Ben Schlappig of One Mile at a Time argues that the TSA experience has gotten much better, and mocks civil liberties concerns. He uses my writings, and that of Live and Let’s Fly as a foil for his position.
I think it’s fair to say that – purely from the perspective of the screening experience itself, as a passenger – that things are:
- much less pleasant than before 9/11
- better than before PreCheck for those with PreCheck
- and better than they were in 2022, at many airports
However I don’t think that’s the correct way to evaluate TSA effectiveness, whether the procedures passengers are required to undergo are ‘worth’ the cost in terms of government spending or hassle, or whether TSA is being managed as well as it should be today. TSA spends about $10 billion a year today, and cumulatively hundreds of billions have been spent on airport security since 9/11. It seems fair to ask what we’ve gotten for the money, and what we’ll continue to get – not just whether the screening experience is less bad than the recent past (and even there, the best we can do is ‘it depends’).
Is Screening Getting More Efficient, Or Less Efficient?
Just evaluating TSA narrowly in terms of moving passengers through checkpoints, it’s worth acknowledging that on the one hand the agency is far less understaffed (the obvious result of giving everyone, including existing employees, 25% – 40% raises in a single shot two years ago). However, TSA remains chronically understaffed and throughput absolutely crawls at some airports like Denver, Atlanta and Austin.
On the other hand, new Analogic screening machines are achingly slow, as the TSA itself admits. These new carry-on bag screening machines take longer per passenger item. They are using 3D imaging. TSA says this is supposed to speed up screening because even though each item takes longer to screen, fewer items will need to be re-screened and manually inspected. It turns out that’s not happening.
And 3D imaging was supposed to be what finally caused TSA to drop 3-1-1 liquid rules, where you’re only allowed to bring 3 ounce liquid items in a 100 milliliter freedom baggie. However TSA says they want consistent rules, so they won’t drop the liquid ban until at least 2040 when these new machines are rolled out at every checkpoint in every airport in the country (which is also a massive procurement failure).
TSA Has Never Been Very Effective
Should we ignore TSA’s own reported failure rates? The DHS Inspector General’s findings have been that 90% – 95% of dangerous items get through screening checkpoints in testing. Ben suggests that the data is from 2015 (in fact, it was still true in 2017) and so it’s too old to matter. However,
- We do not have any data to suggest things have been improved
- That’s because under Administrator Pekoske, the results of testing have just been classified.
TSA failure rates were embarrassing and their solution was just to no longer talk about it or admit it. Is their performance actually better? They won’t tell us!
This Is A Highly Political Take
Ben says he’s “trying to come at this topic non-politically.” He isn’t, though. And you can’t evaluate TSA without considering the effect on politically significant values. I’m an old-line civil libertarian. Ben brushes such things off as not mattering. That’s political.
Or he argues that “we still have to show papers at government checkpoints” and have to “submit to full body imagining” to “exercise a constitutionally-protected right to travel.” Which… I mean… okay?
In any case, you have to make normative judgments about the choices the federal government has made in the name of security. Take government targeting databases, such as the ‘No Fly List’
- There are numerous people who wind up on that list in error. Is that simply ‘worth it’ for what you view as a broader social good?
- What about maliciously placing people on the list, even when they aren’t thought to be a risk to security, for instance as retribution for refusing to become a government informant? Is that, as Arne Sorenson once said in another context, just ‘noise around the edges’?
Ben and I evince different values. Many readers will share his rather than mine. But it isn’t the case that one take is ‘political’ and the other isn’t. That’s doubly true when Ben takes the political step of mocking the political values of critics, saying “arguments against the TSA largely seem to center around “but muh freedom.”
Travelers have been followed through airports with staff reporting on their bathroom habits (Quiet Skies), and simply having to show papers and submit to pat downs to exercise a fundamental right should be troubling or at least considered as a real cost and weighed against whether actual security is being achieved in exchange? In other words, a political calculus is necessary.
Except the pseudoscience TSA has advanced doesn’t actually make us safer.
International Comparisons
He asks, “in all honesty, in what country would you rather go through security?” But that’s easy, and someone as well-traveled as Ben ought to have better cross-country comparisons.
Ben mocks Singapore’s security,
[S]o if you buy a bottle of water in the terminal, you can’t even take it onboard. And if you’re worried about individual freedoms in comparison to the United States, maybe Singapore isn’t for you either.
