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Speaker 1: I'm Manny, I'm Noah, and this is Devin and this

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Speaker 1: is no such thing. The show where we settle our

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Speaker 1: dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the research. On

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Speaker 1: today's episode, we figure out what is actually going on

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Speaker 1: with the TSA.

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Speaker 2: I think the TSA's blanket response is always either we're

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Speaker 2: following the procedure exactly or we're preventing the next nine

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Speaker 2: to eleven.

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Speaker 3: So just deal with it.

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Speaker 4: There's no no such thing, no such thing such.

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Speaker 1: So we're all about to take our first trip together

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Speaker 1: to an undisclosed location.

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Speaker 4: First trip, Yeah, first flight. We've never been on a trip.

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Speaker 1: We're all three of us.

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Speaker 4: WHOA, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: You're right, done like day trips, but we haven't done

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Speaker 1: New Jersey overnight these New Jersey out.

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Speaker 4: Of state actually to that's actually shocking.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, so this is gonna be well. By time this

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Speaker 1: comes out, we would have been on this trip. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's true. So you know, got me thinking about the TSA,

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Speaker 1: which got me thinking about this is a core memory.

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Speaker 1: It was twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen, it just come out

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Speaker 1: that you could look at all your Google data and

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Speaker 1: see like all the information that Google had about you.

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Speaker 4: Oh my god. So we were all.

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Speaker 1: Looking to say, like, all right, how old is Google think?

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Speaker 1: I am all that sort of stuff. And then we

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Speaker 1: also realized that you can get your voice recordings if

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Speaker 1: you have like a Google Home. So none of us

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Speaker 1: had a Google Home except Manny at the time, That's right,

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Speaker 1: So we were curious what was on Manny's Google Home

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Speaker 1: home recordings, which.

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Speaker 4: Is an immediate violation of privacy. But continue, we all.

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Speaker 1: Gathered around your computer. You were about to go on

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Speaker 1: a trip, yeah, and you had asked the Google Home

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Speaker 1: maybe a dozen times, can I bring X on a plane?

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Speaker 4: I remember this instance because I think I was literally packing,

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Speaker 4: and as I was packing, I just kept saying, you know,

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Speaker 4: I would pick something up and be like, hey Google,

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Speaker 4: and I take this, Well, SA, let me bring this.

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Speaker 4: And so when we when we looked at the the

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Speaker 4: like the saved responses, it was just like twelve in

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Speaker 4: a row, like back to back to back. Can I

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Speaker 4: bring like a razor? Can I bring my portable battery?

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Speaker 4: But I will say I had a great reason to

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Speaker 4: keep asking those questions because I still to this day

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Speaker 4: don't know what I can bring and what I can't bring.

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Speaker 1: You know what That's what I was going to say.

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Speaker 1: You know, we're a little bit older now near you know,

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Speaker 1: nearly ten years later, like to apologize. I think we

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Speaker 1: were clowning you at the time. But Manny is not uniqueness. Now.

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Speaker 1: Every time I travel, I don't you know, I'm not

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Speaker 1: asking my goal a home, but I do. And you

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Speaker 1: sit and think, like, wait, how you know how much

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Speaker 1: liquid am I allowed to bring? Do I actually have

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Speaker 1: to put them in a plastic bag? You know, I

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Speaker 1: travel a few times a year. I'm not like someone

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Speaker 1: who's traveling like every other week. But I travel, I

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Speaker 1: guess not often enough to have to have that moment

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Speaker 1: where I have to stop and think about what I

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Speaker 1: can bring. Same here, this group is not alone and

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Speaker 1: being confused by the TSA rules. It is the sort

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Speaker 1: of thing that every time I think, okay, there's going

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Speaker 1: to be the time I get it right, and every

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Speaker 1: time I'm more and more confused. Every time I go.

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Speaker 1: The signs are different than what the TSA agents are

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Speaker 1: telling me to do. Yep, And half the things I'm like,

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Speaker 1: do I actually have to do that? Like now I

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Speaker 1: don't actually put my liquids in a large classic bag.

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Speaker 4: Don't do that?

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Speaker 1: Anymore.

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Speaker 4: I mean, the laptop is another one. Like, I'm flying

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Speaker 4: way more often this year than I usually am, and

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Speaker 4: so I'm starting to track this stuff anecdotally. But I

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Speaker 4: was on my way from Atlanta to New York and

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Speaker 4: the sign says take your laptop out or any device

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Speaker 4: that's bigger than your phone. So I start to do that,

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Speaker 4: and then the TSA agent says, stop, you don't have

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Speaker 4: to take your laptop out. He's like yelling at me.

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Speaker 1: Are you why it's confusing?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: And I guess in my head, I'm like, Okay, maybe

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Speaker 4: there are some shifts where they can be more lax,

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Speaker 4: but why don't you just say, hey, you don't have

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Speaker 4: to take it out? Why are you screaming at it?

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Speaker 5: Well, that's it's frustrating. All due respect to though hard

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Speaker 5: work is a TSA, but it's like, I don't live

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Speaker 5: I don't live here. I'm not here every day like you,

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Speaker 5: So why should I be expected to understand this, especially

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Speaker 5: when signage and history has told me to do this?

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Speaker 5: It doesn't make any sense.

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Speaker 4: I have respect because they see a billion people every day,

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Speaker 4: But what I don't have respect for is that I, like,

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Speaker 4: I can't expect what to do. Now, if the rule

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Speaker 4: was the same every time and I was still fucking

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Speaker 4: up every that's on, you go off on me. I

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Speaker 4: deserve it, you know, lock him up. But if it

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Speaker 4: says take your laptop out and I'm trying to do

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Speaker 4: it and you're yelling at me, where do we go

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Speaker 4: from here?

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Speaker 1: Shoes crazy? I mean is that the rules are different.

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Speaker 1: They don't match the signs, they don't match what you

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Speaker 1: look up online, and it's not even the same, like

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Speaker 1: you know, it's not even like every time I go

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Speaker 1: to JFK, it's it's like, okay, this part of JFK

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Speaker 1: is different than this part of JFK. So it's like,

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Speaker 1: all right, it's confusing. So what I get? If you're

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Speaker 1: gonna tell me something different, sure I could follow that.

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Speaker 1: You just don't have to yell at me like I'm

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Speaker 1: a fucking idiot because the thing right here is telling

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Speaker 1: me to do something different and what you're telling me.

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Speaker 4: And God forbid, if you point that out like I have,

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Speaker 4: I'll be like, I'm like, oh, that's interesting because look

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Speaker 4: at the sign that's literally right behind you. And then

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Speaker 4: they'll just get even more pissed.

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Speaker 1: So this creator redecues did this TikTok. It's almost three

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Speaker 1: years old now, but I think it perfectly captures sort

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Speaker 1: of what we're talking about, taking laptops and electronics out

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Speaker 1: the bag.

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Speaker 4: If you gotta hold it, you want to take it all,

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Speaker 4: take it all of traumatized. Listening to this feels like

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Speaker 4: like drill sergeants.

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Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And there's like a level of anxiety that

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Speaker 1: like going through security, I just have at all times.

