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Hitchens: The truth about airplane security measures

105 points by drewr 17y ago

jbyers 17y ago
Hitchens would be much more readable if he cut the overwrought (and parenthesized) banter by a third.
- blhack 17y ago
  I don't think his goal is to be "readable".
kordless 17y ago
Looks like someone had to stand in a line at the airport over the break.
michael_dorfman 17y ago
I think he nailed it right here: In my boyhood, there were signs on English buses that declared, in bold letters, "No Spitting." At a tender age, I was able to work out that most people don't need to be told this, while those who do feel a desire to expectorate on public transport will require more discouragement than a mere sign. But I'd be wasting my time pointing this out to our majestic and sleepless protectors, who now boldly propose to prevent airline passengers from getting out of their seats for the last hour of any flight. Abdulmutallab made his bid in the last hour of his flight, after all. Yes, that ought to do it.
- ghshephard 17y ago
  Note - the rule about people standing up wasn't done to prevent Mad Bombers from doing so. It was to quickly identify which people _might_ be a mad bomber to the Air Marshals and Airline Staff. Remember this rule had to be put in place quickly (And also note, for a limited period of one week) - while we tried to figure out if another attack was imminent. Think about how stupid we'd all be feeling if someone else had run _the exact same attack_ - we may not be able to defend against the unknown. But at least we can avoid handing out the freebies.
  - drewr 17y ago
    As I understand it, the terrorist was the only one in the NWA indident who did not stand up. He sat there while others got out of their seats to try and stop him. How does the policy address this scenario?
    - ghshephard 17y ago
      It prevents people from going and taking something out of Carry-On, or going to a bathroom, just prior to landing - giving everyone else a chance to see him doing this and stopping him. Presumably, the concern was that there would be a repeat of this attempt to set a bomb off _just prior to landing_. One of the major reasons why the Christmas underwear bomber was stopped was he was in his seat. The next bomber would probably have been better served by trying to set off a bomb in the bathroom. The rules in place for the next week are to call attention to those people.
      - electromagnetic 17y ago
        > The next bomber would probably have been better served by trying to set off a bomb in the bathroom. That would have been the logical from the start, with the shoe bomber. However, intelligence and committing a suicide bombing appear to be mutually exclusive, in that there doesn't appear to have been a single intelligent suicide bomber to date. If any of these terrorists were intelligent, they could have rigged a time bomb from a damn cellphone, laptop or any carry on electronic device that allows timed outputs. Yet the suicide bombers climbing onto planes appear to have forgotten a few steps in their devices, like blasting caps or remote detonation. Being next to the bomb and surrounded by people kind of make it difficult to perform a detonation, especially when you're trying to light your heels on fire. Consider this, the TAPT placed in the shoes would have detonated just as readily if he'd banged the heels of his shoes together like he was trying to clean them, and no one would have suspected a thing, but common sense doesn't exist when you're trying to blow yourself up for illogical reasons. [Edit: IIRC knocking was the primary cause of premature detonation in improvised explosives, so why this wouldn't be your plan for detonation if it works too well already is beyond me]
  - 17y ago
blhack 17y ago
I feel like the way the TSA is responding to all of this should be familiar to anybody that has ever worked in IT. It's a lot like the people who refuse to use OSS software (with some exceptions like redhat) because it doesn't come with a service contract; when something goes wrong, there is nothing to point at and go "See! We did everything we should have to prevent this!" The TSA doesn't want to look like a bunch of idiots if something like this happens again because they did nothing to prevent it. With this, they're doing something and people, on some level, like it or are at least comforted by it.
- gvb 17y ago
  The technical term is "Security Theater" coined by Bruce Schneier for his book Beyond Fear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater
- rdtsc 17y ago
  Nevermind that they still have not justified their existence by stopping at least one bomb from going through. Rules, directives will long number and dashes between them, expensive x-ray detectors, is just the theatre, they still have not done their job, at least once in all these years. Some will say "well their very existence prevented any terrorist from even trying to get a bomb through" which is just as valid as "their very exitence prevented pink elephants from Mars from landing and stomping us all to death." > The TSA doesn't want to look like a bunch of idiots if something like this happens again because they did nothing to prevent it. With this, they're doing something and people, on some level, like it or are at least comforted by it. In general terrorism and security theatre is about managing perceptions. They are two sides of the same coin. Terrorists are not in the business of killing as many people as possible they are in the business of scaring as many people as possible. Likewise the reponse of the government -- TSA is not in the business of making traveling safe, they are in the business of _seeming_ to make traveling safe. They provide the comfort of the witch doctor that tries to cure cancer by shaking a rattle. Sadly people seem to buy it so far. As long as everyone buys it, they will keep hanging around, feeling everyone up (with a back of their hand of course), puffing air up womens skirts, making mothers drink their milk and push disabled out of their wheelchairs. Nobody minds that much, so that will continue and intensify as time goes on.
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akamaka 17y ago
I'm getting really sick of these articles about how stupid airline security is. This type of complaining is in the same vein as end-users bitching about how the IT department locks down their computers and forces them to change their passwords. We're not the experts here, and more importantly, we're not the one who have to clean up the mess after a terrorist attack. The fact is that we have had a history of ignoring early warning signs, and that when we have taken action, we have been succesful. Terrorists make mistakes, and when we ignore them (like the Bojinka plot), it has directly led to disaster (9/11). On the other hand, since lugagge scanning has improved, we rarely see bombings like Lockerby or Air India any longer. I think the end-user vs. IT department analogy is one anyone who agreed with this article should ponder on. When a low-level employee causes a security breach, he's not the one who has to deal with the effects. The experts have to come in and fix the problem, andm management has to bear the responsibility. Similarly, in the event of an airline catasrophe, it's the emergency services who have to pick through the wreckage andook for bodies; the airlines and their employees who suffer financially. Pilots and flight attendants who know they are at highest risk, due to the ime the spend in the air. And leaders of countries, who can have their entire presidency redefined in a single day. I'd rather hear their opinions than those of a professional troll lime Hitchens.
