Plane hijackings used to occur because the SOP was to not resist and try to negotiate with the hijackers for the safe release of the passengers.
After 9/11 the assumption has to be that they're going to fly the plane into a building and kill everyone, so now if you try to hijack a plane all the passengers and crew are going to beat you to death with their fists and shoelaces like their life depends on it, which makes it a lot harder to hijack a plane. The TSA has approximately nothing to do with that.
TSA is security theater, but I think checks are still necessary. Otherwise people can bring C4 onto planes, blow themselves (and the plane) up in the air, and freak a lot of "Western civilization" out.
The liquids ban really is bullshit though, it's to prevent a fictional movie plot using a bomb mixed up using binary liquids...
It’s not about “damage”. Terrorism never is. It’s about instilling fear and an over reaction that will have people sympathetic to your cause. It worked during 911 and it’s working right now in Israel.
Yeah, but that's my point. Planes go missing somewhat regularly, and sometimes even get blown out of the sky intentionally. It's news for a week or two. So why go through the trouble of getting on a plane and blow it up in the sky (and kill yourself in the process) when you can just blow up something like a music star's concert and get more media attention, and even survive the whole thing.
Binary explosives aren't fictional. They'll make just as much of a hole in the plane as C4.
The liquids ban is bullshit because you can have arbitrarily many small bottles of liquid and an arbitrarily large empty bucket to mix them in once you're inside. And because blowing up a plane isn't any more of a problem than blowing up a subway car or a highrise hotel lobby but it's ridiculous and infeasible to stripsearch everyone who goes into a high population density area.
Guns are trash on a plane. The use of a firearm is to be able to incapacitate someone from far enough away that they can't counterattack. Planes are densely packed with people. You'd have people surrounding and disarming you long before you could get control of the plane. How many shots do you expect to get off when anyone you're not currently aiming at can put their hands on the gun while someone else grabs your other arm to pull you in the opposite direction and a third person comes up behind you and kicks you between the legs?
Also notice that even if you somehow managed to kill everyone on the plane, you'd then be left with just a plane full of terrorists for the government to blow out of the sky. And if all you wanted was to kill a bunch of random people then being on a plane has nothing to do with it.
Terrorism is never about how many people you kill. It’s about instilling fear and sending a message and the downstream economic harm.
Look no further than 911. Two costly unnecessary wars (that even republicans don’t defend anymore) that caused an entirely new generation of people to hate America.
> Terrorism is never about how many people you kill. It’s about instilling fear and sending a message and the downstream economic harm.
But again, what does it have anything to do with it being a plane? If they were to blow up a train instead of a plane, are people going to be like "haha you idiots, that only works if it's a plane"?
> Look no further than 911. Two costly unnecessary wars (that even republicans don’t defend anymore) that caused an entirely new generation
It sounds like you're saying that inhibiting overreactions to terrorism would lessen its effect and act as a deterrent to it.
(I edited my above comment. I didn’t finish my thought “caused an entire generation to hate America”).
My wife and I fly a lot so we don’t think twice about it. But I’m sure you know how many people are deftly afraid of flying. Can you imagine how reticent people would be about flying if planes start blowing up? Much more economic harm comes from a disruption of air travel than if mass transit stopped in one city.
No one in America to a first approximation cares about trains or mass transit. They are mostly popular in those left leaning cities that are infested by criminality any way. I can see it now “what did they expect when they elected a socialist Muslim” (please note sarcasm).
> Can you imagine how reticent people would be about flying if planes start blowing up? Much more economic harm comes from a disruption of air travel than if mass transit stopped in one city.
There are more than four times more riders of the subway in NYC alone than there are plane tickets sold nationwide.
Meanwhile if you're actually worried about deterring people from flying then what does it do to force them to risk missing their flight if they don't waste two hours getting there early, or subject them to warrantless suspicion, scary radiation, uninvited groping, nude body scanners and senseless humiliation?
