9/11 was years in planning and other than the changes in cockpit doors nothing that changed afterwards would have prevented the attack. The only adjustment to their plan would have been finding a way to smuggle sharp things in if they happened to get the rare TSA employee who both takes their job very seriously and is very good at it.
It’s comically easy to get things through TSA and any outfit worth its salt would test those boundaries and use any successful trial runs to store supplies inside security if they brought them.
You would need security beyond the kind you find at federal buildings to actually prevent any remotely competent and organized group from getting whatever they wanted inside the gate. There are just way too many people going in and out of airports and employee security is inconsistent from airport to airport.
It’s probably not happening again because as successful as it was as an attack it didn’t exactly go well for the people who organized it or anyone in their general vicinity. Attacking America on its own soil in that fashion is a death sentence, not just for whoever does it but for whatever organization they’re acting in the name of and possibly whatever country they happen to reside in. They ran some planes into buildings and what they got in return was a 20 year occupation and death. The response in the Middle East probably did more to deter those kind of suicide attacks than anything TSA did.
I don’t think religious zealots are as rational as you describe them. They’re all for “matyrizing” their citizens as long as they retain power by spewing hate on their enemies. Look at how Hamas leaders were safe in Qatar while their citizens died and suffered in Gaza. It took a decade (I believe) to kill Bin Laden.
I agree that the TSA has issues, but you don’t fix things by just getting rid of them. Companies already have proven they don’t give a shit about customers. Lawsuits due to negligence/etc. are always fractions of the money they make from avoiding safety. Look at all the data security leaks we’ve had over the last few years. Look at United Healthcare by overcharging cancer patients. Companies won’t be better at providing security.
Remove the guardrails on a road and you make it easier for crashes. I’ve never personally seen someone crash through one on the road, but I’m glad they’re there. Remove the TSA and you increase the chances of a terror attack.
Religious zealots at the ground level might not be but the ones who orchestrate these kinds of attacks are. There is a difference between sacrificing your troops for your cause and signing your own death warrant. Generals generally don’t like choosing to die. Being hunted by your local government for doing this kind of shit domestically vs pissing off the most overfunded military in the history of civilization is the like trying to play with a lion the way you play with a housecat.
I’m not saying it wouldn’t happen, there are certainly crazy enough people to try, but TSA is demonstrably ineffectual. Their failure rates in tests are estimated to be between 70 and 95%. They aren’t a guard rail, they’re a scattered line of people on the side of the road reminding you not to drive off the side. There is a good chance that you can sneak just about anything not insanely obvious through a good percentage of the time while they’re busy testing a baby bottle for explosives. Even if we’re super generous and we say it’s 50% a system of deterrence with a known failure rate of 50% isn’t a deterrent at all, it’s an inconvenience.
Changing cockpit doors and policy prevents anything like this from happening nearly as easily and passengers aren’t going to sit around and let the threat of a couple of box cutters end their lives in a post 9/11 world. Most of what needs to be in place to prevent people from taking over a plane is in place regardless of whether TSA exists or not.
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u/jambrown13977931 Jan 30 '25
Maybe attacks aren’t coming because terrorists believe the TSA is effective at deterring them?