Saturday, June 16, 2012

Ron Paul Called Rand's TSA "Reform" Phony

Rand Paul's "reform":
 One of the bills Rand’s introduced “would require that the mostly federalized program be turned over to private screeners and allow airports — with Department of Homeland Security approval — to select companies to handle the work.”

Here is Ron Paul from last July on TSA:
What we need is real privatization of security, but not phony privatization with the same TSA screeners in private security firm uniforms still operating under the ‘guidance’ of the federal government.  Real security will be achieved when the airlines are once again in charge of protecting their property and their passengers.

13 comments:

  1. I appreciate the difference in tone - but what would be the major difference in how this would work functionally?

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    1. Security placed under the control of the individual airlines are subject to the market process. If say American Airlines hires a bunch of pedophiles, thieves, and convicted criminals for its security staff and the public finds out about this, American Airline comes under public scrutiny and could lose business.

      If that same security staff permit enormous lapses and the public finds out about it, American Airlines loses more business.

      If at least one plane fell out of the sky, do you really think anyone would be flying American Airlines?

      Contrast that to a state-overseen, pseudo "private" security, which means paid for by the private airlines but subject to government management, standards, and control. Essentially, the state still maintains its monopoly; there is no competition, no oversight, no choice, no true speaking with your wallet by the public. Further, as is the case with all monopolies, the market system breaks down because there are no prices and no feedback mechanism.

      The only difference between what we have now with the TSA and what Rand Paul wants is where the funding comes from.

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    2. JFF: That is an outstanding comment. Absolutely fantastic!

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    3. JFF:

      Your airline clueless. As a former airline captain with 15,000 hours served I assure you this example is severely flawed.

      In almost all terminals there is one security checkpoint and many airlines share gates. Often times an airline will not only lease a gate but dress its agents in another airlines clown costume.

      There is no security. Israel does it best and that model should be replicated. There should be a taser in every cockpit, at the very least.

      What everyone fails to grasp is that food caters making minimum wage and packing a visa, fuelers, mechanics, gate agents, ramp workers and a myriad of other workers bipass security or the system would come to a complete halt.

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    4. Davos, you're free-market clueless. JFF didn't specify how the security would take place. That's the point. Once you lose your governmental central-planning mentality, you leave room for a myriad of solutions that are not locked into glacially slow-moving bureaucracies.

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    5. Davos:

      If you are such a sweet dude pilot guy with so many flight hours then you will remember how Kansas City's Airport looked before 9/11 - Each gate had security and was completely separate (there were a few areas with more than one gate, all operated by the same Airline), just as an example of one of many airports in the US that operated differently. Things change, when there's a free market they change for the better. When there's an oppressive crony-capitalist government, they change for the worse.

      That being said, the market would (will? someday maybe...) easily decide the best way to reorganize the security and check-point process.

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  2. security working for airline companies must comply with the state and federal laws. The TSA as a govt agency makes up its own rules as they go along. That's what they have done in practice so far, anyhow.

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  3. Hmmm not sure I"m going to agree with that. For one, how would airlines be required to do their own security checks? Secondly, don't you think airlines would outsource the work to private companies? This is already how most private security works. When the government divests control, it will have ceded control to private companies and said companies and the airlines will have to get along/figure out a way to keep its cargo safe. This is really contigent of the language of the legislation - most importantly, whether there will be legal autonomy for whoever enters when the government exits the plane security game.

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    1. Consumers vote with their feet... It is also possible to audit companies' security measures as an investor and companies will for prudential reasons need to allow market intelligence firms to do the same. Few firms would risk the immense reputational losses and lawsuits that would arise should they fraudulently advertise more safety than they offer. Besides, owners want their staff and property to be in good productive conditions, not in smithereens. With Rand's pseudo-privatisation the govt still controls the process. THAT is the problem.

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  4. To the questions above:

    The companies would be free to do as they wish, or more exact, as they perceive their customers wish. If Delta wanted to do zero screening and promise quicker flights they could offer that. If American wanted to do a full body cavity search they could do that, but the consumers, and their money, would choose which program they found best. It may be much cheaper to fly with no security, but they are choosing to make that trade off. Let the damn market decide, one individual at a time.

    Government deciding what the rules should be is a bad idea. No different than TSA doing it themselves.

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  5. Ron is the Man. I hope he is still very publicly active after his congressional life ends.

    Removing the state from any security duty would allow private security to provide multiple layers of varied protection, since different agencies would have different measures to protect their passengers. It would be more to case out an airline, or multiple airlines, if criminals wanted to harm passengers. Furthermore, if you didn't like the intrusiveness of an airline, you would simply not use it. Dollars lost would speak volumes and the airline would be inclined to please their customers by changing their security policy to suit them.

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  6. Mark Skousen, founder of Freedom Fest, is all for the Rand TSA proposal, and apparently all for Rand Paul in contrast to Ron Paul. He is interviewed at the Daily Bell today:

    http://tinyurl.com/6q57vr8

    His comments about Rand and Rand's TSA ideas are toward the end of the interview.

    For a so-called Austrian economist, Skousen seems quite agreeable to government's role in the marketplace, including the state's role in money and credit creation (aka the Fed).

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    1. Austrians are, as economists, not wed to any political theory. Their correct grasp of econ simply means they can find little to commend central planning of any sort, even by its proponents' alleged goals. Skousen is more of an eclectic and a bit of a sloppy one. I think he tries too hard to be friends with everyone. There are often elements worth appeciation in schools like the Virginia School ie public choice theory. Skousen, however, apes the Chicagoites in their incrementalist moderateness

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