Watchdog report faults TSA on Amtrak security

[HighBall]

Excerpt:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has not yet implemented all the requirements of a decade-old law aimed at addressing terror threats on Amtrak, according to a new report.

The Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General found the TSA has “limited regulatory oversight processes” to strengthen passenger security at Amtrak because the agency has not complied with all of the recommendations mandated by Congress following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Here

 

[StriderGDM]

"Good". The more TSA stays away from Amtrak the better.

I don't trust them to handle security on a model plane.

 

[dlagrua]

TSA is just theater designed to harass and control the citizenry. They haven't caught one terrorist since their inception, not a single one! TSAis why I have not flown in 10 years. If ISIS went after the rail system they would not do it on-board. You could search all the passengers all you want but there are thousands of miles of track where they could derail trains and weak havoc on Amtrak. Some routes go across deserts where the nearest towns are 50 miles away. Get the point? Security on Amtrak is mainly up to the rail passengers to remain vigilant; I always keep my eyes open.

 

[TinCan782]

I think the TSA has enough on their plate right now with issues related to passengers missing flights at major airports!

 

[Bob Dylan]

Yep, the Blue Shirts surely have their hands full @ the Airports so hopefully the Suits won't try to move into Amtrak Stations!

 

[KmH]

I think the TSA has enough on their plate right now with issues related to passengers missing flights at major airports!

The TSA has nothing on their plate.TSA provides zero benefit to US citizens for something like 7,000,000,000.00 a year.

TSA is useless and not even a good joke.

What is the sound of flushing $7B $,$$$,$$$,$$$ down the toilet every year?

 

[Just-Thinking-51]

Has the airline TSA surcharge gone to the TSA? Or does the fee still get waved and the airlines get to keep it?

Have not flown in years, have to shortly. Just wonder where the money comes from and goes to. Or why you need to arrive 3 hours before your flight time just to clear the TSA.

Hope to never see a TSA line at a Amtrak station.

 

[StriderGDM]

Has the airline TSA surcharge gone to the TSA? Or does the fee still get waved and the airlines get to keep it?

Have not flown in years, have to shortly. Just wonder where the money comes from and goes to. Or why you need to arrive 3 hours before your flight time just to clear the TSA.

Hope to never see a TSA line at a Amtrak station.

Too late, they've been there, including a VIPR patrol that had serious blowback for them. (Thankfully!)

I have seen them at WAS, but always operating under the direction of the Amtrak Police.

 

[eblkheart]

I've seen them once at Chicago Union Station when I was boarding CZ. They were just randomly picking people at a table near a door. No Amtrak Police was there. This was last year in August.

 

[AmtrakLKL]

Has the airline TSA surcharge gone to the TSA? Or does the fee still get waved and the airlines get to keep it?

Have not flown in years, have to shortly. Just wonder where the money comes from and goes to. Or why you need to arrive 3 hours before your flight time just to clear the TSA.

Hope to never see a TSA line at a Amtrak station.

The "Passenger Civil Aviation Security Fee" does go to the TSA. It is currently $5.60 per one-way trip. I don't think airlines have ever kept the fee.

Airport security is indeed just theater. The TSA Inspector General has repeatedly documented a 90%+ failure rate at detecting weapons in checkpoints. Meanwhile, the water bottle detection and confiscation rate is probably 90%+, so it all balances out. The TSA Blog publishes propaganda regarding all the guns and weapons detected at checkpoints in the past week. For the week of May 13 - 19, they detected 56 firearms. Let's assume a conservative failure rate of just 40% and not 95% found by the IG last year. That means 37 guns made it onboard aircraft. 95% failure, 1,064 guns made it onboard. Did I miss any gun related incidents in the "secure" area last week?

Last year, the TSA basically promised this security line mess would happen. After political blow back for such a high failure rate and sending random passengers through the faster PreCheck lines, they cracked down and lengthened the screening process. As the TSA head said, they would have to "introduce some inefficiency" to fix the problems. Where on Earth does inefficiency create efficiency or proficiency? Now TSA is using this self-created mess to beg Congress for mo-money, mo-money! Because that's all TSA needs to ensure proper security - money.

