

TSA willing to pay $15,000 for best ideas to help shorten airport lines - suprgeek
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/wp/2014/07/29/tsa-willing-to-pay-15000-for-best-ideas-to-help-shorten-airport-lines

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illegalsmile
Just went through the security theater myself no less than an hour ago and
along with everyone else: Eliminate TSA. We all know it's a joke, I even had
my pat down guy joking with me about how ridiculous the whole thing is. On the
way out to my destination I had 100' of 8-wire cable in my carry on, a multi-
parameter water quality probe and various solutions for calibrations (fit into
the appropriate containers) and no one said anything. On the way back the
multi-parameter probe was questioned like mad. Their practices are
inconsistent and ineffective. However, they are effective at slowing travel
down and spending tax payers monies.

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cheald
Get rid of the TSA. I'll take my $15,000 now.

Seriously though, $15k is a pittance for what they're asking. If they had to
employ someone to do that, they'd have to pay them _way_ more than that, and
the economic upsides of what they're gunning for are quite substantial. This
feels like it's along the lines of holding a logo design contest and paying
the winner $25.

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EthanV2
One way might be to decrease the ridiculous amount of security theater they
employ.

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superuser2
The longest I've ever spent between the front of the line and the concourse
was ~2 minutes. The screening process doesn't need to get shorter, just more
parallel.

Have more lanes. Hire more staff, and schedule them more evenly. Every time
I've waited in an obnoxiously long line, additional lanes were extant but
closed. Meanwhile there seemed to be at least 5 staff standing around doing
nothing. Have them man a second lane and cut the waiting time in half?

There's no inherent reason you can't solve this problem, the limiting factors
are just the size of the screening room and the payroll budget.

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joshdance
Have each airline administer its own security. If you want the machines, the
patdowns, and long lines for 'security' there will be an airline for you.

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stevewillows
> It’s asking so-called “solvers” to build on TSA’s existing PreCheck
> program..

They expect to add a process to a failed process and expect a different
result? Ultimately they'll add one more machine, one single line that feeds
into the scanners, and more promotion of the Nexus program... and in five
years, another $15k for another idea that changes nothing.

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ef4
I'll elaborate further on the "just abolish it" idea: let each airline manage
its own security. They have every incentive to balance customer experience
with meaningful security.

Especially if you leave them open to civil liability in case they are
negligent and bad things happen with one of their airplanes.

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cheald
I specifically fly Delta because they fly out of a terminal in my home airport
that doesn't have the backscatter machines - just the metal detectors. There's
never much of a line and I don't have to go through the hassle of opting out
for a pat-down.

I would definitely make it a point to patronize airlines which made
convenience and smooth travel a feature. Every time I travel, I sacrifice
multiple hours for each direction sitting in an airport because I have to
allow time for TSA incompetence. 95% of the time, I'm through security in a
half hour, but sometimes it takes two hours if they have the moron squad
working the x-ray, so I have to assume that every single time I travel.

If airlines were competing for my business on the basis of "consistent
screening times" and "low-hassle screening", I would be delighted.

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deanfranks
Easy, abolish the TSA

~~~
kordless
rm -rf /home/tsa/

~~~
drewblay
rm -rf /homelandsecurity/

~~~
madengr
sudo usermod -a -G sudo RonPaul

sudo fdisk /dev/tsa

sudo mkfs.freedom /dev/tsa1

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misiogames
Go to Israel, copy what they are doing there.

~~~
celticninja
killing people they dont like?

