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| ▲ | AlotOfReading 2 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| No, the TSA exists because 19 people hijacked 4 flights and succeeded in crashing 3 of them into various important buildings in the US on 9/11/2001. Private planes are just as capable of crashing into buildings as commercial jets. The TSA has picked up some ancillary public safety functions over the years, but their raison d'etre is to prevent hijackings. |
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| ▲ | thfuran 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | No, the TSA exists because politicians felt they needed to be seen doing something after 9/11. If there were actually much political will for it to fulfill actual security purposes, it surely would’ve been reformed after it’s continually abysmal performance on security audits. | |
| ▲ | garciasn 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | No; the TSA exists because we needed a government jobs program that was easy to promote under the guise of terrorism. | | |
| ▲ | verall 2 days ago | parent [-] | | It's not nearly enough jobs to be a jobs program | | |
| ▲ | caminante 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | By what standard? Federal civilian workforce (ex Postal Service and Military) is only 3 million. TSA has 60k employees. That's a lot of permanent jobs. | | |
| ▲ | verall a day ago | parent | next [-] | | By your own numbers - 60k employees just doesn't touch a jobs program in a country of 350M people. The point of a jobs program is to provide jobs. TSA was created to accomplish a goal - security theater (mostly), preventing another 9/11 (maybe more in theory than in practice), etc. The New Deal WPA, according to wikipedia, supplied about 3M jobs at its peak in 1938, when the population was ~130M. 2.3% of the population vs 0.017%. Also empirically - if it was a jobs program, it would be way better staffed.. | | |
| ▲ | caminante a day ago | parent [-] | | >if it was a jobs program, it would be way better staffed.. You're saying it's not comparable to the size of the New Deal, the biggest jobs program ever in the US. That doesn't disqualify it from consideration as a jobs program as there are many jobs programs much smaller. Adding 60k to ~3 million is significant because it's permanent. These are low skilled workers (and security theater as you astutely say) mostly concentrated in large cities. Whereas the New Deal was temp jobs that disappeared once grants and funding disappeared. |
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| ▲ | AustinDev 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | And they get Federal pensions and healthcare funded by tax dollars. | | |
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| ▲ | 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [deleted] |
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| ▲ | schmookeeg 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In terms of menace potential, any private plane will lose to a van full of fertilizer and a baddie intent on causing destruction. It's a matter of scale. Little planes, like this one [1] just don't do damage on the same scale as airliners. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack | | |
| ▲ | woodruffw 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Most private planes taking off from commercial airports (the ones where TSA generally operates) are much larger than a Piper Dakota. (But regardless, it’s not clear that the TSA is even performing that kind of calculus.) | | |
| ▲ | schmookeeg 2 days ago | parent [-] | | A G650 still loses to a motivated U-haul. :) No argument though, just saying it's a hard problem, and the scaling issue makes it somewhat awkward to deploy security resources in proportion to the threat. I don't have a solution. I'm not exactly thrilled with the current setup, but I try to stay quiet since I can't think of anything better. |
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| ▲ | AlotOfReading 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Government building codes already anticipate the "van full of fertilizer" attack, as a result of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Federal building security is a separate matter though, with its own agency called FPS that predates DHS and TSA by decades. | |
| ▲ | paradox460 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | What about a private plane full of anfo |
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| ▲ | ratrace 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | frankbreetz 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The TSA was created because a plane crashed into a building. Private planes can crash into buildings. Why should they be exempt from TSA checks? |
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| ▲ | hammock 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Lots of things can crash into buildings. Should they all be screened by TSA? Drones and their operators prior to every launch? 30 minute helicopter tours and high-rise HVAC drop offs? Private satellites? Or is licensing and registration (of pilots and aircraft and manifest and flight plan) enough? | | |
| ▲ | Eddy_Viscosity2 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Governments are reactive. So if any of these other things ever successfully destroy a building then you can absolutely count on new rules and laws that, at a minimum, will include screening. | |
| ▲ | jdiff 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Commercial drones can't bring down buildings. And they're still subject to an awful lot of regulations. | | |
| ▲ | hammock 2 days ago | parent [-] | | So it’s complete building destruction that is the protective mission here? Not loss of life or general terrorism or something else? I’m glad we are clarifying I wasn’t aware that DJI drone with 60lb payload was subject to more regulations than a Citation leaving TEB but I guess I’m open to learning what those are. | | |
| ▲ | Gud 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Why are you spending so much effort helping the most privileged people on the planet? Makes no sense to be their white knight | | |
| ▲ | robocat 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Why are you wasting time here? Even a letter to the editor would be more effective than an HN comment. |
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| ▲ | AzN1337c0d3r 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Were you born after 2001? Did you remember those planes that flew into the buildings? Private planes can do the same thing. |
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| ▲ | kgermino 2 days ago | parent [-] | | And the TSA wouldn’t do anything to stop that Hell the TSA doesn’t do much to prevent that on commercial flights, but requiring private flights to start going through commercial security would be completely pointless | | |
| ▲ | joquarky 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Inconveniencing wealthy people might create motivation to fix the problem. | | |
| ▲ | caminante 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Doesn't work. If TSA were added, there still wouldn't be any lines at private terminals. | |
| ▲ | ranger_danger a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | Even if you're flying commercial, wealthy people can just pay Perq Soleil $250 a pop to waltz them through the employee line with no wait. |
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| ▲ | Simulacra 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| This reminds me of when Steve Job's had his ninja throwing stars confiscated by (airport security) getting on his private jet. Edited to clarify NOT TSA |
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| ▲ | tempodox 2 days ago | parent [-] | | The danger of Steve Jobs hijacking his own private plane was obviously quite high! We can only thank the dutiful TSA officers for their brave service. I’m sure they risked their lives averting this danger. Have they been awarded any medals yet? | | |
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| ▲ | Gud 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| It seems to me that the people flying private jets are the biggest threats to humanity. |
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| ▲ | idiotsecant 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| HN can always be counted on to have a good contingent of temporarily embarrassed billionaires ready to stick up for them at the slightest provocation. |
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| ▲ | gos9 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | Yeah let’s screen every kid and his 172 because rich people bad! | |
| ▲ | hammock 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | You don’t have to be a billionaire to fly out of an FBO and you don’t have to fly out of an FBO to be interested in freedom of movement. No Kings. | |
| ▲ | SubmarineClub 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | [flagged] |
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| ▲ | kacesensitive 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
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