Constitution 101

Gulag Archipelago should be required reading for every lawyer, judge, and police officer. Curiously you had a rather decent written constitution in that country during Stalin's time, which in practice stopped exactly none of his crimes. We've got a long ways to go before we get to the point of Soviet Russia fortunately, but with the Soviet Union gone 20 years now, I suppose people are starting to forget about it. There is at least a full generation born since then which will have no living memory of those times.

 

During my brief 20 year military career, I learned that the advantage always goes to the attacker. The defender is always at a disadvantage. The reasons should be obvious, but I'll spell it out for you: the attacker knows when the attack is going to take place, from which direction and in what strength. The defender has to prepare for all contingencies and remain vigilant 100% of the time.

The challenge to security, whether it is airport screening or at the county courthouse, is to come up with measures that are enough to provide the required security WITHOUT adversely affecting the operational flow. If TSA were to apply strict security measures, no one would fly because it would be too impractical.

 

I think the TSA problem starts with Risk Assessment, or lack of. TSA seems to be dreaming up every scenario thinkable and throwing stuff at it trying to see what will stick.

Security needs to guard against likely attempts and be within confines of the law and it is my opinion that TSA has gone well overboard on likely threats along with violations of peoples rights. Example, where in Administrative Searches does it allow interrogation of a persons name, questions on why traveling, etc? The so-called Administrative Search is suppose to be limited to a search for WEI and no more.

I have little confidence that TSA has defined the actual likelihood of a terrorist event. Instead TSA just treats every person like a likely terrorist.

 

I cannot understand why the press hasn't picked up on this yet.

 

My specific contention is that TSA has made airports less safe by creating inviting targets for potential terrorists. I personally was in an enormous line departing from Las Vegas in 2007, which so far as I could tell was entirely created by TSA. Anyone could have walked into that airport and killed as many people as they wanted. And there are many examples of attacks on airports and other transportation facilities.

What TSA would have to do to prevent, or at least reduce the risk of attacks on airports would be to expand the security perimeter to the entrance to the passenger terminal by establishing vehicle checkpoints on the access roads. Given the number of vehicles going in and out of airports, it would likely be necessary to restrict airport access to taxis, shuttle buses, and similar hired vehicles. The days of simply driving out to the airport would be over. But TSA is unwilling to do this, as it would be too visible a change, would be seen as too inconvenient by too many people, some of whom might be powerful. Better to grope children and grandmothers behind closed doors.

 

Supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy's resistance without fighting.
Sun Tzu

I've been reading C. S. Forrester this week for pleasure, but my 12 YO has been studying Sun Tsu intently, trying to win some advantage over his 15 YO sister!

 

I think you have hit the nail on the head, but you don't realize that the governing condition you admit (without adversely affecting operational flow) changes "the required security" automatically to "some security". Which means that you are going to great lengths in rebuilding what is essentially some sort of Maginot line that discourages or catches the random idiot type of attack only. There are huge vulnerabilities that are *not* passenger-based, and a smart opponent would go for them first. It may be that the real threats have actually moved away from airlines now to broader domestic vulnerabilities...

"Smart opponents" could refer to strategic state sponsored efforts, such as from Iran in the current reality where they face attack by Israel at any moment due to their nuclear program. With the fall of governments all across the middle east that were either friendly to or at least accommodating to US interests, replaced by regimes that reflect popular sentiments that are overwhelmingly anti Israel, there is going to be increasing pressures applied to getting the US out of the middle east, so as to leave Israel exposed on five fronts with no outside help. Financial and economic weaknesses that are accelerating here could well invite coordinated attacks at many sites and venues, not necessarily airports, at just the right time needed to significantly weaken if not paralyze a US response in helping Israel... Not saying this will all happen, but if you were Iran, this would probably be somewhere on your list of countermeasures....All of this would totally re-frame the issue of airport security.

 

Bolding mine.

Exactly. Find out who authorized the deviation from their mission of keeping WEI off aircraft, conduct an investigation and either fire them or indict them for official malfeasance.

 

The guy in charge, John S. Pistole, is the responsible party.

 

As an agency head he shares in the responsibility. I doubt he micro manges his staff and suspect those really responsibile are under him.

 

He deserves the gallows for such. He's lied to Congress and the American people, he has denied requests made of him by Congress, and has forsaken his oath to uphold the Constitution. What he deserves and what he gets of course are 2 different things.

 

So if a tso drops his hankie, make sure you step on it.

 

I can definitely see this being true; while I don't doubt there were rogue decisions made without his approval, we don't want to exonerate RK John Pistole for failing to properly manage his staff. In the corporate world, people get shitcanned for making their managers look bad because if the manager didn't do something about it, they themselves would be shown the door. Cutthroat (expletive deleted)-covering it may be, but there you have it. Once it's found out that the employees were the real wrenches in the works, they generally tend to go bye-bye too, and the manager generally does NOT get brought back in. No reason it should work any different here, and I think that we've reached the point where Pistole and his clerks-in-chief (partners in perversion? Help me make this snappy, people) all have to get the sack. They've had their chance to do good and they've instead made things worse. I try to leave my politics out of this as much as possible so I'll say only that for all my social-leftist tendencies, at least we weren't getting felt up and irradiated under GWB. Not that I agree with his other social policies but those aren't relevant to TUG (or at least this discussion) anyway. We're almost 3 years into Obama's, and thus Pistole's, administration and TSA has gone from bad to worse, or from worse to you-have-got-to-be-(expletive deleted)-kidding-me. Regardless of who you vote for to sit in the Oval Office, Pistole, in his capacity as TSA Administrator, has been a colossal failure and a traitor to the principles of liberty and that should be sufficient to see him dismissed and disgraced.

 

He signs off on these procedures so he is ultimately responsible.

 

I was reasonably happy to see Mr. Obama become president, even though I didn't vote for him. I didn't think he could do much damage, and he might do some good. Clinton did. I thought Mr. Obama's presidency would make black Americans feel fully enfranchised.

The benefits I expected to see from Mr. Obama's presidency were not realized, and I hold Mr. Obama responsible for the TSA's criminal malfeasance during his administration. He's without an excuse as far as I'm concerned.

 

I like evil minions or flying monkeys.

On the contrary I did get felt up, hands in the waist band, etc during the Bush admin. - just because I fly with short notice and that was a deal with SSSS on the boarding pass. I did complain and was ignored because it wasn't as bad as I made it out to be.

Now the procedures expanded from the SSSS tagged passengers to anyone who happens to fall into the clutches of TSA's evil minions.

I want the managers who made all of this possible to be held accountable. If it includes Pistole then so be it. This agency currently runs open loop and that never leads to good results.

 

Merely dismissed and disgraced? You're getting soft in your old age.

 

Oops, forgot about disemboweled, dismembered and defenestrated. Silly me.

 

I suggest Pat O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin series (the film Master and Commander was based on books from this series). I used to buy them three at a time and read all weekend, driving Mrs. Peril crazy!