Trade-Offs and Revealed Preferences, Republican Leadership edition
Even more than Digby on CalPERS, the one piece everyone should read today is Charlie Stross on International Travel. Since this is an economics blog, let’s pull a key section:
Here’s the rub: security is a state of mind, not a procedure. Procedures can’t cope with attackers, because they’re inflexible. If you search passengers for guns, someone will carry a knife. If you search for knives, someone will sew themselves a set of underwear full of PETN. And so on. To deal with a threat — say, someone who wants to attack your air travel infrastructure — you must look for the attacker, not their tools, because they can change their tools at will to exploit weaknesses in your procedure for identifying tools.
JFK is wide open to terrorists intent on causing mass casualties….
Schiphol — Amsterdam airport — gets the security screening right, or at least less wrong than JFK and most other airports. Rather than having a hideous bottleneck between check-in and the departure area, security screening is carried out at each depature gate, with a separate metal detector and X-ray belt; no huge crowds form in unsecured areas. On US-bound flights, someone who clearly isn’t a minimum-wage drone checks ID documents and asks a couple of questions that seem to me to the aimed at flushing out anyone who is disturbed or tense — a crude form of profiling.[italics his; boldfacing mine]
South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint preferred to let the TSA remain leaderless for the past year in fear of unionization of the workers. As he explained to CNN:
Or, as quoted by Mark “neither Ernest nor earnest” Hemingway the Washington Examiner, in a piece oh-so-sensibly entitled Napolitano wants to unionize TSA employees despite safety concerns:
The administration is intent in on unionizing and submitting our airport security to union bosses [and] collective bargaining, and this is at a time, as Senator Lieberman says, we’ve got to use our imagination we’ve got to be constantly flexible. We have to out think the terrorists. When we formed the airport security system we realize we could not use collective bargaining and unionization because of that need to be flexible. Yet that appears to be the top priority of the administration.
But DeMint was much clearer on the Senate floor, and speaking to Fox:
It makes absolutely no sense to submit the security of our airports and the passengers here in this country to collective bargaining with unions.
Which, of course, is why police and fire departments are all non-union as well.
The people you attract to any job—by your deliberate practices, not “unintended consequence”—are those who cannot get a job that they know to be more stable, pays better, has better benefits, or provide a more friendly work atmosphere. By your policies and procedures, you reveal the type of worker you prefer. This is as true of the TSA as it is of Goldman Sachs.
In the case of the TSA, though, the combination produces the natural hire as the people who couldn’t get a job at Applebee’s, The Olive Garden, or Ruby Tuesday’s.
As Paul Kedrosky recently noted, it’s more “security theater” than security. So when DeMint compares the TSA to the FBI, he’s neglecting that the average staring salary at the FBI eight years ago was over $43,000—with an increase of at least $10,000 upon completion of training. This is $20,000-$30,000 a year more than the $12/hour my neighbor made when he started with the TSA. (He quit quickly, finding restaurant work more profitable.)
If you want security, you pay for people who know how to do security. If you want theater, you depend on Jim DeMint to ensure that the TSA remains leaderless, and then have no right to be surprised when a British novelist points out that your security isn’t secure. Even when he says:
Suppose I wanted to attack the US air travel infrastructure….I can kill lots of passengers! All I need to do is to buy a maximum-size carry on bag (US dimensions: 7″ x 13″ x 20″) and build the biggest, heaviest bomb into it that I can wheel behind me….
All I would have to do then is buy a ticket…and go queue. Then, when I get to the middle of the crowd, detonate the device. (For added horrors: have an accomplice with a similar device hang back, to detonate their bomb amidst the fleeing survivors.)
[S]ecurity checkpoints are a target, too, because they slow down travellers and cause crowds to form, and another term for “crowd” is “convenient target”. And because the attacker has not been separated from their weapon at the point when they reach such a target, it’s the logical weak point for causing maximum damage.
TSA = Thousands Standing Around
I doubt a union could make them much worse, although they would likely use wildcat strike threats to gain leverage on the government.
The other potential problem is union corruption. Given the long history of union officials tossing their duties for payoffs, this could be a little scary.
(I am a former union member and have seen all the good and bad of organized labor.)
A union won’t make them better, but it will make them more expensive.
Better would be to hire El Al to create and manage the security. Why re-invent the wheel?
I might add that attacks on lines of all kinds – especially those that tended to form outside banks prior to opening time – were an absolute favorite tactic of Al Qaeda in Iraq prior to the surge.