Meanwhile, passengers are backing up in longer and denser packed lines making a much better/easier target and that's exactly what happened in Brussels, except it was the check-in line.

There is a fantastic blog post that pretty much hits the TSA nail on the head here.

 

[andersone]

We constantly prove how we can waste money,,, if there ever was a golden toilet seat,,, the TSA qualifies. It should be eliminated

 

[City of Miami]

TSA provides zero benefit to US citizens for something like 7,000,000,000.00 a year.TSA is useless and not even a good joke.

Would you board a plane this day and age and ascend to 30K feet where anyone and everyone could just walk up and get on? I wouldn't.

I have been on 2 long flights in the last couple of weeks and security clearance was without difficulty both times. Just sayin'.

I am no fan of TSA but I think some overstate the negative case. As we all know one can support and defend absolutely any argument with statistics which in and of themselves are accurate. Statistics really don't mean much to me - personal experience does.

 

[KmH]

TSA provides zero benefit to US citizens for something like 7,000,000,000.00 a year.TSA is useless and not even a good joke.

Would you board a plane this day and age and ascend to 30K feet where anyone and everyone could just walk up and get on? I wouldn't.

Yes. I would.

Because I'm several times more likely to be killed in a car crash trying to get to the airport than I am being killed on an airplane because some terrorists blew it up or otherwise somehow made the plane crash.

You're not alone. Lots of people are unable to accurately assess the situation because of the fear mongering promoted by the government and the media.

Always! Question authority.

The saddest part is the American populace puts up with being assumed guilty before being proved innocent to get on a commercial airplane.

Government promoted fear mongering has historically been demonstrated to be a tried and true way to create and maintain a police state.

The TSA only detects something like 5% of all the weapons that are regularly used to test TSA effectiveness.

TSA does not detect 95% of the weapons that are regularly used to test TSA effectiveness.

In other words the TSA is useless as far as ensuring weapons are not smuggled aboard commercial airliners.

If you pronounce TSA as a word you get the sound of flushing $7.55 billion (2015) a year down the toilet.

 

[Bob Dylan]

The TSA just canned the Head of TSA, Security ( aka " The Fall Guy") after the IG revealed that he had been given a $90,000 Bonus based on cooked books.

Other Suits also were beneficiaries of this boondoggle ( it's the Congress fault but that's another story).

Meanwhile the Lines @ the Airports get Longer and Tempers flare as terrorists sit back and wait for their chance to attack these choke points with the obscenely long lines!

But don't worry folks, Trump will fix it and we'll all live happily ever after!

The TSA's New Motto: " Strip and Give me ten on the tin Granny! "

 

[JoeBas]

TSA provides zero benefit to US citizens for something like 7,000,000,000.00 a year.TSA is useless and not even a good joke.

Would you board a plane this day and age and ascend to 30K feet where anyone and everyone could just walk up and get on? I wouldn't.

Nice Strawman there. TSA, or no security at all? That's some Rumplestiltskin-quality gold-spun straw in that there strawman. You win today's award for best strawman on the interwebz.

 

[JoeBas]

Statistics really don't mean much to me - personal experience does.

Really? 'Cause, to me, personal experience says that recently, the check-in/queue up pre-security area is a MUCH bigger, more juicy, softer target than the airframe itself. And TSA, with its intentional "Work to the rule" give us more money hissy-fit it's currently engaged in, is only putting you at MORE risk by increasing the time you and 10,000 of your closest friends have to stand around jam-packed in a confined area just waiting to get to the checkpoint.

Just sayin'.

 

[andersone]

Mother often quoted FDR ' We have nothing to fear but fear itself" we can imagine a lot, very little is real, and another oft quoted phrase form her is "you can't defeat people who are willing to kill themselves" . and the classic: Who watches those who watch"

End the sham now,,

 

[Devil's Advocate]

TSA provides zero benefit to US citizens for something like 7,000,000,000.00 a year.TSA is useless and not even a good joke.

