Sen. Rand Paul Introduces TSA Reform Legislation 585
OverTheGeicoE writes "Over a month after Sen. Rand Paul announced his desire to pull the plug on TSA, he has finally released his legislation that he tweets will 'abolish the #TSA & establish a passengers "Bill of Rights."' Although the tweet sounds radical, the press release describing his proposed legislation is much less so. 'Abolition' really means privatization; one of Paul's proposals would simply force all screenings to be conducted by private screeners. The proposed changes in the 'passenger Bill of Rights' appear to involve slight modifications to existing screening methods at best. Many of his 'rights' are already guaranteed under current law, like the right to opt-out of body scanning. Others can only vaguely be described as rights, like 'expansion of canine screening.' Here's to the new boss..."
Populism? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:The screeners used to be private (Score:4, Interesting)
Hell, back in the 40's you would just walk on a plane.
Private Screeners (Score:3, Interesting)
He is saying "Yo big government, keep your hands off citizens". Getting groped by private screeners (punny) is totally more liberating than when done by TSA agents.
Re:Private security theater is no better than publ (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The screeners used to be private (Score:5, Interesting)
yeah, even less professionalism and less recourse in the instance of abuse
Re:The screeners used to be private (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah you can sue a private screener. You can't sue the government. Well, you can, but the government won't let you win the case, as happened recently. A man was thrown to the ground and severely injured, so he sued the TSA, and the TSA refused to turn-over the videos because of "national security". The man was forced to drop the case since the evidence was being withheld.
Re:Election Year Bullshit.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Yup. He's just generally morally bankrupt.
Because remember this: when the government privatises critical services (and the TSA is most certainly deemed critical), the services still need to be "provided". With the extra overhead of making shareholders rich.
Because nothing will go wrong with private armies of people mandated to stop and search you...
Re:The screeners used to be private (Score:3, Interesting)
September 9th, 2001, I have video of me running through Palm Beach International Airport, holding up my camcorder to the security guards as the metal detector starts beeping and I don't even slow down. All I say is that my plane is taking off in less than 10 minutes as I run by. Nobody did a thing.
If I did that today, I would be tackled, tasered and handcuffed.
Nathan
Re:Government is more efficient than private indus (Score:4, Interesting)
On top of that, USPS is basically funded now by delivering junk mail to your door on an almost-daily basis. They also sell contact information of people who file change of address forms, in addition to the barrage of advertisements they subject people who file the form online to.
Plus, the mail is not a societal problem, if the USPS was shut down all that would happen is I would have to throw out all that junk mail.
On an on-topic note: if security were handled by private agencies they would be subject to state & federal law. Airports with security firms that were doing things like making a woman breast-pump in front of others would be pressured to fire those firms. Instead we have TSA agents who act as if no law at all applies to them.
Re:The screeners used to be private (Score:5, Interesting)
The key point, which is not addressed at all within the press release is whether the Govt. will subsidize private screening or not. This is important because if so, then the TSA will simply be subcontracted out to Halliburton or other firm, and waste, fraud, and abuse will only increase, more security theater = more screeners = more equipment = more profit!
If, instead, airport screening was funded by the airport or airlines themselves (yes, either way, the air traveler ultimately picks up the tab) then they'd have an incentive to maximize passenger throughput while minimizing cost. They would still want reasonable security measures for safety's sake and to keep insurance premiums low and lawsuits to a minimum.
If JFK Intl still insisted on Whole Body Imaging, pat downs, no fly lists, liquid bans, shoe removal, and all the other nonsense introduced over the past decade, they'd probably have to charge about $15 per passenger to cover the cost. Therefore LaGuardia may then see that by just relying on metal detectors, X-rays for carry-ons, and canine patrols, they could screen each passenger for about $2 each, while having fewer delays and fewer upset travelers.
The upshot in this hypothetical example is that passengers who are still worried about another 9/11 style attack can fly out of JFK and feel reassured that they'll be perfectly safe from terrorists and will gladly pay for the privilege of being strip-searched, irradiated, groped, and prodded in exchange for this reassurance. Those who'd rather not pay to be humiliated can fly out of LaGuardia instead. Even humoring the idea that they'd be twice as likely to die in a terrorist incident as those who opted for the "enhanced" screening at JFK. Or in other words, instead of 25,000,000:1 odds, they'd be facing 12,500,000:1 odds.