- benmathes 17y ago
  It's not just the societal commentators that are calling our airline security a load of bull. Notable experts are saying the same thing: http://www.schneier.com/essays-airline.html http://www.schneier.com/essays-airline.html
- blhack 17y ago
  Not so fast... Some of the people criticizing the TSA (like Bruce Schneier) are absolutely experts on security. You're also right, the analogy of IT vs the users is a valid one. In this case, the IT department has told the users that they are no longer allowed to browse the web between the hours of 3:30 and 3:38 because it was during this time that somebody downloaded and installed a virus. Instead of actually addressing the root of the problem (our users can download and install viruses), the IT department has put a band-aid over it so that they can say that it has been fixed.
abhay 17y ago
The sad reality is that we've more or less given our government emergency powers to issue such ludicrous directives to the airlines and for what? Some semblance of security? I guess Ma and Pa Kettle feel more safe on the airlines on their one round-trip flight they take every two years to see the grand kiddies but for those of us who fly more than that, it's a pain in ass and we're smart enough to realize where the holes are in security. I've heard plenty of instances of people bringing things that they didn't expect they could through security by mistake. Our representatives in government aren't going to revoke these powers any time soon unless we ask them to.
- lutorm 17y ago
  I'm with you, but people asked for it. Until Americans come to terms with the fact that the world is a dangerous place, this will continue. Every lawsuit that pins liability on someone else for someone's actions that they should have realized could have an adverse outcome reinforces this mentality. It seems the only deaths Americans are willing to accept as part of life are car crashes. All other causes are unacceptable and should be sued or enforced out of existence, even if they constitute a small fraction of that number.
  - stevenbedrick 17y ago
    Agreed 100%, but you forgot one more category of deaths that Americans seem more than happy to live with: deaths from preventable or easily (and cheaply!) treatable medical conditions, as well as deaths from medical errors (one commonly-cited IOM report places the total annual number of preventable deaths due to medical error in the same ballpark as the number of people killed in traffic accidents).
    - lutorm 17y ago
      Yeah, maybe... It sure seems like there are a lot more medical lawsuits than traffic death lawsuits though.
ynniv 17y ago
The sooner people realize that there is no such thing* as extremist terrorism, the better. (* statistically speaking) The only success of modern terrorism has been the media terrorizing us into spending money on expensive, needless security equipment, government programs (TSA, DHS), and baseless wars abroad. Obviously the reward structure is complicated as the media does not make these devices, run these programs, or wage these wars, but none of these expenses would be plausible without the constant yelling that emanates from every media device I encounter. I mean, think about this: the poor terrorists-that-we-call-terrorists blow themselves up ... and we don't even listen to their message. (Which is usually "hey, leave us alone pls, kthnxboom") Then some yokel gets his 15 minutes to tell us how we need to spend billions on something he's getting kickbacks for. Who here is using terror more effectively? Once the public has realized that there is (statistically) no root-cause terrorism, we can have appropriately relaxed security once again. And more money.
- mnemonicsloth 17y ago
  We don't even listen to their message (which is usually "hey, leave us alone pls, kthnxboom") People do not blow up buildings, crash airliners, and wreck passenger trains because they want to be left alone. They do these things because they want to be feared, or barring that, paid attention to.
  - latortuga 17y ago
    Or potentially because Islam calls for killing of infidels. Apostasy is punishable by death in Islam. I suppose this is a subset of being feared (believe or you deserve to die) but I think it's worth highlighting.
    - ynniv 17y ago
      Don't tell me that Islam calls for killing of infidels unless you're ready to admit that Christianity and Judaism do as well. The only reason you can say that with a straight face is that you don't know any Muslims well enough to know that Islam is only marginally different from any other mainstream religion. What you are revealing is a cultural/political/modernist bias that pretends an obscure belief is universal simply because it is foreign. You might as well paint half the population red, the other blue, and fight for the future of mankind. I prefer to recognize that people painted red or blue are still more similar than different.
nir 17y ago
Interesting interview with Bruce Schneier here: http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/bruce_schneier_on_the.php http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/bruc... FTA: "A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage."
ghshephard 17y ago
The TSA leadership consists of bright, passionate, dedicated individuals. I doubt any of us, given the information and resources at their command, could make significantly better decisions than they have. I read Bruce Schneir's interview with Kip Hawley back in 2007, and came away with the belief that we have a team in place that has some significant knowledge of managing aviation security: http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html As for what happened on Christmas, Bruce concisely describes a fairly common mantra about aviation security: "Basically, there are three broad ways of defending airplanes: preventing bad people from getting on them (ID checks), preventing bad objects from getting on them (passenger screening, baggage screening), and preventing bad things from happening on them (reinforcing the cockpit door, sky marshals)." And, with the exception of not getting millimeter-wave/back-scatter technology in place for full body scanning (which would have trivially caught the Christmas underwear bomber - and the lack of this technology at security checkpoints is perhaps the one real-failure of the TSA), I think the TSA has done an admirable job. Note - one thing most people don't understand, is that by creating a rule which states "You must sit down in the last hour of flight" - the goal isn't to prevent mad-bombers from standing up, it's to make it very clear which ones the mad bombers are for the Sky Marshals and Airline crew - it's for a week, and the rule (hopefully) is given a pass for those who clearly need to go to the washroom, need a blanket, etc...
- krschultz 17y ago
  Don't let facts dilute a good populist and/or libertarian rant against "dumb" government. Is nobody noticing this guy got on a plane in another country? Why the mindless hammering on the American TSA?
  - CWuestefeld 17y ago
