Full body scanners yay or nay

[UnderseaLcpl]

This scanning technology is called millimeter-wave imaging, and it is nothing new. IIRC the first production models were introduced in 1997, but they were ruled as being unconstitutional because they violated the Constitutional directive against unwarranted search. They also violated the privacy act of 1974 in many ways.

Originally Posted by Platapus

Perhaps if we paid TSA screeners a decent wage, it would be easier to attract better people.

My friend was one of the first batch of TSA screeners. They were lied to by the government, not paid any wages for over 9 weeks. Not paid for working overtime (which was mandatory). She said that TSA had almost a 100% turn over rate at her airport the first six months. That does not bode well for security.

She left TSA after almost three years and by that time she was the senior female screener and one of the senior screeners at her airport.

This is a good point but you would be remiss to assume that any TSA reform would be much any less worthless. One way or the other, the TSA is a government-sponsored monopoly directed by persons who have little fear of losing their job or prospect of being rewared. No matter what the directives are, there is no incentive, and as such there is little performance. Contrary to popular belief, TSA stands for Thousands Standing Around.

What we should do is to privatize all airports and all air-traffic control systems. Private companies have a vested interest in performance, especially when they are replaceable. Of course, there should be a public air service to fill any gaps, but it must be made to compete with private services, and it must be made efficient by competition and a lack of taxpayer funding. If we are to have a public service in this sector, it should indeed be a public service, not one mandated by fiat law and funding.

You are also mistaken in the assumption that better funding for the TSA would attract better employees. The TSA, as well as many other government employers, is bound by many laws to hire the least eligible employees. First of all, look at every other govenrment service. Not a single one provides adequate service for the funding it is given. There is a reason for that beyond legisated hring quotas.

Think for a few moments... where else can we find exceptionally substandard service for ridiculous prices? It is only natural that a government entity would attract the least ambitious and most greedy members of the populace. After all, they don't give a flying ******* whether or not they perform well. Their jobs are protected by the state. Why should they worry about serving you?

The one other place you can find such performance is within a monopoly, but even monopolies are not so irresponsible as the state. They still have a public image to consider, and people still have the power to choose to but their products. There has never really been a monopoly that existed without co-opting the state, but let me give you a good example of a natural free-market monopoly; Microsoft.

Microsoft is a natural monopoly because it licensed its software to IBM, which in turn alllowed other companies to clone its machines and its operating system. IBM and its clones were inferior to Mac, but it was much cheaper and so it found greater purchase within the public market.
IBM/Microsoft machines became the de facto standard for many years, but Mac eventually caught up and established a significant market sector of its own, a sector which has fostered competion and innovation all its own. Mac is still behind in the software market, but it offers consumers a choice in personal computers, phones, and data storage devices.

The government does no such thing. Social security sucks as much as it did fifty years ago(more, actually). The Department of Health and Human Welfare is still universally worthless. The Department of Education fails the nation more and more as time goes on.

You can suggest reforms and reinventions of federal services to the end of time, but there is no way to make any kind of fiat agency effective, ever. It all comes down to the people performing the service, and they are nothing without incentive. If you deprive them of competition, there will be no incentive, and there willl be a predictable drop in performance.