AFTER EDIT: I wonder what aspect of this people disagree with. Do you still want to have to take your shoes off in airports?
Further edit, to reply to the first kind reply:
I still don't think attacking terrorists relentlessly is ever beneficial.
I guess that's an empirical question of history and current events. What does help people lead tolerant, civilized lives and be at peace with other people who may have differing opinions? I read a biography of Joseph Stalin back in the 1990s, after the Soviet archives became available to independent researchers, and the striking thing about how Joseph Stalin developed his influence in the Bolshevik movement was that he was a very active terrorist, frequently directly involved in random bomb attacks. We should consider the facts about Sri Lanka and Rwanda and other places to get a reality check on the power of terrorism.
I think communism mostly collapsed (as it mostly has by now) with the help of information flow into countries living under communist dictatorships that were established in some cases by domestic terrorism and in some cases by armed invasion from another country. The case of eastern and western Germany is especially illustrative: it's just where the tanks stopped after the armistice that ended the European phase of World War II that determined which parts of Germany became the postwar Federal Republic of Germany (BRD) and which became the German Democratic Republic (DDR). Several of the communist governments of eastern Europe were turned out of power largely peacefully when Western mass media made it all too apparent how different life was on the other side of the Iron Curtain. But it took an entire human lifetime for communism to decline in its influence on Europe.
So, yeah, if a peaceful process of information flow could bring Afghanistan into the Twenty-First Century, I'm all for that. I don't see how any rational person who knows well how other people live could want a whole country to be living under Taliban rule. But the Taliban's method is not to let most people in Afghanistan or Pakistan decide the issue freely. Their method is to give girls and women no voice, all non-Muslims little or no voice, and any Muslim who thinks that Islam is consistent with science and progress little or no voice. They use violence and thuggery to get their way in the areas they control. So, yes, if they are willing to send people onto airplanes to fly from Europe to the United States with bombs in their shoes (as they have been), I say let loose the drones, and let's keep the Taliban leaders hiding in caves and unable to travel more rapidly than at goat speed until peaceful news and education campaigns have enough time to win over so many of the common people of the world that the Taliban can no longer gain influence even through threats. Taliban delenda est. Peacefully or violently, the Taliban must be destroyed.
You do realise that what the drone attacks are doing is to further radicalise people in Pakistan, don't you? A bit like what's happening in Gaza, what these attacks do is remove a few visible figureheads, kill people who aren't necessarily connected, and turn a good number of previously neutral or inactive people into sympathisers or more active combatants.
The idea of a relentless attack strategy is, with respect, utterly absurd and has about as much chance of real success as the War on Drugs. The rest of what you say makes much more sense. Communication is the key. Relentlessly communicate instead of relentlessly attack.
Same way the pharmaceutical industry, for profit prison industry, and lumber industry (last one is debated plenty) will continue to shove money into politics to keep drugs illegal and prisons nicely packed full of pot smokers. It is all about the money, not the morality. That went out the window decades ago.
1. Strikes in Gaza are not removing figurehead, they strike known military commanders, whose direct involvement in the acts of terror and war is beyond any reasonable doubt. They also strike infrastructure used for such activities and for other purposes by military organisations. Of course, Israel army is not ideal and sometimes it is impossible to strike military targets without hurting civilians, and sometimes the intelligence is mistaken or the execution is flawed and civilians suffer. However representing it as "removing figureheads" and "killing people who aren't connected" only is to pervert the whole reality of what is happening. 2. As for further radicalizing - I'm not sure how you see further radicalizations of Hamas. Instead of destroying Israel and killing or expelling all Jews living there they'd want what? Instead of shooting rockets into the midst of Israeli cities and sending human bombs into the midst of Israel streets, restaurants malls they would do what? How you imaging further radicalized Hamas and Islamic Jihad that is worse than they are now? 3. The whole premise that people become terrorists because somebody hurt them is a red herring. Of course, some individual people do, but there are numerous example of terrorist organisations - both Islamic and non-Islamic - composed of people who were never hurt by anybody, they just decided that's the right thing to do. The facts show that stopping fighting terrorists does not make them disband for lack of recruits - this makes them bolder. Leaving Afghanistan to Taliban did not make Taliban unpopular. Leaving Gaza to Hamas did not make Hamas unpopular. Quite the contrary - they grew stronger and gathered more resources. 4. There is much difference with War on Drugs, and it can be easily seen. Terrorists are criminals that hurt people in order to advance their political agenda, and count on population being afraid and thus caving in to their demands. Drug users do not hurt anybody but themselves, have no demands from anybody and are pursued by the state for the only reason of spending their time and money in a fashion not approved by the state. If you leave drug users alone, nothing would happen. If you leave terrorists alone, you get 9/11. Notice the difference?