And all for nothing because it can't be the thing preventing people from blowing up planes when tests consistently show that they're still letting through three quarters of contraband.
You realize every single country has similar procedures? The only difference in my experience flying out of LHR (London) this year and flying out of ATL is that you don’t have to remove your shoes and they allow liquids to pass through security after a secondary screening. SJO (Costa Rica) was about the same earlier this year except they also don’t aloud liquids.
You also have to go through screening and metal detectors to get on the train between London and France (the “Chunnel”)
If NY gets disrupted - no one cares outside of New York. Do you remember how people were stuck after 911 or more recently when a bad software update took out airlines nationwide?
There is a reason that the government set up a fund to protect the entire airline industry from collapse from liability after 911.
> You realize every single country has similar procedures?
The US has a way of setting bad precedents or pressuring other countries to adopt its inanity, yes. Another reason not to do it here.
> If NY gets disrupted - no one cares outside of New York.
The very large number of people in New York probably care though. Also, why would someone blowing up a train in New York be less scary to people in DC than someone blowing up a plane in New York would be to people in DC?
> Do you remember how people were stuck after 911 or more recently when a bad software update took out airlines nationwide?
Less than a quarter as many people as get stuck when the NYC subways are offline, presumably.
If you haven’t noticed, “the people in DC” right now don’t care about the US outside of red states. And the reason a plane is different because people think it could happen to them if they got on a plane. If you don’t live in NYC, it’s easy to avoid the NYC train system. If I want to get from ATL to Seattle - what am I going to do drivers two or three days?
>Less than a quarter as many people as get stuck when the NYC subways are offline, presumably.
There plenty of ways to get from Manhattan to Queens if the train system went down then to get from California to Florida.
Is it really that hard to see the difference between a localized transportation system in NYC and a worldwide network of planes? Especially since airline security doesn’t just affect domestic flights it also affects flights leaving the US.
And you think the US pressured England of all places to have higher security? Did you forget about all the bombing they use to have? Did they also irsssye countries to have higher security security measures for domestic flights and their internal train system?
Or do you think that Israel would have less security if it weren’t for US pressure or Central America?
Why would the US care for instance if there were screenings to get on the baby Sansa propellor plane that flies from San Jose Costa Rica to Manual Antonino?
> If you haven’t noticed, “the people in DC” right now don’t care about the US outside of red states.
I feel like you're failing to see the symmetry at all. We have direct historical evidence on point that they cared about some New York City skyscrapers, and those were definitely Republicans too. Do you really think they wouldn't care about the same thing today regardless of whether it was a plane or a train?
> And the reason a plane is different because people think it could happen to them if they got on a plane.
But if it happens to a train people don't think it could happen to them if they got on a train? Either that's not true or those people would have such a disconnected relationship to logic that there is no use pandering to them anyway because they wouldn't see the connection between your policies and the results.
> There plenty of ways to get from Manhattan to Queens if the train system went down then to get from California to Florida.
Spoken like someone who hasn't seen the days when it goes down. What happens when you take the 4 million people who ride the subway every day and tell them it isn't there? Impassable gridlock.
> Is it really that hard to see the difference between a localized transportation system in NYC and a worldwide network of planes?
All of the transportation systems are interconnected. What does the connectedness change? If something happens on a train in New York, does it materially affect San Francisco but not Honolulu because trains connect New York and California but not Hawaii?
Planes are even less affected by this than other things because you can damage train tracks or road bridges that act as a bottleneck but the only infrastructure air travel requires is airports and planes, and airports are widely distributed and planes are easy to move around.
> Especially since airline security doesn’t just affect domestic flights it also affects flights leaving the US.
Which is another reason it's a farce, because it also affects flights entering the US and then it doesn't matter what the TSA does when you can go through airport security in the country of your choosing with the weakest or most bribe-accepting security that lets you get behind the checkpoint on a plane to the US.
> And you think the US pressured England of all places to have higher security?
