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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   28141 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 26, 2022

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You must be using some weird airports if your junk gets felt up at all. And, if it is, then that is not security theater: They have evidence indicating that you, specifically, might have an gun, knife, or other dangerous item. A far cry from making everyone throw away shampoo bottles.

Yes, when I get felt up by the TSA it's because I have some anomaly on the scanner. I don't know why, because my pockets are always completely empty, I try to make sure my clothes aren't loose, etc. But it's still security theater because the process itself is sheer theater. They are taking ineffectual steps against a nonexistent threat simply to make people feel better that somebody is doing something.

Why do you assume that because, in your specific case, they have never yet found anything, that therefore every anomaly on the scanner also is a false positive?

Also, would you have them ignore anomalies? That would be a great way to tell actual terrorists how to avoid detection; just wrap that knife in such a way that it appears to be a mere anomaly. The fact is, a system that is highly sensitive and generates lots of false positives is very effective at reducing attacks, and hence is not "security theater" at all. It might be suboptimal, depending on how much one weighs the value of avoiding actual attacks against the value of not being frisked, and it even might rise to the level of a civil liberties violation, but it is not "security theater."

You're assuming that a) there is an actual threat to defend against, and b) the measures taken by the TSA are effective. I don't believe either is true.

Alternately, he could have a tan and a beard.

No, he just has to be opting out of the porno-scanner, which is still security theater.

And, were the old-style x-ray machines walk through metal detectors also security theater, given that hijackings plummeted when they were mandated in 1973? A lot of people here seem to rather lazily use "security theater" as a synonym for "TSA regulation I don't like."

And, were the old-style x-ray machines also security theater, given that hijackings plummeted when they were mandated in 1973?

Are you by any chance deliberately conflating scanning your body with x-raying your luggage?

Anyway the answer is yes. As 9/11 showed, an airplane can be hijacked with boxcutters. Even now you can easily get weapons of similar lethality, simply after crossing the security check, meaning anything that is currently happening at the airports is nothing but a ritual. If hijacking fell, the best argument that you can make is that rituals work, not that what the TSA is doing is an actual security enhancement against a motivated actor.

Huh? No, I am talking about walk-through metal detectors.

As for the boxcutters, are you not aware that they were used because they were perfectly legal to bring on planes at the time? Is the regulation that now bans them also "secutity theater"?

And, tell me, why did the "underwear bomber" have to use some half-assed method instead of one which, you know, was more likely to work? Could it be because "security theater" prevented him from doing so?

Huh? No, I am talking about walk-through metal detectors.

As for the boxcutters, are you not aware that they were used because they were perfectly legal to bring on planes at the time? Is the regulation that now bans them also "secutity theater"?

Thus proving the x-rays and metal detectors were security theater - there were (and still are) legal ways of coming on board an airplane armed.

And, tell me, why did the "underwear bomber" have to use some half-assed method instead of one which, you know, was more likely to work? Could it be because "security theater" prevented him from doing so?

It's because he was an incompetent idiot, and that's the only sort of person these measures have a chance of catching. If "white-hat hijacking" was legal maybe I could show you what I mean, but since I don't want to end up on a list I prefer to not go into details.

The thing that's actually preventing another 9/11 is that competent people have a lot to lose, and nothing to gain from such an attack. The next time a charismatic leader radicalizes a group of reasonably intelligent people, the TSA will be just as powerless to stop them.

You could replace junk-felt-up with "getting a year's worth of radiation each way" via these scanners and it's the same thing.

We shouldn't have to be in pre-check to avoid these two options.

So, OP claims that he'd "gladly pay extra" to avoid getting his junk groped, but you think he is not willing to pay for TSA Precheck, which is $78 for five years?

I didn't do it for years because I considered it a violation of principle and privacy. Signing myself up for a centralized watch list, fingerprints, and all that shit is something anyone concerned about privacy shouldn't do.

Then one day I realized I'd already done that for my conceal carry permit and pussied out. I have to say that precheck has been quite the game changer in terms of not wanting to put a shotgun in my mouth after visiting the airport.

As a matter of fact I'm not. I think it's a sheer scam that the TSA claims to need these security measures, but oh if you pay us money we don't need them. I recently got a credit card that pays for it as a perk, so I'll sign up at some point because of that. But otherwise? Fuck that noise.

People are generally reluctant to pay X to alleviate problems that are caused by unwanted interference by X in the first place. It creates bad incentives and amounts to giving in to blackmail.

It's the government's main business model, though. "Pay us taxes for protection. Protection from our people taking all your stuff and throwing you in a cell to be raped for the rest of your life, that is".

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