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Speaker 1: And I'm someone who's very fucking good at following directions. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you know, like I am one of those okay that

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Speaker 1: says that I'm ready. I got my ship ready to go.

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Speaker 1: My shoes are a little bit slipped off.

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Speaker 4: Like oh yeah, I read in shoes that are easy

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Speaker 4: to take off. I don't even wear a belt to

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Speaker 4: the airport. Got my laptop separate from others, make it

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Speaker 4: easy to come out. And now you know, we're younger too, exactly,

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Speaker 4: We're not young, but we're younger. And like sometimes I'll

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Speaker 4: go through the line and see old people getting screamed,

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Speaker 4: yelled at, no fucking mercy.

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Speaker 1: Granny is getting like, like you fucking idiot, granny, figure

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Speaker 1: it out. You know, I guess she doesn't have to

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Speaker 1: take our shoes off. Oh then they yell at granny

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Speaker 1: because she's old, so she doesn't have to take our

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Speaker 1: shoes off. She doesn't know that. Yeah, and it's just.

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Speaker 4: Like meanwhile, planes weren't even around when this woman was war.

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Speaker 4: She's learning with the rest of the world.

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Speaker 1: Her last flight was with the right brothers. This is

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Speaker 1: Amelia Earhart, and y'all are screaming at her. So, yeah,

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Speaker 1: this is it seems like there there could be a

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Speaker 1: better way to do this.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I'm curious, like how TSA does decide if

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Speaker 5: it does decide the differences between airports. Is it domestic

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Speaker 5: for international? Is their system in place.

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Speaker 1: Airport at the airport? Yea, Well I'm curious, like we

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Speaker 1: haven't even touched on this yet, but we go through

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Speaker 1: all this bullshit. Does this actually even work? Why can't

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Speaker 1: I bring a water bottle on a plane? Like come on,

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Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I know one guy tried to do

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Speaker 1: one water one time, but it's water.

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Speaker 5: The universal solvent, and I can't carry it.

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Speaker 1: You can bring water everywhere else.

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Speaker 4: Now, you know. I'm okay if they ban dasani, my

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Speaker 4: regular water bottle should be fine.

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Speaker 1: No, alright, so we'll get some answers to some of

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Speaker 1: those questions. After the break, and I chat with a

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Speaker 1: reporter who tells me the darkest you say story I

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Speaker 1: have ever heard. All Right, we're back. This is no

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Speaker 1: such thing. Have you been? So you're in Texas?

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Speaker 4: Right?

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Speaker 3: I am in Texas, Dallas.

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Speaker 1: So I appreciate you taking the time to hop on.

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Speaker 1: Can I just have you introduce yourselves name and sort

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Speaker 1: of what you do.

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Speaker 3: Sure.

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Speaker 2: My name is Darryl Campbell. I'm an aviation safety writer

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Speaker 2: for the tech website The Verge, and I've also got

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Speaker 2: a book coming out. It's called Fatal Abstraction, Why the

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Speaker 2: Managerial Class Loses Control of Software.

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Speaker 1: So a few years ago there I wrote this deep

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Speaker 1: dive for The Verge called The Humiliating History of the TSA.

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Speaker 1: I loved your article. I thought it was like so

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Speaker 1: much of the writing around TSA I feel like sort

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Speaker 1: of really walks around the fact that, like it's such

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Speaker 1: a bizarre experience.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I really did want to capture the weirdness of it.

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Speaker 6: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think the key to it was that first anecdote.

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Speaker 2: So this person, her name is Jay Cooper. She's a

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Speaker 2: former ts SO who used to work at LaGuardia, and

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Speaker 2: the story she told me was, in a lot of

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Speaker 2: ways the perfect encapsulation of just how strange and bizarre

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Speaker 2: the TSA experience can be. So she was working at

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Speaker 2: her checkpoint she noticed someone was crying in the line,

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Speaker 2: and it's an airport that happens. But when the person

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Speaker 2: came through to her station, so she was the document

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Speaker 2: checker at the front of the line, someone was pushing

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Speaker 2: someone in a wheelchair and the person in the wheelchair

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Speaker 2: was supposed to hand over their ticket and she wasn't

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Speaker 2: really being responsive, so Jay asked her, Hey, can I

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Speaker 2: have your documents? Can you stand up to do the

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Speaker 2: security check? The person pushing her was crying and she said,

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Speaker 2: but she can't. She can't because it turns out the

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Speaker 2: person in the wheelchair was dead. What happened was they

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Speaker 2: had checked in a couple hours before, and it was

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Speaker 2: an international flight, so they were just being safe, and

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Speaker 2: the person in the wheelchair had died at some point

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Speaker 2: between check in and the time that they were going

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Speaker 2: through security. The problem is, once you've checked in, you

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Speaker 2: are entitled to go through security unless a doctor pronounces

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Speaker 2: you dead, and so at that point, airport rules being

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Speaker 2: what they are. There wasn't a doctor on station, so

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Speaker 2: they had to let the person through security. So Jay

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Speaker 2: asked her, Okay, well, here's what we have to do.

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Speaker 2: We actually have to take them physically out of the wheelchair,

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Speaker 2: do a pat down on them in a private room,

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Speaker 2: you know, put on the gloves. But they treated her

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Speaker 2: as if she was just another person going through security,

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Speaker 2: even though.

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Speaker 3: They were a corpse at that point.

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Speaker 2: It really is just kind of an example of how

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Speaker 2: the TSA has to do its job without question, no

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Speaker 2: matter what, even if the person isn't alive.

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Speaker 4: Was it clear to TSA that the person passed away?

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Speaker 1: They knew, they all knew, everyone knew, everyone knew the

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Speaker 1: person was dead.

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Speaker 5: There just wasn't a doctor to officially say that.

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Speaker 3: Yes.

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Speaker 1: Wow, but it, you know, it sort of points to

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Speaker 1: this thing of like the TSA has their rules, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and everyone has to go through security even if you

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Speaker 1: are dead.

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Speaker 4: That is the darkest ts Yeah, it's pretty you know,

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Speaker 4: you're right.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So I'm going to take a step back, and

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Speaker 1: I think a lot of people take for granted that

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Speaker 1: the TSA is just, you know, the way we do

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Speaker 1: airport security. But that hasn't always been the case, So

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Speaker 1: can you tell us a bit about how and why

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Speaker 1: the TSA was formed.

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Speaker 2: So I'm old enough to remember a time before TSA.

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Speaker 2: My parents used to work for the airlines, so I

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Speaker 2: remember being little and actually being able to go up

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Speaker 2: to the gate when my dad had a flight and

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Speaker 2: meet him right at the gate side. After nine to eleven.

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Speaker 2: The TSA was formed first as part of the Department

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Speaker 2: of Transportation and then was kind of moved over to

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Speaker 2: the Department of Homeland Security once that was formed. But

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Speaker 2: it was really a response specifically to the nine to

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Speaker 2: eleven attacks and kind of an overreaction in my view

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Speaker 2: of what you really need to do to sort of

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Speaker 2: stop the next nine to eleven, which is the TSA's

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Speaker 2: primary goal.