Assuming the big risk of terrorism is Islamic extremism (and originating from the Middle East) is a naïve, American-centric view: plenty of us live our lives more threatened by local separatist groups than by Islamic extremism. The big risk in the UK today is still Irish separatist groups, likewise in the Basque country.
Ignoring all that: I still don't think attacking terrorists relentlessly is ever beneficial. One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter, as the saying goes: they are driven not to destroy, but to get their aims. The IRA were never going to be defeated by force: by killing the nationalist freedom fighters you inherently radicalized more, and the same is happening in Afghanistan and Iraq to an even bigger degree. To many, it's not a case of evil infidels attacking, but rather the evil foreign aggressor killing their friends and family — if a foreign country attacked yours, claiming to rid you of evil and imposing their morals on you, would you stand by as they killed people you knew, under the promise of a better land? This is how the coalition forces are seen by many, especially in Iraq.
Defeating terrorism by force is like defeating the Hydra by force: everyone you kill radicalizes two more.
Pull out a map of the region. The main reason the taliban got to be so powerful is that Pakistan's ISI (intelligence agency) considered a Taliban-run Afghanistan strategically useful in the ongoing struggle between Pakistan and India over the territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
PS don't assume that because I'm Irish I supported the IRA's objective - quite the opposite, in fact.
It is, in fact, terrorism itself.
If you think your life as a Western consumer is somehow non-violent and unrelated to the global situation, I pity your naïveté.
I haven't the time to expound further.
There are lots and lots of things wrong with Western policy towards Central Asia, but the causal argument boils down to 'you made me do it', which is almost never true.
It's the same as saying putting a murderer into prison is the same as kidnapping an innocent child. Both limit freedom, but if you think for a minute, you'll find the difference. Try it.
This implies enthusiastic support of constant US intervention in foreign lands. Maybe that's not what you meant, but I'm guessing it's what people are reacting to.
He's acting like the Taliban is a personal threat to him when traveling by air. They are not, and citing things like Richard Reid (who was British), do not support the argument.
There are repressive regimes all over the world, many that commit atrocities much worse than the Taliban, yet I still feel that I should be able to board a flight without someone putting their hands on my penis.
The whole Taliban argument seems misplaced as well considering nearly all of the terrorists that attacked on 9/11 (the cause of the increased airport security) were nearly all from Saudi Arabia.
So while we do nothing to Saudi Arabia, this person wants to feel safer flying by dropping bombs on Pakistanis.
Stupid on many levels.
If you're comfortable killing people indiscriminantly then others will be comfortable killing you indiscriminantly. As long as you offer them that bargain they will continue to take it.
Personally, I really don't care what happens in Afghanistan. It's not my problem, I've never been there, and I don't believe I have the right to decide their future. But I find your belief that drone attacks are actually destroying the Taliban fanciful.
Most of the people drone attacks kill are not the intended targets. How would you react if a foreign power killed someone you loved? Would you go away, never to be heard from again? Or would you take up arms against that foreign power? Given your bombast and chest beating I'm assuming you wouldn't stay silent. So what makes you think that the relatives of the people being killed in drone attacks are somehow going to just go away?
I'm constantly surprised that when it comes to regime change that there isn't an effort to set up some satellites and air-drop some mobile smartphones with data plans designed with the same principals as one-laptop-per-child.
Look at what Facebook and Twitter did for the Arab Spring.
The reason why airdropping mobile phones would not work is very simple - first, they would not work (no electricity, no coverage in most of the territory), second, the ruling powers would execute everybody that uses it. And they are quite good at executing people for ... well, anything they like. Limiting flow of information to majority of people is quite easy, if the regime is ruthless enough to enforce it.
OLPC is possible only with local authorities' cooperation. Without it, it could achieve nothing.