    I don't see anyone raising a fuss about the attempted attack itself. The fuss is all about the TSA's silly response to it.
- kelnos 17y ago
  Somewhat morbidly entertainingly, with the "no standing up in the last hour of flight" rule, the underwear bomber might have been successful, given that either a) no one would have gotten up to try to subdue him, or b) the first person who got up to try to subdue him would have been subdued by another as a potential terrorist.
karzeem 17y ago
I think people are rightly responding more to the stupidity of the new security measures than their ineffectiveness. Those are slightly different. We can debate the usefulness of a security measure, but the real problem is that the TSA is acting as if this was some kind of unknown attack vector. What have we learned that we didn't know before? Did we not know that people could hide explosives in their underwear, or in their body, or, to take just one more example, in prosthetic limbs? Is this news to anyone? So why the new rules? Since these are all long-known methods of attacking an airplane, it makes no sense for the TSA to wait until an actual attack to implement "preventative" measures. Either implement the measures long beforehand or decide they're not useful and never implement them. What they're doing is like waiting for your hard drive to crash before you make backups.
ghshephard 17y ago
El Al is frequently tossed out as an example of great security, but, really, they aren't that impressive: o They have a grand total of 37 airplanes in their fleet. o They engage in aggressive racial profiling. o Their passenger pattern typically consists of people flying to and from Israel. It's pretty straightforward to identify the aberration in that crowd. o By simply using the filter of "You are likely among the racial/ethnic/cultural target-crowd that is likely to be a terrorist" and then applying selective screening, you pretty much eliminate a fairly major vector for attack. Admittedly, one of the reasons why profiling takes place at El Al, is that is because it works for that particular target. The United States, even if it were willing to engage in profiling, has a much broader set of attackers - you'd end up finding everyone included in your profile. But, because the United States doesn't have the same straightforward problem of identifying who the _attackers_ are, they need to engage in "defense in depth" that El Al has the luxury of not requiring. Ergo - no large volumes of liquids (Note - the bottle size maximum is likely related to the highly oxygen reactive properties of the target liquids - you can't really combine them into one large bomb after the security checkpoint - and the small bottles aren't large enough to do _too_ much damage. A few people might be killed, or seriously injured - but it's unlikely you could bring a plane down within the restrictions of the TSA liquid size) Shoes, likewise, with their metal inserts and large and easily concealed compartments, need to be scanned in the X-Ray machine. Here are some simple steps that would dramatically increase security: o Eliminate Carry On Luggage. This would be an issue on long flights for the work crowd though, as well as people carrying food/supplies for babies, anything valuable that they don't want to check, and people with medical requirements. Some Canadian Ports of entry were effectively doing that this week though. o Full Body Scans with Back-Scatter/Millimeter Wave scans. This is way overdue, and the number one tactical failure of the TSA. Start your stopwatch - within 48 months 100% of inbound international passengers will be subject to some type of Full Body Scan or Pat Down. It will be interesting to see if the same thing will occur domestically. o Full Pat-Down for all passengers - They actually did this at YVR a couple days ago. Slowed things down a little, but that's because they didn't have enough staff to do it quickly. They need to get over their tendency not to search sensitive areas if they want to ensure it's done with 100% effectivness. o Bomb Sniffers/Dogs - I'm surprised nobody has automated this more effectively yet. Note that any _one_ of these last three would have caught the Christmas Underwear Bomber - in fact, would likely have dissuaded him, and a large class of attackers, in the first place.
mrduncan 17y ago
I thought that the following comment (second from the top) on the story was interesting and bared partially repeating below. I'm not saying that the TSA should be issued automatic rifles, just that it's thought provoking: After that, it was a third metal detector (not x-ray this time) and finally a full on frisk by another representative of the national military. Let me tell you, this was not a friendly pat, pat like what TSA gives you. This was a full on search like I was an enemy prisoner that they were concerned had a knife hidden somewhere on me. After all of that, they stuck me in a windowless room with all of the other passengers until our flight was ready to board (About 1/2 an hour). There were no shops, no bathrooms, and only one room with men and women with automatic rifles posted at the exits. What it gave me the impression of was people who had had issues with hijacking and terrorism before and REALLY didn't want it to happen again. People who didn't give a shit if I was inconvenienced or annoyed because they knew that it would be far more of an inconvenience for me if some asshole blew the plane up over the ocean somewhere.
brown9-2 17y ago
For many years after the explosion of the TWA plane over Long Island (a disaster that was later found to have nothing at all to do with international religious nihilism), you could not board an aircraft without being asked whether you had packed your own bags and had them under your control at all times. Is this true? TWA Flight 800 crashed in 1996. Weren't screeners asking passengers if they packed their own luggage before this? I believe Hitchens is also wrong on the second point here: These two questions are the very ones to which a would-be hijacker or bomber would honestly and logically have to answer "yes." But answering "yes" to both was a condition of being allowed on the plane! Eventually, that heroic piece of stupidity was dropped as well. My understanding was always that this question was designed to weed out any cases where a second party might have covertly sneaked explosives into your luggage without your knowledge.
- kelnos 17y ago
  Yes, my understanding is that it makes the person stop and think for a moment, "oh, hmm, wait a sec... I did leave my bag alone when I went to the bathroom." Of course, my assumption is that most people would still answer "yes" to the question anyway, to avoid being inconvenienced by a search.
webwright 17y ago
Reality: With a few hot water bottles strapped around me, I could get staggering amounts of liquid onto a plane. I would theorize that VERY few people have both the skills and the desire to actually suicide bomb (or even hijack) a plane... Otherwise, why isn't it happening more often? Planes running into buildings are pretty spectacular, but even if we removed ALL security measures, airport security would be WAY down on the list of things that result in needless death. There are infinite cheap/free ways to terrorize people if you're willing to die. There is no way to be secure from it short of spending gazillions on preventative measures. Being terrorized by lunatics will always be a cost of being hated. We should stop spending significant money on it, consider it a painful cost of being free/prosperous, and focus on not being so worthy of hate.