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Speaker 7: Today, we take permanent and aggressive steps to improve the

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Speaker 7: security of our airways, and a new team of federal

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Speaker 7: security managers, supervisor, law enforcement officers, and screeners. We'll ensure

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Speaker 7: all passengers and carry on bags are inspected thoroughly and effectively.

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Speaker 1: The new security force.

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Speaker 7: Will be well trained, made up of US citizens, and

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Speaker 7: if any of its members do not perform, the new

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Speaker 7: Undersecretary will have full authority to discipline or remove them.

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Speaker 2: Before nine to eleven, though airport security was relatively uninvasive.

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Speaker 2: You had your metal detectors, you had just private security

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Speaker 2: guards at the checkpoints, just saying okay, if you've got

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Speaker 2: a gun or if you've got a big knife, then

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Speaker 2: you obviously can't take that. But otherwise you didn't need

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Speaker 2: a ticket to pass through security. And that was because

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Speaker 2: what we think of as hijacking today was actually very

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Speaker 2: different in kind of the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies,

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Speaker 2: where people were hijacking airplanes, not to use them the

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Speaker 2: as suicide weapons, but really as political statements.

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Speaker 1: Between nineteen sixty eight in nineteen seventy two, there were

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Speaker 1: over one hundred and thirty American planes that were hijacked,

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Speaker 1: with most of those hijackers wanting to go to Cuba.

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Speaker 6: There was a man up in the cockpit with a

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Speaker 6: gun that we were going to Havana, that there was

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Speaker 6: nothing to panic about.

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Speaker 7: Messengers calm during most of it.

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Speaker 8: They were come.

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Speaker 3: Most of them were totally come.

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Speaker 1: During most of this.

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Speaker 3: They were very nice.

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Speaker 1: We had a nice dinner over there in the airport,

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Speaker 1: a couple of drinks, all on the house. It's hard

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Speaker 1: to complain of Potte where you're frightened at any point. Oh,

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Speaker 1: I don't think anybody was.

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Speaker 4: You find out you're on a hijacksplane, You're like, oh,

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Speaker 4: gotta get a different city.

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Speaker 1: Now, let it killed me. And then you know, getting

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Speaker 1: to the seventies, it got a lot out of hand.

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Speaker 1: And then Nixon came through and I was like, all right,

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Speaker 1: like we need to have a little bit more security.

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Speaker 2: And so that's where installed the private security guards and

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Speaker 2: the metal detectors.

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Speaker 6: President nexton there is an out several steps designed to

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Speaker 6: counter hijacking. The White House Anti hijacking plan is in

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Speaker 6: three parts. Starting tomorrow, armed guards will ride shotgun on

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Speaker 6: some domestic and international flights, Electronic surveillance at the airports

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Speaker 6: will be increased, and pressures will be brought on the

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Speaker 6: international community to ostracize those countries that do not punish

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Speaker 6: their hijackers.

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Speaker 1: So, in this security system that you're talking about, pre

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Speaker 1: TSA really primarily just looking for weapons or is that

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Speaker 1: like the primary you know, now we're talking about liquids

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Speaker 1: and taking off our shoes and all.

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Speaker 2: These Yeah, yeah, it's gotten crazy, but no, it was

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Speaker 2: two main things that they were looking out for. Number

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Speaker 2: one was bombs that could harm an airplane, so like

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Speaker 2: the lockerbie terrorist example, that happens in check baggage, So

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Speaker 2: that's something outside of the airport security that we see

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Speaker 2: every day. And then just individual armed hijackers who could

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Speaker 2: pose the threats. But looking for individual being the operative

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Speaker 2: thing like individual small groups, not you know, five or

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Speaker 2: six people at a time with box cutters. So it

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Speaker 2: was very specific to the threat that they saw it

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Speaker 2: in sort of the sixties and seventies.

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Speaker 4: Good Morning America may never be the same. And this

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Speaker 4: is why a beautiful Tuesday turned tragic when American Airlines

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Speaker 4: Flight eleven crashed into the North Tower of the World

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Speaker 4: Trade Center. And that was just the beginning.

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Speaker 2: The nine to eleven attacks are almost like the trojan Horse.

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Speaker 2: It's so successful but also so infamous that it's never

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Speaker 2: going to work again. And if you think about the

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Speaker 2: things that are preventing the next nine to eleven quote unquote,

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Speaker 2: there's really three things. Number one, reinforced cockpit doors. You

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Speaker 2: can't just walk your way up into a cockpit anymore.

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Speaker 2: You have to have the pilot's key you in, and

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Speaker 2: there's a whole system in place. The second isilot training.

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Speaker 2: Previous forms of hijacking were really just about making a

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Speaker 2: political statement, So pilots were trained to obey and basically

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Speaker 2: do whatever the hijackers wanted. That doesn't happen anymore, and

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Speaker 2: pilots are trained to get the airplane on the ground

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Speaker 2: as quickly as possible and let law enforcement take over.

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Speaker 2: And really the third thing is passengers are aware of

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Speaker 2: the threat now. And we've seen this in the case

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Speaker 2: of the shoe bomber, the underwear bomber, and I'm sure

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Speaker 2: you've seen all the videos. Are just people acting weird

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Speaker 2: on airplanes now and passengers are really on top of them,

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Speaker 2: restraining them and so on. So I think the whole

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Speaker 2: idea that the TSA was designed to respond to nine

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Speaker 2: to eleven is almost outdated from the moment that it

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Speaker 2: was created. Now there's obviously a kind of public relations

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Speaker 2: aspect to it, too, and that the government needed to

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Speaker 2: seem like it was doing something to respond. And the

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Speaker 2: best way to get people to give them credit, if

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Speaker 2: you like, is to invent a new security apparatus, invent

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Speaker 2: a new processes that touches everybody that wants to fly,

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Speaker 2: so that it looks like people are doing things, even

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Speaker 2: if what they're actually doing is not so effective. There's

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Speaker 2: a term that someone coined. It's called security theater. It's,

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Speaker 2: you know, the whole big show about it, even if

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Speaker 2: there's no kind of metrics that you can track. And

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Speaker 2: actually that's part of the problem is that there's really

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Speaker 2: no transparency around how TSA is effective. If you go

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Speaker 2: to the FBI or if you go to the Department

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Speaker 2: of Transportation and say, okay, how do you measure if

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Speaker 2: what you're doing is successful? Then they've got a list

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Speaker 2: of on time departures, arrests, whatever, whatever. For the TSA.

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Speaker 2: It's like, well, we haven't had another nine to eleven,

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Speaker 2: But how much of that is really because of the TSA.

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Speaker 1: Darryl told me, when you go through a security checkpoint,

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Speaker 1: they're eight tasks the TSO might be performing.