First, screening at each gate requires more resources but is certainly faster. Second, it’s a complete non-sequitur to compare freedoms in Singapore having nothing to do with airport security as a defense of U.S. airport security. But most importantly he misunderstands the reason that liquids are confiscated at security there. It’s air travel rules of the United States and other countries.
Hong Kong hasn’t had liquid bans either. Security there doesn’t confiscate liquids. In order to fly to a country like the United States that requires it, those countries demand liquid screening, so it’s done at the gate. That’s not a failure of the country that doesn’t ban liquids (and where there has been no security lapses resulting from it, either).
I’d rather go through security for a domestic flight in Australia than the United States! There’s usually no ID check (though you can be asked for ID). There’s no liquid ban. There’s no boarding pass check. The requirement for a boarding pass – only travelers through the checkpoint – is about speed and throughput (TSA doesn’t want to have to screen so many people), not security.
What Should We Be Doing Instead?
Aviation is safer post-9/11 than before it. We hadn’t been optimized for a threat of a terrorist taking over a plane and using it as a missile. The threat model was hijacking, and that had become far less of a problem. Since then we’ve reinforced cockpit doors. Terrorists aren’t taking over cockpits. And passengers no longer would sit passively waiting for a hijacking to resolve itself, where most go home safely. That’s a huge deterrent to 9/11-style attacks.
But TSA itself has filed in court documents that they’ve been unaware of actual threats to aviation that they’re guarding against, and they haven’t stopped any actual terrorists (nor with past failure rates at detecting threats were they deterring any, either).
TSA Agents in Charlotte Watch News of the TSA’s Failure to Detect Weapons and Bombs, Instead of Searching for Weapons and Bombs (HT: Tocqueville)
Hardening security checkpoints did transfer risk, however, making landside more of a target in places like Brussels and Istanbul.
The answer isn’t to ignore security, but TSA itself is still badly run and lacks proper oversight. TSA is both the security standard-setting agency and the agency that conducts nearly all of the screenings in commercial terminals. In other words, they regulate themselves. You don’t have to believe private screening is the answer (as it is in parts of Europe). Just separate the screening function from the regulatory function into different agencies and get real oversight.
Security Theatre….. one more form of Federal gaslighting, nothing more.
TSA is still a joke. They’re mostly for appearance sake.
I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve flown and the “new” machines are shut down and they’re forcing everyone through old lanes where you have to take everything out, etc.
I regularly get into fights with TSA agents who demand that I put everything in one bin. There’s no such federal regulation. Or they want to toss my bag on top of my suit jacket or crush my shoes with the bag.
I fly just about every week wearing the same kind of clothes with the same items in my carry-ons. Some airports I set off the machines and require secondary screening. Other airports nothing happens. Half the time they want to rub my groin because supposedly the machine detected something — my tight-fitting boxer briefs. Apparently, the computer mistakes tight-fitting underwear and a man’s penis as some sort of contraband.
And the Analogic machines are awful.
Pretty clear to me we should go back to 9/11 pre screening because this has done nothing but offer security theater. But that would be common sense and stupidity in today’s world will always reign over common sense.
The only bright idea TSA had was PreCheck. But not there are scads of passengers in the PreCheck lanes but there’s been no increase in PreCheck entry points, lanes, ID checkers and screeners at most airport. In fact the non PreCheck lane is often faster because there’s multiple entry points, lanes, checkers and screeners.
Do you have a plate on your car saying you’re not engaged in commerce and are just traveling?
The best thing to come from 9-11, from an airport experience POV, is that no one without a boarding pass is allowed into the gate area. Much calmer and less crowded now. I hope that never becomes a thing again.
@LAX Tom: That’s not true. There are a few airports now with programs allowing the general public past security for restaurants and shops. And frankly, that’s a good thing. I think some airports are penalized by TSA security. I’m old enough to remember the pre-9/11 shopping mall at Pittsburgh’s airport. And how many shops in the airport don’t sell perfume or wine or whatever because the passenger has a connecting flight that requires going through security?