Your original claim was that all other countries do this. Before 9/11, they didn't, and now you're having to resort to only the countries with the most stringent checks. Obviously Israel where bombings are practically a daily occurrence would need more than countries where that is much less common, but that's kind of the point, isn't it?
> Why would the US care for instance if there were screenings to get on the baby Sansa propellor plane that flies from San Jose Costa Rica to Manual Antonino?
Are you saying that the screenings to get on that plane are the same as the ones imposed by the TSA, or are you now conceding that this is wrong:
> You realize every single country has similar procedures?
No I’m saying it’s completely illogical that you believe the US pressured countries to have the same security screenings on domestic flights within the country including to get on a baby twin engine plane for a 30 minute flight from SJO to XQP or that countries like Great Britain or Israel that had a history of bombings wouldn’t have increased security measures.
If you are asking whether it is the same, everywhere. In my recent experience of flying out of international airports…
- LHR - you don’t remove your shoes and they have newer scanners that supposedly detect explosives in liquids.
> But if it happens to a train people don't think it could happen to them if they got on a train?
Well first most people outside of NYC aren’t as heavily dependent on public transportation. They already see it as dangerous and for poor people (yes I think that’s ignorant). In other words people with means already avoid public transportation and they would even be more likely to do so. This is very much a car centric culture
Do you know how many people outside of NYC believe the narrative that the minute you step on a train in NYC that you are going to be shot or raped?
No I don’t believe that. I’ve used NYC mass transit once when I went to the US Open (the reason I mentioned Queens where the Arthur Ashe stadium is).
I lived in Atlanta for 25 years. I took MARTA once to get from the north suburbs of Atlanta to the airport. The rest of the time we would drive or take Uber. I took it again recently to get from the airport to downtown when visiting.
MARTA also has such a reputation for only being for poor people to the point where its derogatorily called Moving Africans Rapidly Through Atlanta (before the pearl clutching starts about me using a racist acronym I’m Black). If people started bombing trains. You would see even less ridership from people who had alternatives.
> All of the transportation systems are interconnected. What does the connectedness change? If something happens on a train in New York, does it materially affect San Francisco
You mean all 5 people who ride trains inter-city across the country?
> Which is another reason it's a farce, because it also affects flights entering the US and then it doesn't matter what the TSA does when you can go through airport security in the country of your choosing with the weakest or most bribe-accepting security that lets you get behind the checkpoint on a plane to the US.
Most bribes are for drugs and other contraband. Have you ever in the past 20 years heard of a case where someone bribed an official to bring a weapon on board a plane that was used to take over or bomb a plane?
But you still haven’t answered the main overriding question - why does every major airport in every country have the same procedures? Is everyone in the world wrong? And if it is because of supposed pressure from the US, why is it true for domestic flights within their own borders and for their train systems (at least my n=1 experience on a train outside of the US)?
> No I’m saying it’s completely illogical that you believe the US pressured countries to have the same security screenings on domestic flights within the country including to get on a baby twin engine plane for a 30 minute flight from SJO to XQP or that countries like Great Britain or Israel that had a history of bombings wouldn’t have increased security measures.
Nobody said they successfully pressured everyone about everything. But they do it a some and it doesn't do nothing, unfortunately. There are many countries still now requiring ineffective nonsense they didn't require before 9/11.
> They already see it as dangerous and for poor people
It seems like your argument is that we should needlessly harass middle class airline passengers but not poor people riding mass transit because nobody cares about poor people, but that seems like a bad idea for not just one but both reasons.
> Most bribes are for drugs and other contraband. Have you ever in the past 20 years heard of a case where someone bribed an official to bring a weapon on board a plane that was used to take over or bomb a plane?
Of course not, because the TSA is completely pointless so you don't have to bribe anyone. When someone wants to do that (e.g. shoe bomber) they just go right through without having to pay a bribe, and then they get stopped by passengers or crew.
> why does every major airport in every country have the same procedures?
To begin with, they don't. Moreover, even the original cargo cults were about planes.
> If people started bombing trains. You would see even less ridership from people who had alternatives.
