7 ms·

The article doesn't mention that Israeli screeners are highly trained. There's a term of art in law enforcement, "hinky", which denotes the red flag that LEO's

The article doesn't mention that Israeli screeners are highly trained. There's a term of art in law enforcement, "hinky", which denotes the red flag that LEO's develop with experience. To fly in Israel, one stops in a bombproof room and is merely questioned by professionals, who will pull you aside if you are hinky. The underwear bomber's father was worried that he was violent and crazy. He CONTACTED THE US STATE DEPT about his son, out of concern. His son the bomber traveled internationally to the US, without any suitcases. He was as hinky as you could hope to find. Our relatively untrained TSA is nearly useless; at best it is security theater. I would be heavily against the underwear bomber sneaking by professionals successfully. Also, I don't see how airplanes are not such a rich target any more. Killing a lot of people without access to the cockpit is challenging (they are sealed in the US now). A McDonald's employee could fare much better with a slow poison I suppose. Credit where due: a great deal of this post is gleaned from Bruce Schneier writings.

fiiiauuush 10y ago
A side effect of Israeli security is that there are no social barriers to profiling. In the US, such profiling is illegal.
linkregister 10y ago
Thanks for bringing up these points. I think these are common misconceptions among educated people. Mentioning them shows that you exercise a good amount of critical thinking. 1. Israeli security. While passengers wait in security lines, Israeli security officers ask questions to each individual about their journey. However, these checks only occur at Israeli airports. Board El Al from Amsterdam, and you'll find the same checks as other airlines to non-Israeli destinations. Another point: the "hinky" factor. Ethnic and religious profiling is practiced regularly and overtly in Israel [1]; U.S. law protects travelers from this method of profiling. I do agree that we should increase the amount of specialist investigators available to perform interviews while passengers are in line. I don't agree that Israel is a relevant model for the U.S., which is full of small airports and is less politically centralized. I compare this to the one major airport in Israel (yes there are 5 int'l airports but Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv gets the lion's share of flights). 2. TSA's uselessness. TSA is an effective deterrent. It increases the risk of getting caught to a nonzero factor. The amount of airplane hijackings has reduced to zero in the United States since the creation of the TSA. Hijackings in other countries' airspace still occurs. Is TSA doing a horrible job? Objectively yes. Is it useless? No. 3. Airplanes as enticing targets. Airplane crashes target middle and upper class people who politicians care about. The Malaysian Airlines crashes dominated airwaves for weeks. Airplane crashes are sensational and can spur politicians into a course of action (overreaction) favorable to terrorists' agendas. A McDonald's poisoning is difficult to attribute to malice. ISIL might have claimed responsibility for the Chipotle e. coli outbreak, but would that have been credible? 4. Schneier. Mr. Schneier is a brilliant cryptographer who does not have credible expertise outside that realm. His blog is popular and he is vocal about computer security. However, several outstanding security professionals (Thomas Ptacek, on this site) have noted that many of his statements and predictions regarding computer security are plain wrong, and belie a lack of understanding of software vulnerability analysis. That said, his opinion of the TSA and Israeli security is as valid as any other layperson social commentator; he just doesn't have any expertise in the domain. [1] http://www.haaretz.com/in-israel-racial-profiling-doesn-t-warrant-debate-or-apologies-1.261075 http://www.haaretz.com/in-israel-racial-profiling-doesn-t-wa...
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > TSA is an effective deterrent. Compared to what existed before? The evidence on that is...scant. > It increases the risk of getting caught to a nonzero factor. The risk was nonzero before. > The amount of airplane hijackings has reduced to zero in the United States since the creation of the TSA. There were no passenger aircraft hijackings in the US for about 18 years prior to 9/11/2001. So, its really not all that convincing that the TSA has done anything better than what went before by keeping the number to 0 in the less than 15 since it was established. > Is it useless? No. Compared to no security, its not useless. But is it meaningful better than what it replaced (which was not "no security")?
  - linkregister 10y ago
    > "Compared to what existed before? The evidence is...scant." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings look at the number in the U.S. before TSA. Look at the number after. > It increases the risk of getting caught to a nonzero factor. The risk of getting caught with box cutters at that time was actually zero. > There were no passenger aircraft hijackings in the US for about 18 years prior to 9/11/2001. So, its really not all that convincing that the TSA has done anything better than what went before by keeping the number to 0 in the less than 15 since it was established. It's interesting that you had to qualify it with "passenger aircraft hijackings" to avoid mentioning the 1994 hijacking from Memphis. Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, airport security improved at many airports in the 1990s. TSA was implemented with the intention to standardize this. The public was incensed (rightly or wrongly) at the failure of the airport security to stop the 9/11 hijackers. > Compared to no security, its not useless. But is it meaningful better than what it replaced (which was not "no security")? Did I dispute this? Please don't attempt to inject meaning in my position that isn't there.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings look at the number in the U.S. before TSA. The last passenger aircraft hijacking one on that list before 9/11 was in 1987 (there are others in that period with US, along with other, flags on that webpage, because the plane was either flown to the US or was a plane of a US carrier -- I actually missed the 1987 one in the earlier report, which makes it only 14 years before 9/11 without an attack.) > It's interesting that you had to qualify it with "passenger aircraft hijackings" to avoid mentioning the 1994 hijacking from Memphis. Given that the main focus of discussion has generally been on the TSA security implementation and its application to passenger flights, I think that its an appropriate limitation. But even if you add that one in, the rate is still so low that the confidence that there is an reduction in the rate of hijackings since the TSA was introduced attributable to anything other than chance (much less one attributable specifically to the TSA) is not particularly high. > The risk of getting caught with box cutters at that time was actually zero. The reports from the planes were that the hijackers had a variety of weapons, which included box cutters, but also firearms. > Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, airport security improved at many airports in the 1990s. The federal government set standards for a long time before that, and the federal standards were enhanced in response to the 1990 gulf crisis, true. > TSA was implemented with the intention to standardize this. No, it wasn't. It was implemented specifically to negate future liability from the airlines for security failures, because the airlines (many of which were reportedly near bankruptcy) felt that with the need to provide coverage for potential liability for future security failures made evident by the 9/11 events (for which they also sought specific, after the fact immunity from Congress) they would no longer be able to operate profitably.