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Speaker 2: It's a very regimented process, and in part it's because

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Speaker 2: when you first become a transportation security officer, that's what

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Speaker 2: you're doing. So there's the ticket checking where you hand

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Speaker 2: your ticket to get scanned. There's the security they call

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Speaker 2: it divestiture, which is a fancy way of saying take

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Speaker 2: off your shoes, in your jacket and put it in

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Speaker 2: the bin. There's the person at the actual scanner, there's

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Speaker 2: the person who's operating the personal scanner, the baggage scanner,

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Speaker 2: and there's a bunch of different ones as supervisor. So

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Speaker 2: it's really kind of like you're Catholics, like the Stations

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Speaker 2: of the Cross. You kind of move around to each

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Speaker 2: individual one throughout your shifts, but you're supposed to be

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Speaker 2: trained on all of them, and each one has like

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Speaker 2: five hours of training for every station, so it's not

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Speaker 2: just a question of people yelling ask you to say,

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Speaker 2: take your shoes off, but they are actual steps that

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Speaker 2: they're supposed to follow.

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Speaker 4: Real quick. He uh, he mentioned the stations of the Cross.

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Speaker 4: Do you guys know what that is? That's such an

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Speaker 4: obscure Catholic reference that now you break this, it's just

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Speaker 4: it's like, uh, it's in every Catholic church you have

381
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Speaker 4: like the Stations of the Cross around the room. It's

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Speaker 4: like the twelve or fourteen like little steps that Jesus

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Speaker 4: took on his way to get crucified. So it's like, Okay,

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Speaker 4: it makes number three, he kissed this woman on the cheek.

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Speaker 4: Number four, he fell down number five. It's like, but

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Speaker 4: I just thought that was so funny that I don't

387
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Speaker 4: think that people.

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Speaker 5: Next time you watch Passion of the Christ, you know,

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Speaker 5: I'm sure you will be on Easter.

390
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Speaker 1: Keep that in mind.

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Speaker 5: It's like he's like going through tsa think.

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Speaker 1: About what he did. And you also talk about like

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Speaker 1: the compliance factor of it, right of like constantly monitoring

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Speaker 1: these employees to making sure that you're saying they're following

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Speaker 1: the exact steps that they're taught, and how that bruise

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Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety within the workers, and then you

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Speaker 1: know with the travelers as well.

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Speaker 2: Speaks yeah today, Yeah, it's I call it a complain

399
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Speaker 2: clients fetish. But you remember this whole thing a couple

400
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Speaker 2: of weeks ago about Doge firing a bunch of probationary workers.

401
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Speaker 2: So every time new TSO is hired, they're a probationary

402
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Speaker 2: worker for two years, which means they can get fired

403
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Speaker 2: for any reason. They don't need cause they don't need

404
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Speaker 2: to write up. I mean, if they just don't like

405
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Speaker 2: the look of you, if you get crossways with the supervisor,

406
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Speaker 2: you can get fired. So there's this huge fear and

407
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Speaker 2: anxiety about I don't want to mess up. I don't

408
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Speaker 2: even want to be perceived to mess up, which probably

409
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Speaker 2: makes them well, which does make them in my interviews anyway,

410
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Speaker 2: really just focused on going as much by the book

411
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Speaker 2: or getting on the good side of their supervisor as possible.

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Speaker 2: So that's one part of it, and then the second

413
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Speaker 2: part of it is there's a lot of ways to

414
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Speaker 2: screw up and only one way to be right. But

415
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Speaker 2: there's also a lack of standardization of processes, of equipment,

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Speaker 2: even of personnel training, which makes it difficult for the

417
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Speaker 2: average flyer to know is this the airport where I

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Speaker 2: take off my shoes and I put my jacket in,

419
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Speaker 2: or is this the one where I keep my laptop in.

420
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Speaker 2: There's no incentive for them to make it more traveler friendly.

421
00:22:04,320 --> 00:22:10,120
Speaker 2: There's a huge disincentive to make a mistake, and so

422
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Speaker 2: you're always going to get it to the point where

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Speaker 2: they're just like making it worse for the traveler because

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Speaker 2: that's how they keep their jobs, and so they're kind

425
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Speaker 2: of in an impossible position.

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Speaker 1: But you see, like there's just a ton of incentive

427
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Speaker 1: for them to just, yeah, do what's right, right. There's

428
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Speaker 1: not a lot of flexibility. Yeah, even though it's confusing

429
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Speaker 1: to us, to them and they're like, let me just

430
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Speaker 1: say and do what I need to to make sure

431
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Speaker 1: my supervisor and yell at me or I don't get

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Speaker 1: in trouble.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, it makes sense. Like they're obviously, at the end

434
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Speaker 5: of the day, just trying to do their job, and

435
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Speaker 5: obviously airport's going to be a super regimented sort of thing.

436
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Speaker 5: It's not like, yeah, it's not like a little mom

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Speaker 5: and pop.

438
00:22:43,800 --> 00:22:47,120
Speaker 1: The operation where yeah, it's like all right, this guy's good,

439
00:22:47,119 --> 00:22:49,120
Speaker 1: Like yeah, let them bring about it. What's the big deal?

440
00:22:49,160 --> 00:22:51,800
Speaker 5: And obviously makes sense, especially with the security element, like

441
00:22:52,000 --> 00:22:54,240
Speaker 5: they're going to be uptight in that way, and like

442
00:22:54,280 --> 00:22:56,560
Speaker 5: they just want to keep their job exactly.

443
00:22:57,000 --> 00:22:59,919
Speaker 1: So Dara told me a story too that really exemplifies

444
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:01,320
Speaker 1: it's like how strict they are.

445
00:23:01,480 --> 00:23:04,840
Speaker 2: There is one story where a guy confronted someone who's

446
00:23:04,840 --> 00:23:07,760
Speaker 2: trying to smuggle a bag of cocaine through there, and

447
00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:09,720
Speaker 2: in order to try and get rid of the evidence,

448
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:12,720
Speaker 2: this guy through the bag of cocaine in the TSO's face.

449
00:23:13,600 --> 00:23:16,000
Speaker 2: But the problem is if that guy gets picked for

450
00:23:16,040 --> 00:23:18,520
Speaker 2: a tok screen that same day and he has residual

451
00:23:18,560 --> 00:23:21,040
Speaker 2: cocaine in a system, he gets fired on the spot

452
00:23:21,160 --> 00:23:24,919
Speaker 2: and there's no appeal, there's no nothing, it's just like, Okay,

453
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:28,360
Speaker 2: you fail the test, you're fired, And that's the kind

454
00:23:28,400 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 2: of environment that they have to deal.

455
00:23:29,640 --> 00:23:35,080
Speaker 1: With, you know. I think this anxiety plays a big

456
00:23:35,119 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 1: part obviously in the fear they're going to get fired,

457
00:23:39,760 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: but they're also just like not paid, well, they're wanting

458
00:23:42,800 --> 00:23:43,639
Speaker 1: they'll always paid.

459
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:46,679
Speaker 2: Federal workers TSO's start at a lower pay scale than

460
00:23:46,720 --> 00:23:49,479
Speaker 2: anybody else in the government. They start at something like

461
00:23:49,880 --> 00:23:52,320
Speaker 2: thirty five thousand dollars a year, and then after their

462
00:23:52,359 --> 00:23:54,760
Speaker 2: probationary period they can get up to forty two thousand,

463
00:23:55,080 --> 00:23:57,600
Speaker 2: whereas most other government jobs start at that forty two

464
00:23:57,600 --> 00:23:59,719
Speaker 2: thousand stage and then they work their way up.

