A question for the Libertarians

[Tourmeister]

Bill, if you cannot see the inherent difference between government action and private action, I am not sure what to say to you...

Greg hit on a critical issue, that of monopoly. Government has the power to come in and say, "If you plan to fly on ANY airline, then you must go through our security." A private company could never do that. All it could do would be to say, "If you plan to fly on OUR airline, then you must go through our security." You could choose to fly on an airline that does no screening whatsoever. Now, it is entirely possible that even absent a government imposed system, the airlines might get together and agree on a standard system where we would still have no choice about what kind of screening we'd be subjected to if we need to fly. And I would still be okay with this. The other thing bad about government besides the ability to impose its services in monopoly form is its police powers. While joking with a private screener might be a bad idea, doing so might simply cost you the ability to board and you are asked to leave or are escorted off their property. Joking with a TSA screener can net you some pretty bad treatment, jail time, a criminal record, the inability to ever fly again, expensive legal fees, etc,...

You mention screening in other private circumstances, and I think that is a great point to examine. Businesses can screen all they want. However, they are constrained by the reality that if people find such screening objectionable, they stop coming there to spend their money. If it gets bad enough, the business starts losing money and could potentially go out of business. Also, they have to pay for the screening themselves, just like any other aspect of running their business. So the costs of screening will be tightly connected to the effectiveness of the screening. None of these incentives affect government provided services like the TSA.

The TSA does not have to be responsive to "customers" at all. It does not have to worry about people not liking its procedures. Because of its monopoly, you either submit or do not fly. Moreover, the cost of the screening has no connection to the effectiveness of the screening. Government does not have to worry about going out of business for lack of revenue. Its actions are not driven so much by cost but by appearances and politics, which is hardly a sound basis for rational and effective decision making.

[DFW_Warrior]

I'm not really in this debate to say that the TSA is at all effective in what they do. I was just wondering the hypocrisy of being ridiculously opposed to having your carry-on searched in order to get on a plane, vs having all your financial and personal history scrutinized just so one can rent an apartment, obtain a home loan, or a credit card. If liberty is truly an absolute, then IMO there should be some individuals on this board that opposed being investigated for crimes they didn't commit while trying to apply for a charge card.

That's it really. I just find it amusing that some people love to take a hard line stance, except for when it is inconvenient to them.

As for government-run security vs private, I think we'd see quite a few more problems with a private system that has no continuity between different airports. And just think of the complaints!! You fly out of one airport with your knife on board and as soon as you land you are now in the jurisdiction of another airport that strictly forbids such implements of destruction, and then you are taken into custody for being behind the security checkpoint with a weapon.

No thanks, I'll take a standardized set of rules over 100 sets of differing rules. But take it for what it's worth, this is coming from someone that actually flys on a fairly frequent basis.

[Diderich]

Originally Posted by Red Brown

Actually the Tower of Babel syndrome of different security groups would be chaotic. Our system is good considering we have much better controls than pre-911 but it could be improved in effectiveness and increased profiling such as the Israeli airport security model suggests might be a step in the right direction.

You guys are scraping for any reason to take the opposite view.

This "tower of babel" chaos is what gives you the example of Israeli airport security to point to. That's my point. Diversity=innovation. Should we have one centralized world security office and world government? Presided over by super benevolent geniuses, I suppose, who manage to rearrange everyone's wants and needs to exactly line up with the available resources. Assume spherical humans....

How do you measure "good" and "better controls"? I'll repeat my challenge. Point to 1 attack prevented by screening. Do you think people motivated to blow up planes say to themselves, "drat! they check our carryon luggage, I guess I'll just be a farmer, because I can't think of ANY possible way to inflict harm on Americans. Curses! Foiled!"

My view is that security screening is a red herring. A circus for the masses. At best an inconvenience, at worst psychological conditioning for total intrusion into every portion of our daily lives so that they can better form us into good spherical humans.

[DFW_Warrior]

Originally Posted by Diderich

How do you measure "good" and "better controls"? I'll repeat my challenge. Point to 1 attack prevented by screening.

You can't. If they don't happen, you'll never know of them. Just like saying "how many crimes in TX have been averted because of the presence of CHL permit holders?" Those questions have no answers, and we all know it.

