6 ms·

It is crazy to think of all the money spent on TSA that something like this could happen post-9/11 and post- failed shoe bomber. It shows that people and machin

It is crazy to think of all the money spent on TSA that something like this could happen post-9/11 and post- failed shoe bomber. It shows that people and machines are still fallible. I never hear about TSA thwarting terrorist attempts. Either they keep it under wraps or nobody is trying because they perceive the security to be too high. Or they get caught before they try. In any event, this incident seems like a careless mistake, but still scary nonetheless.

dublinben 8y ago
The TSA is security theater. It does not stop determined parties from smuggling dangerous contraband on airplanes.
- grayhatter 8y ago
  Or a small group of careless people who "wanted to see if they could". I obviously have no idea of their intent.
- chatmasta 8y ago
  Security theater and also a massive federal jobs program and corruption funnel (pouring money into the suppliers of all the “security technology”)
  - cwkoss 8y ago
    Michael Chertoff, former head of homeland security, accepted a quarter million dollars to "consult" for Rapiscan (body scanners), then helped them secure a $118M contract with the TSA. Corrupt as hell. https://theintercept.com/2015/05/27/tsa-body-scanner-lobbyist-takes-congressional-job-overseeing-spending-tsa-security/ https://theintercept.com/2015/05/27/tsa-body-scanner-lobbyis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff
- bitwize 8y ago
  Okay, then why not pay a bunch of people to stand around and wave people through sham "detectors" we are told can detect weapons/explosives/etc. on our persons/in our luggage, but in reality do no such thing? Why do we have to take off our shoes and put our laptops in separate bins by themselves? The added inconvenience is way greater than even the perception of safety.
  - rosser 8y ago
    Because the other consequence of imposing security theater on the traveling polity is getting them used to jumping through arbitrary, imposed hoops like that. It's conditioning people to accept and submit to idiocy like this from their government.
grayhatter 8y ago
> Either they keep it under wraps or nobody is trying because they perceive the security to be too high. Or they get caught before they try. Or, no one really is trying to blow up planes, and we're just wasting money trying to prevent something that never happens.
- lb1lf 8y ago
  We're not wasting money trying to prevent something that never happens; we're basically paying career insurance for the powers that be (Tm) in case someone actually /did/ blow up a plane. They'd look awfully bad if they hadn't done anything to counter the threat, no matter how marginal (Oh, and in fairness - there /are/ people who want to blow up planes, though as a first approximation one could do worse than estimating their number at zero...)
- jstarfish 8y ago
  The TSA is a make-work program, not a legitimate security solution. Its only reason for inception was to provide employment for a pool of otherwise unskilled workers. Same with the DHS-- terrorism has always been a concern; we didn't need another law enforcement arm. Despite either's questionable utility, no public official wants to be responsible for putting so many people out of work or jeopardizing the illusion of safety they provide.
  - everdev 8y ago
    Somehow I doubt this is the real reason TSA exists.
    - jstarfish 8y ago
      If security were the actual reason, we'd see implementations more akin to Ben-Gurion's. Instead, we get to subject ourselves to the whims of a department of high school graduates with no particular law enforcement, legal, criminal justice or counter-terrorism expertise snooping through your luggage looking for vibrators.
ericcumbee 8y ago
My cousin in the early 2000s worked for a R&D company who did some work on the early generation of sniffer machines that detected trace residue of explosives, and biological agents in airports. He had to go to a meeting and flew from Atlanta to boston with a prototype of the machine. He packed it in his carry on case along with his basic tool kit. When he got to security screening he realized that he also had vials of simulants for anthrax, sarain, various explosives, etc etc in that case. He gets into the security screening line and the TSA guy starts asking him all kinds of questions and he just knows he is about to get detained for the simulants which were not clearly marked as such. Instead the guy is like “You can’t take that screw driver with you”
- dragontamer 8y ago
  This was figured out in an Dept. Homeland Security "red team" test of the TSA a few years ago, where the TSA failed like 95%+ of the tests against them: https://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-undercover-dhs-tests-find-widespread-security-failures/story?id=31434881 https://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-undercover-dhs-tests-fin... I think the TSA has switched strategies recently, and they've been improving since then. But ultimately, its not the "bag check" where the TSA catches goons, its the random more intense check that they do these days. And sure, going from 95% failure to 80% failure isn't much of an improvement, but its still going to change the calculus of an attacker. When you have a 20% chance of failure before you even board the airplane, that's an issue to your plans. Furthermore, TSA includes air marshals and the Israeli-style "behavioral" cops who are scanning airports. These are the more successful cops at the job, and the ones we are relying upon for real. I wouldn't discount the entirety of the TSA just because of the failures of the bag-check program. Again, US Air marshals (armed cops who sit on every aircraft secretly with plain-clothes) are under the TSA and I think the US Air Marshals contributes a LOT to our real security. Unfortunately, the bag-check thing is mostly security theater, but at the same time, the more "serious" checks vs attackers are more hidden and less well known (as it should be). But security theater might be enough to discourage an attack, or at very least cause our enemies to focus on the bag-check (when our REAL security really lies with other programs). So its a useful distraction IMO. There's a bit of "wink-wink lets not talk about this" going on that you need to understand though.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
agitator 8y ago
TSA is generally a joke. Do you think anyone who is seriously attempting something would be dumb enough to get caught by TSA. Sure it might catch a few loonies who have voices telling them to blow up their shoes, but the TSA won't stop a real terrorist plan. It's going to be intelligence and surveillance that catches real threats.
- a1369209993 8y ago
  The TSA is useless, but to be fair: > I'm just saying that we shouldn't ignore the stuff that only total idiots would fall for since history has shown that the opposing team is made up of total idiots. We do in fact have morons trying to blow up their shoes, and it's not like politicians get anything else right.
ada1981 8y ago
Or nobody is trying and security isn’t perceived to be that high. We don’t have a huge domestic terrorism problem in this country, despite what the media might lead us to believe.
privacypoller 8y ago
And now none of us will be allowed to travel with drones in our carry-on, all because of one bad actor </s>
cm2187 8y ago
All these security checks are mostly a show to calm down people who are obsessed with terrorism. I don’t think that in the history of aviation, a single terrorist attack has ever been prevented by an airport passenger security check.
- kpil 8y ago
  It's hard to tell isn't it? Since it's know, the bad guys would be stupid to plan something that involved dragging weapons or explosives through the security checks. Some where stupid and tried and succeeded. A limited number then accidentally set their underwear on fire and a few others managed to make a hole in plane.
  - cm2187 8y ago
    Well, all those who tried succeeded.
cwkoss 8y ago
> I never hear about TSA thwarting terrorist attempts. Either they keep it under wraps or nobody is trying because they perceive the security to be too high. Or they get caught before they try. One more possibility: the TSA is horribly incompetent and have a low detection rate for true-positives.
- mcguire 8y ago
  A true positive that was not detected would be self-exposing, no?
  - djrogers 8y ago
    No, I would venture that the majority of people flying with pocketknives - or even guns - arent' doing so with the intent to use them on the plane.