I doubt any serious traveller thinks that airport security is more than an aggravating, expensive, and stupid joke. The ability of the 9/11 hijackers to stroll through security came as no surprise to those of us who flew a lot. And — trust me on this — the next serious hijackers/bombers will stroll right though our current security as easily. El Al? Shortly before his attempt on American Air Flight 63, shoe bomber Richard Reid went out of his way to pass through El Al security (albeit without his doctored shoes) apparently to test his ability to deal with airport security.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Reid_(shoe_bomber)
However, I doubt my fellow Americans are going to abandon the delusional structure they have built any time soon. And what the hell, TSA — ineffective as it might be — employees a lot of people who would otherwise be unemployable since their jobs have been shipped off to Asia and Latin America.
Or one could print up little cards like the sign language cards silent panhandlers pass out in restaurants and pass them out to passengers headed for for airport security circus. The cards would read:
“Suppose I wanted to attack the US air travel infrastructure….I can kill lots of passengers! All I need to do is to buy a maximum-size carry on bag (US dimensions: 7″ x 13″ x 20”) and build the biggest, heaviest bomb into it that I can wheel behind me….
“All I would have to do then is buy a ticket…and go queue. Then, when I get to the middle of the crowd, detonate the device. (For added horrors: have an accomplice with a similar device hang back, to detonate their bomb amidst the fleeing survivors.)
“[S]ecurity checkpoints are a target, too, because they slow down travellers and cause crowds to form, and another term for “crowd” is “convenient target”. And because the attacker has not been separated from their weapon at the point when they reach such a target, it’s the logical weak point for causing maximum damage.”
[S]ecurity checkpoints are a target, too, because they slow down travellers and cause crowds to form, and another term for “crowd” is “convenient target”.
And it’s not just long lines at airports that make convenient targets. Look at any military base or even the Pentagon itself. The focus is not on protecting people, it’s on protecting the physical infrastructure. There are many military bases where the traffic backs up 3 or 4 miles every morning. Sitting ducks just waiting for a drive by terrorist. It’s as though people like Sen. DeMint had never heard of queueing theory.
The good news is that as bad as TSA security is today, it’s still a lot better than it was before TSA workers became federal employees. When airport security was run by private contractors things were even worse. A lot worse. You could almost always count on the airport security flunkees stealing something from your luggage.
Save the Rustbelt–Federal Unions are forbidden by law to strike or stage work slow downs. Remember the Air Traffic Controllers Union? Their strike was automatic cause for dismissal, the only defense to which was you were on approved leave of some kind. Reagan fired them because he could do so easily. Any President would have done the same. It was no big deal, really, no matter what people thought at the time. Besides, Reagan was a past President of the Screen Actors’ Guild and didn’t turn up his nose at the pension.
The FBI, Postal Inspectors, some Secret Serivce agents, and the Border Patrol are all unionized. Unionizing or not unionizing TSA’s airport security agents won’t make them worse. It could result in higher pay and as Stross observes, you get what you pay for.
2slugs, Sandwich Man and Indy’s observations are absolutely correct. The two most dangerous time periods in any business operation is when you open and when you close. Which is when people are lined up to get in the door or out of it. Exactly the same situation suicide bombers take advantage of almost everyday somewhere in the Middle East and South Asia.
One reason I was glad I worked in a small facility far, far from the big time federal buildings in LA and SFO was that I could keep packages and crazy people out of the shop more easily. Easier to spot. But, if the militia members and gun freaks who used to call up saying they were going to bomb us hadn’t said anything, they could have blown the office up any night of the week. There is always a way.
If you expect TSA employees to check everything and everyone, than what you get is declining effectiveness over the eight hour work day. Simply put, if you wrestle with all the luggage and hand carried bags, after a few hours it all looks the same. Looking at everything eventually equates with seeing nothing.
Law enforcement had prior infomation on the 9/11 players, the underwear bomber, the shoe bomber. It just was not put to use.
Long lines do not guarantee safety, only aggravation.
Sandwichman,
It gets worse. A lot of big airports have tried to accommodate the long line problem by snaking people through some roundabout circuit, which increases the area density. At least with a long line the damage is limited to two vectors (forward and behind) from the would be terrorist. When you snake people around you also increase the number of potentially lethal vectors.
Nancy,
Good points. People also forget that Reagan still jailed Air Traffic Controllers even after the controllers quit government employment. So you weren’t even allowed to quit if you didn’t like the employment terms dictated by the government. Reagan invoked an obscure provision that allows the government to compel people to work. You’re not even allowed to quit. Aside from the Air Traffic Controller case, I only know of one other time it was invoked. I know someone who had a special skill set who tried to quit his civil service job. The govt invoked this obscure provision and compelled him to continue working or go to jail. Eventually the federal employee’s union was able to arrange for him to quit, but that was many months later.
Dave,
A union won’t make them better, but it will make them more expensive.