465
00:24:00,200 --> 00:24:03,600
Speaker 1: So, like, what is the turnover rate for TSA agents?

466
00:24:04,480 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 2: It's incredibly high. So for every four officers that it hires,

467
00:24:10,520 --> 00:24:13,320
Speaker 2: three of them are just backfills. So they're basically hiring

468
00:24:13,320 --> 00:24:16,960
Speaker 2: a twenty five percent faster than they can retain people.

469
00:24:17,320 --> 00:24:20,240
Speaker 2: And of those people who eventually do get hired, about

470
00:24:20,240 --> 00:24:22,400
Speaker 2: twenty percent of them quit in six months. So it's

471
00:24:22,440 --> 00:24:25,280
Speaker 2: just a massive turnover. And I think that's part of

472
00:24:25,280 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 2: the problem around lack of standardization and just how confusing

473
00:24:28,720 --> 00:24:30,480
Speaker 2: it is because a lot of these people are relatively

474
00:24:30,520 --> 00:24:30,920
Speaker 2: new to the.

475
00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 4: Job thirty k years insane for this sense why they're

476
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 4: screaming at meals?

477
00:24:37,359 --> 00:24:39,320
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, you know.

478
00:24:39,280 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: You're getting McDonald's energy because that's the you know, that's

479
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:43,840
Speaker 1: that's the pay that they're getting.

480
00:24:43,880 --> 00:24:45,640
Speaker 4: Yeah, fun, and you don't even get McDonald's.

481
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:49,080
Speaker 5: No, at least get happy meals.

482
00:24:49,359 --> 00:24:51,919
Speaker 1: So you know, we've been I think a little sympathetic

483
00:24:51,920 --> 00:24:58,200
Speaker 1: to the officers so far. But TSA is often accused

484
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:02,960
Speaker 1: of profiling and discrimination. Don't support that. I'll be the

485
00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:05,679
Speaker 1: first to say it. Let it be known that the

486
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:08,960
Speaker 1: white man on the podcast was the first to stand

487
00:25:09,040 --> 00:25:10,000
Speaker 1: up and say discrimination.

488
00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:11,800
Speaker 5: Wait, god, you guys to say something like that.

489
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:15,680
Speaker 4: We really needed to hear this. No, I've seen it before.

490
00:25:15,840 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 4: My dad gets crazy searches. Yeah, just for being an older,

491
00:25:23,000 --> 00:25:26,840
Speaker 4: vaguely middle Eastern looking guy. He's always getting taken to

492
00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:29,320
Speaker 4: some room. You see him like fifteen minutes later.

493
00:25:29,560 --> 00:25:32,920
Speaker 1: You also spent a lot of time talking to passengers, right,

494
00:25:33,000 --> 00:25:36,840
Speaker 1: and a lot of them have alleged profiling and discrimination.

495
00:25:37,040 --> 00:25:41,520
Speaker 1: Obviously TSAA denies these claims, But can you just walk

496
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:43,520
Speaker 1: us through some of the reporting you did and some

497
00:25:43,560 --> 00:25:47,560
Speaker 1: of the stories that you heard from passengers.

498
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the TSA's blanket response is always either

499
00:25:52,240 --> 00:25:55,560
Speaker 2: we're following the procedure exactly or we're preventing the next

500
00:25:55,640 --> 00:25:57,920
Speaker 2: nine to eleven, So just deal with it. And it's

501
00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 2: been consistent in the twenty twenty three years that they've

502
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 2: been around. But we know that the TSA gets hundreds

503
00:26:04,800 --> 00:26:09,800
Speaker 2: of complaints every month for things as varied as civil

504
00:26:09,920 --> 00:26:14,240
Speaker 2: rights complaints to violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

505
00:26:14,440 --> 00:26:17,560
Speaker 2: And that's probably a small sliver of it, because it's

506
00:26:17,600 --> 00:26:21,560
Speaker 2: actually very difficult to make a complaint to the TSA.

507
00:26:21,680 --> 00:26:24,359
Speaker 2: So a couple of people that I profiled in my article,

508
00:26:24,480 --> 00:26:27,280
Speaker 2: there is one person named Katie Abdu who when she

509
00:26:27,359 --> 00:26:30,520
Speaker 2: was fourteen, she was pulled off an airplane and she

510
00:26:30,560 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 2: was traveling by herself, so she didn't really understand what

511
00:26:32,640 --> 00:26:36,600
Speaker 2: was going on. But she's of partial Arab descent, and

512
00:26:37,640 --> 00:26:40,480
Speaker 2: some random security guy takes her off the airplane, submits

513
00:26:40,480 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 2: her to a search, and then she tries to understand

514
00:26:43,160 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 2: exactly what's going on, and as soon as she asks

515
00:26:45,600 --> 00:26:48,040
Speaker 2: the question, this guy starts patting her down and putting

516
00:26:48,040 --> 00:26:50,120
Speaker 2: his hand up up her skirt and all of these

517
00:26:50,119 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 2: things that really would make anyone uncomfortable let alone a

518
00:26:53,240 --> 00:26:55,120
Speaker 2: fourteen year old woman traveling alone.

519
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:58,639
Speaker 1: And then you also had the game developer Ronnie Ismail.

520
00:26:58,920 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, Rommy me is half Egyptian, half Dutch. He's from

521
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:05,800
Speaker 2: the Netherlands. He says he has seven Islamic names. And

522
00:27:06,520 --> 00:27:08,920
Speaker 2: it's not just that he gets stopped, but the way

523
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:12,159
Speaker 2: in which he gets stopped. For example, he was saying

524
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:15,000
Speaker 2: that he gets pulled aside at the gate to do

525
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:17,960
Speaker 2: a security check, not in a private room like you

526
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:20,280
Speaker 2: might be able to do at a security checkpoint, but

527
00:27:20,600 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 2: just at that like the little plastic folding table by

528
00:27:23,240 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 2: the gate, he gets padded down in full view of everyone.

529
00:27:25,880 --> 00:27:28,600
Speaker 2: And it is almost this humiliation ritual that he has

530
00:27:28,640 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 2: to endure. It's not because he's done anything wrong. It's

531
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,040
Speaker 2: really just, oh, there's a guy who looks like the

532
00:27:35,080 --> 00:27:37,840
Speaker 2: people that everybody says are terrorists, so thank goodness, they're

533
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 2: patting him down.

534
00:27:40,440 --> 00:27:42,480
Speaker 4: At the gate at the game. It's humiliating.

535
00:27:42,600 --> 00:27:44,320
Speaker 1: I just don't understand why you would need to check

536
00:27:44,359 --> 00:27:45,800
Speaker 1: someone after they went through security.

537
00:27:45,920 --> 00:27:46,360
Speaker 3: That's more.

538
00:27:46,480 --> 00:27:49,280
Speaker 4: That seems like more of the theater of it.

539
00:27:49,320 --> 00:27:49,920
Speaker 1: The security.

540
00:27:50,080 --> 00:27:53,000
Speaker 4: Yeah, definitely, they're putting on a little show for people.

541
00:27:54,240 --> 00:28:00,879
Speaker 4: That's nuts.