dublinben 8y ago

The TSA is security theater. It does not stop determined parties from smuggling dangerous contraband on airplanes.

grayhatter 8y ago
Or a small group of careless people who "wanted to see if they could". I obviously have no idea of their intent.
chatmasta 8y ago
Security theater and also a massive federal jobs program and corruption funnel (pouring money into the suppliers of all the “security technology”)
- cwkoss 8y ago
  Michael Chertoff, former head of homeland security, accepted a quarter million dollars to "consult" for Rapiscan (body scanners), then helped them secure a $118M contract with the TSA. Corrupt as hell. https://theintercept.com/2015/05/27/tsa-body-scanner-lobbyist-takes-congressional-job-overseeing-spending-tsa-security/ https://theintercept.com/2015/05/27/tsa-body-scanner-lobbyis... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Chertoff
bitwize 8y ago
Okay, then why not pay a bunch of people to stand around and wave people through sham "detectors" we are told can detect weapons/explosives/etc. on our persons/in our luggage, but in reality do no such thing? Why do we have to take off our shoes and put our laptops in separate bins by themselves? The added inconvenience is way greater than even the perception of safety.
- rosser 8y ago
  Because the other consequence of imposing security theater on the traveling polity is getting them used to jumping through arbitrary, imposed hoops like that. It's conditioning people to accept and submit to idiocy like this from their government.

grayhatter 8y ago

> Either they keep it under wraps or nobody is trying because they perceive the security to be too high. Or they get caught before they try. Or, no one really is trying to blow up planes, and we're just wasting money trying to prevent something that never happens.

