA took over. The rest of the world uses private security. It's in their best interest as a private company to cut the costs and speed people through security checkpoints just doing the basic security check. It's all theatre anyway, just pay less for it. We all would win if we got rid of the TSA.
balanced. (Score:4, Insightful)
They aren't at zero - they are negative. You have to count the false detections against them as well. Their mistakes have had lasting impacts on their poor victims.
Re:Got my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
The private firm, too, can tell you to go fuck yourself.
B-b-but then you can go to the snazzy new competing airport across the street which was built with zero startup capital (and does not actually exist), and they'll give you a backrub and a blowjob and then pay YOU to fly with them and then the "go fuck yourself" airline will go out of business for lack of customers, because competition always leads to the best deal for the consumer!
Re:Got my vote (Score:2, Insightful)
This argument would be more convincing if market competition in America actually worked the way free-market fundamentalists swear it works.
That would be difficult in a country where the government feels it has the right to interfere with the market at any time in any way for any reason. You can hardly blame the free market for screwups in a country where the government feels it has the right to control carbon dioxide.
Re:Got my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
Funny how the guys who were spending.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Isn't it interesting that the very people who were spending money like drunken sailors are suddenly in favor of "smaller government" and financial conservatism? And yet almost no one is calling them on it. An entire political party apparently had an epiphany and started claiming that Obama was outspending every President in history (while Bush Jr. - all by himself - increased the national debt by over $5 trillion according to the NY Times).
I keep wondering how firing a million government employees is going to help create jobs.
Re:Make it simple (Score:2, Insightful)
Knives will never work for hijacking again. Reinforced cockpit doors aside, no knife fighter on earth is badass enough to hold his own against 12-to-1 odds in an enclosed space filled with people who are rabidly desperate to kill him.
Re:Got my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
When somebody says "Privatize", you can usually expect that they are demanding that the public employees be fired; but that the function continue to be paid for by taxpayer money, and backed by whatever force of law it previously enjoyed, just now being wielded by the employees of whatever contractor scooped up the bid. At best, this is an improvement of degree(ie. if the prior employees were genuinely a mess and the new contractor is actually efficient at something other than landing contracts); but it is not an improvement of kind: it is still state agents, paid with public money, backed by force of law. The fact that they aren't those evil public-sector workers with their wicked unions and whatnot doesn't change that a bit.
Unless proven innocent by demonstrated presence of a spine and some affinity for actual freedom, anybody who wants to "privatize the TSA" should be treated in roughly the same way as those who have shepherded along the privatization of parts of the prison industry... Shockingly enough, when your "product" is incarceration, you turn all your vaunted-efficiency-of-the-private-sector toward moving more product... Should the TSA be sacked and replaced by SecuriDyne LLC, it is extremely unlikely that SecuriDyne will be any better an advocate for less, and less invasive, screening than the TSA is, why would they cut into their own market?
Re:Got my vote (Score:4, Insightful)
This argument would be more convincing if market competition in America actually worked the way free-market fundamentalists swear it works.
That would be difficult in a country where the government feels it has the right to interfere with the market at any time in any way for any reason. You can hardly blame the free market for screwups in a country where the government feels it has the right to control carbon dioxide.
What about slavery, child labour, false and misleading advertising, dangerous products, nuclear bombs, stolen property, child pornography, buying votes, emergency services, military, submarines, gambling, prostitution, extortion, blackmail, drugs, land rights and immigration!
The government is out of control!!! Someone save the free market please!
"privitize" (Score:5, Insightful)
This is political hackery that boils down to the following:
#1) The job will be bid on via a no-bid contract to some firm that some senator is either friends with the owner or a part-owner thereof.
#2) All the current TSA employees will be fired.
#3) All the former TSA employees will be rehired by the private firm (such as Blackwater), at LOWER pay.
#4) Despite hiring everyone at lower pay, the contractor will bill the government double or more what it was costing the government to run the TSA by itself.
#5) Owner and Senator become super-rich, and lobby hard to have their personal income taxes cut because they are Job-creators.
#6) Deficit explodes due to cost-over-runs and how much money is being pocketed by owner/senator. Meanwhile Congress votes to cut taxes on the rich to "reduce" the deficit.