meelash 17y ago
I was nodding my head throughout most of this article until I got to this: "the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology. These people will kill themselves to attack hotels, weddings, buses, subways, cinemas, and trains. They consider Jews, Christians, Hindus, women, homosexuals, and dissident Muslims (to give only the main instances) to be divinely mandated slaughter victims." This kind of insane toeing of the official line of good vs. evil is exactly the counter-productive foolishness that allows the security services to carry on with their ridiculous "responses" to these events. Putting our heads into the sand about the actions WE have taken and supported in the past 100 years that have motivated these attacks does no one more disservice than ourselves. Just a few weeks back there was an extremely revealing article with statistics on the number of Muslim civilians directly killed by American forces in the past 30 years and vice versa. Even when these attackers ARE explicitly motivated by religion, it is on the basis of worldwide injustices of our government that that religious motivation is invoked. It is never a question of killing because that is all Americans are good for, as is often implied in pieces like this.
- alabut 17y ago
  I'm glad to see that someone else noticed the last paragraph. It totally hijacks the rest of the article by conflating his excellent rant against security pantomime theater with his proposed solution of doing nothing, mixed in with a bit of racism. "We had better get used to being the civilians who are under a relentless and planned assault." Seriously? After bitching about the ineffectiveness of the TSA, the best idea for a replacement is to raise our hands and say "oh well, shit happens and planes go boom"?
barmstrong 17y ago
Perhaps a bit off topic, but I'm curious what others think about the idea of privatizing airport security and getting rid of the TSA. In other words, let each airline compete (and innovate) with it's own security solutions, and spend it's own money to implement them. This would essentially bring the power of the free market to bear on the problem. A terrorist getting onto United (for example) with a bomb would be a huge PR problem and a mark against the airline not the TSA, causing them to lose business and competitors to scramble to learn/capitalize on it. As it stands if you have a complaint against how the TSA is handling things, there isn't much you can do. But if airlines provided their own security, passengers could "vote with their dollars" on who was finding the right mix of effective security vs. inconvenience to honest passengers, and the best solution would be rewarded economically. Btw, I realize this would probably never happen given the political climate, but I also can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work better than the TSA. Thoughts?
- fuzzmeister 17y ago
  Considering it would take the deaths of around 300 people for an airline's security to be proven insufficient (and thus not a good place to spend money), I'm not sure if that's an ethical idea. Personally, in such a situation, I would always go with the most safety-focused airline, no matter the inconvenience.
  - borism 17y ago
    All airlines are safety focused, those who are not don't survive for long. Unsafety is very very expensive in this industry. Putting a burden of airport security on airlines will be a final nail on their collective coffin though. Besides, many airports (at least here in Europe) already have private contractors doing airport security. So what? It doesn't matter who does the job, they simply implement the policies regulators impose. Now having private entities producing ad hoc security policies with primary goal of maximizing returns - that's what I call a Disaster.
    - barmstrong 17y ago
      I don't think it would crush airlines from a cost point of view. Remember that the TSA is not free now, and we are paying for it through other means. As it stands, TSA is paid for by taxes (from both airlines and consumers). In the privatized scenario, airline companies and consumers pay less in taxes, ticket prices increase to pay for private security. You could call it a wash in the worst case, but in reality it would likely end up as a net gain to society because privatization has a strong history of cost savings over government solutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Pro-privatisation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Pro-privatisation Regarding what you said about "they simply implement the policies regulators impose" - this isn't full privatization of course. In the scenario I'm imagining each airline would have the freedom to chose their own policies and there aren't regulators. Finally, just wanted to look at what you said about a focus on maximizing returns leading to a disaster. This is the counterintuitive argument and greatest discovery of capitalism in my mind - that a selfish focus on maximizing your own benefit can actually lead to the greatest benefit for society as well. Think about how an airline would actually maximize their returns. They'd probably need to get more customers right? To do that they'd have to convince customers they provided the best product at the best price. Customers aren't dumb. You couldn't just provide "security theater" that had little actual benefit, customers would call your bluff. So you'd have to actually convince them you were doing a better job for the cost. What I'm getting at is that maximizing returns is the most honest way we've ever devised to get real results - either you're doing a good job (and people let you know by giving you their hard earned dollars) or you aren't and your company is unapologetically weeded out (bankruptcy, acquisition, new management). It's a lot like natural selection. Yes, at some point there will probably be an airline who makes the mistake of using short term thinking - (cutbacks on security which aren't apparent at first but lead to a disaster). But this is a self correcting problem in that if it comes back to bite them their business will likely be sued out of existence. (You can't say the same for the TSA.) It's unlikely to happen often though. I think in the same way you trust a Mercedes over some brand new car company who is only focused on short term thinking, customers would buy tickets from airline companies they trust with long track records. This is another way of saying the market rewards long term thinking companies when appropriate. Naturally, some companies will spend less on security and offer cheaper tickets - this is actually a good thing - it segments the market for people based on their risk tolerance. If you think the whole thing is overblown and know the real risks (as someone mentioned above you are more likely to be shot by your neighborhood police officer then die from terrorism) you get cheaper tickets! Anyway, this is a long winded explanation, but the gist is that free market competition has been shown to produce better results in areas like this. I'm perfectly willing to admit it doesn't work in all cases. I just haven't heard or thought of a good reason why it wouldn't work here yet.