Would you board a plane this day and age and ascend to 30K feet where anyone and everyone could just walk up and get on? I wouldn't. I have been on 2 long flights in the last couple of weeks and security clearance was without difficulty both times. Just sayin'. I am no fan of TSA but I think some overstate the negative case. As we all know one can support and defend absolutely any argument with statistics which in and of themselves are accurate. Statistics really don't mean much to me - personal experience does.

If statistics don't mean anything but personal experience does then how many terrorist attacks have you PERSONALLY experienced?

 

[JoeBas]

If statistics don't mean anything but personal experience does then how many terrorist attacks have you PERSONALLY experienced?

I STARTED to go there, but figured he'd just play the tired 9/11© card, and that I'd save 3 or 4 posts of my life by not even bothering to ask.

 

[City of Miami]

Nice Strawman there. TSA, or no security at all?

Did we have security screening, or whatever you want to call it, of any kind before TSA? Not saying we didn't, but I don't remember it,

 

[City of Miami]

I STARTED to go there, but figured he'd just play the tired 9/11© card, and that I'd save 3 or 4 posts of my life by not even bothering to ask.

I thought it was pretty obvious that my personal experience referred to my recent flights that had no significant backup at the TSA checkpoint.

This is a pretty good example of changing the picture by shifting the focus, a common goal of quoting statistics.

The focus on reporting weapons not found is another good example. I don't know but I suspect concealable weapons, per se, are not the main focus of TSA screening. My guess is explosives are.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Yep, we had minimum wage Rent-a-Security that were employed by the Airports, not Federal Employees.

What I remember best was you could take your drink or water with you to the Gates as long as you took a swig for them and you could visit the cafes etc. that are now inside the Security Zones and available only to ticketed passengers! ( not good for the airport merchants!)

Airports have become Cash Cows for Cities with parking, fees, taxes on rent cars etc.

Do I feel safer than before 911? Short answer: No! (And it's only cost us Billions that should have paid for much needed Infrastructure! Flint, Michigan anyone?)

 

[City of Miami]

Billions that should have paid for much needed Infrastructure! Flint, Michigan anyone?)

Strawman, Bob! :help: Sounds like you're assuming those were billions we actually had and could have reallocated rather than billions we borrowed from someone else. No guarantee that we would have borrowed that amount for anything else.

 

[ScouseAndy]

It doesnt matter how good security you have, the terrorists only need to be successful in getting thru/around them once to cause carnage and loss of life, look at the Air Eygpt flight last week which is looking more and more likely to be a terror attack, it departed from Paris which following recent attacks is on the highest security level possible yet they still managed to get a bomb on board it appears.

No where is safe but it doesnt mean we have to all give up our freedom and rights and be treated as criminals. My brief and only contact with TSA's was at JFK flying out (I precleared in Paris before arrival in the US) and it was a harrowing experience.

What I dont understand is why western nations dont use their military more (who are trained far better and have much better personal skills) at airports rather than the clowns they currently use in the US and Europe to protect our borders

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Nice Strawman there. TSA, or no security at all?

Did we have security screening, or whatever you want to call it, of any kind before TSA? Not saying we didn't, but I don't remember it,

Is this a joke? For someone who speaks so confidently you don't seem to have much knowledge or understanding of the subject matter.

I thought it was pretty obvious that my personal experience referred to my recent flights that had no significant backup at the TSA checkpoint. This is a pretty good example of changing the picture by shifting the focus, a common goal of quoting statistics. The focus on reporting weapons not found is another good example. I don't know but I suspect concealable weapons, per se, are not the main focus of TSA screening. My guess is explosives are.

Two whole fights huh? No wonder you feel justified in making sweeping statements about the experiences of millions of other travelers.

Billions that should have paid for much needed Infrastructure! Flint, Michigan anyone?)

Strawman, Bob! :help: Sounds like you're assuming those were billions we actually had and could have reallocated rather than billions we borrowed from someone else. No guarantee that we would have borrowed that amount for anything else.

So your uninformed "seat of the pants" theories are perfectly valid but everyone else is expected to meet the level of a guaranteed outcome?