From Newsgroup: alt.society.civil-liberty

The reasons why airline executives and lobbyists endorsed the creation
of the TSA in the first place are fourfold. It's a lot easier to
successfully sue an airline if private screeners for its flights botch up security than it is for a plaintiff to get anywhere with a similar argument about Federalized screeners. By advocating socialization of airport baggage screening, those in charge of the airlines were in a better position to influence just what form socialized baggage screening takes. The more
statist a Congressman is, the likelier he is to get revenge at those who
oppose his agenda, or at least deny them favors they otherwise would have
been granted. At the time the TSA was created, not supporting it would have been bad for propaganda; the terrorists had succeeded in putting the country into an uproar. When people perceive a crisis, they tend to be more tolerant
of statist programs that are supposed to end the crisis; that's the
situation the terrorists meant to create. Terrorism works. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/07/ING053E1UI1.DTL
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Sunday, December 7, 2003 (SF Chronicle)
TRANSPORTATION THUGGERY/A Nation in Its Stocking Feet/Humiliated travelers
get only the pretense of airport security
Robert Higgs


College student Nathaniel Heatwole's recent highly publicized high jinks
in deliberately and successfully flouting airline-security rules by
stowing packages with box cutters and other prohibited items on Southwest Airlines planes illustrate once more the realities of the government's
sham program to protect the commercial airline industry from terrorists.
The Transportation Security Administration is a joke, and not a funny
one,
either. Travelers submit to pointless, degrading invasions of their
persons and property in order to avoid offending the functionaries and
thugs who, whenever they choose, can prevent passengers from proceeding
with their travel.
Something is horribly wrong with a population willing to tolerate such routine degradation and thuggery, especially when the alleged benefits of
the humiliation are bogus.
Deputy TSA Administrator Stephen McHale dismissed the significance of the Heatwole incident. "Amateur testing of our systems do (sic) not show us in
any way our flaws," he said. "We know where the vulnerabilities are and we
are testing them ... This does not help."
Well, yes, it does not help to improve a bureaucrat's day when a college student carries out with such ease multiple evasions of forbidden-item interdiction, immediately alerts the authorities to every detail of his actions, then has to wait a month for an official reaction. McHale's
dismissal notwithstanding, this incident does highlight flaws that have
been disclosed repeatedly by others, including agents of the
Transportation Department's inspector general, ever since the feds rushed
to nationalize airport security screening in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Back then, when President Bush signed the takeover bill into law on Nov.
19, 2001, he declared: "Safety comes first. And when it comes to safety,
we will set high standards and enforce them." The president was just
blowing political hot air.
A TSA survey of 32 major airports, reported in July 2002, "found that
fake
guns, bombs, and other weapons got past security screeners almost one-
fourth of the time."
Do not suppose, however, that the TSA has served no purpose. Primarily,
it
has served to give the public the impression that the government is "doing something" about airline security. The government is doing a great deal,
to be sure; it's just not doing anything that contributes to genuine
security. Do we really suppose that the people smart enough to have pulled
off the coordinated hijackings and attacks of Sept. 11 are too stupid to
beat the present system?
The TSA has also served to bulk up the government payroll and, in the process, the ranks of rock-solid Democratic voters. Count this payoff to Democrats as one of the many that Bush has been willing to make to secure Democratic votes in Congress for measures he ranks highly, such as running
up the Pentagon's budget and attacking Iraq. Late in 2001, the airline screening industry employed about 28,000 workers. Bush's request for
fiscal year 2004 calls for the TSA to employ 59,000, at a cost of $4.81 billion. That works out to $81,560 per employee. Does anyone really
believe we're getting our money's worth?
Of course, we have to take into account that not all the money goes for payroll. Much of the spending ends up in the pockets of private
contractors --
Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Oracle, Unisys, InVision Technologies
and others.
The TSA has approved at least 80 contracts worth about $54 million
without
normal competitive bidding. Obviously, the good-old-boy fraternity so
familiar in Pentagon contracting -- officially described as "firms that
TSA officials identified as having expertise in the areas needed" -- has
had no trouble entering the TSA's vault and walking out with cash.
Like any federal bureaucracy, the TSA has spawned its share of scandals.
A
widely reported one involved its booking of the Wyndham Peaks Resort and
Golden Door Spa near Telluride, Colo., to conduct recruiting interviews.
Twenty TSA recruiters stayed seven weeks at this plush resort to fill 50 screener jobs. While there, they also shelled out $29,000 of the
taxpayers' money to the local police department for extra security.
Another scandal involved about $400,000 spent to redecorate in
appropriate
bureaucratic splendor the office of then-chief John Magaw (who was later fired).
When the feds were gearing up to take over the screening industry, proponents of this harebrained idea emphasized the advantages of switching
from ill-trained, low-paid private employees to better-trained,
higher-paid federal employees, all subjected to proper background checks.
In June, however,
"the TSA acknowledged firing more than 1,200 airport screeners -- roughly
2 percent of its screener workforce -- for providing false information on
job applications, failing drug tests or having criminal records." Recently
a flap broke out when it came to light that TSA employees taking
certification tests had been given the exact questions and answers in
advance. Evidently, these crack federal employees, who were supposed to be
such tremendous improvements (although the TSA had quickly waived its
initial high-school-graduation requirement), needed a slight edge to demonstrate their superiority.
TSA head Adm. James Loy affirms that although he has ordered a "full investigation," he retains "full confidence" in the agency's 56,000
screeners.
In what may rank as the greatest public understatement of recent times, Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio observed about the TSA screening program, "I
have extraordinary concerns that we are doing something that lacks common sense." In its screening program, the TSA complies fully with political correctness, preferring to strip-search Grandma and to hassle young
mothers laden with infants and their paraphernalia rather than to commit
the unforgivable sin --
namely, "profiling" the sort of people who conceivably might be planning
to hijack or blow up an airplane. Simultaneously, in further compliance
with political correctness, the TSA has done everything in its power to
cripple the program that Congress forced on it to train pilots to carry
guns in the cockpit -- one of the few measures that actually packs some anti-terrorist punch, and a cheap, sensible one at that.
Ultimately, however, the TSA's program serves one political purpose above all others. It routinely abases and humiliates the entire population,
rendering us docile and compliant and thereby preparing us to play our
assigned role in the police state that the Bush administration has been building relentlessly. For Attorney General John Ashcroft, the federal prosecutors, and the thousands of bully-boys at the FBI, the BATF and all
the other, similar bureaus, nothing could be finer than a system whereby
the entire population is treated as suspected criminals and made to feel
like inmates in the national security state.