I might be alone in this, but I really prefer replies to replies instead of piling edits on top of edits. Much easier to follow that way.
http://cryptome.org/tim-osman.htm
The US armed the Taliban when they were fighting the Soviet invasion.
I find that number utterly staggering. Wikipedia says that the homicide rate in the US is 4.2 per 100,000, which is more than 2.5 times the rate in Canada and 3.5 times the rate in the UK.
My quick glace showed America at 4.2, the next developed country is Finland at 2.2, so living in America you're 1.9 times more likely to be murdered than any other developed country.
Of course, the vast majority of Developed countries have a murder rate less than 1.0 per 100,000 people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
Where I live, Oregon, the homicide rate is 2.1 per 100,000 people, a little bit better than Finland as a whole. Hawaii is at 1.2, New Hampshire and Vermont are at 1.3, and Minnesota is at 1.4.
Contrast those with Louisiana at 11.2 per 100,000 people (!), Mississippi at 8.0, New Mexico at 7.5, and South Carolina at 6.8.
It's clear that the homicide rates in the US are aligned mostly along socio-economic and racial lines, so it doesn't make sense to compare the whole country against the more homogeneous states such as Finland, Norway, Germany, and Japan.
http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/murder-rates-nationally-and-...
And furthermore, having a tangible number like 150,000 people murdered drives home the stark reality of the situation.
Japan is 0.4 per 100,000.
Japan has had the strictest gun control in the world for the longest time, and has a homicide rate to match.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_intentiona...
Also, Japan's murder stats are rigged -- if the police don't know who the killer is it isn't a murder, it's an "abandoned body". See Freakonomics for more on this.
If remove Eastern Europe, then the homicide rates for the rest of Europe are:
Northern Europe 1.5
Southern Europe 1.4
Western Europe 1.0
Conversely, including other parts of the Americas (ie Canada and Central America) massively increases the average homicide rate - Central America's rate is a truly shocking 28.5
If everyone opted out, the program would be scrapped. You can tell me about how the scanners give harmless amounts of radiation, but I don't really care. You have to stand for your principles. In this situation, a government contractor forced more security theater upon a country, with the only benefit of the entire charade going to their bottom line. Nobody is safer, an entire mode of transport has a new bottleneck, a government agency has expanded and is emboldened and now wants even broader jurisdiction, and as the article states, people are driving more and dying.
If we don't stand up and push back now, things will only get worse. More invasive, more annoying, more useless, more dangerous. And not an inch gained against the stated purpose of deterring terrorist attacks.
YMMV with respect to the additional time. I also opt out and have had to wait as long as 15 minutes for the pat down (and to make matters worse in that instance, there was an elderly passenger behind me who had a medical exemption from the scanner and they waved him through while I had to stand and wait).
My advice is that if you do plan to opt out, allow for more than 3 minutes.
It's highly variable. Sometimes you get the pat-down right away and then it only takes about 3 minutes, but most of the time you have to wait for the agent to come get you, and that can take up to 10 minutes in my experience.
But in any case, it's worth it (for the reasons you mentioned). I wish there were more of us that always opted-out.
The entire procedure is completely bogus of course- everyt time I fly in the US now it's a question of: "How do I want to be violated today?"
What's more, these days I always choose to fly in a kilt, commando style, to make the whole process as awkward as possible for the screeners.
Or in the cabin. If you're the last to board, there's a very real possibility that they may have to gate-check your bag, which adds additional wait time at the end of your journey at best, and your bag arriving in Minnesota while you're touching down in Dallas at worst.
Is this even possible when gate checking? They literally walk your bag down the stairs at the end of the gate and place it into the plane cargo hold. EDIT: At the end of the flight, your bag is walked up the stairs back into the jetway.
I personally love the gate check loophole. If you intentionally wait to board last, you get a free bag check.
"...amounts paid for baggage services (such as Service G) are not subject to the tax" [http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/1002004.pdf]
What about a t-shirt, perhaps? Printed on the shirt would be a calm and clear explanation of the problems with the scanners/groping. Everyone standing in line around you would see it, the TSA officers would see it, and it could get some conversations started.
TSA agents do not perform 'pat-downs'. Pat-downs are very quick checks to see if any obvious weapons are being concealed on someone's body. Police will do these before putting a suspect into a police vehicle, for instance.