fiiiauuush 10y ago

A side effect of Israeli security is that there are no social barriers to profiling. In the US, such profiling is illegal.

linkregister 10y ago

Thanks for bringing up these points. I think these are common misconceptions among educated people. Mentioning them shows that you exercise a good amount of critical thinking. 1. Israeli security. While passengers wait in security lines, Israeli security officers ask questions to each individual about their journey. However, these checks only occur at Israeli airports. Board El Al from Amsterdam, and you'll find the same checks as other airlines to non-Israeli destinations. Another point: the "hinky" factor. Ethnic and religious profiling is practiced regularly and overtly in Israel [1]; U.S. law protects travelers from this method of profiling. I do agree that we should increase the amount of specialist investigators available to perform interviews while passengers are in line. I don't agree that Israel is a relevant model for the U.S., which is full of small airports and is less politically centralized. I compare this to the one major airport in Israel (yes there are 5 int'l airports but Ben Gurion in Tel Aviv gets the lion's share of flights). 2. TSA's uselessness. TSA is an effective deterrent. It increases the risk of getting caught to a nonzero factor. The amount of airplane hijackings has reduced to zero in the United States since the creation of the TSA. Hijackings in other countries' airspace still occurs. Is TSA doing a horrible job? Objectively yes. Is it useless? No. 3. Airplanes as enticing targets. Airplane crashes target middle and upper class people who politicians care about. The Malaysian Airlines crashes dominated airwaves for weeks. Airplane crashes are sensational and can spur politicians into a course of action (overreaction) favorable to terrorists' agendas. A McDonald's poisoning is difficult to attribute to malice. ISIL might have claimed responsibility for the Chipotle e. coli outbreak, but would that have been credible? 4. Schneier. Mr. Schneier is a brilliant cryptographer who does not have credible expertise outside that realm. His blog is popular and he is vocal about computer security. However, several outstanding security professionals (Thomas Ptacek, on this site) have noted that many of his statements and predictions regarding computer security are plain wrong, and belie a lack of understanding of software vulnerability analysis. That said, his opinion of the TSA and Israeli security is as valid as any other layperson social commentator; he just doesn't have any expertise in the domain. [1] http://www.haaretz.com/in-israel-racial-profiling-doesn-t-warrant-debate-or-apologies-1.261075 http://www.haaretz.com/in-israel-racial-profiling-doesn-t-wa...