105 points by drewr 17y ago

jbyers 17y ago

Hitchens would be much more readable if he cut the overwrought (and parenthesized) banter by a third.

blhack 17y ago
I don't think his goal is to be "readable".

kordless 17y ago

Looks like someone had to stand in a line at the airport over the break.

michael_dorfman 17y ago

I think he nailed it right here: In my boyhood, there were signs on English buses that declared, in bold letters, "No Spitting." At a tender age, I was able to work out that most people don't need to be told this, while those who do feel a desire to expectorate on public transport will require more discouragement than a mere sign. But I'd be wasting my time pointing this out to our majestic and sleepless protectors, who now boldly propose to prevent airline passengers from getting out of their seats for the last hour of any flight. Abdulmutallab made his bid in the last hour of his flight, after all. Yes, that ought to do it.

ghshephard 17y ago
Note - the rule about people standing up wasn't done to prevent Mad Bombers from doing so. It was to quickly identify which people _might_ be a mad bomber to the Air Marshals and Airline Staff. Remember this rule had to be put in place quickly (And also note, for a limited period of one week) - while we tried to figure out if another attack was imminent. Think about how stupid we'd all be feeling if someone else had run _the exact same attack_ - we may not be able to defend against the unknown. But at least we can avoid handing out the freebies.
- drewr 17y ago
  As I understand it, the terrorist was the only one in the NWA indident who did not stand up. He sat there while others got out of their seats to try and stop him. How does the policy address this scenario?
  - ghshephard 17y ago
    It prevents people from going and taking something out of Carry-On, or going to a bathroom, just prior to landing - giving everyone else a chance to see him doing this and stopping him. Presumably, the concern was that there would be a repeat of this attempt to set a bomb off _just prior to landing_. One of the major reasons why the Christmas underwear bomber was stopped was he was in his seat. The next bomber would probably have been better served by trying to set off a bomb in the bathroom. The rules in place for the next week are to call attention to those people.
    - electromagnetic 17y ago
      > The next bomber would probably have been better served by trying to set off a bomb in the bathroom. That would have been the logical from the start, with the shoe bomber. However, intelligence and committing a suicide bombing appear to be mutually exclusive, in that there doesn't appear to have been a single intelligent suicide bomber to date. If any of these terrorists were intelligent, they could have rigged a time bomb from a damn cellphone, laptop or any carry on electronic device that allows timed outputs. Yet the suicide bombers climbing onto planes appear to have forgotten a few steps in their devices, like blasting caps or remote detonation. Being next to the bomb and surrounded by people kind of make it difficult to perform a detonation, especially when you're trying to light your heels on fire. Consider this, the TAPT placed in the shoes would have detonated just as readily if he'd banged the heels of his shoes together like he was trying to clean them, and no one would have suspected a thing, but common sense doesn't exist when you're trying to blow yourself up for illogical reasons. [Edit: IIRC knocking was the primary cause of premature detonation in improvised explosives, so why this wouldn't be your plan for detonation if it works too well already is beyond me]
- 17y ago

blhack 17y ago

I feel like the way the TSA is responding to all of this should be familiar to anybody that has ever worked in IT. It's a lot like the people who refuse to use OSS software (with some exceptions like redhat) because it doesn't come with a service contract; when something goes wrong, there is nothing to point at and go "See! We did everything we should have to prevent this!" The TSA doesn't want to look like a bunch of idiots if something like this happens again because they did nothing to prevent it. With this, they're doing something and people, on some level, like it or are at least comforted by it.

gvb 17y ago
The technical term is "Security Theater" coined by Bruce Schneier for his book Beyond Fear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Security_theater
rdtsc 17y ago
Nevermind that they still have not justified their existence by stopping at least one bomb from going through. Rules, directives will long number and dashes between them, expensive x-ray detectors, is just the theatre, they still have not done their job, at least once in all these years. Some will say "well their very existence prevented any terrorist from even trying to get a bomb through" which is just as valid as "their very exitence prevented pink elephants from Mars from landing and stomping us all to death." > The TSA doesn't want to look like a bunch of idiots if something like this happens again because they did nothing to prevent it. With this, they're doing something and people, on some level, like it or are at least comforted by it. In general terrorism and security theatre is about managing perceptions. They are two sides of the same coin. Terrorists are not in the business of killing as many people as possible they are in the business of scaring as many people as possible. Likewise the reponse of the government -- TSA is not in the business of making traveling safe, they are in the business of _seeming_ to make traveling safe. They provide the comfort of the witch doctor that tries to cure cancer by shaking a rattle. Sadly people seem to buy it so far. As long as everyone buys it, they will keep hanging around, feeling everyone up (with a back of their hand of course), puffing air up womens skirts, making mothers drink their milk and push disabled out of their wheelchairs. Nobody minds that much, so that will continue and intensify as time goes on.