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute in Oakland (www.independent.org), editor of the Independent
Review, and author of "Crisis and Leviathan" and the forthcoming "Against Leviathan." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 SF Chronicle


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From Newsgroup: alt.society.civil-liberty


Creeping socialism in baggage screening. Who'd a thunk it.

LOL!
Bill Smith
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From Newsgroup: alt.society.civil-liberty

"sgdunn" <sgdunn@cox.net> wrote in message news:PGICb.3290$JD6.1907@lakeread04...

The reasons why airline executives and lobbyists endorsed the creation
of the TSA in the first place are fourfold. It's a lot easier to
successfully sue an airline if private screeners for its flights botch up security than it is for a plaintiff to get anywhere with a similar

argument

about Federalized screeners. By advocating socialization of airport

baggage

screening, those in charge of the airlines were in a better position to influence just what form socialized baggage screening takes. The more
statist a Congressman is, the likelier he is to get revenge at those who oppose his agenda, or at least deny them favors they otherwise would have been granted. At the time the TSA was created, not supporting it would

have

been bad for propaganda; the terrorists had succeeded in putting the

country

into an uproar. When people perceive a crisis, they tend to be more

tolerant

of statist programs that are supposed to end the crisis; that's the
situation the terrorists meant to create. Terrorism works. ----------------------------------------------------------------------
This article was sent to you by someone who found it on SF Gate.
The original article can be found on SFGate.com here:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/12/07 /ING053E1UI1.DTL

---------------------------------------------------------------------- Sunday, December 7, 2003 (SF Chronicle)
TRANSPORTATION THUGGERY/A Nation in Its Stocking Feet/Humiliated travelers get only the pretense of airport security
Robert Higgs

College student Nathaniel Heatwole's recent highly publicized high

jinks

in deliberately and successfully flouting airline-security rules by
stowing packages with box cutters and other prohibited items on Southwest Airlines planes illustrate once more the realities of the government's
sham program to protect the commercial airline industry from terrorists.
The Transportation Security Administration is a joke, and not a funny
one,
either. Travelers submit to pointless, degrading invasions of their persons and property in order to avoid offending the functionaries and
thugs who, whenever they choose, can prevent passengers from proceeding
with their travel.
Something is horribly wrong with a population willing to tolerate such routine degradation and thuggery, especially when the alleged benefits of
the humiliation are bogus.
Deputy TSA Administrator Stephen McHale dismissed the significance of

the

Heatwole incident. "Amateur testing of our systems do (sic) not show us in any way our flaws," he said. "We know where the vulnerabilities are and we are testing them ... This does not help."
Well, yes, it does not help to improve a bureaucrat's day when a

college

student carries out with such ease multiple evasions of forbidden-item interdiction, immediately alerts the authorities to every detail of his actions, then has to wait a month for an official reaction. McHale's dismissal notwithstanding, this incident does highlight flaws that have
been disclosed repeatedly by others, including agents of the
Transportation Department's inspector general, ever since the feds rushed
to nationalize airport security screening in the aftermath of Sept. 11.
Back then, when President Bush signed the takeover bill into law on

Nov.