Would traffic out of these two airports remain largely unchanged, would travel dry up out of LaGuardia out of fear, or would traffic dry up at JFK due to invasive security theater. I'd place my bets on the third scenario. However, in a true Libertarian sense, whatever imbalance was created if any would be corrected in short order by one airport adopting the policies of the other which took away their business.
Re:Government is more efficient than private indus (Score:5, Interesting)
Boogers -- my mod points just expired and you need someone to mod you up.
Anyway, here's another example. WA state used to have state run liquor stores and used the profit from those stores to fund state services, like fire departments and whatnot. Now, WA did have some of the higher booze prices in the nation, but we also don't have an income tax, so it used a "sin tax" in part as a way to make up the difference. The stores had a really nice selection too.
Here is the last price list the state published:
http://whatcomnewsforums.com/misc/washington_state_liquor_control_board-MAY_2012_PRICE_LIST.pdf [whatcomnewsforums.com]
On June 1st, the first day of privatization, selection went in the toilet, and prices skyrocketed. Here's one example from page 6 of the price list for Red Breast Irish Whisky.
The state store price was $49.95 out the door.
The state retail price was $39.11
The wholesale price can be calculated (*): $25.66
Fred Meyer is currently selling Red Breast at a special price of $60 (reg is $65). This is pretax.
Many voters favoring the initiative stupidly believed that "competition" was synonymous with "lower prices," but I-1183 included a provision that wholesalers would have to pay a 10% fee, and retailers a 17% fee, to make up for the loss to the state from losing the stores. The Office of Financial Management, as required by law, evaluated the law and concluded prices would rise. This summary was even in the voter's pamphlet, but if many slashdotters can't RTFA, most voters only watch TV and totally bought the notion that competition and lower costs go hand in hand -- they never read more than the title let alone the summary -- just voted like the ads told them to.
Anyhow, starting with a wholesale price then of $25.66, after the wholesale fee, it would be $28.23, and after the retail fee, $33.03. The reg shelf price at Fred Meyer is almost a 100% markup, and even the sale price is an 81% markup, to which the old state taxes are added, making the out-the-door price of the bottle of Red Breast, $75.13 (on sale) or $81.16 (reg price).
Now, certain store brand rotguts are perhaps 50 cents to a buck cheaper than rotgut carried by the state stores, but anything decent is at 25% more expensive and some things are substantially more, Red Breast being about 60% (reg price). Worse, the profit the state would have used to benefit all Washingtonians, is now largely exported. It has been partly replaced by the new fees, but surely an initiative will kill those in the future and it is at that point, a WA income tax would become more likely. I'd really rather just decide whether to "sin" and pay a sin tax, than to have an income tax shoved down my throat every year.
So, this is an example where privatization costs the public much more in the short run, AND increases the likelihood of an income tax, which will cost the public much more in the long run. But Costco will make gazillions so its all good right? Corporate socialism is the name of the game now.
(*) WA markup was 13c for a 750 ml bottle, plus 51.9% http://liq.wa.gov/stores/liquor-pricing [wa.gov]
Re:It WAS privatized before TSA (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only was it confirmed by other researchers, but by examination of its microscopic composition they narrowed it down to a particular commercial brand, normally available only to government and the military.
Re:A lot later than that. (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok. So lets look at some of the things the US has done that pissed off Al Qaeda.
Supporting israel. The existence at all of israel. That's a deliberate choice. If you disagree with it that's fine, and US politicians don't ever really present a choice to the american public to abandon israel (nor is it clear what would happen in that event, would the europeans step back up the plate, someone else, etc.). That Israeli US relationship does have its benefits as well. I'm not an american, not my value judgment to make.
The US honoured its recognition of the independence of Kuwait. Sure, it was basically about oil. But it's much more complicated than that. Kuwait was a sovereign recognized state. Allowing one country attack and annex another without UN authorization would be a disaster of a precedent. The US, as part of the world had a vested interest in that not happening (otherwise you get into problems with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Yemen, Oman, Eritrea, Brunei, Singapore, Panama, Belgium, Laos etc.etc. etc. ) . Nor would it have been good for anyone if the Iraqi's had invaded Saudi. But that's not the point. Al Qaeda and it's precursors and the US were completely in agreement on these points. What they disagreed on was that Al Qaeda thought it should be a bunch of islamic mujahadeen defending saudi from Iraq and liberating Kuwait. The saudi's wanted a plan that wasn't going to take 15 years, and nor did anyone else. The mistake I think, was telling al qaeda we'd pass on their participation at all. No one thought they'd take it so hard.
