
When Will Being a Non-TSA Airport Become a Competitive Advantage? - wmeredith
http://mfshot.com/2012/02/when-will-being-a-non-tsa-airport-become-a-competitive-advantage/
======
DanielBMarkham
Sadly, up until today TSA is not allowing airports to opt out of the system,
even though the law was specifically set up to allow them to do so. The new
FAA bill -- which also calls for the FAA to set rules for thousands of law
enforcement drones to monitor civilians sometime in the next decade or so --
changes this. (random Google link:
[http://www.securitydirectornews.com/?p=article&id=sd2012...](http://www.securitydirectornews.com/?p=article&id=sd2012021h9pdx))
A bunch have already applied -- and been turned down.

Hopefully this will change.

ADD: Hate to be Mr. Cyncial Guy, but I think it's important to look at the
problems with the system that led to the creation of the TSA. After 9-11, the
Republicans wanted to do something _big_ to put boots on the ground all over
the nation, to be the party of security (theater). The Democrats wanted tens
of thousands of new federal union workers to help shore up their re-election
base. Both sides also wanted to be able to run generally on "doing something
about terrorism". So a compromise was reached, everybody got something they
wanted, and here we are.

Hopefully many airports will manage to opt out. I am not holding my breath for
it, though. My money says we'll see those tens of thousands of drones a long
time before we see substantial competition for airport security. As the other
commenter pointed out, even if you opt out TSA still gets to tell you exactly
what to do. Litigation exposure alone will keep most airports from signing up.

~~~
roc
> _"Hate to be Mr. Cyncial Guy, but I think it's important to look at the
> problems with the system that led to the creation of the TSA."_

The problems with the system that led to the creation of the TSA is that
voters vote for theatre. They do it with drug laws, they do it with drunk
driving laws, they do it to "protect the children" and they do it with anti-
terror nonsense.

The parties' motives for going along with it are almost irrelevant. Opposing
these laws is career suicide for American politicians.

~~~
ambler0
I wholeheartedly agree with everything you said except for the part about
drunk driving laws. Could you please elaborate on this part?

It's also worth noting that there are two types of career suicide here: 1.
Acting against the population's wishes, and 2. Acing against what is deemed
acceptable by the ruling establishment. I think the "war on drugs" is an
example where the general population might be very receptive to an unorthodox
(i.e. decriminalization) candidate, but such candidates are filtered out of
the process.

~~~
Retric
You can be arrested for drunk driving if your caught sleeping in the back seat
of your car.

You can be arrested for drunk driving a segway or a horse.

The drunk driving threshold in most states is so low they can't do physical
tests to determine that level of impairment. They can only test your
'impairment' by testing directly for alcohol as many people preform better on
reflex tests etc with that much alcohol in their system.

There is some impairment at that level but it's well below other accepted
thresholds like being sleepy or talking on a cellphone. Still even sober
people cause accidents so there are plenty of accidents caused by people with
that level of impairment, which helps keep threshold set that low.

PS: Much of the world is much worse though with .02 being the limit in China,
Estonia, Poland, Sweden.

~~~
dalke
I think you can sleep it off in the back seat only as long as you aren't in
control of the keys (for a very loose definition of "control"). If the engine
is off, and if you unlock the doors with keyless entry, and then throw the
keys away (perhaps somewhere in the bushes where you can perhaps find them
later), then I think it's possible to sleep it off. Try it out and let me know
if it works. ;)

BTW, I live in Sweden. You don't drink even a glass of wine for dinner and
plan to drive that night. On the other hand, there's great mass transit so
less need to drive if you want to drink. It's also fine to drink beer in
public, unlike several places I've lived in the US.

~~~
roc
I can't imagine where you might have lived in the US where a beer in public
would have even raised an eyebrow, let alone be frowned upon.

Aside from highly religious towns with strict licensing like, say, Salt Lake
City, and aside from lunch during the work day, alcohol consumption is pretty
well accepted.

~~~
locopati
In NYC, that'll get you a decent fine, even if you're drinking it on the
stairs in front of your own apt building.

~~~
roc
Ohhhh, in public-public. Like, on the street. Yeah, that's only legal in a
handful of places in the US.

I misunderstood and thought they were talking about drinking at a restaurant
or something. I figured the likely cultural miscommunication was over the
European position on having a beer with lunch.

~~~
dalke
Yes, public-public not private-public.

