TSA=Placebo Effect

I just passed through the Transportation Security Administration checkpoint in Phoenix. The other passengers on my flight can rest easy now that my 3.5 oz. bottle of shaving cream has been confiscated. Interestingly enough, my razor was allowed.

Is anyone even taking these guys seriously anymore?

Here’s why the TSA is bullshit: It can’t possible protect against all the potential means a terrorist may use on an airplane. So instead of being ahead of the curve, TSA is behind it. TSA starting requiring passengers to take off their shoes only after Richard Reid successfully got on a plane with a bomb in his shoe and almost set it off in mid-flight. The same goes for gels.

I resent the whole process only because I know it isn’t stopping anything. Imagination is the TSA’s kryptonite. Shoes were first to beat the system, then gels, what’s next? Hell, even the stuff they are already looking for gets through at an ‘alarming’ rate. I won’t bore you with the stats. Bottom line, TSA isn’t doing much of anything except making you feel ’safe’ about flying.

The only reason the TSA hasn’t been totally exposed as a fraud is because of the lack of terrorists. They’re a nation wide placebo effect, making you feel safe by taking your nail clippers, but incapable of really securing the skies from terrorism. TSA is really good at stopping the accidental terrorist, I just know if and when we need them, they will have been outsmarted.

I realize the TSA is necessary. It’s just that it isn’t necessarily doing anything at all. Is that the best we can get for $4.7 billion a year?

If I recall properly, the make up of the TSA front line personnel is the product of a bipartisan compromise. It was agreed that the private vendor airport security companies were inadequate. So they “federalized” their employees and issued new shirts.

Well, the government is setting itself up to have another terrorist attack hung around its neck.

[...] TSA = placebo effect [...]