TSA employees do what are called 'custody searches', designed to find contraband material on detainees. These are only performed under specific scenarios, such as being incarcerated.
Custody searches in this context are forbidden by the fourth amendment, by the way, regardless of what the TSA's legal team may claim.
Your argument doesn't even follow logically, as all the 4th Amendment requires is that searches be "reasonable", and "reasonable" is obviously subjective. It's a right practically tailor made for adjudication by the Supreme Court.
Given that bags have been subject to search for decades prior to "pat-down" or "custody" searches, and that it's hard to think of a more invasive search than one that allows officers to rifle through your personal luggage, I don't think Constitutionality is the issue here. We should simply pass a federal law restricting the TSA's ability to electronically strip search or invasively grope passengers.
I'm just as disgusted by airport electronic strip searches as you are, but we shouldn't using sure-loser arguments against them.
What "threat" are we defending ourselves against?
I also stipulate that removal of the security protocols would NOT lead to more hijackings or random murders on aircraft. It's specifically because of the fact that certain places are "weapon free" zones that they are targeted by criminal malfeasance. Knowing that most if not all of your opponents are unarmed is a HUGE tactical advantage.
The problem is that everyone believes they have a right to be defended by someone else. You of course don't have to defend yourself, but your defense is truly your own business.
This is not to say that acts of offense or even attempts at offense shouldn't be punished. We do have a right to justice, and simply put, that is all.
Anyway, to the best of my knowledge, there has been no Supreme court ruling on the constitutionality of any of these techniques in the context of airport security. I'm glad to be proven wrong.
The most relevant ruling I know of was from a half century ago and it wasn't the Supreme Court talking. United States v. Edwards, 498 F.2d 496, 500 (2d Cir.1974)
As is x-raying baggage and body-scans.
Fourth amendment rights don't apply to the same extent when you are on private property, when there are balancing security concerns, when you enter a courthouse, when you enter a school, etc. You know the deal when you enter these places and you have a choice whether to enter them.
The idea that you have the same fourth amendment rights boarding a plan as you do in your house or car is ridiculous.
I'm not saying I agree with TSA searches, only that your normal forth amendment standard does not apply.
> when you enter a courthouse
> you have a choice whether to enter them
http://www.aclu.org/national-security_technology-and-liberty...
Odds of dying from lightning strike: 1 in 134,906
Odds of being legally executed: 1 in 111,179
Odds of dying from contact with bees/wasps: 1 in 79,842
Odds of being shot: 1 in 6,609
Odds of dying from a fall 1 in 163
Odds of dying in a terrorist attack: 1 in 3,500,000
Maybe we should switch the TSA to bee patrol.
(Source: http://www.nsc.org/NSC%20Picture%20Library/News/web_graphics...)
Maybe the TSA should enforce traffic laws or build commuter rail lines.
Also, odds of dying from bees, etc. probably depend a lot on if specific person is allergic to the particular toxin or not, which is not random for this person.
Lets convert it to a cancer awareness foundation; where they touch you for actually important reasons.
Source: http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancerbasics/lifetime-probabili...
They can't even repeal the comically silly shoe removal procedure (unless you're under 12 or over 75, because no terr'ist would ever foot kerplode those demographic stereotypes).
Obama won't do it, because he's shown himself to keep whatever things from Bush are convenient if unsavory, like Guantanamo (saying you're going to close it and actually closing it are two different things).
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230381540457733...
Why? Picture this. Someone (likely a politician) crusades hard to have the TSA dismantled, and is successful. No matter how much better the system that replaces it is, there is always a chance that someone slips through and takes down a plane, and 300+ people are killed.
In the throng of people screaming that "something needs to be done to stop this from happening again", who wants to be "that guy" who lobbied to have the TSA dismantled/replaced? Former TSA proponents will jump up and down and scream "See! This is why we can't have nice things!"
I don't think anyone will touch it...
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/02/cya_security_1...
Your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise -- you're using flawed logic. What would you think of an oncologist whose patients never contract serious, life-threatening cancer? Is he ordering unnecessary tests and procedures on people who aren't really sick, or is he catching all the cancers so early that they're never life-threatening?
See the point? I'm certainly not arguing one way or another about the TSA, just that your argument contains a very serious logical flaw. Maybe terrorists, knowing about the TSA, won't take the risk of going near an airport.