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akamaka 17y ago

I'm getting really sick of these articles about how stupid airline security is. This type of complaining is in the same vein as end-users bitching about how the IT department locks down their computers and forces them to change their passwords. We're not the experts here, and more importantly, we're not the one who have to clean up the mess after a terrorist attack. The fact is that we have had a history of ignoring early warning signs, and that when we have taken action, we have been succesful. Terrorists make mistakes, and when we ignore them (like the Bojinka plot), it has directly led to disaster (9/11). On the other hand, since lugagge scanning has improved, we rarely see bombings like Lockerby or Air India any longer. I think the end-user vs. IT department analogy is one anyone who agreed with this article should ponder on. When a low-level employee causes a security breach, he's not the one who has to deal with the effects. The experts have to come in and fix the problem, andm management has to bear the responsibility. Similarly, in the event of an airline catasrophe, it's the emergency services who have to pick through the wreckage andook for bodies; the airlines and their employees who suffer financially. Pilots and flight attendants who know they are at highest risk, due to the ime the spend in the air. And leaders of countries, who can have their entire presidency redefined in a single day. I'd rather hear their opinions than those of a professional troll lime Hitchens.

benmathes 17y ago
It's not just the societal commentators that are calling our airline security a load of bull. Notable experts are saying the same thing: http://www.schneier.com/essays-airline.html http://www.schneier.com/essays-airline.html
blhack 17y ago
Not so fast... Some of the people criticizing the TSA (like Bruce Schneier) are absolutely experts on security. You're also right, the analogy of IT vs the users is a valid one. In this case, the IT department has told the users that they are no longer allowed to browse the web between the hours of 3:30 and 3:38 because it was during this time that somebody downloaded and installed a virus. Instead of actually addressing the root of the problem (our users can download and install viruses), the IT department has put a band-aid over it so that they can say that it has been fixed.

abhay 17y ago

The sad reality is that we've more or less given our government emergency powers to issue such ludicrous directives to the airlines and for what? Some semblance of security? I guess Ma and Pa Kettle feel more safe on the airlines on their one round-trip flight they take every two years to see the grand kiddies but for those of us who fly more than that, it's a pain in ass and we're smart enough to realize where the holes are in security. I've heard plenty of instances of people bringing things that they didn't expect they could through security by mistake. Our representatives in government aren't going to revoke these powers any time soon unless we ask them to.

lutorm 17y ago
I'm with you, but people asked for it. Until Americans come to terms with the fact that the world is a dangerous place, this will continue. Every lawsuit that pins liability on someone else for someone's actions that they should have realized could have an adverse outcome reinforces this mentality. It seems the only deaths Americans are willing to accept as part of life are car crashes. All other causes are unacceptable and should be sued or enforced out of existence, even if they constitute a small fraction of that number.
- stevenbedrick 17y ago
  Agreed 100%, but you forgot one more category of deaths that Americans seem more than happy to live with: deaths from preventable or easily (and cheaply!) treatable medical conditions, as well as deaths from medical errors (one commonly-cited IOM report places the total annual number of preventable deaths due to medical error in the same ballpark as the number of people killed in traffic accidents).
  - lutorm 17y ago
    Yeah, maybe... It sure seems like there are a lot more medical lawsuits than traffic death lawsuits though.

ynniv 17y ago

The sooner people realize that there is no such thing* as extremist terrorism, the better. (* statistically speaking) The only success of modern terrorism has been the media terrorizing us into spending money on expensive, needless security equipment, government programs (TSA, DHS), and baseless wars abroad. Obviously the reward structure is complicated as the media does not make these devices, run these programs, or wage these wars, but none of these expenses would be plausible without the constant yelling that emanates from every media device I encounter. I mean, think about this: the poor terrorists-that-we-call-terrorists blow themselves up ... and we don't even listen to their message. (Which is usually "hey, leave us alone pls, kthnxboom") Then some yokel gets his 15 minutes to tell us how we need to spend billions on something he's getting kickbacks for. Who here is using terror more effectively? Once the public has realized that there is (statistically) no root-cause terrorism, we can have appropriately relaxed security once again. And more money.

mnemonicsloth 17y ago
We don't even listen to their message (which is usually "hey, leave us alone pls, kthnxboom") People do not blow up buildings, crash airliners, and wreck passenger trains because they want to be left alone. They do these things because they want to be feared, or barring that, paid attention to.
- latortuga 17y ago
  Or potentially because Islam calls for killing of infidels. Apostasy is punishable by death in Islam. I suppose this is a subset of being feared (believe or you deserve to die) but I think it's worth highlighting.
  - ynniv 17y ago
    Don't tell me that Islam calls for killing of infidels unless you're ready to admit that Christianity and Judaism do as well. The only reason you can say that with a straight face is that you don't know any Muslims well enough to know that Islam is only marginally different from any other mainstream religion. What you are revealing is a cultural/political/modernist bias that pretends an obscure belief is universal simply because it is foreign. You might as well paint half the population red, the other blue, and fight for the future of mankind. I prefer to recognize that people painted red or blue are still more similar than different.

nir 17y ago

Interesting interview with Bruce Schneier here: http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/bruce_schneier_on_the.php http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/bruc... FTA: "A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage."

ghshephard 17y ago

The TSA leadership consists of bright, passionate, dedicated individuals. I doubt any of us, given the information and resources at their command, could make significantly better decisions than they have. I read Bruce Schneir's interview with Kip Hawley back in 2007, and came away with the belief that we have a team in place that has some significant knowledge of managing aviation security: http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html As for what happened on Christmas, Bruce concisely describes a fairly common mantra about aviation security: "Basically, there are three broad ways of defending airplanes: preventing bad people from getting on them (ID checks), preventing bad objects from getting on them (passenger screening, baggage screening), and preventing bad things from happening on them (reinforcing the cockpit door, sky marshals)." And, with the exception of not getting millimeter-wave/back-scatter technology in place for full body scanning (which would have trivially caught the Christmas underwear bomber - and the lack of this technology at security checkpoints is perhaps the one real-failure of the TSA), I think the TSA has done an admirable job. Note - one thing most people don't understand, is that by creating a rule which states "You must sit down in the last hour of flight" - the goal isn't to prevent mad-bombers from standing up, it's to make it very clear which ones the mad bombers are for the Sky Marshals and Airline crew - it's for a week, and the rule (hopefully) is given a pass for those who clearly need to go to the washroom, need a blanket, etc...