But that was my point. If we cared about any of this and it was actually effective (which it isn't) then it doesn't make sense to do it for planes but not hotels and trains and everything else.
And we can clearly see that not doing it for anything other than planes hasn't resulted in an epidemic of bombings in the US for everything that isn't an aircraft, so why are we still wasting resources and troubling people by doing it for planes?
> Nobody said they successfully pressured everyone about everything. But they do it a some and it doesn't do nothing, unfortunately. There are many countries still now requiring ineffective nonsense they didn't require before 9/11.
So the idea that America forced every single country in the world to basically have the same security procedures even on domestic flights - except for removing your shoes - was completely false?
> It seems like your argument is that we should needlessly harass middle class airline passengers but not poor people riding mass transit because nobody cares about poor people, but that seems like a bad idea for not just one but both reasons
No I’m saying both that historically, no one tried to hijack a train. What exactly are they going to make the train conductor do?
> Of course not, because the TSA is completely pointless so you don't have to bribe anyone. When someone wants to do that (e.g. shoe bomber) they just go right through without having to pay a bribe, and then they get stopped by passengers or crew.
Yes because so many guns ands bombs have gotten through TSA since 2001…
> To begin with, they don't. Moreover, even the original cargo cults were about planes.
Which commercial airports let you get on the plane without going through security?
As far as cargo culting, you do know how often trains got hijacked in the 80s?
> But that was my point. If we cared about any of this and it was actually effective (which it isn't) then it doesn't make sense to do it for planes but not hotels and trains and everything else.
Last time I checked, hijackers can’t run a hotel into a building or make the hotel employees move a hotel to another country.
And Brightline - the high speed train in Florida does require you to go through security domestically and my n=1 experience of getting on the train system from London to France also makes you go through computer.
> So the idea that America forced every single country in the world to basically have the same security procedures even on domestic flights - except for removing your shoes - was completely false?
There was no such premise to begin with. They applied some pressure to some countries which had some effect, others followed suit by following bad precedents set by others.
> No I’m saying both that historically, no one tried to hijack a train. What exactly are they going to make the train conductor do?
I mean, people used to rob trains. That was definitely a thing.
> Yes because so many guns ands bombs have gotten through TSA since 2001…
Look, we need to keep paying the expensive lease on this bear-repelling rock because even though it demonstrably hasn't repelled the actual bears we've encountered, if we didn't have it there might have been thousands of bears, possibly trillions.
> Which commercial airports let you get on the plane without going through security?
How about this one: How many of them require it to be a government agency? Even in a lot of Europe it's private.
> the high speed train in Florida does require you to go through security domestically
Let's get rid of that too then.
> Last time I checked, hijackers can’t run a hotel into a building or make the hotel employees move a hotel to another country.
Neither can you do that with a plane if your plan is to blow it up, so why do you have to take off your shoes and have your drink stolen?
> There was no such premise to begin with. They applied some pressure to some countries which had some effect, others followed suit by following bad precedents set by others.
Your words.
The US has a way of setting bad precedents or pressuring other countries to adopt its inanity, yes. Another reason not to do it here.
And explain to me again why the US would “pressure” countries to increase security on domestic flights? Why would the US care if a propellor plane flying from a literal hut in Manuel Antonio Costa Rica to San Jose has security screenings or a train going from London to Paris had security screenings?
> Look, we need to keep paying the expensive lease on this bear-repelling rock because even though it demonstrably hasn't repelled the actual bears we've encountered, if we didn't have it there might have been thousands of bears, possibly trillions
Because terrorism doesn’t exist anymore and everyone loves America?
> How about this one: How many of them require it to be a government agency? Even in a lot of Europe it's private.
So now you went from “other countries have airports where security isn’t the same” to “it’s private”. What difference does it make?
FWIW: Airports can choose to have private security instead of TSA. The only one that does of any note is SFO.
Even if it is private in the EU, they still follow EU wide security regulations. How does it being private make any difference in your experience?
