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December 30, 2009

TSA: Fighting the last threat, not the next one

Airline security may seem to be more of a national security issue than a "free market issue," but with aviation experts proposing even more onerous and costly security measures, presumably paid for through higher aviation taxes, the issue becomes economically important.

As Reason's Jacob Sullum writes:

The reaction to Abdulmutallab’s fizzled bomb shows that the government continues to fetishistically focus on the details of the latest incident and impose conspicuous precautions without regard to whether the security payoff is worth the cost. Because Abdulmutallab used a blanket to conceal what he was doing, the TSA told airlines to ban the use of blankets during the last hour of flights to the United States. Also prohibited during the last hour: getting up from one’s seat, “passenger access to carry-on baggage,” and “personal belongings on the lap.”

Why the last hour? Because that’s when Abdulmutallab tried to set off his bomb. Therefore that is what all terrorists will do.

The TSA also instructed airlines to “disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services (phone, internet access services, live television programming, global positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight.” And it forbade “any announcement to passengers concerning flight path or position over cities or landmarks.”

Those rules, combined with the focus on the last hour of flight, suggest the TSA believes Abdulmutallab wanted his bomb to go off as the plane was approaching Detroit, and it therefore is trying to prevent other bombers from knowing where they are. But these precautions are easily evaded by anyone who does a little preflight research and wears a watch (next on the list of banned items?). In any case, other terrorists may decide to strike at a higher altitude, where the damage caused by an explosion would be compounded by decompression.

With airline passengers already facing heavy tax burdens, it would be great if policymakers would focus on keeping bad people off of planes rather than making passenger flight more costly and difficult for all of us.

Posted by PaulGessing at 05:44 PM | Comments (0)

December 08, 2009

15 seconds of fame on global warming

Jack Cafferty asked last night on the Situation Room whether anything would really come out of the climate summit in Copenhagen.

As usual I commented. When I looked on this blog today, I found that he actually used my comments. Here is what he asked:

Here’s my question to you: What do you expect to come out of the global warming summit in Copenhagen?

Michael from Alexandria, Virginia writes:
Like you said, Jack, a binding treaty is never gonna happen. I doubt that we will get honest science on this (which would discount warming). I would much rather we give up on warming and instead target actual pollution of air and water in the developing world. Of course, the Chinese would block this too -as would the U.S., who benefits from both Chinese and Mexican pollution run amok.

Posted by MichaelBindner at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)

December 04, 2009

TSA Stole my Hot Sauce!

We at the Rio Grande Foundation typically go after the idiocy and corruption of our state political leaders, but the TSA is one entity that we all deal with on a regular basis, but that I have not written about extensively. This is largely because there seems to be no momentum in Congress to undo the nationalization of airport security that was enacted after 9/11.

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday, my wife Krista and I spent the week with RGF co-founder Harry Messenheimer and his wife on the Big Island of Hawaii. We were on Oahu for one day and toured the Dole Plantation. There, we purchase a bottle of pineapple-infused hot sauce. Being good travelers, we checked the bottle which was wrapped in some tissue paper to protect it from breaking. Well, when we got home and opened our bags, we had a pre-printed notice in our bag indicating TSA had checked the bag and we had no sauce. Unbelievable!

Apparently, TSA theft is not a new or uncommon issue. I'm proud that my old organization, the National Taxpayers Union, opposed federalizing airport security when it was done and I wish that our political leaders would get rid of TSA and let airlines and passengers handle security issues.

Posted by PaulGessing at 05:58 PM | Comments (3)

Free-for-all (frfr-ôl) -- n. A disorderly fight, argument, or competition in which everyone present participates.

from Dictionary.com



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