krschultz 17y ago
Don't let facts dilute a good populist and/or libertarian rant against "dumb" government. Is nobody noticing this guy got on a plane in another country? Why the mindless hammering on the American TSA?
- CWuestefeld 17y ago
  I don't see anyone raising a fuss about the attempted attack itself. The fuss is all about the TSA's silly response to it.
kelnos 17y ago
Somewhat morbidly entertainingly, with the "no standing up in the last hour of flight" rule, the underwear bomber might have been successful, given that either a) no one would have gotten up to try to subdue him, or b) the first person who got up to try to subdue him would have been subdued by another as a potential terrorist.

karzeem 17y ago

I think people are rightly responding more to the stupidity of the new security measures than their ineffectiveness. Those are slightly different. We can debate the usefulness of a security measure, but the real problem is that the TSA is acting as if this was some kind of unknown attack vector. What have we learned that we didn't know before? Did we not know that people could hide explosives in their underwear, or in their body, or, to take just one more example, in prosthetic limbs? Is this news to anyone? So why the new rules? Since these are all long-known methods of attacking an airplane, it makes no sense for the TSA to wait until an actual attack to implement "preventative" measures. Either implement the measures long beforehand or decide they're not useful and never implement them. What they're doing is like waiting for your hard drive to crash before you make backups.

ghshephard 17y ago

El Al is frequently tossed out as an example of great security, but, really, they aren't that impressive: o They have a grand total of 37 airplanes in their fleet. o They engage in aggressive racial profiling. o Their passenger pattern typically consists of people flying to and from Israel. It's pretty straightforward to identify the aberration in that crowd. o By simply using the filter of "You are likely among the racial/ethnic/cultural target-crowd that is likely to be a terrorist" and then applying selective screening, you pretty much eliminate a fairly major vector for attack. Admittedly, one of the reasons why profiling takes place at El Al, is that is because it works for that particular target. The United States, even if it were willing to engage in profiling, has a much broader set of attackers - you'd end up finding everyone included in your profile. But, because the United States doesn't have the same straightforward problem of identifying who the _attackers_ are, they need to engage in "defense in depth" that El Al has the luxury of not requiring. Ergo - no large volumes of liquids (Note - the bottle size maximum is likely related to the highly oxygen reactive properties of the target liquids - you can't really combine them into one large bomb after the security checkpoint - and the small bottles aren't large enough to do _too_ much damage. A few people might be killed, or seriously injured - but it's unlikely you could bring a plane down within the restrictions of the TSA liquid size) Shoes, likewise, with their metal inserts and large and easily concealed compartments, need to be scanned in the X-Ray machine. Here are some simple steps that would dramatically increase security: o Eliminate Carry On Luggage. This would be an issue on long flights for the work crowd though, as well as people carrying food/supplies for babies, anything valuable that they don't want to check, and people with medical requirements. Some Canadian Ports of entry were effectively doing that this week though. o Full Body Scans with Back-Scatter/Millimeter Wave scans. This is way overdue, and the number one tactical failure of the TSA. Start your stopwatch - within 48 months 100% of inbound international passengers will be subject to some type of Full Body Scan or Pat Down. It will be interesting to see if the same thing will occur domestically. o Full Pat-Down for all passengers - They actually did this at YVR a couple days ago. Slowed things down a little, but that's because they didn't have enough staff to do it quickly. They need to get over their tendency not to search sensitive areas if they want to ensure it's done with 100% effectivness. o Bomb Sniffers/Dogs - I'm surprised nobody has automated this more effectively yet. Note that any _one_ of these last three would have caught the Christmas Underwear Bomber - in fact, would likely have dissuaded him, and a large class of attackers, in the first place.

mrduncan 17y ago

I thought that the following comment (second from the top) on the story was interesting and bared partially repeating below. I'm not saying that the TSA should be issued automatic rifles, just that it's thought provoking: After that, it was a third metal detector (not x-ray this time) and finally a full on frisk by another representative of the national military. Let me tell you, this was not a friendly pat, pat like what TSA gives you. This was a full on search like I was an enemy prisoner that they were concerned had a knife hidden somewhere on me. After all of that, they stuck me in a windowless room with all of the other passengers until our flight was ready to board (About 1/2 an hour). There were no shops, no bathrooms, and only one room with men and women with automatic rifles posted at the exits. What it gave me the impression of was people who had had issues with hijacking and terrorism before and REALLY didn't want it to happen again. People who didn't give a shit if I was inconvenienced or annoyed because they knew that it would be far more of an inconvenience for me if some asshole blew the plane up over the ocean somewhere.

brown9-2 17y ago

For many years after the explosion of the TWA plane over Long Island (a disaster that was later found to have nothing at all to do with international religious nihilism), you could not board an aircraft without being asked whether you had packed your own bags and had them under your control at all times. Is this true? TWA Flight 800 crashed in 1996. Weren't screeners asking passengers if they packed their own luggage before this? I believe Hitchens is also wrong on the second point here: These two questions are the very ones to which a would-be hijacker or bomber would honestly and logically have to answer "yes." But answering "yes" to both was a condition of being allowed on the plane! Eventually, that heroic piece of stupidity was dropped as well. My understanding was always that this question was designed to weed out any cases where a second party might have covertly sneaked explosives into your luggage without your knowledge.

kelnos 17y ago
Yes, my understanding is that it makes the person stop and think for a moment, "oh, hmm, wait a sec... I did leave my bag alone when I went to the bathroom." Of course, my assumption is that most people would still answer "yes" to the question anyway, to avoid being inconvenienced by a search.