[Tourmeister]

Originally Posted by DFW_Warrior

I'm not really in this debate to say that the TSA is at all effective in what they do. I was just wondering the hypocrisy of being ridiculously opposed to having your carry-on searched in order to get on a plane, vs having all your financial and personal history scrutinized just so one can rent an apartment, obtain a home loan, or a credit card. If liberty is truly an absolute, then IMO there should be some individuals on this board that opposed being investigated for crimes they didn't commit while trying to apply for a charge card.

That's it really. I just find it amusing that some people love to take a hard line stance, except for when it is inconvenient to them.

I don't see the hypocrisy Having your creditworthiness examined before someone voluntarily loans you a large amount of money or allowing you to take physical possession of his property is NOT investigating you for a crime. Likewise, an airline checking you out before letting you on their aircraft is not investigating you for a crime.

It is not the screening itself that is the issue, it is WHO is doing the screening. Do you truly believe that it makes absolutely no difference whether it is done privately or by agents of the government?! Given the potential consequences for things going bad if I am interacting with government, I would MUCH rather take my chances with private entities.

As for your knife example, it would not be hard at all to contact a destination airport prior to a flight to make sure you would not be violating their particular standards. This already has to be done to make sure you are not bringing illegal contraband into a destination country, like ammo, pharmaceutical drugs, food products. Even if the procedures are not standardized by mandate, it does not necessarily follow that there will be a chaos of standards. As place experiment, what works and doesn't work will rapidly spread among those people whose business it is to provide such services. This happens in many industries without any government interference and oft times even without any formal communication between the various businesses in the industry. So I would expect there to be a great deal of standardization except in rare cases. Besides, even with the standardization under the TSA, at the rate they change their standard of the day, it is not like it is any less likely that someone will be caught unawares by some requirement. And if folks can check those before their flights, there is no reason they cannot do likewise with private security services.

[DFW_Warrior]

Originally Posted by Tourmeister

I don't see the hypocrisy Having your creditworthiness examined before someone voluntarily loans you a large amount of money or allowing you to take physical possession of his property is NOT investigating you for a crime. Likewise, an airline checking you out before letting you on their aircraft is not investigating you for a crime.

Me posting that was in response to Tim's quote and lack of explanation of it. So it was taken that was his particular feeling on the subject. I won't paraphrase it, because it is easily available for anyone to see, but all the things it was describing just so happens to be the exact same things happening before you are handed a piece of plastic with an amount of money attached to it.

But you and I agree, none of these things are what I consider investigating for a crime either. How Tim feels... we might never know (unless he finds an adequate website to cut and paste).

As for the rest of the debate, it will have to wait. Busy night ahead of me tonight.

[Tracker]

Originally Posted by Red Brown

Actually the Tower of Babel syndrome of different security groups would be chaotic. Our system is good considering we have much better controls than pre-911 but it could be improved in effectiveness and increased profiling such as the Israeli airport security model suggests might be a step in the right direction.

You guys are scraping for any reason to take the opposite view.

Isn't that essentially the security model of Linux?
Anybody can contribute and you create your own distro. Those that create and maintain a better, more secure distro have a better following.

[Diderich]

Originally Posted by Diderich

How do you measure "good" and "better controls"? I'll repeat my challenge. Point to 1 attack prevented by screening. Do you think people motivated to blow up planes say to themselves, "drat! they check our carryon luggage, I guess I'll just be a farmer, because I can't think of ANY possible way to inflict harm on Americans. Curses! Foiled!"

Originally Posted by DFW_Warrior

You can't. If they don't happen, you'll never know of them. Just like saying "how many crimes in TX have been averted because of the presence of CHL permit holders?" Those questions have no answers, and we all know it.

If screening worked, it would catch someone. Unless you are saying that the threat of being screened averts people, but that is obviously not true. With a modicum of planning, terrorists have demonstratively gotten past screeners to take over airplanes and crash them. Time after time after time. Even further proof is that there hasn't been an attack on a softer target. If it is "too hard" to attack a plane, why not attack something else? There hasn't been attack, because old fashioned police intellegence work has been working...not TSA security screening. Saying that there haven't been any evil spirits in the house so the lucky chicken foot must be working doesn't cut it.