
Hundreds of TSA screeners, working without pay, calling out sick at airports - smacktoward
https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/04/politics/shutdown-tsa-screening/
======
akulbe
Maybe airports will go back to how they were before 9/11, and we'll realize
that it (the TSA) is unnecessary and ineffective, and flying will go back to
being a joy again?

~~~
rjplatte
God, I hope so. If only every flight was like being pre-checked. It's really a
joy to not have to deal with security theater.

~~~
gnarcoregrizz
It's not completely theater. I've had friends caught with ammo and knives
(which they left in their luggage by accident). In every case they simply
confiscated it and let them go, so it makes me feel alright that they have at
least caught stuff. I find the liquids stuff annoying, but hey.

It's probably in airlines best interests to have security anyway - after all
of the high profile (but extraordinarily rare) terror attacks, people are
probably more apt to fly with some type of security.

~~~
saurik
We also know (from actual tests of the system even, not just from people like
me claiming it) that people get through with stuff also.

So now you are saying we have a system where sometimes they catch you and they
just take the stuff as part of a system where sometimes you just get through
with your stuff... so there is no penalty to having some people try over and
over again... if the goal is to actually stop stuff getting through then this
is all pointless.

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Bhilai
Very disappointing comments in this thread. We get it that you all hate TSA
but come on, these screeners are working without pay and most of them probably
have dependents and families to take care of. Not to mention they worked
without pay over the holidays too. A little empathy would be pretty nice.

~~~
Nullabillity
Do you also ask for empathy for telemarketers? Some jobs simply make the world
a worse place.

~~~
amazingman
>Do you also ask for empathy for telemarketers?

Yes.

>Some jobs simply make the world a worse place.

Sure, agreed. It does not follow, however, that the people who (have to) work
those jobs are categorically terrible.

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DuskStar
This is fantastic! The TSA is a cancer on the aviation industry in this
country. If the default security experience was the one we get with Precheck,
I imagine things would be a lot better - but reducing things further from that
should be possible too. We spend far too much money, and far too many lives,
on security theater. And the TSA is a major part of that. (IIRC there were two
meaningful improvements in security following 9/11 - the introduction of
reinforced cockpit doors, preventing aircraft takeover, and the knowledge of
passengers that hijackings lead to death, not a free trip to Cuba, and so
resisting is actually a good idea)

~~~
SomeHacker44
Thank you. Nailed it.

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tj-teej
I see all these comments about TSA being theater, and while I don't disagree,
we should remember that these are real people with families to support.

A Government job is historically seen as a "safe" income. These employees
(whatever you think of their job's worth) are currently out of pay with no
idea when they'll be paid again.

Given how many American's live paycheck to paycheck, it's not a stretch to
imagine that there's kids out there going hungry tonight because of this
failure.

~~~
antisthenes
I don't see why a government job should be any safer than a private sector
job, unless we explicitly state that the government's job is explicitly to be
the employer of last resort for people who can't find jobs otherwise.

Is there something that makes a TSA employee different from, say, a food
service sector employee?

That's certainly not how I want my tax dollars to be spent and I'm not sure
most people would either if the question was explicitly posed this way.

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ProAm
> The mass call outs could inevitably mean air travel is less secure

This line is hilarious...

~~~
bryanrasmussen
because of 'could inevitably' or just because the idea that TSA makes people
more secure?

~~~
rjplatte
Yes.

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danieltillett
Maybe something good will come from this gov shut down and we will be able to
get rid of the security theatre for good.

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chrisseaton
Why are they going in to work at all if they aren't being paid? Are they
covered by some kind of special security law that means they need to keep
working in the shutdown?

~~~
bdwalter
Most of the government employees I know feel it's an honor to serve their
country and do so with loyalty and pride. In past shutdowns, they've all
gotten paid retroactivly. It's not always about money.

~~~
excalibur
> Most of the government employees I know feel it's an honor to serve their
> country and do so with loyalty and pride.

That's strange, most of the ones I know do so with frustration and resentment.
Perhaps you're referring to a different, more amicable government?

~~~
bdwalter
I used to think that until I went on a multi week trip where I had lost my ID.
I went through TSA without any ID about 7 times and developed a strong respect
for the agents I encountered along the way. I was a difficult case and they
treated me with respect and worked hard to get me through the process. I've
never been a big fan of the government, and the TSA has flaws no doubt (I hate
security theatre) but I think the vast majority of the agents are good apples.
They chose to serve in an "essential" service, so that was a choice.
Government shutdown's aren't a new thing anymore and they still choose to
serve with honor and dignity to their role. I'm happy to agree to disagree.

~~~
eeeeeeeeeeeee
I believe they technically have to let you fly domestically, even without an
ID. I’m not saying they weren’t nice people, but it’s not like they bent the
rules. My brother has flown this way several times and you just need
additional screening.

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elipsey
Anyone know how to actually block autoplay video these days?

I tried firefox's "media.autoplay.enabled;false","media.autoplay.ask-
permission;true","media.autoplay.block-event.enabled;true" but none of this
seems to work anymore. uBlock origin doesn't seem to do this in any super easy
way (that I tried).

