Who here thinks the Patriot Act in its entirety should be immediately repealed. That also includes the immediate elimination of the TSA and the DHS.
I understand the animosity to the Patriot Act and the TSA, what's the problem with the DHS? Just another level of bureaucracy that isn't needed whose duties can probably already be performed by an existing agency?
It's an agency who's sole purpose is to monitor and spy on its own civilians, kind of like the old Soviet KGB. It needs to be destroyed!
From what I understand, DHS combined several related government bureaucracies into one. Not seeing the problem, but I'm willing to have my mind changed. Patriot Act and TSA need to go.
TSA is a useless bunch of imbeciles. They do nothing that couldn't be done better and cheaper by private security. And, in the short few years it's been around, TSA has replaced the IRS as the most-hated federal agency. The Patriot Act is an unconstitutional power grab and should be repealed. DHS was a panic response to 9-11. Its functions should be given over to NORTHCOM on the military side and FBI on the law-enforcement side. The Coast Guard needs to go back to Treasury where it belongs.
Well, you need airport security of some kind. Seems to me the problem with the TSA is the way they do their job. With the technology we have these days, they should be able to run facial recognition on everyone before they even get to the boarding terminal. It shouldn't be such a pain in the ass to get on a plane.
Uh, there was airport security before the TSA. Either they were literally airport cops or they were made up of the local PD. No reason they couldn't go back to that.
Was it effective enough? I agree that the TSA was a knee-jerk response to the 9/11 attacks, but I think we still have to make sure our airports are secure. I obviously don't agree with the methods the TSA employs, but I don't see a problem with having a federal agency that is tasked with airport security. Why isn't CBP(Customs and Border Protection) not taking care of it? They seem to do a good enough job at the Canada/US border. I've never had much of a problem in the 500 plus times I've gone across.
It doesn't need to be effective, passengers just need to think it's effective. The TSA is no more or less effective than pre-9/11 security. The only truly effective post-9/11 security measures (in no particular order) have been: locking the cockpit door and keeping passengers from loitering around there; increased Air Marshall presence; and passengers realizing they have the ability to stop a hijacking because they outnumber any would-be hijacker(s).
I tend not to be very paranoid, and I don't often agree with the measures the governments tends to use in the name of national security, but I do agree with airport security. It just needs to be effective and efficient. The TSA is neither. But, there is still someone there to do airport security, and I would rather it be agents from a federally run agency, like CBP, where agents are professional and do a good job. It is a tough job, and requires extensive training and resources. The TSA doesn't seem to high on the training part.
Except TSA agents are largely unprofessional and do a shitty job. TSA hasn't caught a single bad guy in the history of their existence- alert passengers and aircrews have bagged them ALL.
CG was part of Treasury until 67' IIRC when they went to Transportation. CG was a consolidation of about 5 branches, one of which was a treasury entity. In time of war, CG is transferred to the Dept of the Navy, as in WWII.
The Treasury class cutters were some fine-looking vessels. It's a shame the Coast Guard didn't continue with that kind of ship.
Though the intentions of the agencies were for the most part good, becoming the governmental clusterfuck it has morphed into has done little to thwart much as far as I can see. I wouldn't miss any of them and I damned sure wouldn't miss those dumb fuckers at the airports if they all took their ball and went home. Besides, now when when I take the ferry to the north from Galveston Island I can't take a fat one with me for fear of federal charges. When they enacted these changes they now have dogs and search vehicles that get on the ferry since it is now a federal thing. They've been busting people left and right in line down there. Bastards.
US CBP only gets involved when there are airline passengers coming in from another country. Having gone through customs several times, I have no doubt that they do their job well. There is no customs screening for when passengers are travelling within the US, only the TSA screening. A customs screening for every airline passenger that travels within the country's borders would be too costly and time-consuming to be practical.
