Tom Toles for June 04, 2015

Just another obama failure…..“Rep. Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, called the failure rate “deeply alarming.”

“Over the past six years, we have seen TSA consume an enormous amount of government resources, but I’m not convinced we have much to show for it,” he said in a statement. “After spending over $540 million on baggage screening equipment and millions more on training, the failure rate today is higher than it was in 2007. Something is not working.”http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/01/politics/tsa-failed-undercover-airport-screening-tests/

I agree, it is the system that is defective. I never understood why they continue to rely on this expensive approach. It seems to me most of the travelers could be certified as safe and not be inspected at all. A fraction of the resources could then be spent really scrutinizing the more likely risks. We waste a huge amount of resources doing something that is only five percent effective.

Considering TSA was created as a giant, useless government agency by George W. Bush, and has been incompetent from DAY ONE, the right-wingers’ attempt to blame Obama for this is simply absurd. It’s “security theatre,” no more than that. Bush refused to fund X-ray machines that would enable detection of plastic explosives for YEARS, meaning that all those times people took off their shoes, the TSA wouldn’t be finding anything in them. But gosh, it LOOKS as if we are safer, isn’t it?We weren’t. And aren’t. The only action taken that really improved security was armoring the airplane doors.

Sorry – no union, many airports use contract workers. Most of them make $15-20 an hour. You get what you pay for.

Yes, better to hire some day labor down at the local Home Depot and pay them 70percent less than minimum wage and fire them every day to bring in a new crew. Or maybe design a system that doesn’t require a totally paranoid, adrenaline rush to function on a daily basis.

Mrs. Smith resembles Sister Marie Lawrence (Mary Larry), who certainly struck terror into us 7th-Graders.

Oh? From 2013:“Morale among the nation’s 45,000 airport screeners got a boost in January after their new union and the Transportation Security Administration reached the agency’s first collective bargaining agreement since the agency’s creation a decade ago in response to 9/11.”I don’t agree with the hate that spews out from “conservatives” about unions, but it looks to me like TSA is represented by a union. Which is fine.

Northern Redman: More to the point, did the investigators come up with these techniques themselves (so why couldn’t anyone else do it) or did they copy those of terrorists already caught by more effective means?

Is it really necessary to point out that the TSA, Homeland Security, and re-shuffling of the entire national security/intelligence/law enforcement apparatus took place long before Barack Obama became President?In the final analysis, as with all things, you get what you pay for. If you pay bottom dollar, you get bottom-rung ability. Why does that surprise anyone?

My all-time favorite Don Martin cartoon: A planeload of people all stand up at once, whip out their guns, and yell, “This is a hijack!” Then they all look at each other in silence. Then, sheepishly, they sit back down and we presume the flight continues with no further incidents.

The GOP driven legislation is a threat to National Security. However the biggest threat to us, in the US, is inability of Congress to work together, in a common goal [yes fact oriented compromise] to survive deadly issues that effect the US, & all citizens of the world.

In reference to the comic they could also get jobs as congressmen and women and still do little.

Have you SEEN some of the people on airplanes these days??

Actually, boring and repetetive jobs can’t retain folks higher up the “educateable” ladder. There are only so many supervisory jobs for the better and brighter to move up to. Not that that actulaly happens either.

Profiling is exactly what airport security personnel should be doing – behavior profiling. The 9/11 hijackers arrived at almost the last minute, bought one-way cross-country airplane tickets with cash, and had no luggage. Everything about that should have set off alarm bells. It isn’t about scrutinizing every 4th passenger, never mind every passenger, or giving everyone wearing a head covering or facial hair the third degree, or searching every bag of every person with a “Muslim-sounding” name. It’s about scrutinizing the truly suspiciously acting person. Talk to the people. There are clues to look for in the way they respond.Making everyone take off their shoes, discard even the tiniest pocket knife or nail clippers(!?), banning even a sealed transparent container of liquid or hummus (!?), and getting rid of anything like actual eating utensils on board a plane is just silly and useless and provides only an illusion of security to a fool. The Israelis, who are far more frequent and realistic targets for terrorist acts, have figured out how to process and screen the passengers on planes just as crowded as those in the USA, and do it far more efficiently and effectively than us. Let’s learn from the pros, and do it right. Why is that so hard?