Why should private plane passengers be subject to TSA? TSA (paid for by you and me by the way, not for free) exists to protect the public from harm, on public flights by common carriers. It used to be contracted by airlines themselves. Unless you are the most extreme of pro-seatbelt law people, it would make little sense for TSA to screen anyone on a private plane manifest unless the client asked them to.
No, the TSA exists because 19 people hijacked 4 flights and succeeded in crashing 3 of them into various important buildings in the US on 9/11/2001.
Private planes are just as capable of crashing into buildings as commercial jets. The TSA has picked up some ancillary public safety functions over the years, but their raison d'etre is to prevent hijackings.
No, the TSA exists because politicians felt they needed to be seen doing something after 9/11. If there were actually much political will for it to fulfill actual security purposes, it surely would’ve been reformed after it’s continually abysmal performance on security audits.
>if it was a jobs program, it would be way better staffed..
You're saying it's not comparable to the size of the New Deal, the biggest jobs program ever in the US.
That doesn't disqualify it from consideration as a jobs program as there are many jobs programs much smaller.
Adding 60k to ~3 million is significant because it's permanent. These are low skilled workers (and security theater as you astutely say) mostly concentrated in large cities.
Whereas the New Deal was temp jobs that disappeared once grants and funding disappeared.
In terms of menace potential, any private plane will lose to a van full of fertilizer and a baddie intent on causing destruction. It's a matter of scale.
Little planes, like this one [1] just don't do damage on the same scale as airliners.
No argument though, just saying it's a hard problem, and the scaling issue makes it somewhat awkward to deploy security resources in proportion to the threat.
I don't have a solution. I'm not exactly thrilled with the current setup, but I try to stay quiet since I can't think of anything better.
Government building codes already anticipate the "van full of fertilizer" attack, as a result of the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Federal building security is a separate matter though, with its own agency called FPS that predates DHS and TSA by decades.
Lots of things can crash into buildings. Should they all be screened by TSA? Drones and their operators prior to every launch? 30 minute helicopter tours and high-rise HVAC drop offs? Private satellites?
Or is licensing and registration (of pilots and aircraft and manifest and flight plan) enough?
Governments are reactive. So if any of these other things ever successfully destroy a building then you can absolutely count on new rules and laws that, at a minimum, will include screening.
So it’s complete building destruction that is the protective mission here? Not loss of life or general terrorism or something else? I’m glad we are clarifying
I wasn’t aware that DJI drone with 60lb payload was subject to more regulations than a Citation leaving TEB but I guess I’m open to learning what those are.
Hell the TSA doesn’t do much to prevent that on commercial flights, but requiring private flights to start going through commercial security would be completely pointless
The danger of Steve Jobs hijacking his own private plane was obviously quite high! We can only thank the dutiful TSA officers for their brave service. I’m sure they risked their lives averting this danger. Have they been awarded any medals yet?
