TSA - Your Government Dollars hard at work.

In the years since 9/11, we have grown used to the security procedures at our nation's airports. But there is a problem. As long as the government runs the security environment, and doesn't respond to the needs of business or the public at large, we will suffer each time we need to fly somewhere.

Years ago, President Bush said that we'd only get the best people to run Airport Security. Could any intelligent person believe that malarkey?  Other than earning a paycheck, would any intelligent person want the job?  Some TSA workers get off on hassling people.  Others are lazy.  And still many others are diligent hard workers who are doing this job until they find better work elsewhere.  How much of a career can it be for a person, when politics dictates what opportunities would be available to the average person holding the job?

One of my friends used to work for the TSA, and he couldn't hack it.  I don't know how I'd feel if I had to scan thousands of people each day for contraband, and then deal with people and their feelings.  And many people are very unhappy - especially when the TSA does not staff up to meet peak periods, and causes people to wait for up to 3 hours to get through a security checkpoint.

Are we any safer now, than when private industry put its "rent a cops" on the front lines?  I doubt it.  But the TSA agents now have better benefits than when they were employed by the private firms.  And I find that this is important to me.  Yet, I think that private industry could do a better job - with the right supervision by government.

Years ago, our military designed weapons, and handed off production to private industry. The government kept the arms makers honest by inspecting one crate out of each hundred shipped.  If any item in the crate was not up to snuff, everything shipped (in those 100 crates) was destroyed, so that the private firm couldn't ship any of the other crates.  In short, it was crude quality control, but it provides a model for what we could do with our airports.

What would happen if we had the equivalent of "ethical hackers" testing security?  (I know they must exist.  But I'm examining a philosophy here.)  If a private firm failed a test, it would be ineligible for the next round of bidding for that airport.  If no one could bid, the government would provide security as last resort.  Business could also put in requirements of minimum staffing levels for time of day and day of week - and policies to maintain both quality of service and speed of service could be established.  The airport security fee of $2.50 (?) per flight segment might need to go up.  But no one wants to risk another 9/11, and why should we....?

PS: The TSA's director was just fired by the Obama administration.  

Reflections - Post San Bernardino

As much as I disagree with the NRA, I'll agree with them in regards to mass killings - it's not a gun problem, but a people problem. Gun free zones are meaningless in the same way that Drug free zones are meaningless. They are only a public statement that guns (or drugs) are not welcome, and not a reflection of reality - because those unwelcome items are already there.

Even if we were to take the NRA's stance that we have a mental health problem (in the case of the Connecticut school massacre in Sandy Hook), how do we change the mental health and legal systems (as well as provide adequate funding) to deal with such issues? If we focus on terrorism, how many freedoms do we want to sacrifice in the name of security? Can we trust our governments, with the history of corruption we have in this country (from both parties)?

We need intelligent regulation that crosses state lines, and has few (if any) loopholes. Population density and homogeneity is important. In areas of low population density, where people tend to be from a single ethnic group, we find a very low level of gun crime. In areas of high population density and a heterogeneous population base (such as in most urban areas), we find a high level of gun crime.

So, what do we do?

In the case of potential non-terrorist gun crime, we can work on providing better mental health treatment to people at a low cost. We can look for people who are alienated from society in general, and find ways to better integrate them into society - jobs, friends, social networks, etc. - so that they feel they have something to lose from going on violent rampages.

In the case of potential terrorist gun crime, we can allow the government to use a limited amount of spying tools (with appropriate warrants and vetted public monitoring to help protect us from becoming a police state) that analyze content and traffic on the internet (and associated social networks) to detect these terrorists (such as could have been done for the San Bernardino killings) and stop them.

Federal regulation based on population density and population heterogeneity must be enacted to supersede that existing on state levels, and must reflect the reality of metropolitan areas that cross state lines, as well as trafficking materials from areas with lenient regulation to those areas with restrictive regulation.   

Will this end all gun crime?

Certainly not!  America is a nation in love with its guns, and we have a constitution that protects our gun rights, in part, to insure that we can overthrow a tyrannical government. But, if we can cut this crime by a significant amount, we can start focusing on other problems that are just as important - such as seeing that ALL Americans who want a job can get a job (or have one provided to them that supplies them with a reasonable income).  I am tired of hearing Americans shout past each other, not listening to the valid points their opposition brings up. We have it in ourselves to make this nation a greater nation than it already is - Let's find a way to make it so.....