It’s all a bit like the absurd and utterly futile “war on drugs”, which even Nixon’s people admitted was for vengeance against those who opposed him. So long as the demand exists so will the supply. Well, so long as people put up with this crap it will continue, and many are perennial scared or low information people who think “something is being done”. Now they have been so conditioned that they would be upset is less was to be seen. Beyond that of course there’s a vast amount of money to be made in the security business, with plenty of it spilling over to Congress thanks to Citizens United. But I can tell you one thing, this is one area that the non-official “Efficiency in Government” non-cabinet will not touch. Again, it is just too lucrative, with efficiency or effectiveness very secondary considerations.
Security theatre is the hallmark of TSA.
Identifying threats isn’t even a goal…
Which country would I rather do security in? The Land of Israel. They look for bad actors, not weapons and they take security seriously because their security is serious.
Extremely well thought out and presented article, thanks Gary. I’ve had many of the same thoughts over the years, clearly TSA has involved into a form of “kabuki theatre”. TSA PreCheck is a success for true security and the passenger experience alike, in the elimination of the 3D Body Scans. As for the use of Biometrics (face scanning) as well as presentation of ID, I consider these reasonable trade-offs for true security as well (just wished for similar ID rules in voting). I’m deeply concerned about the lack of Constitutional protections in the “Do Not Fly” list, this must be changed (and likely will in the new Administration). Most will agree, the biggest threat by far is a group of bad actors, who could easily get the materials through current TSA Security by simply breaking them into assemblable parts carried independently. What we need in fixing the “Do Not Fly” list is to place a number of those folks on a “Flight Security Risk” list, and have the computers figure out when more than one are on the same flight.
Ben is an idiot….. pure and simple. But, at least his articles can open fully in a rss reader.
Airport security checkpoints should be disbanded. We don’t go through security screening when boarding a train. No reason we need to just because the metal tube we are boarding has wings instead of wheels.
Gary,
your point is valid that the effectiveness of security screening is the real issue and not just how pleasant or least unpleasant the process is.
But, without data, you cannot assert that the TSA is any worse off. I doubt if they are doing as well as they want to be but you simply don’t have current data to argue how poorly they do.
and security of any nature is designed to catch a certain amount of things while criminals alter their behavior to work around the cracks in the system. The reason why Israel’s security is so effective is because they have many more layers of doubt on every traveler – but they also take far longer than nearly every other country considers acceptable.
I like the screening in the Netherlands for international flights. It is people intensive but works. Want to buy something in the airport and take it on the plane, they put it in a sealed back and let you take it on the airplane. Whether it is Coke Cola or Whiskey or Gouda.
The rollout of the new 3-D scanners should have never happened, as soon as people realized they are not twice as fast (promise of the vendor) by half as fast. Because I carry 3 screens in my carry on, I always get a bag check. At my home airport I get a “you again?” almost every week.
Let’s be clear. The TSA is NOT airport security.
The vast majority (probably 99.9%) of incidents that happen on airplanes or in airport terminals are unrelated to the TSA and its mandate. These incidents involve passenger behavior.
The TSA doesn’t protect airport terminals.
It merely exists, in theory, to deter terrorists from using a commercial airplane to commit a terrorist attack against the United States.
The TSA isn’t trained to engage in other elements of law enforcement. Just look at the problems when TSA detains someone with cash because they think carrying a bunch of cash is suspicious.
Neither the public nor the politicians would ever support getting rid of TSA checkpoints. But in reality, we would be safer if there was an element of unpredictability in passenger screening. Maybe some days you aren’t screened. Other days you’re screened at the departure gate.
It’s so refreshing to read the comments here. I’m encouraged by the fact that so many others understand the futility of the TSA. I’ll give credit to “Lucky” when the topic is using points and miles efficiently, but if you want to discuss any sensitive subject, such as this, his leftist views and lack of critical thought emerge. Finally, I find his mocking of those raising the issue of freedom and liberty very disconcerting.
@Tim Dunn – the most recent data from TSA is the 80% to 95% failure rate. They do not report it is better noe, and have classified more recent data. Why do you assume it has become effective?
I’ve long believed that fortifying the cockpit door was the only meaningful solution adopted after 9-11.
While not defending TSA, one could argue that they have been 100% successful as no planes have been used as missiles since TSA’s inception. Of course, before TSA, there were only the 4 incidents on 9-11 since the beginning of commercial air travel in the US.
@LAX Tom – Non-ticketed people are now allowed in certain airports such as Pittsburgh
To move passengers faster through security airlines should stop charging for checked luggage (as Southwest). Less luggage means faster movement through security.
that is the point, Gary.