> ... so there's no reason to believe it would have handled this incident.
Flawed argument, flawed conclusion.
I usually travel 2-4 times a year by myself as a single male. I plan for security (eg. I don't try to bring along liquids and wear shoes that are easily removed) and haven't had to wait in a security line longer than 15 minutes in the US in 6+ years.
I have been pulled aside twice to be patted down by the TSA, neither of which invasive nor did they get near my genitals. In contrast I have also been patted down by airport security in Belgium (much more invasive, didn't touch crotch) and been frisked twice by police in the USA (very invasive, definitely did touch crotch). [I have no knowledge of the female experience of being frisked - unfortunately I suspect a much higher level of both discomfort and inappropriate groping]
I don't like that our security is based stupid rules instead of smart security analysis, but the level of vitriol I see in the internet is totally disproportionate to my experience. The worst part of flying for me is getting stuck in the security line behind some person who still doesn't know full bottles of water aren't allowed through security and then try to argue with the TSA agents in an attempt to save $4 - and given that I still get through the line often under 10 minutes, that is more of pet peeve than a real issue worth complaining about.
If it doesn't make you feel like shit given how airport security works right now, I respectfully submit your shit-meter is calibrated wrong.
But also, two points:
1) Your flying experience would be quite different with kids.
2) The flying experience varies very widely by airport. Often by terminal within airport. Flying Virgin America out of BOS is a very different proposition from flying Virgin America out of SFO, and also quite different from flying United out of BOS.
But part of what I'm trying to understand is why any of the current rules "should" make me feel like shit to go through - taking a few things out of my bag and removing my shoes are easy and quick. [Of course I sympathize with people who have horror stories, but I don't think everyone posting on HN, Slashdot and Reddit have personally been treated egregiously].
What is it I am missing? Is there a moral principle people of having to go through security people are upset about? Or frustration that the TSA is a large part security theatre? Or is it that so many people traveling do so in configurations that get much more hassle than I do - traveling with children, unavoidable liquids, medical devices, etc. ?
Is there a disparity or is it that Slashdot and HN post articles about TSA abuses but not non-technical police abuses? Most people don't even seem to think frisking is an abuse of power, (though it seems like you may disagree with that), so why the outrage at the TSA but not the police?
It's always a delightful start to a journey to hold your struggling infant in your bare socks while some college dropout pretending to be a lab tech tests your formula for explosive residue and your wife figures out how to cram the stroller through the X-ray machine. Definitely try to avoid flying now.
The airline industry is dear to the hearts of congressmen, who fly back to their districts on the taxpayer dime, and subsidize the industry in all sorts of unique ways. The US Postal Service, for example, is compelled to subsidize air service in Alaska -- random towns of 250 people get 3 flights a day in many cases.
The rail business was put out of business by bitter labor disputes, subsidized highways and air travel in the 1960's. The direct Federal takeover of the industry (ie Amtrak) makes it difficult to function in a rational way, as it is subject to the whims of Congress. Amtrak is compelled, for example, to serve food on trains -- a service that loses millions of dollars annually.
High speed rail has a lot of land acquisition problems for the most part, air flight doesn't.
I say let the high speed rails come naturally (because they will eventually): don't try to force it.
High-speed rail in the Boston-DC corridor would be pretty pricey, too. Amtrak tries it, but their idea of "high speed" is sad compared to what the rest of the world thinks it means. While the Acela is somewhat similar to the TGV, it peaks at only 150MPH, and the average speed is far lower because the track doesn't support high speeds in a lot of places, and because it makes about three times more stops than it should.
Proper high-speed trains in that corridor would require new tracks built for much of it, and with level crossings pretty much impossible for high-speed trains, it would need a ton of bridges or tunnels and a huge expense. A lot of politicians will only support such a thing if they can bring service to their hometown, or where their constituents live, or whatever, so you end up spending way too much time stopped at irrelevant stations instead of going fast. The Acela makes seven stops between DC and New York alone, not even counting DC or New York themselves. It makes six more stops after NYC before getting to Boston. Covering a similar distance in a rational high speed system would involve maybe one intermediate stop. As it stands, when I take the train from DC to NYC, I don't even bother trying to get a place on the Acela unless it's the cheapest option, because it only saves about half an hour out of a four-hour journey.
