TSA employees have been working without pay during a partial shutdown of DHS over demands to reform immigration enforcement.

TSA employees have been working without pay during a partial shutdown of DHS over demands to reform immigration enforcement.

More than 400 Transportation Security Administration workers have quit since a partial government shutdown that began on Feb. 14 left them working without pay, the Department of Homeland Security said.

Funding was shut off to DHS over demands by Democrats for reforms at Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection following alleged abuses and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal agents in Minneapolis earlier this year.

There has also been a national callout rate of 10% at TSA on more than half the days of the last week, Lauren Bis, acting assistant secretary for public affairs at DHS, said Saturday in response to questions.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
    0·
    30 天前

    Airline hijackings dropped drastically after 9/11 due to enhanced security, moving from a relatively common occurrence to a rare event. While hundreds occurred globally between 1968 and 1972, and over 130 happened in the U.S. in one four-year period, there have been no successful hijackings in the U.S. since 9/11.

    https://ourworldindata.org/data-insights/airline-hijackings-once-relatively-common-are-rare-today

    Yes, it really has to be done. We live in a world of mass shootings nearly every day. The only reason it hasn’t happened in a plane is because of the post-9/11 security.

    People don’t understand that TSA’s biggest impact isn’t in stopping weapons from coming onto planes in the airport. All of that is just theater, and we are unwilling players, like it or not. The impact is at home, when a lunatic who want to kill a lot of people decides to not do it on an airplane because he’ll probably never get through security, so he chooses a path of lesser resistance. Not great for that victim, but at least airport security eliminated against THEM.

    Is it working? Who knows what’s on the minds of suicidal terrorists, but after a long period of many hijackings, culminating in the worst in history on 9/11, there have been no major hijacks in America since TSA and enhanced security were implemented in American airports.

    Hard to argue with results like that.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      30 天前

      You’re conflating TSA with just putting a locked door at the front of the airplane. One of those was effective, and it was it the TSA. The TSA has an over 90% failure rate, by their own metrics.

      • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
        0·
        30 天前

        This may be the stupidest argument I’ve ever had. You people are arguing like MAGAs.

        Hundreds of hijackings before TSA, including 9/11. None in the 25 years since TSA and the new protocols. The system isn’t perfect, but it’s clearly worked, and even with it’s imperfections, it’s far better than NOTHING, which seems to be the only alternative suggestion.

        I get it, air travel is a pain in the ass, and there is always a bit of a wait for the security screening. So what? We wait everywhere - the bank, the barber, the fast food drive through line, the grocery store, etc. Isn’t spending some time in line worth not getting blown out of the sky?

        Do you people actually think air travel will be SAFER without airport security? Because we had security before 9/11, and it still happened. Without any security, we’ll go back to that 4 year period in the 70s when we had over 300 hijackings, more than one per week. That’ll be fun, right?

        • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          30 天前

          I only made one point in my short post and you completely failed to address it.

          Locked doors have stopped the hijackings, and those are already paid for. So why do we need TSA?

          • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
            0·
            30 天前

            You think that locked cockpit doors are the ONLY thing keeping trouble from happening in the sky? What’s to stop them from killing and torturing passengers, lighting fires, setting off bombs, etc.? All you really need to do is pierce a lithium battery, and you have 1000°C fire that is extremely difficult to extinguish. That will bring down a plane as surely as killing the pilot.

            The locked cockpit door is the last line of defense. It’s not a good idea to get rid of every other defense before that. It’s pretty important to keep trouble off the plane in the first place.

                • gnate@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  0·
                  29 天前

                  Damage or destroy, sure. But to me, hijacking means taking control of the aircraft, and I don’t see that happening without cockpit access. (Not that doors are impenetrable, but still.)

                  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
                    1·
                    29 天前

                    Oh, come on, now we’re just arguing about personal definitions of words. If a guy is killing people and setting off bombs on a plane, he’s a hijacker, whether he is demanding a destination or not.