The most recent is not current.
@Tim Dunn: There are things that we know and there are things that we don’t know. What we know is this is the most recent data. We also know if the TSA had better performance data they would release it. They aren’t.
@Gary Leff: Why do you assume it hasn’t become more effective?
9/11 is the skeleton key that opens the money vault for anything deemed as “airport security”. Even Republicans (spit on the ground) who decry every single penny spent by the government will gladly open Uncle Sugar’s pockets when the spectre of 9/11 is conjured. Personally, I’m too old, too white, and too male to care anymore. Disband TSA and put the metal detectors back at the gates. If there are hijackings, at least they’ll be to exotic locations that are generally warm. As for being bombed, I’m too old to care and I’ve got enough insurance to go where it needs to.
@Leslie Deal Akins – mine does as well https://viewfromthewing.com/feed/full
Along those lines, I would like to share that when I was doing my Global Entry interview, the CBP agent informed me that he was required to ask me, “were you radicalized?” regarding my travels to the Middle East.
Gary,
Whats your SOLUTION?….and don’t just say abolish TSA. What goes in its place? No security on flights? Free pass for the wealthy or those otherwise annoyed by the lack of asskissing from the screeners?
I’m all ears.
@CHRIS – did you read the last section of the post?
@NedsKid – TSA doesn’t even claim that it has, and they’re quick to take credit for anything and everything
And maybe they’re only missing 50% now! That wouldn’t change the argument in any way.
By forcing us all into these extraordinarily inefficient and time-wasting and frustrating lines, to prevent another shoe bomber, the terrorists have indeed crippled a large portion of us, daily.
@FNT and @Rick – yes, I had seen something about Pittsburgh trying it, but I didn’t know if they had gone ahead with it. That’s the only “major” airport I’ve heard about.
Obviously there are negative consequences to the businesses that operate in the airport. I personally prefer the way things are now. In addition to less chaos and crowding, I worry less that my bags will get stolen. Everyone there is either getting on a plane or getting off one; they’re not there to steal anything.
Absolutely, Bueller! But, always remember, the “terrorists” responsible reside in DC.
Amazed that the 6600 firearms found at TSA check points in 2024 wasn’t referenced at all in the above discussion. Apparently 90% loaded too. But hey, loaded guns and planes are a great combination, right?
https://thepointsguy.com/news/tsa-checkpoints-firearms-2024/
We used to be told to ‘do the math’. Now everyone uses ‘do the calculus’. OMG! If you couldn’t do the basic math before, what makes you think you can even touch calculus? Or are people just dressing up old problems and calling it ‘calculus’ as a reason why they can’t and even aren’t trying to solve them (it’s SO hard). Or trying to make themselves appear smarter because now they are tackling ‘calculus’?
I also remember that it used to be pronounced ‘har-ASS-ment’, but now it’s ‘HAR-ass-ment’. Was this for PC purposes, to not offend anyone? And then in financial terms, it used to be in-the-black (a good thing!), but now I don’t here that much anymore and instead hear ‘in-the-green’. Officially Monkey-Pox got renamed M-Pox as to not offend. Well, chickens are offended by Chicken-Pox!
Sorry this is not on topic. Rant off. Will comment on TSA issues on another post.
Political calculus is a term that has been used in English for a long time.
@LAX Tom
Detroit, Orlando, New Orleans, and Nashville also allow it.
TSA is still a joke. Liquids are still a thing, but I no longer have to do the shoes, though I have to take off everything (jacket, vest, sweatshirt) except what is touching my skin. I do like the new system where you can keep everything in the bag/backpack/purse and put it in the bins (no taking out quart-sized bag of allowed liquids, no taking out electronics, etc).