I think it's ultimately a self-fulfilling prophesy. People don't think it can work, which allows politicians to screw it up, which means that it either never happens or happens poorly. So it doesn't work, and people don't think it can work, so....
*Edit
Many security experts think it is trivial to get weaponry past them. They aren't extensively trained, you know, they are cheap rental guards following a procedure.
So in fact I would say the TSA has stopped nothing, the only prevention has come from the FBI and CIA, locking the cockpit door, and putting air marshals on the plane.
That's the point, right, that you aren't in a position to guess, and it's slimy position to be put in. It's the same way ADT can sell millions of home alarms every year - there's just no way to prove how many events a reactive system stops.
There's no proof that TSA is making things any safer either. No one will ever pull another fast one on the passengers of a plane again. We all know that the planes themselves are weapons, so I'm pretty sure most passengers will go down fighting if terrorists try to take control of the cockpit.
This is precisely why it's called security theater.
Which is why I don't understand why pilots have to be screened. They are flying a huge flying bomb. What will screening them for nail-clippers solve? (Side note: I did, in fact, have my nail clippers taken by the TSA once)
A person could be supportive of the cause without being willing to sacrifice his life. If pilots could get into restricted areas un-screened they could bring in bombs or weapons which they hand off to third parties. This would also be a more efficient use of a limited resource (the hypothetical Taliban sympathizer flying for a commercial airline).
W O W. My jaw completely dropped when I read this sentence.
Considering we've averted 40 terrorist plots since 2001 this is pretty scary somebody would actually print such a statement. Keep in mind, those 40 are the ones we actually know about as well.
I'll continue to put up with the minor headaches as long as we continue to stop these plots before airplanes crash into skyscrapers or car bombs start exploding in times square.
And the TSA doesn't have anything to do with car bombs in Times Square.
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He also mentioned it was downsizing through attrition rather than layoffs, which is probably an easier strategy for elected and appointed officials to get behind.
I agree 100%! The formation of this organization was reactionary policy making at its worst. The TSA is nothing more then a works program for people who are barely qualified to do anything.
Not sure what you're talking about here. The reason 911 actually happened was because no one on the plane expected anymore more than a bit of inconvenience (flying to a different destination).
I'd say do nothing. There aren't enough people trying to do this sort of thing to make it worth the effort or expense. Especially since they have to die every time they do it.
I always got selected for "randomized" searches when flying (in the UK). At UK airports everyone goes through a metal detector. It would always beep when I went through even if I took off my shoes and belt.
I hate TSA as much as the next guy, but their presence and efforts could have deterred and foiled thousands of plots you and I would never hear about because they don't even know about them.
Denying the reality of the potential danger airplanes can cause to major population centers, like we saw on 9/11 is foolish. Airport Security May Suck. But, It May Be Saving More Lives Than It's Killing Indirectly.
Indeed. But the problem is how to get the votes in Congress to support a significant downsizing of the TSA. Were the President to do so unilaterally (which he may well have the ability to do), he'd be accused of disregarding Americans' safety and chances are that a good number of those accusations would come from inside Congress since there's still plenty of political capital to be made from opposing him.
As I've said before, there are three factors that support reducing the TSA's budget (and powers) in the coming yeas: the withdrawal from Aghanistan, budget cutting due to deficit management, and economic growth meaning that there will be jobs available for the laid-off TSA employees. These point to a downsizing of the TSA during 2015-16, after the 2014 midterm elections.
According to one estimate of direct and indirect costs borne by the U.S. as a result of 9/11, the New York Times suggested the attacks themselves caused $55 billion in “toll and physical damage,” while the economic impact was $123 billion. But costs related to increased homeland security and counterterrorism spending, as well as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, totaled $3,105 billion.
This, on the other hand, is extremely disingenuous. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been major, major expenses (and major drivers of our national debt, since we didn't raise any new revenue to pay for them). Mentioning them last, as if they were some minor component of the TSA budget, reverses the order of significance.
It doesn't help that people don't internalize risk well so its hard for folks to see the merits of the argument but I applaud whomever came up with it.
Can anyone find a citation for the "200 to 400 deaths" claim? The NCTC report (http://www.nctc.gov/docs/2011_NCTC_Annual_Report_Final.pdf) seems to give much higher numbers, unless I'm missing something.