542
00:28:02,160 --> 00:28:05,359
Speaker 1: So even if you're not harassed by TSA, going to

543
00:28:05,440 --> 00:28:09,840
Speaker 1: airport security sucks. So I wanted to know is this

544
00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:12,840
Speaker 1: even worth it? You know, like, how effective aready actually?

545
00:28:13,359 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 2: So if you ask the TSA directly, they will always

546
00:28:15,880 --> 00:28:17,840
Speaker 2: just point to one thing, which is that we haven't

547
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:21,560
Speaker 2: had another nine to eleven. There's no other real good

548
00:28:21,600 --> 00:28:24,240
Speaker 2: measure that they say exists to do that. But I

549
00:28:24,240 --> 00:28:27,400
Speaker 2: don't think that's true. And in fact, there are security

550
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,480
Speaker 2: researchers whose livelihood this is who also think that that's

551
00:28:30,520 --> 00:28:34,919
Speaker 2: not true. So going back to actuarial science, there's a

552
00:28:35,119 --> 00:28:39,160
Speaker 2: measure that governments use all the time to say is

553
00:28:39,200 --> 00:28:40,160
Speaker 2: this cost effective?

554
00:28:40,240 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 3: Is this worth doing?

555
00:28:42,240 --> 00:28:46,840
Speaker 2: It's called the cost per life saved metric, and it

556
00:28:46,920 --> 00:28:49,880
Speaker 2: essentially says, here's the amount of money that society has

557
00:28:49,920 --> 00:28:52,880
Speaker 2: to put in to create an intervention, and here's how

558
00:28:52,960 --> 00:28:55,320
Speaker 2: much it costs to actually save a life. So a

559
00:28:55,320 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 2: couple examples here enforcing mandatory seat belt laws. It's really cheap.

560
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:02,520
Speaker 2: It's about one hundred and forty dollars per life save.

561
00:29:02,960 --> 00:29:07,200
Speaker 2: Paying for someone to have an impatient visit to a hospital,

562
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:09,960
Speaker 2: even if they're not insured, it's about a million dollars

563
00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:13,320
Speaker 2: per intervention. But the government's threshold is around ten million

564
00:29:13,360 --> 00:29:16,040
Speaker 2: dollars per life saved, so that's kind of the metric

565
00:29:16,160 --> 00:29:20,560
Speaker 2: that they're they're sort of curving around. For the TSA,

566
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:25,440
Speaker 2: the most generous estimate is that it costs about fifteen

567
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:28,880
Speaker 2: million dollars per life saved. And that makes two really

568
00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 2: big assumptions. Number one that the TSA is solely responsible

569
00:29:33,560 --> 00:29:36,640
Speaker 2: for stopping every terrorist attack against the air transport system,

570
00:29:36,880 --> 00:29:39,600
Speaker 2: and number two that there's a nine to eleven style

571
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:41,760
Speaker 2: attack planned about once a decade.

572
00:29:42,160 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: And unsurprisingly, the price goes way up once you remove

573
00:29:45,960 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: those assumptions.

574
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:49,760
Speaker 2: The cost per life saved really gets north of about

575
00:29:49,800 --> 00:29:52,920
Speaker 2: five hundred million dollars, which is, you know, fifty times

576
00:29:52,960 --> 00:29:55,800
Speaker 2: what the government's normal limit is. So I think that's

577
00:29:55,880 --> 00:29:59,880
Speaker 2: really that's probably closer to the ballpark of how effective

578
00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 2: really is.

579
00:30:02,760 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: So back to the question we started with, right, I

580
00:30:06,440 --> 00:30:08,920
Speaker 1: know we've touched on it here and there throughout the interview,

581
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:12,680
Speaker 1: but I want to know why are the TSA rules

582
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:13,400
Speaker 1: so confusing?

583
00:30:13,680 --> 00:30:15,040
Speaker 3: So there's three reasons.

584
00:30:15,120 --> 00:30:19,200
Speaker 2: The first one is just operationally, the TSA has to

585
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 2: deal with a huge amount of turnover. Their training takes

586
00:30:21,800 --> 00:30:24,479
Speaker 2: a long time, and you know, they're getting people who

587
00:30:24,520 --> 00:30:26,800
Speaker 2: are looking at the TSA as a stepping stone for

588
00:30:26,840 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 2: another law enforcement career, so not a lot of reason

589
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,400
Speaker 2: for them to stick around. So the people in the

590
00:30:32,400 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 2: front line aren't super motivated to kind of be correct

591
00:30:36,320 --> 00:30:40,040
Speaker 2: versus pleasing their boss, and the procedures themselves are always

592
00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:42,600
Speaker 2: in flux, so I think that's number one. Number two

593
00:30:43,040 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 2: is equipment, so not every airport has the same equipment.

594
00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:50,920
Speaker 2: Your big ones like DFW, like JFK are always going

595
00:30:51,000 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 2: to have more of the top of the line stuff.

596
00:30:53,000 --> 00:30:54,920
Speaker 2: Some smaller ones, like if you ever fly out of

597
00:30:54,960 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 2: I don't know, Lubbuck or South Bend or whatever, they

598
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,440
Speaker 2: may not have the fancy body scanner, so you may

599
00:30:59,440 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 2: have to go through an old school metal detector where

600
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,320
Speaker 2: they have specific processes. So that's number two. And then

601
00:31:05,400 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 2: number three is there are actually some airports where they've

602
00:31:08,880 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 2: subcontracted it out to private security and so they have

603
00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:17,480
Speaker 2: their own types of requirements. They have to be TSA compliant,

604
00:31:17,520 --> 00:31:19,720
Speaker 2: but there's a lot of leeway and what exactly that

605
00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:21,760
Speaker 2: means as long as they hit some basic stuff. San

606
00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:23,480
Speaker 2: Francisco being the main example of that.

607
00:31:23,800 --> 00:31:26,160
Speaker 1: And you're reporting, did TSA give you any reasoning on

608
00:31:26,240 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 1: why they don't just like make it clear even when

609
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 1: you're like on the line for it, right, I get

610
00:31:31,520 --> 00:31:34,400
Speaker 1: not knowing ahead of time, right, Like my experience has

611
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 1: been even when you're at the airport, the signage is

612
00:31:37,160 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: telling you different things than the TSA agents are telling you.

613
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: Or I've even had instances where two different TSA agents

614
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:45,760
Speaker 1: in the same line are telling me conflicting information, where

615
00:31:45,760 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: one is saying take your hoodie off, I'm going to

616
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:49,560
Speaker 1: take my hoodie off, and the other one is yelling

617
00:31:49,600 --> 00:31:52,040
Speaker 1: at me for taking off my hoodie, where it's like.

618
00:31:52,480 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 4: What am I?

619
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 8: Like?

620
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels like how do I win my mind? Exactly?

621
00:31:56,120 --> 00:31:57,719
Speaker 1: Because every time I go I'm like, this is going

622
00:31:57,760 --> 00:31:59,440
Speaker 1: to be the time that I do everything right, Right,

623
00:31:59,440 --> 00:32:00,840
Speaker 1: I'm going to be You're going to get your gold

624
00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:05,200
Speaker 1: star exactly. But every single time I'm like this feels

625
00:32:05,240 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: like they're just making it up as it goes along, right.