And even o
> Let's get rid of that too then.
So every single commercial airport in the world has screenings, as well as some domestic foreign train systems (Ibe only been on one internationally) as well as private high speed rail in the US where it isn’t required by law.
Eyeballing the data [1], it looks like total fatalities in the low 1000s, and roughly 20 hijackings per year 1980-2000. Let's value each human fatality at $1M, and - lacking any knowledge about the subject - cargo also at $1M/incident.
That's about $1B in human life loss and $20M/year in cargo.
The 2025 budget for ths TSA was over $10B, so we're spending 10x the loss to prevent it. Value each human life at $10M? Then the total value of lives lost over a 20 year span is about one year of TSA spending.
You’re completely ignoring the knock on economic effects of lower confidence in flight safety, liability and the not so hypothetical ability of someone to take over a plane and use it to attack ground targets.
AirTran for instance went out of business because of one crash. If someone blew up a United plane, I can guarantee you that Delta would increase the security before you got on their flights to instill confidence on passengers.
And people act as if airport security and the TSA measures are unique to the US. My wife and I just got into a position where the stars aligned for us to fly a lot post Covid. But during that time the three countries that we have flown out of - London, Costa Rica and Mexico all have the basic same security measure with the slight difference that you can bring liquids on board from LHR because they have newer scanners that supposedly detect explosives.
And it’s not just airlines. We also had to go through the same type of security to get on the “Chunnel” from London to France.
The only thing that is really theatre is taking off your shoes in the US.
The current VSL (value of a statistical life) is approximately $13.1 million, a figure that varies by agency. For example, the Department of Transportation (DOT) uses $13.7 million for its safety standards.
Are you suggesting that TSA can reliably stop being from bringing guns onboard?
The only thing preventing that is that people mostly don't want to bring guns on board. It's a pointless exercise that accomplishes basically nothing .
Are you saying metal detectors don’t work? Why is it that absolutely every airport in the world has similar security - as well as Brightline in Florida and the Chunnel between London and France?
As far as people not wanting to bring guns on planes - did you forget what country this is? 2nd Amendment people get their panties in a knot anytime they can’t bring a gun anywhere.
DHS routinely tests TSA and they always fail spectacularly. This was just the first one on Google. You can easily find many more, this is widely reported on.
You realized there has been a complete overhaul in equipment since 2017?
In your citation: In the public hearing today on Capitol Hill, members pushed for the full implementation of a program using new scanning equipment that creates a 3-D image of bags, giving screeners better ability to spot possibly dangerous items
Those new scanners are in 255 of the nations 432 airports
One notable change is: reinforced cockpit doors that can't be forced open from the outside easily. Good luck hijacking with that.
But another notable change is that plane crews and passengers all understand now that plane hijacking is a life or death situation, and would fight hijackers to the bitter end.
Which is what happened on the very day of 9/11, on Flight 93.
With reinforced doors - pilots still come out to use the restroom. Flight attendants usually just block the aisle. People will fight back in the case of knives. But how much fighting back dk you think is going to happen if people have guns?
How long do you think it’s going to be before a pilot opens the door if a hijacker starts shooting people?
Airport security is by far not just in America with the only exception in my experience is that other airports don’t make you take your shoes off and some allow liquids in carryon
If people think the plane is about to be flown into a skyscraper, I'm not sure a gun will stop them. There are hundreds of people on a plane and at most twenty rounds in a gun. The math isn't in the terrorist's favor.
There also isn't room to get away from angry passengers. They're probably going to overwhelm terrorists with guns relatively quickly.
I don’t believe I’m making up this scenario. But here I go..
I would book a first class flight in the first seat in front of the plane. Make all of the first class passenger - fewer of them, probably wealthier business travelers who don’t think they are Rambo - move to the back of the cabin.
The aisle would be the perfect kill zone. I watched a documentary and they said SWAT training for taking over a plane from terrorist they know that whoever goes in first is likely to get shot.