Is there any part of this I haven't covered? It's pretty obvious, and they've done it to us a million times and we let them do it more. The Rich get richer and the middle class becomes poor.
Thanks government for fucking me in the ass again.
Re:Privatization? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the logic is extended, it appears you are an advocate of government running absolutely everything.
The reality is that there are evil people both in private enterprise and in government service, who are out to line their pockets as much as possible with no regard to the consequences as they apply to others. So, you can find arguments on both sides why they are evil and inefficient. Using such examples, unless the examples are comprehensive enough to be considered endemic, does little to advance an argument for either side.
Re:Before everyone proclaims hallelujah (Score:5, Insightful)
Because if he doesn't care about the privacy aspects, supporting his change could make things worse than they are now. The law could exempt the private companies from lawsuits, and there wouldn't even be a FOIA or a Congressional committee to uncover the uncalibrated machines spewing radiation, or the repeat molesters allowed to "retire" without prosecution.
If it remains illegal to walk away from your flight when you decide to not be groped or irradiated, then the organization running security is still the de-facto government no matter who pays their bills. In that case, I'd prefer it to be the government because they have better (if bloated and still not all that great) oversight.
OOoooo. Rent-A-Cops (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Got my vote (Score:5, Insightful)
If a private health insurance company fails to cover your health problems, public opinion forces them to change or they go out of business from failing to provide health insurance coverage. If the government fails to cover your health problem, they tell you "tough shit".
Hmm, if that ACTUALLY worked, we wouldn't have the mess that is the current state of health insurance. The reality is if a private health insurance company fails to cover your health problems, then either you are stuck paying for it yourself because switching to a new policy won't pay for a procedure that occurred before you were covered (in the case of finding out your insurance won't cover something after the fact of). If you find out that a procedure you need won't be covered by your insurance company before hand, then you're still screwed because you have a "pre-existing condition" and thus no one will give you a new policy that'll cover it. At least not something you're likely to be able to afford.
As for public opinion, in general most people just take whatever coverage their job gives them and hopes it covers whatever they need. Which means there's no free-market. Health insurance is too important and thus people take whatever they can get that gives them what they think they need as cheap as they can get it. They'll deride, complain, and campaign against an insurance company but the company won't go out of business because people still need to have health insurance, even if the company says "Tough shit".
The difference is a single-payer system that will always cover your health problem versus a profit based company that says "Tough Shit" because you cost them too much.
Re:Trust him?? (Score:2, Insightful)
I believe the new cockpit doors did more to combat terrorism than all of the air marshalls and TSA screeners combined.. and the doors did not do much.
Doors are OK, but simple awareness did so much more. Each plane now does not require any "air marshals" and other bullshit. 50% of passengers on a plane are de-facto air marshals. The days of any hijacker in the US being able to take control of a plane are gone as of 2001-09-11.
Look what happened to the plane that was heading for the White House. Those are people that not only fought the hijackers once they've learned what they were doing, they also died free.
Today's charade of full body x-rays and pat downs gets you what? Not only are there undetectable explosives more powerful than C4, but once something does happens, we can't even say that these people died with their freedoms intact. For myself at least, the latter has much larger impact against air travel (and hence support of these infringements of our rights) than any risk from any nut job out there.
Freedom is not about safety. Freedom is in spite of safety. Only in solitary confinement are we 100% safe.
Re:Got my vote (Score:1, Insightful)
What about slavery, child labour, false and misleading advertising, dangerous products, nuclear bombs, stolen property, child pornography, buying votes, emergency services, military, submarines, gambling, prostitution, extortion, blackmail, drugs, land rights and immigration!
The government is out of control!!! Someone save the free market please!
Just curious: which of the above do you think the government makes better?
Unfunded entitlements (bought votes) mean that my children will be slaves to the government - even if they don't have to labor just yet. Government attempts to control child porn, gambling, prostitution and drugs are ineffectual and fascistic. Abuse of eminent domain and an out of control EPA make land rights tenuous at best. I'll grant that the IRS does a fine job on stolen property, extortion and blackmail; Federal immigration enforcement is a very bad joke. Good luck getting emergency services from FEMA. The military (and subs) are busy in pointless adventurist escapades - maybe we should just fire of the nukes.
We can leave false and misleading advertising to Obama's next speech.