626
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:11,280
Speaker 1: There's no consistency to it, and there's no messaging. I

627
00:32:11,360 --> 00:32:15,480
Speaker 1: get like you're saying, sometimes there's different machines, right, But

628
00:32:15,560 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 1: I'm just sort of like, why it would it not

629
00:32:17,640 --> 00:32:19,760
Speaker 1: be better for the TSA for people to know what

630
00:32:19,960 --> 00:32:22,440
Speaker 1: to do like, you know, even if the rules were

631
00:32:22,480 --> 00:32:25,880
Speaker 1: the same everywhere, Like people kind of suck at following directions,

632
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 1: especially adults, like don't isn't it more annoying for them

633
00:32:29,760 --> 00:32:31,280
Speaker 1: that we don't know what we're supposed to be doing

634
00:32:31,360 --> 00:32:32,360
Speaker 1: when we go to the lines.

635
00:32:32,720 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's no good answer, first of all, but I

636
00:32:34,720 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 2: think there's two reasons why. The first one is the

637
00:32:37,160 --> 00:32:39,960
Speaker 2: TSA just doesn't have any incentive to make the passenger

638
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:44,800
Speaker 2: experience better their KPIs or things like, you know, when

639
00:32:44,800 --> 00:32:46,880
Speaker 2: they have someone coming through to test the quality of

640
00:32:46,880 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 2: the security systems, like percent of fake gun smuggled through,

641
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:53,320
Speaker 2: which by the way, is still also unacceptably high. It's

642
00:32:53,360 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 2: like ninety percent of them get through, but that's what

643
00:32:55,360 --> 00:32:56,560
Speaker 2: they actually get measured on.

644
00:32:56,640 --> 00:32:59,120
Speaker 1: So I looked into this, and after that reporting of

645
00:32:59,400 --> 00:33:02,080
Speaker 1: ninety five percent of weapons getting through on these tests,

646
00:33:02,360 --> 00:33:05,680
Speaker 1: a few years later, TSA made some huge improvements, uh,

647
00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:08,120
Speaker 1: and only seventy percent of the weapons were able to

648
00:33:08,120 --> 00:33:09,240
Speaker 1: get through with these tests.

649
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 2: There's no incentive for them to make people five percent

650
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:15,960
Speaker 2: happier just because they don't care. And the second thing

651
00:33:16,080 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 2: is there's no pressure from Congress or any elected official

652
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:22,200
Speaker 2: to do it because you don't want to be the

653
00:33:22,240 --> 00:33:25,480
Speaker 2: guy who voted to defund the TSA and then there's

654
00:33:25,520 --> 00:33:27,760
Speaker 2: a terrorist attack and you're the guy who you know

655
00:33:27,880 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 2: voted to do it and you're out of there.

656
00:33:29,360 --> 00:33:32,840
Speaker 4: Basically, the way to fix the TSAs by introducing tip culture.

657
00:33:34,840 --> 00:33:37,000
Speaker 4: They were working for tips. Things might be a lot

658
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:37,800
Speaker 4: nicer in there.

659
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:39,080
Speaker 1: It is like the.

660
00:33:38,960 --> 00:33:40,760
Speaker 5: Most power you have is like when you go through

661
00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 5: and then there's a little smiley faces at the end,

662
00:33:42,840 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 5: but how do we do today? And you can press

663
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 5: that and that probably doesn't even do anything out it's

664
00:33:47,680 --> 00:33:50,200
Speaker 5: probably it's not.

665
00:33:50,160 --> 00:33:52,120
Speaker 1: Even on It's just like it's like what you hand

666
00:33:52,160 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: the controller to a kid and it's not plus.

667
00:33:54,480 --> 00:33:56,719
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, it's not saving anything.

668
00:33:57,200 --> 00:34:00,800
Speaker 5: Yeah, all those points make sense, like on the politics

669
00:34:00,840 --> 00:34:03,200
Speaker 5: side of it, where like, yeah, you wouldn't want to

670
00:34:03,200 --> 00:34:06,600
Speaker 5: be the guy who's like campaigning on defunding TSA or

671
00:34:06,640 --> 00:34:10,439
Speaker 5: fixing it and then you know, however many people die

672
00:34:10,480 --> 00:34:14,360
Speaker 5: because of something, Yeah, and yeah it makes sense like

673
00:34:16,239 --> 00:34:19,680
Speaker 5: ultimately it is just an inconvenience more than anything else.

674
00:34:19,719 --> 00:34:22,840
Speaker 5: And it's like, yeah, it sucks, we'll complain about on

675
00:34:22,840 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 5: this podcast, but we're all gonna we're not gonna not

676
00:34:26,640 --> 00:34:31,880
Speaker 5: fly because of it, you know, yeah, just sad, sad sucks.

677
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:40,520
Speaker 1: So actually just this week through Republican senators Okay Center

678
00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:45,520
Speaker 1: and Mike lay In Center, Tommy Tupper Base, Mike Lee. Yeah,

679
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:49,560
Speaker 1: sounds like they have introduced the bill to abolish the

680
00:34:49,600 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 1: TSA okay and have airports just go back to the

681
00:34:55,960 --> 00:35:00,880
Speaker 1: private security apparatus that happened before not eleve And you know,

682
00:35:01,080 --> 00:35:03,399
Speaker 1: it's only two centers sign on to it right now,

683
00:35:03,440 --> 00:35:05,680
Speaker 1: so I don't know how much momentum it has.

684
00:35:05,680 --> 00:35:07,040
Speaker 5: Interesting, but being.

685
00:35:06,880 --> 00:35:09,200
Speaker 1: More realistic, I wanted to ask there are like do

686
00:35:09,320 --> 00:35:11,520
Speaker 1: your reporting have you talked to people who have just

687
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:15,280
Speaker 1: like ideas on how to make if not TSA version

688
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:16,560
Speaker 1: of airport security better?

689
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:17,440
Speaker 8: Is there?

690
00:35:17,640 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: You know, do people have like better ideas of how

691
00:35:20,600 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: we should be doing this.

