Do they? To what extent and with what purpose?
Yes, they do. I won't go into strict detail because its Sensitive Security Information and shouldn't be discussing it in detail. In general though there are trained people watching for body language cues, talking to passengers, etc and can flag someone for additional screening.
They don't seem to rely on that training however, since there are invasive pat downs, scanners, and metal wands and metal detectors.
Becasue you can't. The average education required for the job is a a bachelor with some graduate education as compared to a High School Diploma. The average experience required for that job is a year at a slightly lower level equivilent type of job as compared to none. Or a combination of the two. These type of officers are far more skilled than your average every day screener.
That's not then going into the training that has to happen with regards to them as compared to the average screener which is far more intense and longer.
Not to mention that the starting pay band for these individuals is two to three higher than a screener meaning 16 to 24k more a year.
Its simply not feasible to teach the entire TSA work force how to do this so they have individuals that do it as an additional level of security over what is simpliest based on the logistics of this country, which is a slightly more automated process with the scanners and such.
Contrast what we do with El Al in Israel, and maybe the answer is somewhere in between.
Its not feasible to do what El Al does. Seriously, this is like saying that "Hey, the Holiday Inn down the road does [x] for their security. That means the Bellagio in Vegas should be able to do something similar".
We have far more people traveling through our country on plains every day than Israel. We have 400 times more airports in our country than Israel. We have almost as many of the largest category of airports in this country as Israel has airports in general. And we have a citizenry that has been loudest in its complaining and issues when security causes flights to take longer, which the method of security you're wishing would end up causing when combined with the scale of our country.
What you and others are suggesting is unfeasable, or grossly ineffecient combined with the amount of money and time that would be spent on it.
On a side note, I live in the NE - the TSA agents I encounter at Phil. International, Newark International and Laguardia, I wouldn't trust as far as I can throw them for the most part. Just my perception? Maybe ... but the TSA folks I see don't seem competent to dress themselves in the morning for the most part.
And its these kind of insulting worthless commentary that does nothing for the conversation. Not to mention you want to turn around and say these are the people, who you insult and think so low of, are the ones you're expecting to learn these higher levels of training?
Newark, Philly and Laguardia are big airports - my previous comments stand. I constantly hear the complaint about how large the U.S. is and how small Israel is, but no reasoning why El Al's methods are not scalable, yet see no sound facts or evidence to show your claim of my ignorance has any validity. Why isn't it scalable again?
I've already stated.
So too costly, too complicated logistically, too much training... that's it?
Yes. The training needed for what you're talking about far exceeds the training we already give TSA agents. So double or triple the amount of money spent on training. The intelligence and professional level of people you'd need for that kind of screening is higher than what is currently needing for a screener, meaning you're going to need to be offering more money as well to lure enough people to take the job. Add about $20k-40kto every TSA employee's salary. The machines, while costly, are actually a fraction of the budget compared to actual pay and training for employees. In large part because there is a high turnover in The TSA becasue the public treats them like utter ****, you get paid utter crap, and thus there's little reason to stay.
The problem, and the ignorance, in the scale argument is that "bringing things up to scale" only work in situations where the two scenarios are the same. Its not. The air traffic in the U.S. per airport is larger than it is in Israel. The amount of foreign travel in and out of the country is gravely disproportionate. The amount of intracountry flight is hugely disproportionate between the two. The situations are not analogs of each other and as such you can not simply act like its a simple scale solution.
As I said above. Your local holiday inn could have a paid security guard at all times who patrol the guards, a front door that is locked save for key cards or the front desk person opening it, a few cameras on every floor, and a front desk person who talks to every person that comes in. That doens't mean that exact same security method is scalable up to work with the Bellagio which has a huge number of different factors that play into the situation as well.
Answer -- it's not. The entire argument of "it's not scalable" is made out of ignorance.
No, its based off rational thoughts and facts.
Fact is, it's not been tried in the U.S. to scale so you don't know.
Which is equally true of saying that you don't know it would work any better because its not been done on such a scale.
What we DO know is what we have now is a mishmash of costly and ineffective methods which trample on individual rights - whether that is justified or not doesn't justify ignoring El Al's significant successes around their methods.
Umm, you want to bitch about "trampling individual rights" and yet you're pushing for the allowance of something that...unlike what you're talking about...has actually been ruled on by the supreme court as UNCONSTITUTIONAL. You're pushing for something CLEARLY labeled as unconstitutional and you want to bitch about tramplining of individual rights?
Not to mention your comment of "ineffectiveness" is off base in and of itself. The screening methods are effective. Effective is different than perfect. And the effectiveness level of it must be balanced between security and public.
I've got no issue with saying "hey, lets look at El Al and see if there's good things they're doing that we can incorporate that are constitutional. Hell, look at all the various countries airport security. My issue is with people ignorantly acting like simply going "Just do what El Al does" is somehow an intelligent answer and something that will simply automatically work. My issue is even more greatly with people who do that which are the same people bitching about the size and scope of government, government spending, and fiscal responsability because they're being ****ing hypocrites when they make the El Al comment.
Perhaps it's another tool in the tool box to use at every airport and doesn't displace everything else bolsters it. Yet, I've not seen a report from the government or anyone else from that matter that identifies it's too costly to implement, or too difficult to train, or that it's not scalable. Those are simply baseless talking points.
You've not seen anyone make a statement of it, therefore its talking points. That makes perfect sense.
Lets play your annoying little game then. Show me a report or study that clearly shows that it IS feasable to scale it up to those levels and the costs associated with it. Apparently if the study hasn't been done then it must not be true.