While it's possible to get beer in Sweden at the company cafeteria, it's
"lättöl", max 2.25% by volume. By comparison, Budweiser is 5%. There's
actually no age limit for lättöl, but many stores require 18+.

It's not the same as Germany. There was a strong sobriety movement here for
decades to reduce the amount of drinking. Back in the 50s there was a maximum
limit of the amount of liquor you could by. You were allotted a maximum of 3L
of vodka per month (1 liter if you were an unmarried woman), and the
government store didn't sell wine. You had a book, which was stamped with your
alcohol purchases so they could keep track.

It's been effective. The drinking level is now about average for the rest of
Europe, but there's still the international impression of hard-drinking
Swedes.

------
bri3d
Never. The author of the article doesn't understand how "opting-out of the
TSA" works. Opting out of the TSA just means that your agents are hired
through a private agency. The TSA still regulates them, sets their policy, and
determines what screening devices are in use.

Airports using private agents will not be distinguishable from airports using
TSA agents until the law changes, just as how SFO is indistinguishable from
any other airport now.

[http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/11/airports-who-opt-out-of-tsa-
scre...](http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/11/airports-who-opt-out-of-tsa-
screening.html)

~~~
phillco
Which, although I hate the TSA, sort of makes sense from their perspective.
What's the point of creating a consistent screening process if an airport can
just opt out? The terrorists will just board at the airport with the weakest
security. All of the security is then worthless.

------
seanica
It will have to be all-or-none:

Last May, Texas tried to pass a bill to ban 'groping patdowns'.

The bill was passed by the Texan House of Representative, but then the federal
government, approx 1-2 weeks later, threatened to shutdown all Texan airports
because they would be a threat to the overall security. The bill failed to go
any further on that threat.

[http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/13/us-tsa-groping-
tex...](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/13/us-tsa-groping-texas-
idUSTRE74C54E20110513)

[http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/82nd-
legislati...](http://www.texastribune.org/texas-legislature/82nd-legislative-
session/fed-threat-shuts-down-tsa-groping-bill-in-texas/)

~~~
arohner
I really wish they would have made the feds call that bluff. Dallas and
Houston are the #8 and #23 airports in the world by traffic.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_busiest_airports_by_pass...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worlds_busiest_airports_by_passenger_traffic)

~~~
angersock
That would have been hilariously satisfying.

"Sure, we'll shut down DFW and IAH. Your move."

------
RandallBrown
My experiences at the San Francisco airport were no different than at any
other airport I've ever been to. It's not like the TSA is alone in making poor
hiring decisions.

~~~
jfb
This is my experience as well. These private companies are drawing from a pool
of people who are willing to do a wretched job for not very much money, so
it's not surprising that they'd be largely indistinguishable from federal
employees. Too, it's not the TSA _employees_ who are the fundamental problem;
it's the organization as a whole.

~~~
jsavimbi
I disagree. Having travelled extensively and been used to elevated threat
levels throughout most of my life, I can attest to the fact that the average
retail TSA employee is about as backwards, disorganized and inept as one could
expect from the day-labor source pool.

------
ajmurmann
The author points that SFO is not using the TSA. Having used SFO often, I have
to say that I sadly would have never guessed that. So I think not using TSA is
not going to be a competitive advantage, as long as the private companies are
indistinguishable from TSA. Actually, if everything is just the same anyway,
I'd rather them do it instead some random private company who is in it for the
cash.

~~~
DannyPage
I wouldn't have guessed that either. I flew for 9 months at my last job, which
included 6 outbound flights through SFO. SFO was one of the few places where I
actually was patted-down instead of scanned (not by choice). So, what is the
actual difference between the TSA and the security companies that are
emulating the TSA?

Overall, the headline is (unintentionally, perhaps) misleading. I thought
there might be some network of airports that don't have TSA-like security
procedures. If that were the case, yes, I would use those instead if the
prices were close. I guess that is a (libertarian?) fantasy though.

------
geophile
Obama could close this election right now by simply getting rid of the
pornoscanners and the groping. Please, oh please, let the Republicans be the
party that wants to take away your birth control, and subject you to the TSA,
while the Democrats are the one removing government interference from your
life.

~~~
andylei
> Obama could close this election right now by simply getting rid of the
> pornoscanners and the groping

this is not even remotely close to true. most americans care much more about
things like the economy and jobs than things like civil liberties

~~~
aqme28
Even then, pornoscanners and groping have nothing on indefinite detention,
warrantless wiretapping, and extrajudicial assassination.

