Complete Amateur Defeats $100M Raytheon PIDS at JFK

formance and integration specifications for their ground radar, optical sur= veillance, and smart fence components. How that could possibly take four ye= ars is beyond me, all this junk should have been pre-existing, it's not lik= e they had to invent new technology.

That describes pretty well everything the government does, since it doesn't have the ability, staff, or facilities to do much other than arrest people or blow them up.

But I think you've got the causation backwards here--once the gov't takes something over, private companies spring up to service that infinite money pot's every need, real or imagined.

In this case airport security was private, then we were told "You have to federalize to professionalize." So, the feds seized it, tripled the cost, gave everyone permanent jobs, training, started taking naked x- rays of us, and objective measures of performance are about the same as before.

Related effect: the more gov't controls / regulates / owns, the more cronyism it creates, the more small, new, innovative companies are squeezed or locked out, etc.

Yep. No gov't boondoggle was ever a failure, they just needed more money.

I mostly quit flying. There's a good chance I'm on some terrorist watch list, for knowing John Larkin.

-- Cheers, James Arthur