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Notes -
Overheard at work:
Business as usual. I was also unaware of any particular crisis brewing over TSA, so I looked it up. Lo and behold: this is actually old news. Nothing has changed since DHS was pseudo-defunded a month ago.
So why am I hearing about it now? Well, a month is long enough for a missed government paycheck. Which means the TSA staff, who were apparently holding down the fort, are getting increasingly antsy. Somewhere around 300 have quit. Combined with a surprise cold front, airport security lines have been upgraded from mild to moderate inconvenience.
The usual suspects are blaming Democrats: Schiff, Booker deflect on shutdown blame amid terror concerns, thousands of DHS workers without pay. I’m still trying to figure out how this is their fault, given the Republican trifecta; Rep. Collins suggests that they are completely stonewalling any attempts at compromise. I think the last attempt was supposed to be a White House proposal from late February, but I couldn’t find the actual text of it, so I don’t know if it was at all credible. Sen. Schumer naturally insisted that it wasn’t. Perhaps we’re seeing two parties sticking to the foot-in-the-door tactic.
So, how does this type of gridlock get resolved? Do Republicans come to the table first? Do Democrats? Do airlines start privatizing security, or do they just give up on running flights?
Another option: get rid of security lines. They didn't need it in the 90s.
A lot of things were different in the 90s. Apparently, we didn’t realize hijackings could be suicidal. I wouldn’t mind replacing the TSA, but I don’t think repealing it entirely is an option.
You can’t put the toothpaste back in the 2 oz. tube.
You don't need the TSA precisely because, since 2001, every passenger has had it drilled into them they're the last line of defense and that if you let a hijacking go, you're going to die. This isn't the '70s or '80s where hijackers were annoying but mostly harmless- it is that kind of population that needs the TSA, not the modern one where everyone knows they're an existential threat.
If you're going to die in an intentional plane crash at any time past that point, it's because the
plane hijacked itselfpilot did it on purpose, and the locked door kept the passengers out until it was too late.It feels like the locked door has caused unintended consequences that policymakers didn't think of. Is there any way to keep the locked door and prevent suicidal pilots, or is that just another policy we have to accept because politicians didn't think it could backfire in probably the most predictable way possible?
There are copilots who should prevent this as much as possible, but realistically what would the average passenger do? A determined pilot could dive down faster than a passenger could react.
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