webwright 17y ago

Reality: With a few hot water bottles strapped around me, I could get staggering amounts of liquid onto a plane. I would theorize that VERY few people have both the skills and the desire to actually suicide bomb (or even hijack) a plane... Otherwise, why isn't it happening more often? Planes running into buildings are pretty spectacular, but even if we removed ALL security measures, airport security would be WAY down on the list of things that result in needless death. There are infinite cheap/free ways to terrorize people if you're willing to die. There is no way to be secure from it short of spending gazillions on preventative measures. Being terrorized by lunatics will always be a cost of being hated. We should stop spending significant money on it, consider it a painful cost of being free/prosperous, and focus on not being so worthy of hate.

meelash 17y ago

I was nodding my head throughout most of this article until I got to this: "the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology. These people will kill themselves to attack hotels, weddings, buses, subways, cinemas, and trains. They consider Jews, Christians, Hindus, women, homosexuals, and dissident Muslims (to give only the main instances) to be divinely mandated slaughter victims." This kind of insane toeing of the official line of good vs. evil is exactly the counter-productive foolishness that allows the security services to carry on with their ridiculous "responses" to these events. Putting our heads into the sand about the actions WE have taken and supported in the past 100 years that have motivated these attacks does no one more disservice than ourselves. Just a few weeks back there was an extremely revealing article with statistics on the number of Muslim civilians directly killed by American forces in the past 30 years and vice versa. Even when these attackers ARE explicitly motivated by religion, it is on the basis of worldwide injustices of our government that that religious motivation is invoked. It is never a question of killing because that is all Americans are good for, as is often implied in pieces like this.

alabut 17y ago
I'm glad to see that someone else noticed the last paragraph. It totally hijacks the rest of the article by conflating his excellent rant against security pantomime theater with his proposed solution of doing nothing, mixed in with a bit of racism. "We had better get used to being the civilians who are under a relentless and planned assault." Seriously? After bitching about the ineffectiveness of the TSA, the best idea for a replacement is to raise our hands and say "oh well, shit happens and planes go boom"?

barmstrong 17y ago

Perhaps a bit off topic, but I'm curious what others think about the idea of privatizing airport security and getting rid of the TSA. In other words, let each airline compete (and innovate) with it's own security solutions, and spend it's own money to implement them. This would essentially bring the power of the free market to bear on the problem. A terrorist getting onto United (for example) with a bomb would be a huge PR problem and a mark against the airline not the TSA, causing them to lose business and competitors to scramble to learn/capitalize on it. As it stands if you have a complaint against how the TSA is handling things, there isn't much you can do. But if airlines provided their own security, passengers could "vote with their dollars" on who was finding the right mix of effective security vs. inconvenience to honest passengers, and the best solution would be rewarded economically. Btw, I realize this would probably never happen given the political climate, but I also can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work better than the TSA. Thoughts?

fuzzmeister 17y ago
Considering it would take the deaths of around 300 people for an airline's security to be proven insufficient (and thus not a good place to spend money), I'm not sure if that's an ethical idea. Personally, in such a situation, I would always go with the most safety-focused airline, no matter the inconvenience.
- borism 17y ago
  All airlines are safety focused, those who are not don't survive for long. Unsafety is very very expensive in this industry. Putting a burden of airport security on airlines will be a final nail on their collective coffin though. Besides, many airports (at least here in Europe) already have private contractors doing airport security. So what? It doesn't matter who does the job, they simply implement the policies regulators impose. Now having private entities producing ad hoc security policies with primary goal of maximizing returns - that's what I call a Disaster.
  - barmstrong 17y ago
    I don't think it would crush airlines from a cost point of view. Remember that the TSA is not free now, and we are paying for it through other means. As it stands, TSA is paid for by taxes (from both airlines and consumers). In the privatized scenario, airline companies and consumers pay less in taxes, ticket prices increase to pay for private security. You could call it a wash in the worst case, but in reality it would likely end up as a net gain to society because privatization has a strong history of cost savings over government solutions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Pro-privatisation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privatization#Pro-privatisation Regarding what you said about "they simply implement the policies regulators impose" - this isn't full privatization of course. In the scenario I'm imagining each airline would have the freedom to chose their own policies and there aren't regulators. Finally, just wanted to look at what you said about a focus on maximizing returns leading to a disaster. This is the counterintuitive argument and greatest discovery of capitalism in my mind - that a selfish focus on maximizing your own benefit can actually lead to the greatest benefit for society as well. Think about how an airline would actually maximize their returns. They'd probably need to get more customers right? To do that they'd have to convince customers they provided the best product at the best price. Customers aren't dumb. You couldn't just provide "security theater" that had little actual benefit, customers would call your bluff. So you'd have to actually convince them you were doing a better job for the cost. What I'm getting at is that maximizing returns is the most honest way we've ever devised to get real results - either you're doing a good job (and people let you know by giving you their hard earned dollars) or you aren't and your company is unapologetically weeded out (bankruptcy, acquisition, new management). It's a lot like natural selection. Yes, at some point there will probably be an airline who makes the mistake of using short term thinking - (cutbacks on security which aren't apparent at first but lead to a disaster). But this is a self correcting problem in that if it comes back to bite them their business will likely be sued out of existence. (You can't say the same for the TSA.) It's unlikely to happen often though. I think in the same way you trust a Mercedes over some brand new car company who is only focused on short term thinking, customers would buy tickets from airline companies they trust with long track records. This is another way of saying the market rewards long term thinking companies when appropriate. Naturally, some companies will spend less on security and offer cheaper tickets - this is actually a good thing - it segments the market for people based on their risk tolerance. If you think the whole thing is overblown and know the real risks (as someone mentioned above you are more likely to be shot by your neighborhood police officer then die from terrorism) you get cheaper tickets! Anyway, this is a long winded explanation, but the gist is that free market competition has been shown to produce better results in areas like this. I'm perfectly willing to admit it doesn't work in all cases. I just haven't heard or thought of a good reason why it wouldn't work here yet.