dragonwriter 10y ago
> TSA is an effective deterrent. Compared to what existed before? The evidence on that is...scant. > It increases the risk of getting caught to a nonzero factor. The risk was nonzero before. > The amount of airplane hijackings has reduced to zero in the United States since the creation of the TSA. There were no passenger aircraft hijackings in the US for about 18 years prior to 9/11/2001. So, its really not all that convincing that the TSA has done anything better than what went before by keeping the number to 0 in the less than 15 since it was established. > Is it useless? No. Compared to no security, its not useless. But is it meaningful better than what it replaced (which was not "no security")?
- linkregister 10y ago
  > "Compared to what existed before? The evidence is...scant." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings look at the number in the U.S. before TSA. Look at the number after. > It increases the risk of getting caught to a nonzero factor. The risk of getting caught with box cutters at that time was actually zero. > There were no passenger aircraft hijackings in the US for about 18 years prior to 9/11/2001. So, its really not all that convincing that the TSA has done anything better than what went before by keeping the number to 0 in the less than 15 since it was established. It's interesting that you had to qualify it with "passenger aircraft hijackings" to avoid mentioning the 1994 hijacking from Memphis. Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, airport security improved at many airports in the 1990s. TSA was implemented with the intention to standardize this. The public was incensed (rightly or wrongly) at the failure of the airport security to stop the 9/11 hijackers. > Compared to no security, its not useless. But is it meaningful better than what it replaced (which was not "no security")? Did I dispute this? Please don't attempt to inject meaning in my position that isn't there.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_hijackings look at the number in the U.S. before TSA. The last passenger aircraft hijacking one on that list before 9/11 was in 1987 (there are others in that period with US, along with other, flags on that webpage, because the plane was either flown to the US or was a plane of a US carrier -- I actually missed the 1987 one in the earlier report, which makes it only 14 years before 9/11 without an attack.) > It's interesting that you had to qualify it with "passenger aircraft hijackings" to avoid mentioning the 1994 hijacking from Memphis. Given that the main focus of discussion has generally been on the TSA security implementation and its application to passenger flights, I think that its an appropriate limitation. But even if you add that one in, the rate is still so low that the confidence that there is an reduction in the rate of hijackings since the TSA was introduced attributable to anything other than chance (much less one attributable specifically to the TSA) is not particularly high. > The risk of getting caught with box cutters at that time was actually zero. The reports from the planes were that the hijackers had a variety of weapons, which included box cutters, but also firearms. > Also, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, airport security improved at many airports in the 1990s. The federal government set standards for a long time before that, and the federal standards were enhanced in response to the 1990 gulf crisis, true. > TSA was implemented with the intention to standardize this. No, it wasn't. It was implemented specifically to negate future liability from the airlines for security failures, because the airlines (many of which were reportedly near bankruptcy) felt that with the need to provide coverage for potential liability for future security failures made evident by the 9/11 events (for which they also sought specific, after the fact immunity from Congress) they would no longer be able to operate profitably.