They're extremely cops. Idk if you're old enough to remember the before times, but after 9/11 the tsa was built as a massive security agency. It was the first time that federal cops were forced in to the life of the majority of Americans. They don't seem as overtly dangerous as the cops, but they were in many ways the face of the war on terror in America, providing an illusion that the government was "protecting" us from the terrorists. They have done a few directly bad things, like no fly lists, and they've also stolen untold man-hours of life with pointless security theatre.
They are government employees and have a pretty decent compensation as such. It's like a giant evil jobs program.
This is generally how I feel. The TSA is much closer to a jobs program than it is to an elite oppression unit, but anybody who enforces those nerd ass rules about how much liquor you're allowed to bring in your carry-ons is a cop. They might not be Customs, but they ain't Mister Rogers either. Anybody with state authority to dig through your personal belongings and shoot x-rays at your crotch is a cop.
At best, they are cogs in the machine, just doing what they gotta do to pay the bills, but you can make the same arguments in favor of the actual cops or even the military. The military is just a jobs program. Most police forces are just a jobs program. They just happen to have externalities which make life worse for everyone. They are a band-aid solution which preserves the status quo without addressing root problems.
it was an unprecedented intrusion of federal law enforcement in to day to day life. And its been totally normalized, people barely even remember that there was a before
They're extremely cops. Idk if you're old enough to remember the before times, but after 9/11 the tsa was built as a massive security agency. It was the first time that federal cops were forced in to the life of the majority of Americans. They don't seem as overtly dangerous as the cops, but they were in many ways the face of the war on terror in America, providing an illusion that the government was "protecting" us from the terrorists. They have done a few directly bad things, like no fly lists, and they've also stolen untold man-hours of life with pointless security theatre.
They are government employees and have a pretty decent compensation as such. It's like a giant evil jobs program.
This is generally how I feel. The TSA is much closer to a jobs program than it is to an elite oppression unit, but anybody who enforces those nerd ass rules about how much liquor you're allowed to bring in your carry-ons is a cop. They might not be Customs, but they ain't Mister Rogers either. Anybody with state authority to dig through your personal belongings and shoot x-rays at your crotch is a cop.
At best, they are cogs in the machine, just doing what they gotta do to pay the bills, but you can make the same arguments in favor of the actual cops or even the military. The military is just a jobs program. Most police forces are just a jobs program. They just happen to have externalities which make life worse for everyone. They are a band-aid solution which preserves the status quo without addressing root problems.
I honestly believe that the point of the TSA was just to normalize the police state.
it was an unprecedented intrusion of federal law enforcement in to day to day life. And its been totally normalized, people barely even remember that there was a before