The US supports the House of Saud. Much like support for israel, there are pros and cons.
The US is rich. Sort of by definition when you have 25% of the worlds money you're going to influence everyone else. Hence the world trade centre as a target.
But the thing is.... you can't be benignly not in peoples business. You buy oil from Saudi, which implicitly supports the house of Saud. But if not, you refuse to buy oil you're also picking a side (and impoverishing the saudi people by cutting off their access to money). By opening trade with china and letting hundreds of billions of investment dollars flow there, you are implicitly (and explicitly in this case) recognizing their claim to be the legitimate government of china. It's utterly impractical to be isolationist in the world. But no matter who you do business with you'll make someone angry. Buying stuff from cheap chinese factories makes people mad that you're allowing workers to be mistreated, not having trade at all makes people mad you're trapping them in poverty. Demanding they have some sort of 'rights' and people complain you're getting in their business. You have to be used to the fact that there are enough people in the world no matter what you do, someone will be angry. The goal is then to have only bad or incompetent people mad at you. But well, it never works out that way.
And the thing is... when you stick your nose in peoples business for the better you don't hear huge swathes of people complaining. I'm sure the Libyans are thrilled you helped oust gaddahfi, the syrians fighting to overthrow assad would appreciate a hand etc.
Since we're on the topic of WW2 lets look at the ethiopia case from just prior to WW2. By refusing to supply arms to Ethiopia we basically handed them to the Italians. Had we gone the other route, and supplied arms to the Italians who knows, maybe the war would have started in 37 rather than 39, or maybe the Italians would have had to go home. You don't know. Action and non action are both impacting peoples lives. Especially in syria right now. You have a whole lot of choices in the spectrum of non action to anything the US could do, and inevitably, you have to pick something, because non action can make as many enemies as anything else.
Re:A lot later than that. (Score:5, Interesting)
That's tricky. Terrorists are looking for soft targets. If there's no security on aircraft, they'll attack aircraft. If their most 'dead americans per dollar' is in Iraq then they go to iraq, or afghanistan or whatever.
I think the empirical evidence suggests that terrorists are not looking for "soft targets" or "most dead Americans per dollar." If they were, they could walk a bomb on a bus, train, or into a shopping mall and probably kill close to as many or more people than on a plane -- with no fuss. Or, heck, walk a bomb into an airport outside the security zone and detonate there. Any of these things would probably lead to even more disruptive crazy security measures in the U.S., so even if their goal is to disrupt society instead of just killing people, they're failing miserably.
If there are indeed as many motivated terrorists out there as you suggest, and if they were really looking for soft targets, they must be pretty darn stupid.
But they *are* looking for ways to kill people.... You need security looking for bombs, and poison gas, you need to secure airports themselves against ground based lasers and rockets and so on (because god knows, if you can blind a pilot to crash a plane they'll try that).
If you really think that we need all that to protect airplanes, then get ready to militarize every square foot of the entire country, because if terrorists are actually looking for easy targets for bombs, poison gas, etc. -- there are tens of thousands of high population targets waiting on the ground which are completely unguarded.
And yet, we've seen nothing of substance since 9/11 except for a few idiots on planes that the TSA couldn't even catch.
So, empirical evidence suggests that at least one of your premises is false. Some possibilities: (1) the terrorists are just obsessed with planes and aren't actually looking for soft targets or maximum casualties, (2) most terrorists are too stupid or not motivated enough to just build a simple bomb on American soil (or transport one through porous borders, like, say, shipping containers), and blow it up in some easy place, and/or (3) the number of terrorists who are actually out there and capable of an attack is much, much smaller than we have been led to believe.
I don't really know what the reality is, but if there really is a large number of crazy terrorists out there wanting to kill as many Americans as possible, they don't need to get on planes to do it.
Remember, they did try and blow up the WTC previous, with a car bomb. And failed. Whatever else they are, they are persistent bastards.
I'm not sure you understand what "persistent" means. If they really were out there and wanted to kill people or disrupt the American way of life, they could easily do so at any of tens of thousands of locations where lots of people hang out every day. Israel has had real problems with terrorists. England and Northern Ireland has had them with the IRA. I hope things like that never come to the U.S., but that's what things look like when you have real motivated terrorists willing to maximize casualties on any soft target... there's no evidence for the scenario you suggest.