$160 Million

The TSA finally confessed to how much it spent on both the x-ray and millimeter-wave naked scanners: $160,000,000. Awesome.

At what cost?

Take a look at this blog post looking at the economic costs of making publicly-funded airport security effective. An excerpt:

If a 95% failure rate results in some people waiting longer than 20 minutes, then how would an 85% or 75% failure rate affect wait times? In other words, what is the marginal impact in wait times as a result of improving failure rates?

Read more: http://securitydebrief.com/2015/07/21/after-tsa-airport-failures-security-versus-the-economy/#ixzz3gppqwWHE

Of course, this is something that the market can answer if security were left up to those with vested interests: airlines, airport owners*, and passengers.

*Unfortunately, airports tend to be "owned" by municipalities, so this can not be a true market, but - as history has shown - is a vast improvement over federal management of security.

How many years have you been x-rayed without consent or knowledge?

If you live in New York, you may soon find out. It could be that NYPD has not used van-mounted x-rays to view inside occupied buildings or vehicles, and has not used them near pedestrians. But, they have been stonewalling Pro-Publica for the past three years on even being transparent about their safety procedures. Furthermore, NYPD may have databases of x-ray images of vehicles and buildings (yes, the radiation can penetrate metal and concrete) - and perhaps nude images of people - since they apparently have no privacy protection policies in place. But a judge is requiring NYPD to release documentation regarding how these x-ray vans are used.

(Do you suddenly feel like you have entered a science-fiction novel?)

Furthermore, these vans have been in use by the US military in the countries they occupy (yet more trampling on the natural-born freedoms of foreigners), by US Customs at borders (at least they have a policy in place that requires vehicles are not occupied at the time of the scan), and by other law enforcement agencies at conventions and sporting events;

The most extensive reference to the vans came in a book written by two ABC News reporters who chronicled a year inside the agency's bomb squad.

Describing the security around the 2004 Republican convention in New York, they wrote that every vehicle entering a street in front of the convention hotel was ordered to drive between two white vans, which X-rayed each vehicle for explosives.

Aside from the totally outrageous violations of civil liberties that have been going on right under our noses with almost no public awareness, we could delve (once again) into the issue of whether the government can ever be expected to use technology like this responsibly.

Free trials of PreCheck were just a standard promotion, except not

Just like the 1-month free trial you get for other memberships, PreCheck free trials were intended to drum up business. However, unlike a private-sector free trial, where the company is always trying to increase its customer base - and where there are competitors that can entice customers away - the TSA has a target number of PreCheck customers, apparently. Why else would they be cutting back on the free trials?

Interesting spam

I deleted a comment which was nonetheless interesting. It was advertising a website that does training for airport screeners. As Ludwig von Mises said in his groundbreaking book, Socialism:

[The bureaucratic mind] classifies activity according to the capacity for undertaking it formally acquired by means of examinations and a certain period of service. 'Training' and 'length of service' are the only things which the official brings to the 'job'. If the work of a body of officials appears unsatisfactory, there can be only one explanation: the officials have not had the right training, and future appointments must be made differently.

 So there is an industry that has cropped up in the last decade to train and re-train TSA agents and their superiors and colleagues in DHS. When the real problem is the bureau and agencies themselves, not the training of the officials!

Another brilliant idea

Hire even more government workers for the airports. These ones are supposed to be "passenger advocates." Forgive me if I think this is incredibly naive.

UPDATE: Becky Akers agrees that this is a bad idea.

Columnist remains inside the box

A column in an Oklahoma paper is titled Airport security abuses power. I was going to say that the "Columnist states the obvious," but not all of her title is obvious - just not imaginative in the least.

The column is about a teenager who had trouble at the airport because she had an image of a gun sewn onto her purse. Low-level bureaucrats tend to get in more trouble if they think, so it is in their best interest to do really dumb stuff that is, nonetheless, by the book. The columnist's discussion of this is apt, but is decidedly less cynical than I am.

My issue is with this non-sequitor:

I am OK with the full-body scanners that were so controversial earlier this year, and I’m happy to put my travel-sized liquids in a resealable bag.

...All citizens deserve freedom and privacy, whether or not they’re in the air.

How are full-body scanners and precise inane instructions on how to carry your personal items consistent with "freedom and privacy." They're not! This is not a matter of some aspects of the TSA abusing some power. This is a case of a bureaucracy being given way more power than is legal, and running with it.