lb1lf 8y ago
We're not wasting money trying to prevent something that never happens; we're basically paying career insurance for the powers that be (Tm) in case someone actually /did/ blow up a plane. They'd look awfully bad if they hadn't done anything to counter the threat, no matter how marginal (Oh, and in fairness - there /are/ people who want to blow up planes, though as a first approximation one could do worse than estimating their number at zero...)
jstarfish 8y ago
The TSA is a make-work program, not a legitimate security solution. Its only reason for inception was to provide employment for a pool of otherwise unskilled workers. Same with the DHS-- terrorism has always been a concern; we didn't need another law enforcement arm. Despite either's questionable utility, no public official wants to be responsible for putting so many people out of work or jeopardizing the illusion of safety they provide.
- everdev 8y ago
  Somehow I doubt this is the real reason TSA exists.
  - jstarfish 8y ago
    If security were the actual reason, we'd see implementations more akin to Ben-Gurion's. Instead, we get to subject ourselves to the whims of a department of high school graduates with no particular law enforcement, legal, criminal justice or counter-terrorism expertise snooping through your luggage looking for vibrators.

ericcumbee 8y ago

My cousin in the early 2000s worked for a R&D company who did some work on the early generation of sniffer machines that detected trace residue of explosives, and biological agents in airports. He had to go to a meeting and flew from Atlanta to boston with a prototype of the machine. He packed it in his carry on case along with his basic tool kit. When he got to security screening he realized that he also had vials of simulants for anthrax, sarain, various explosives, etc etc in that case. He gets into the security screening line and the TSA guy starts asking him all kinds of questions and he just knows he is about to get detained for the simulants which were not clearly marked as such. Instead the guy is like “You can’t take that screw driver with you”

dragontamer 8y ago
This was figured out in an Dept. Homeland Security "red team" test of the TSA a few years ago, where the TSA failed like 95%+ of the tests against them: https://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-undercover-dhs-tests-find-widespread-security-failures/story?id=31434881 https://abcnews.go.com/US/exclusive-undercover-dhs-tests-fin... I think the TSA has switched strategies recently, and they've been improving since then. But ultimately, its not the "bag check" where the TSA catches goons, its the random more intense check that they do these days. And sure, going from 95% failure to 80% failure isn't much of an improvement, but its still going to change the calculus of an attacker. When you have a 20% chance of failure before you even board the airplane, that's an issue to your plans. Furthermore, TSA includes air marshals and the Israeli-style "behavioral" cops who are scanning airports. These are the more successful cops at the job, and the ones we are relying upon for real. I wouldn't discount the entirety of the TSA just because of the failures of the bag-check program. Again, US Air marshals (armed cops who sit on every aircraft secretly with plain-clothes) are under the TSA and I think the US Air Marshals contributes a LOT to our real security. Unfortunately, the bag-check thing is mostly security theater, but at the same time, the more "serious" checks vs attackers are more hidden and less well known (as it should be). But security theater might be enough to discourage an attack, or at very least cause our enemies to focus on the bag-check (when our REAL security really lies with other programs). So its a useful distraction IMO. There's a bit of "wink-wink lets not talk about this" going on that you need to understand though.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

agitator 8y ago

TSA is generally a joke. Do you think anyone who is seriously attempting something would be dumb enough to get caught by TSA. Sure it might catch a few loonies who have voices telling them to blow up their shoes, but the TSA won't stop a real terrorist plan. It's going to be intelligence and surveillance that catches real threats.

a1369209993 8y ago
The TSA is useless, but to be fair: > I'm just saying that we shouldn't ignore the stuff that only total idiots would fall for since history has shown that the opposing team is made up of total idiots. We do in fact have morons trying to blow up their shoes, and it's not like politicians get anything else right.

ada1981 8y ago

Or nobody is trying and security isn’t perceived to be that high. We don’t have a huge domestic terrorism problem in this country, despite what the media might lead us to believe.

privacypoller 8y ago

And now none of us will be allowed to travel with drones in our carry-on, all because of one bad actor </s>

cm2187 8y ago

All these security checks are mostly a show to calm down people who are obsessed with terrorism. I don’t think that in the history of aviation, a single terrorist attack has ever been prevented by an airport passenger security check.

kpil 8y ago
It's hard to tell isn't it? Since it's know, the bad guys would be stupid to plan something that involved dragging weapons or explosives through the security checks. Some where stupid and tried and succeeded. A limited number then accidentally set their underwear on fire and a few others managed to make a hole in plane.
- cm2187 8y ago
  Well, all those who tried succeeded.

cwkoss 8y ago

> I never hear about TSA thwarting terrorist attempts. Either they keep it under wraps or nobody is trying because they perceive the security to be too high. Or they get caught before they try. One more possibility: the TSA is horribly incompetent and have a low detection rate for true-positives.

mcguire 8y ago
A true positive that was not detected would be self-exposing, no?
- djrogers 8y ago
  No, I would venture that the majority of people flying with pocketknives - or even guns - arent' doing so with the intent to use them on the plane.