Part of Ken’s point is that making them more expensive will also make them better. When you pay a marginal wage you get a marginal employee. That’s one of the reasons TSA got better after the employees came under the federal govt rather than flunkee private sector employees. People complain about how bad things are today, but they should think back to how bad they were shortly after 9/11 before airport security was still done by private contractors. It’s the difference between a real cop and a mall cop.
And when I say TSA is better now than it was under private contractors, I don’t mean to suggest that TSA is anymore effective at stopping terrorism. I simply mean that lines move a little quicker and fewer items are stolen from luggage.
Rust Belt,
I am a retired member of the strongest, most obscure union (organized labor of the US professional military) in the world, the US military establishment.
We pay no dues, are well cared for and have guaranteed employment as long as we play the game. We have great jobs in our suppliers’ business as long as we looked the other way and accepted the defects.
All that tax money wasted has some of it skimmed, every bit as easily as the mob in some of their actviites, by good clean well educated and choiffred PAC bagmen.
The pilot part of our union kept manned airplanes for 40 years beyond when their featherbedding should have been laid off.
Unions exist all over the place.
In labor it required worker organization to bring management around.
The militarist union merely shares the plundering among the participants.
Unions are not needed when the managers have the inetrests of the whole on their priority lists.
Unions do exist where the interests of some may exploit others. That the unions go bad is founded in the corrupt causes for their existence.
Too bad there is no taxpayer union, to attack the psywar going on.
The terrorist won.
“If you give up a freedom for security you end up with neither.”
Ben Franklin
Who do you think the terrorists are?
So if the TSA workers strike illegally like PATCO, what happens to the air travel system? REplaced with the military?
Note that all the talk about potential terrorism focuses on crowds of average citizens. It has always struck me as odd that a terrorist organization looking to make a political or economic statement strikes out at plain old average people. Would it have been all that much more difficult for the 9/11 attackers to have selected a flight that they could have diverted into the Capitol Bldg at a time of day when the Congress would have been in session? Why didn’t the WT attackers choose to fly into the NYSEx? It just seems odd that those wanting to make their mark against those they see as the enemy would choose to attack by standers. The average citizen might get killed as collateral damage, but why isn’t the primary target ever a large group of leaders or extremely wealthy people? Don’t the leaders of terrorist organizations know that it’s the head of the beast that controls the action? Why do terrorists only attack the limbs? I’m just puzzled by their actions.
Rust Belt,
Well unions that capture federal employees are a little different from your description. They really have no negotiating power past what the current government gives them. They mainly represent employees who are facing dismissal or other personnel actions. They have no say in setting pay, for example, even though they can scream to high heaven in the media about it. Their members can not strike.
But, I just was looking for an excuse to tell you that you are quoted at Prof. Maule’s “MauledAgain”, my favorite tax blogger site.
“A union won’t make them better, but it will make them more expensive.”
Only if it increases their longevity by increasing their job security. The government pay system doesn’t work that way. Unions don’t have a say in job classification which determines pay.
Actually I think a higher pay would have a limited affect on the quality past an immediate step up. The job looks boring and is rumored to have an atmosphere as bad as the Post Office. There is just so much attention and dedication that someone who could get a better government job elsewhere will give.
You have captured my sentiments exactly.
Past some deterrent effect given by slow-ups like TSA, people need to accept the natural risk in our society. TSA is like more like Customs than anything else. Stuff will happen.
I think the Whitehouse was the target for the Pennsylvania plane.
Besides, why would they want to help us?
Bad joke but we put our financial and defense at the top of what we are. They hit the head if you think of it that way. Besides, they had a failed Trade Tower attempt to fix.
Anna Lee,
Jack missed the point.
The WTC were examples of US hubris, world trade center?????
In Manhattan, the NYNEX is merely local hubris.
They did the pentagon to show US war machine is effete and Bush and crowd proved it impudent.
Flight 93 may have been on capitol hill or the white house.
All targets were “decapitation” targets that is take out the head and the body falls.
Failing that the neo con and militarists are proving the head is dead and need not have been targeted.
Jack,
If common US citizens were the target then some of the attacks 2Slugs alluded to would have occurred about 100 times over.
There are many boys in Mecca, Medina, Gaza and the West Bank who would gladly blow a vest bomb at Kennedy, National, Dulles…… killing dozens at a time.
An underwear bomb every few years is enough to give their fifth column militarist allies the ammunition to plunder the US to oblivion.
The terrorists are winning because they have useless idiots reacting just the way they want.
Cheney is one of the chief terrorists, destroying any sembelnce of libertty, righteousness and reason in the US.
ilsm: “The terrorists are winning because they have useless idiots reacting just the way they want.”
Certainly I wouldn’t disagree that to a large extent the terrorists are winning. However, it is those very idiots who are also winning. It is the rest of us that are losing. We won’t ever have the satisfaction of winning given that there is nothing to actually win. What a great waste of our military personnel and our nation’s wealth.