------
nevinera
When people start making decisions about where they need to go based on how
comfortable they are at the airport there?

There aren't that many places where there are airports that can realistically
be said to be in 'competition' with each other.

~~~
jmilloy
Don't forget about connections... an hour more or a few extra bucks for a
different connecting airport could easily be worth it to someone.

~~~
smackfu
Connections don't go through security and the TSA though?

~~~
jmilloy
Oh. Yes. Good point!

------
malachismith
PDX used to be a non TSA Airport. And I think it won "best small airport in
the US" for 5 years running. I didn't hate it.

At the end of last year, TSA took over.

The difference is dramatic. I fly through PDX at least 4 times a month.
Average security wait time has more than tripled for me. They've installed
scanners. But the big change is the way travelers are treated. As a woman
waiting in line next time me on one trip put it, "these TSA guys act like
they're Prison Guards - and we're convicts."

It's turned a not terrible experience into a truly awful one. It's turned PDX
from one of the best US airports into just another shit show.

I know that I would absolutely fly to a less convenient airport if it were not
TSA staffed.

~~~
sukuriant
"fly" to a less convenient airport?

------
me2me2me2
I hardly ever travel anymore, mostly due to my reluctance to subject myself to
the TSA. Vacation and work locally.

~~~
waqf
right, I don't go anywhere I can't get to on ... Amtrak. I'm still trying to
figure how, when I emigrate to Europe, I'm going to get there. (Cruise ship?)

------
shallowwater
Is there any evidence that private screening companies are any less skeevy
than actual TSA? I'd be shocked if there was and appreciable difference
between the two. They still have to follow all the same screening procedures
that the TSA does.

------
jarek
It already is a competitive advantage. Connecting at an U.S. airport better be
a whole lot cheaper and extremely convenient for me as a Canadian to consider
it versus connecting at a Canadian airport or a direct flight.

------
scrozier
This ad hominem post doesn't belong on HN. "Perverted thugs"?

And 500 complaints out of how many millions of passenger flights?

I'm no fan of airport security, but this sort of Fact Light bashing of TSA
employees is not useful.

------
hastur
I doubt that's even possible. US airports don't have much to say in terms of
TSA presence.

US security services have shown very poor judgment on multiple occasions, in
Canada now you're a child pornography supporter if you don't like internet
surveillance and in UK you get extradited to US like a terrorist if you link
to pirated content.

My advice: Steer away from Anglo-Saxon countries. Continental Europe and
Brazil are the only reasonable places if you want to live in a civilized
world.

~~~
jbrun
We are putting up a pretty good fight here in Canada to keep it 'civilized',
though there is some nasty lawful access legislation being discussed.

------
functionform
When you're willing to put your kids on a non-TSA flight.

~~~
henrikschroder
Are there actually any significant number of people that are acually _pleased_
with the TSA, the naked scanners, the intrusive patdowns, and the bigger
security theater?

I can see people being fooled by the theater and grudgingly accept it, but
does anyone _like_ it and think it should be expanded?

~~~
anigbrowl
Lots of people like it. To the extent that it inconveniences them, they wish
it were directed solely at Muslim-looking foreigners, but are willing to
accept the security theater because they have a siege mentality. Similarly,
there's a good number of people that call for ever more draconian enforcement
of immigration laws, despite both economic costs and significant inconvenience
to US citizens, Latinos in particular.

The US frankly has a bit of a security fetish; you might find this paper
interesting: <http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/GarrisonAmerica2007.pdf>

------
JumpCrisscross
_"This is all not to men­tion that hey’re_ [sic] _pro­tect­ing us from
some­thing that, sta­tis­ti­cally speak­ing, never actu­ally happens."_

I understand the sentiment here, but low relative frequency for a risk with
catastrophic consequences, e.g. your house flooding or a terrorist attack,
isn't valid justification for not taking precautions.

I blend back in with the author's rhetoric in calling out the TSA for engaging
in expensive security theatre instead of working towards more meaningful uses
of funds.

~~~
grecy
>but low relative frequency for a risk with catastrophic consequences, e.g.
your house flooding

Let's be honest here, you don't have sandbags piled around your house and a
boat tied up and ready to use for evacuation. You've also done nothing to
protect yourself from the thousands of other extraordinarily unlikely
catastrophic events that might happen to you on a daily basis.