~~~
knodi123
ha. even extensions can't manage it, at least in chrome.

it's an arms race, and you're not on the team with the money.

(I put a ton of effort into this about 6 months ago, and I managed to stop
about a third of auto-playing videos)

~~~
elipsey
Thanks. What kind of effort? What did you learn?

I put a small amount effort into this; digging around in the source of a few
sites, reading event traces, trying to work out the relationships between
elements and so on. I'm not really a front end guy so I'm not sure if i'm
failing due to ineptitude, things being generated and deployed in a way that
makes them hard to read, or if they're deliberately obfuscated. Sounds like
you believe the latter. Securing video start metrics from user interference
must be... ahem, pretty highly incentivized.

EDIT: Firefox will add a permission popup, which is already in nightly.
[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-
autoplay](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-autoplay)

~~~
knodi123
a half a day of googling for people who have solved the problem, and
experimenting with 3 different chrome extensions and some under the hood
settings.

i'm a back-end developer, but it seems like unless you're going to go as far
as using the noscript extension, there's no way to stop the various video
injection scripts. but I only used Chrome, so if Firefox is better I honestly
might consider switching. I know Firefox has a mute-all-tabs-by-default
setting/addon , which mitigates a lot of my problems with web video.

~~~
elipsey
Following up. I was doing it wrong. They changed the config schema for this
stuff as of FF63. This post explains how to use the new controls properly,
which worked for me: [https://www.howtogeek.com/341690/how-to-prevent-videos-
from-...](https://www.howtogeek.com/341690/how-to-prevent-videos-from-
autoplaying-in-firefox/)

I have now a permission pop-up to allow autoplay, which remembers pref on a
per site basis. Btw this is FF64, from ubuntu repo:

$ apt policy firefox

firefox:

    
    
      Installed: 64.0+build3-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
    

GLHF.

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rhn_mk1
I'm eagerly waiting to see an analysis comparing the number of incidents on
flights within the "lower security" understaffed period and regular "high
security" time. That kind of an experiment would have no chance being
performed under normal circumstances.

~~~
DuskStar
It's hard to compare with 0, unfortunately.

Also, if someone's goal was to inflict maximal damage on the US, striking
whenever there was less effort put into security would be _exactly_ what you'd
want to do - regardless of whether the change actually affected security. So
an increase in attacks might not actually reflect an increased vulnerability
to attack, if that makes any sense.

------
rdtsc
In most cases I imagine they just don't want to work without getting paid but
I can also see the extra stress of not getting a paycheck also making people
sick.

Also wonder where this might lead? Will they be forced to get doctor's
notices?

What happens when airports are overflowing with passengers and they are late
boarding, will airports / airlines move to "privatize" security:

[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tsa-understaffing-longer-
securi...](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tsa-understaffing-longer-security-
lines-airports-private-security-screeners/)

------
d33
I'm starting to like this shutdown. Having TSA choked sounds like a great win
to me.

~~~
ssully
I hate the TSA, but this shutdown affects things like ATCs who actually
provide value for air transportation or you know, many of the other government
agencies hit by this shutdown.

~~~
SomeHacker44
I hate to disagree about ATC with someone named Sully but I do believe the FAA
has its own funding/appropriations bill(s) and revenue sources and is not tied
into this general omnibus funding shutdown going on now.

~~~
ssully
While some parts might (I am do not work for FAA so I do not know), ATCs are
not covered. This article [1] covers it better then I will.

I will only add that I do have multiple friends who are ATCs who are currently
planning to not get their next pay check (the 14th) due to how things are
going. They aren't hurting yet, but it's definitely stressful for them.

[1]:
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/avi...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/aviation-
system-begins-to-feel-stress-from-the-shutdown-union-leaders-
say/2019/01/03/468d86ea-0f7f-11e9-84fc-d58c33d6c8c7_story.html)

------
vuln
It's the just price of "Security Theater".

------
mesozoic
They better be careful or we'll realize they do a pointless job and could just
be gotten rid of completely.

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ashelmire
This will probably lead to more congested air travel, which may have some
economic consequences. Little things like this all over the place will start
to add up, and the blame will fall squarely wear it belongs - on Trump, who
passed on his own party’s funding.

