The creation of a fly list, an obvious and long-recommended modification, would be one significant difference.
Possibly, but not without a lot of cost to set up and possible problems in use, since names aren't unique.
Kind of interesting how low a bar for competence the Reagan Era has set. Maybe that's how W got reelected: his voters expected no better. I can see the thought balloon: "Federal government can't set up a fly list? Well gee, they do have a lot of complicated stuff to handle, with two cross-planetary wars to run and a banking system going haywire and dozens of truckloads of ice to deliver to some State that isn't Texas - maybe next year".
Well, there's the old saw: a conservative will tell you all about how the government can't do anything competently and then get elected and prove himself correct. It's even worse than that. There was some perverse appeal in the sight of a blatantly unqualified person "failing-up" through a combination of in-group loyalty and sheer pig-headedness. That sort of "career" path is central to the sustaining myths of modern conservatism (that all you poor rubes should vote to lower taxes on plutocrats because, hey, you'll be a plutocrat one day too as long as you refuse to listen to anything those Ivory Tower Eggheads have to say). For someone in such a position to fail would have raised a lot of uncomfortable questions - if a sterling pedigree, Ivy League education and all the connections and money one could wish for aren't enough to guarantee success, then what hope is there for all the pygmy fascists out there hoping to succeed through loyalty instead of merit? Why, they might actually have to compete with all those immigrants families working hard to excel in higher education! And they aren't even Americans! I.e., it's all a queston of privilege, and stuff like effectiveness is relevant mostly in terms of demonstrating that privilege trumps it. Also, I'm curious: what are the dozens of truckloads of ice? Did I miss some major beverage-related national news event some time in the past 5 years?
Recalling the great FEMA ice escapade of the weeks post-Katrina. To be fair, that was after the 2004 elections. But IIRC some of that ice ended up being dumped as far away as northern Pennsylvania.
Everything appears easy to an armchair quarterback without the ability to see the complexites inherent in doing a task. Arthur
Well... As for the TSA. I think it has been well established that the modifications to airport security come in response to known threats, and it would be reckless and irresponsible for them to lower security measures simply because there has not been a major U.S. hijacking in 10 years. to me that means its working. This history of the TSA may help discussion.
The long-term plan is to feed the thousands of cameras being monitored into a single system called Video Interoperability for Public Safety. When the nearly $1 million system is activated, its capabilities will include: > Bringing up images from security cameras near where the police department's "Shot Spotter" system detects gunfire. > Detecting whether a vehicle is traveling the wrong way down a one-way street. > Identifying objects (bags, for example) that are left behind. Arthur