Back to TSA. In my travels lately, I have had multiple things confiscated, but never from TSA, from foreign security (and not consistently). I bought a cute little snail-fan before going to the airport in Taiwan, and it got taken (battery? for a small personal fan?). Another time, hubby got a small flashlight (T-mobile swag) confiscated at the same Taiwan security, though my 2 flashlights go thru. Nothing from TSA there, but maybe they are OK for the US. In Japan, my son had a big pair of scissors taken. He had packed it for school & forgot about it. It was in his backpack for countless trips up & down the West Coast, into Taiwan, and into Japan. It was leaving Japan that it got detected (not legal for any airport, Japan took a ruler out to measure the scissors – blades way too long). I accidentally left a full-sized Swiss Army knife in my purse once, and felt it when looking for something in my purse when on the plane (oops). But TSA did find & confiscate my little nail clipper with little file on my keychain (this was back in the early days). TSA probably finds a very small % of ‘illegal’ items for flights. The question is whether the small % of what they find, and their ‘presence’, enough to justify their cost ($ and time) and the potential criminal/terrorist activity they might prevent?
That said, I do feel more safe that most airports only allowed ticketed passengers w/ boarding pass to enter the ‘secure area’ (this is wrt things being stolen). Speaking of theft, for baggage claim, they should make you match your luggage receipts with the luggage like they used to in the old days. Yes, it slows things down & is probably a very unpopular viewpoint. But it would eliminate any luggage thefts (not sure how much that is a thing, but it always makes me want to go to the luggage carousel sooner than later).
Agree with @Dick. The probability of a terrorist taking over a plane is zilch. If the concern is them killing 200-300 people in a plane, terrorists could target shopping malls, movie theaters, trains, plays/musicals, sports arenas, etc, and we don’t have all this security theater for these. If you must “screen” carry-ons, that should be just for anyone who hasn’t got precheck, and devote more lines for precheck. Otherwise, just quickly go through a metal detector. In addition to the billions of wasted dollars, there is also the “cost” to us consumers, who have to waste hours at the airport.
The expenses mentioned for the TSA are just the tip of the iceberg. There are also the costs that airports and airlines have run up to satisfy TSA. Then there are all the costs that the TSA has pushed onto the traveling public.
Also the whole pay for PreCheck thing is a big fleecing of American travelers. If the TSA defaulted to give every free person PreCheck type screening at the airports, it would save travelers’ money in both direct and indirect ways and make the air travel experience better and safer.
@SteveH…Exactly! Where’s the “Like” button when you need it? The logic you apply in your post destroys any argument for our current system.
Some of you are blinded by your ‘victory.’ This regime is not in business of ‘fixing’ anything. No, they’ve been clear: de-regulate, or abolish, perhaps, including the TSA (and, I joke, the FAA, and ATC, because why not ‘let the free market decide where you fly!’). This ‘sledgehammer’ (or ‘chainsaw’ for those that like Milei) approach to governing is shortsighted, and people will inevitably be hurt. But remember, it’s a lot easier to ‘break it’ than to ‘fix it.’ Regardless, I hope it goes well, because I’m on this plane, too.
I think it’s odd that we continue to use 9/11 as a vantage point. A large subset of the traveling public was born after 9/11, and many frequent travelers probably have no recollection of the event, or especially how US airport security was before it.
Personally, I don’t understand how anyone couldn’t think screening in the USA has improved over the last 10 years. I also don’t think domestic Australian flights are an apples-to-apples comparison. To me, the biggest point against the TSA is how rude the agents can be, but it’s just more acceptable to be rude to strangers in the USA than it is in many other parts of the world, so it’s probably more cultural than anything else.
I am skeptical of the high failure rate number of 80 or 90 percent. I was with TSA five years and never missed a test item. That said, explosives are very difficult to detect because the xray was not designer to catch explosives. And the Red Team (testers) snuck many stimulated bombs through the checkpoint. So the failure rate hinges on the fact that overworked screener are trying to satisfy time pressure demands while working with inadequate equipment in a bad work environment. I guess they’re doing well if they catch 15 percent of test items.
Does anyone NOT think if TSA was catching 95% of cases they would be running around highlighting that number. This is like the FBI classifying and redacting things that make them look bad as “national security”
20 firearms per day are stopped by the TSA. TWENTY. Stop to think about it, it’s a STAGGERING number.
Why aren’t the smugglers in jail for at least a year each?
That’s deterrence.
If the government ran the Sahara Desert, it would run out of sand.
Just wait until they run the Panama Canal!
@FNT I go through MCO several times a year and never noticed. I guess that’s a good thing. Maybe that’s why security is such a nightmare there.
@Thing 1 There are sound logical reasons for law enforcement not publishing data about their success, or lack thereof, that has nothing to do with funding or public shaming. It’s for the same reason sports teams are coy about player injuries.