The Editorial Board isn’t a huge fan of the ?Transportation Security ?Administration.
The TSA makes travel a chore. It restricts what we can bring on planes.
It makes us jump through hoops to board our flights, and its officers can get a little too familiar a little too fast.
So, when it announced that starting July 21, it would be increasing security fees, we weren’t too pleased.
Fees are only increasing from $2.50 to $5.60, but the ?money will add up. For flights with layovers longer than four hours, more fees will be charged.
Even if you don’t ?travel by plane that often, we think the new fees are worth ?complaining about. It boils down to the fact they’re a waste of money.
The TSA is meant to ?protect us from terrorism.
We never want to ?experience an event like the attacks Sept. 11, 2001, again. So the TSA is there to stop such threats.
However, the TSA ?routinely fails to catch ?dangerous materials brought on board.
Sometimes it’s just a ?simple mistake.
People forget they have something not allowed in their luggage.
A man forgot to take a gun out of his carry on bag, but he got on a plane ?without a problem in 2010.
It’s more than these ?mistakes, however.
The TSA is routinely tested to see if it’s able to catch premeditated ?efforts to sneak contraband on planes.
It routinely fails these tests.
The failure rate has been reported as high as 70 ?percent at some airports.
So we’re increasing funds to an agency that not only makes our days more ?complicated, but also can’t even do its job.
Maybe the TSA is there for peace of mind. Planes are easier to board if you’re not thinking about how they could be attacked. But it seems to us like an ?expensive way to quell our pre-flight nerves.
The Sept. 11 attacks were a tragedy.
But terrorist attacks in the U.S. are extremely rare. The chance of any one ?person experiencing them is incredibly low.
We should work to make sure terrorism never ?happens again in America. But there will always be a slight chance of security ?being breached.
To charge people more for a failing system by ?appealing to our primal fears isn’t just wrong, it’s ?deplorable.
The TSA needs to stop with the groping and step up their game.
Until the TSA changes its methods, we think the new fees should be waived.
@ids_opinion