692
00:35:24,000 --> 00:35:26,040
Speaker 2: There's kind of two schools of thought. I think there's

693
00:35:26,120 --> 00:35:30,279
Speaker 2: the fairness objection and then there's the effectiveness objection. So

694
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:33,000
Speaker 2: the fairness objection would be to remove all of the

695
00:35:33,040 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 2: things that unfairly burdened people who you know aren't your

696
00:35:37,280 --> 00:35:40,440
Speaker 2: standard rich business traveler. On the other side, there's the

697
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,320
Speaker 2: efficiency argument, and you can actually see this in practice

698
00:35:43,320 --> 00:35:48,000
Speaker 2: in places like Europe, Canada, where they don't have TSA

699
00:35:48,080 --> 00:35:51,800
Speaker 2: type regimes, but their record of anti terrorism is pretty

700
00:35:51,840 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 2: much the same. You can do things like replacing these

701
00:35:54,719 --> 00:35:57,839
Speaker 2: expensive and unreliable machines. You can replace them with things

702
00:35:57,840 --> 00:35:59,600
Speaker 2: like dog sniffers where you can walk them up and

703
00:35:59,600 --> 00:36:03,960
Speaker 2: down the way they'll sniff for explosives. It's less intrusive. Obviously,

704
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:07,320
Speaker 2: it doesn't you know, reward your big defense contractor donors,

705
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 2: but it's more efficient. You can remove some of these

706
00:36:11,680 --> 00:36:15,239
Speaker 2: absurd pat downs and security checks, keep the things that

707
00:36:15,280 --> 00:36:18,680
Speaker 2: are actually keeping us safe, like the explosive scanners in

708
00:36:18,760 --> 00:36:22,319
Speaker 2: check baggage, but don't go through all of this rigormarole

709
00:36:22,520 --> 00:36:24,360
Speaker 2: at the security line because we just know that a

710
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:26,840
Speaker 2: lot of it's for show. But again, who's going to

711
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,880
Speaker 2: have the electoral capital to really be able to do that,

712
00:36:30,040 --> 00:36:32,160
Speaker 2: especially if you know you've got all these people who

713
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:35,480
Speaker 2: are just waiting to pounce on the minor security labs.

714
00:36:35,920 --> 00:36:41,320
Speaker 1: So after hearing all this, do you all feel better

715
00:36:41,480 --> 00:36:46,759
Speaker 1: or worse about TSA? And I'll start by saying I

716
00:36:46,760 --> 00:36:52,120
Speaker 1: feel more forgiving of the agents in the attitudes because

717
00:36:52,120 --> 00:36:56,600
Speaker 1: they're not paid any money. Yep, they're like shit, So

718
00:36:56,640 --> 00:36:58,839
Speaker 1: therefore they are treating me like, shit, so you know what,

719
00:36:58,920 --> 00:37:00,479
Speaker 1: maybe I just got to take more for the team.

720
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:06,920
Speaker 1: Let it go. Yeah yeah, but it just seems like

721
00:37:07,080 --> 00:37:09,279
Speaker 1: it's just so dumb to me. And this is like

722
00:37:09,360 --> 00:37:11,480
Speaker 1: so many things in this country that we are spending

723
00:37:11,480 --> 00:37:13,440
Speaker 1: so much money on the thing that we know is

724
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:17,400
Speaker 1: not effective, but no one wants to do anything about.

725
00:37:17,200 --> 00:37:21,839
Speaker 4: It because there's always a what if? Yeah, what if

726
00:37:21,840 --> 00:37:23,399
Speaker 4: you stop and then you.

727
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,600
Speaker 1: Know, but if yeah, but if there's another nine to

728
00:37:26,600 --> 00:37:28,760
Speaker 1: eleven because they didn't take our water bottles.

729
00:37:29,600 --> 00:37:32,040
Speaker 4: It makes me think about what am I actually worried

730
00:37:32,080 --> 00:37:35,440
Speaker 4: about on a flight as security wise? It's a bomb?

731
00:37:35,600 --> 00:37:37,480
Speaker 4: So like if I go to the airport and a

732
00:37:37,520 --> 00:37:40,279
Speaker 4: dog comes up and smells me for two seconds, knows

733
00:37:40,320 --> 00:37:40,800
Speaker 4: I don't.

734
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:41,320
Speaker 3: Have a bomb.

735
00:37:42,320 --> 00:37:46,200
Speaker 4: You know, I'm pretty happy. I'm pretty comfortable knowing, you know,

736
00:37:46,280 --> 00:37:48,200
Speaker 4: bring whatever the hell you want on the plane. If

737
00:37:48,200 --> 00:37:50,440
Speaker 4: it's not a bomb, I think we're going to be fine.

738
00:37:50,920 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 1: Like the liquid stuff that takes off the shoes.

739
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:55,720
Speaker 5: The liquid stuff we need to get rid of that. Yeah,

740
00:37:55,800 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 5: I think I think a politician can.

741
00:37:57,320 --> 00:38:01,120
Speaker 1: Bravely Yeah, let's do one thing.

742
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:03,800
Speaker 5: Like, yeah, let's focus in that we should all be

743
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 5: able to do. I should take any size shampoo on there,

744
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 5: no problem. Yep.

745
00:38:08,480 --> 00:38:11,120
Speaker 1: Can you imagine how different out lives would be? Yeah,

746
00:38:11,239 --> 00:38:13,600
Speaker 1: you can just spring any It's crazy.

747
00:38:14,040 --> 00:38:16,279
Speaker 4: Yeah. Every time I go somewhere, I go to Walgreens

748
00:38:16,360 --> 00:38:18,160
Speaker 4: and I get the little fucking travel kid.

749
00:38:18,080 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 1: And it costs the same as the big.

750
00:38:20,040 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 5: Sunscreen things like.

751
00:38:21,239 --> 00:38:23,120
Speaker 4: It's like because they know it's for convenience.

752
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:33,879
Speaker 1: All right, that's our show this week. I was really

753
00:38:33,920 --> 00:38:35,799
Speaker 1: hoping by the time this came out that we would

754
00:38:35,800 --> 00:38:38,960
Speaker 1: hear from TSA, but they said they were not interested

755
00:38:39,000 --> 00:38:41,600
Speaker 1: in talking to us. If you want to figure out

756
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:45,239
Speaker 1: a sneakyway to get around TSA, Darryl gave me some

757
00:38:45,280 --> 00:38:47,759
Speaker 1: insight during our interview that I'm going to include in

758
00:38:47,840 --> 00:38:49,600
Speaker 1: our newsletter. So if you want to hear the answers

759
00:38:49,640 --> 00:38:52,680
Speaker 1: to that, go to No Such Thing that show. We'll

760
00:38:52,680 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 1: also link to it in our show notes. No Such

761
00:38:56,520 --> 00:39:00,160
Speaker 1: Things produced by Manny Fidel Nor Friedman and me Devin Joseph.

762
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,600
Speaker 1: The theme song is by Many. Original music for this

763
00:39:03,680 --> 00:39:08,600
Speaker 1: episode provided by Zeno Piorelli. Darryl Campbell was our guest.

764
00:39:08,719 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 1: His new book, Fatal Abstraction, is out now. If you

765
00:39:13,360 --> 00:39:17,239
Speaker 1: like No Such Thing, please rate us five stars. It

766
00:39:17,320 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 1: really does help share it on social tag us. We're

767
00:39:20,640 --> 00:39:22,880
Speaker 1: trying to get the word out, working hard on this.

768
00:39:23,760 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 1: As always, if you guys have a question you want

769
00:39:26,239 --> 00:39:28,320
Speaker 1: us to get to the bottom of, or if you

770
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:31,800
Speaker 1: just got feedback for us, hit us up at Manny

771
00:39:31,920 --> 00:39:35,160
Speaker 1: Noah Devin at gmail dot com. We do read every

772
00:39:35,200 --> 00:39:56,000
Speaker 1: single email, uh and we'll see you guys next week.

773
00:39:53,440 --> 00:40:09,600
Speaker 8: To what if We the Linux are s the elements cast,

774
00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:14,080
Speaker 8: the hats and topics are what if we do Linux