After Sept. 11, 2001, our government decided we need to take airplane security much more seriously. The agency the goverment implemented, however, is a complete joke.
Gone are the days of showing up just half an hour before your boarding time and bringing more than a shot glass worth of shampoo onto the plane.
Instead, we now have the Transportation Security Administration breathing down our backs in an unsuccessful attempt to make us safer.
The TSA claims to prevent acts of terror on our airlines, but it’s difficult to say that they’ve ever done so. A study finished in 2013 concluded for every 1000 times a TSA employee flagged someone as suspicious, only 6 were arrested.
Not one was arrested for expected terrorism.
This inefficiency is staggering, and it leads to time and money being thrown away on ridiculous security procedures.
I’m more afraid of accidentally incurring the wrath of some underpaid, overworked TSA agent than I am of someone trying to bomb my flight. The system is that inconvenient.
Not only does the TSA needlessly investigate so many innocent people, it has very low success rates at stopping actual danger.
The Department of Homeland Security tested the TSA’s ability to stop dangerous people from boarding planes in 2015, and the results are infuriating.
Seventy Homeland Security agents attempted to board planes while armed with bombs or weapons, and 67 of them did.
Our beloved TSA failed to catch potentially dangerous individuals 95 percent of the time.
In short, we’re spending more than $7 billion per year on an agency, the sole purpose of which is to annoy innocent civilians.
When my family was returning from a trip to Hawaii, my mom brought some small bottles of Hawaiian salt home with us. Not only did the TSA decide this family of four needed to be further questioned, it felt the need to open every bottle of salt and test them for threatening chemicals.
My mother was embarrassed, my father was infuriated, and the TSA workers agreed it was ridiculous, but they were following policy.
When we’re worried about people taking cooking supplies home from a vacation, we’re missing the mark and wasting everyone’s time. God forbid someone try to season airplane food mid-flight.
We have a government that is seriously overstepping its bounds and treading upon personal freedoms. The TSA is just one of many symptoms of this overreach, but it’s an example that makes my head spin.
Year after year, investigations show the TSA simply doesn’t work, yet we’re being asked to pay more for this terrible government babysitting.
Currently, fliers pay a $2.50 tax on each leg of a flight, and the money goes directly to the TSA. By 2019, however, that number will rise to $5.60. Not only are we being taxed on our income to fund broken government programs, we will be further gutted every time we want to use the service.
Imagine if Spotify charged us $5 per month and 5 cents every time we play a song. It’s ridiculous.
The TSA is simply the government controlling its citizens under a guise of keeping us safe. It needs to end.
dylmoore@umail.iu.edu