19, 2001, he declared: "Safety comes first. And when it comes to safety,
we will set high standards and enforce them." The president was just
blowing political hot air.
A TSA survey of 32 major airports, reported in July 2002, "found that
fake
guns, bombs, and other weapons got past security screeners almost one-
fourth of the time."
Do not suppose, however, that the TSA has served no purpose. Primarily,
it
has served to give the public the impression that the government is "doing something" about airline security. The government is doing a great deal,
to be sure; it's just not doing anything that contributes to genuine security. Do we really suppose that the people smart enough to have pulled off the coordinated hijackings and attacks of Sept. 11 are too stupid to
beat the present system?
The TSA has also served to bulk up the government payroll and, in the process, the ranks of rock-solid Democratic voters. Count this payoff to Democrats as one of the many that Bush has been willing to make to secure Democratic votes in Congress for measures he ranks highly, such as running
up the Pentagon's budget and attacking Iraq. Late in 2001, the airline screening industry employed about 28,000 workers. Bush's request for
fiscal year 2004 calls for the TSA to employ 59,000, at a cost of $4.81 billion. That works out to $81,560 per employee. Does anyone really
believe we're getting our money's worth?
Of course, we have to take into account that not all the money goes for payroll. Much of the spending ends up in the pockets of private
contractors --
Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Oracle, Unisys, InVision

Technologies

and others.
The TSA has approved at least 80 contracts worth about $54 million
without
normal competitive bidding. Obviously, the good-old-boy fraternity so familiar in Pentagon contracting -- officially described as "firms that
TSA officials identified as having expertise in the areas needed" -- has
had no trouble entering the TSA's vault and walking out with cash.
Like any federal bureaucracy, the TSA has spawned its share of

scandals.

A
widely reported one involved its booking of the Wyndham Peaks Resort and Golden Door Spa near Telluride, Colo., to conduct recruiting interviews. Twenty TSA recruiters stayed seven weeks at this plush resort to fill 50 screener jobs. While there, they also shelled out $29,000 of the
taxpayers' money to the local police department for extra security.
Another scandal involved about $400,000 spent to redecorate in
appropriate
bureaucratic splendor the office of then-chief John Magaw (who was later fired).
When the feds were gearing up to take over the screening industry, proponents of this harebrained idea emphasized the advantages of switching from ill-trained, low-paid private employees to better-trained,
higher-paid federal employees, all subjected to proper background checks.
In June, however,
"the TSA acknowledged firing more than 1,200 airport screeners --

roughly

2 percent of its screener workforce -- for providing false information on
job applications, failing drug tests or having criminal records." Recently
a flap broke out when it came to light that TSA employees taking certification tests had been given the exact questions and answers in advance. Evidently, these crack federal employees, who were supposed to be such tremendous improvements (although the TSA had quickly waived its
initial high-school-graduation requirement), needed a slight edge to demonstrate their superiority.
TSA head Adm. James Loy affirms that although he has ordered a "full investigation," he retains "full confidence" in the agency's 56,000 screeners.
In what may rank as the greatest public understatement of recent times, Oregon Rep. Peter DeFazio observed about the TSA screening program, "I
have extraordinary concerns that we are doing something that lacks common sense." In its screening program, the TSA complies fully with political correctness, preferring to strip-search Grandma and to hassle young
mothers laden with infants and their paraphernalia rather than to commit
the unforgivable sin --
namely, "profiling" the sort of people who conceivably might be

planning

to hijack or blow up an airplane. Simultaneously, in further compliance
with political correctness, the TSA has done everything in its power to cripple the program that Congress forced on it to train pilots to carry
guns in the cockpit -- one of the few measures that actually packs some anti-terrorist punch, and a cheap, sensible one at that.
Ultimately, however, the TSA's program serves one political purpose

above

all others. It routinely abases and humiliates the entire population, rendering us docile and compliant and thereby preparing us to play our assigned role in the police state that the Bush administration has been building relentlessly. For Attorney General John Ashcroft, the federal prosecutors, and the thousands of bully-boys at the FBI, the BATF and all
the other, similar bureaus, nothing could be finer than a system whereby
the entire population is treated as suspected criminals and made to feel
like inmates in the national security state.

Robert Higgs is Senior Fellow in Political Economy at The Independent Institute in Oakland (www.independent.org), editor of the Independent
Review, and author of "Crisis and Leviathan" and the forthcoming "Against Leviathan." ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Copyright 2003 SF Chronicle

That article pretty much hits the nail right on the head, and it highlights
the typical reasons why the government bureaucracy tends to keep expanding. It's interesting that no one ever thought to actually evaluate the
efficiency of private screeners versus government ones. The assumption was that, since there were failings among private screeners, government ones
would do better.

JA Golczewski, Ph.D.
http://users.rcn.com/jigo/jg.HTM
Updates, free book on health and life-extension



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