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The TSA has a watch list of people who present “challenges” to screening
- CNJ7654 8y agoBut think about all those times compiling lists of people DIDN'T end terribly! I can't give any specific examples but they happen all the time! /s
- blackrock 8y agoThis is "Orwellian nonsense".
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoCan't wait to see if people who choose to opt-out of the x-ray screenings start showing up on this list.
- cortesoft 8y agoThere is no x-ray screening of people.
- AdmiralAsshat 8y agoSorry, "Advanced imaging technology".
- williamscales 8y agoTo be fair, they did used to use backscatter X-ray machines for a period before moving completely to mm wave.
- tehwebguy 8y agoThere is virtually zero chance that I’m not on this list. Attorneys: if you think that there is a case to be made about civil rights here, and you are looking for a star plaintive, I can imagine no greater joy than ruining the TSA and I would be happy to help.
- justwalt 8y ago>virtually no chance What makes you say that?
- tehwebguy 8y agoLong story short, one time TSA incorrectly thought I carried a weapon into security. I didn’t, police were called and they confirmed it was a toy fidget spinner. A TSA employee who was never given my drivers license looked over one of the cops’ shoulder and jotted my info down. I went on my way but 45 days later I got a fine and a three-year pre-check ban. I fought the case directly with TSA, inc submitting a letter from LAX PD stating there were no weapons incidences whatsoever on the day in question. They dropped the Notice of Violation immediately. The pre-check ban, however, is unchallengeable. It should expire this winter but my hopes are not high that I’ll ever get it again.
- sf_rob 8y agoI wonder if they'd use the NSA strategy of asking you to prove damages without providing information on their process.
- h2olover 8y ago"The TSA is not an intelligence agency..."
- d0lph 8y agos/intelligence/intelligent
- d0lph 8y agoI'm surprised to see so many supporting the TSA's intelligence, they have not stopped a single terrorist attack since their inception.
- anarazel 8y agoI don't think that's a claim you can validly make. Perception of how hard it is to get things onto a plane can prevent attacks. And unless you screen everyone's minds, you can't know that that's not the case. I'm not saying the balance is right.
- d0lph 8y agoI wish, the TSA was tested and it failed to stop 95% of instances of undercover Homeland Security agents from bringing on explosives and weapons. https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/tsa-fails-95-percent-tests-homeland-security_n_7485558.html https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/01/tsa-fails-95-perce...
- anarazel 8y agoThat is not a counterpoint in any sort of way to what I was saying. Fear of being controlled could be enough. Thus making the origin point above my post wrong.
- d0lph 8y agoTrue, I was more ranting, hot topic. There is a term for what you described, security theater. I'm not saying it's worthless, but it's only not worthless because terrorists might believe it's not.
- chris_va 8y agoThis reads more like an annoyed rant based on hearsay than actual journalism. I am not a lawyer, so it may be that there are legal reasons why the TSA (specifically) cannot maintain a list of people, but ... The majority of large organization dealing with customers keep customer service records, including notes on negative interactions. Keeping a list of people that have assaulted your employees, if the intent is to avoid creating a similar situation in the future, is completely rational and better for all parties. If there was evidence of the TSA denying transit rights based on that list, that would be newsworthy, but it sounds like there is no evidence of that.
- ballenf 8y agoI wish this comment wasn't downvoted to collapsed oblivion just because it prompted a great discussion very pertinent to the heart of the issue. Kind of wish the quality responses could somehow be taken into account in the algorithm deciding what gets auto-collapsed and grayed-out to unreadability. It represents what I'd guess to be a pretty common sentiment among many Americans who are motivated by fears of terrorists.
- mchanson 8y agoThe government compiling a unknown before now list of people (probably mostly US Citizens) they don't like is always newsworthy.
- JumpCrisscross 8y agoIs it illegal? Or do we have to wait for them to act on it?
- op00to 8y agoThey appear to act on it every day, using it to make decisions about which citizens to harass.
- roywiggins 8y agoThis is a blog post on BoingBoing, it's not meant to be journalism. Two news articles covering it are cited at the bottom.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- dang 8y agoWe changed the url from https://boingboing.net/2018/05/30/the-95-list.html https://boingboing.net/2018/05/30/the-95-list.html, which points to this article as well as to http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-bovard-tsa-watchlist-20180528-story.html http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-bovard-tsa-watchl..., which itself is based on the NYT report.
- zsellera 8y agoby doing so the content is now blocked from eu-based users because some gdpr shittery at la times
- bambataa 8y agoHow embarrassing for the LA Times that they couldn’t get basic compliance in place in time to even let unregistered users read an article.
- ams6110 8y agoLast time I checked, Los Angeles was in California, not the EU. Why should they have to care about EU regs?
- rtkwe 8y agoBecause the GDPR affects anyone serving and collecting data of EU citizens...
- bambataa 8y agoBecause people in the EU read their articles and view their adverts, which is presumably how they make a lot of their cash. What are they doing with the data of an unregistered visitor that means they aren't GDPR-compliant?
- rtkwe 8y agoThe link is pointing to NYTimes. OP was saying the original Boing Boing article pointed to both and the link was changed to the Times article, per the HN preference for linking to the original reporting (sometimes to the detriment when other articles provide commentary or additional insight).
- mindcrime 8y agoThe TSA should be disbanded, full-stop. It does nothing to enhance anyone's security, wastes taxpayers money, and acts as justification to accept infringement of basic human rights. The agency is a net-negative for our society and simply should not exist.
- lightbyte 8y agoThe TSA is a massive welfare jobs program for under/non-educated people, they employ approx. 60k people. The security theatre is just the guise they gave it for the welfare to be accepted by the public.
- ghostly_s 8y agoGreat! Let's give those people free jobs doing something useful, instead.
- poulsbohemian 8y agoThink how nice it would be having them all work on trail maintenance in our national parks. Our parks are a national treasure, yet apart from the majors (Yosemite, Yellowstone, etc) most have approximately zero budget for trail maintenance. In the Wallowa-Whitman, for example, last year they had approximately two people covering that entire area. There are so many other places we could deploy federal workers into jobs programs apart from the defense industry and this security theater.
- wcunning 8y agoThe problem is that the locations of the vast majority of TSA employees (major airports -- near to major cities) are not particularly near the major national parks in need of that kind of work. There was an article on here recently about how many people don't want to move from the rural hinterlands to the major urban centers (raises hand), so I assume that that feeling goes in the other direction as well...
- DannyB2 8y ago> “The bottom line is that in the post 9/11 world, do we really need another watch list — particularly one from the T.S.A., which is not an intelligence agency?” You can never have too many watch lists. For your safety. We now need a watch list of people who do not like watch lists. For people who do not like being put on watch lists. For people outside TSA who create watch lists of watch lists. A watch list for journalists who write about watch lists. Basically, there is no problem so great it cannot be solved by creating another watch list.
- gojomo 8y agoWho watchlists the watchlistmen?
- sametmax 8y agoAlso you should make a watchlist of people not in a watchlist. Being THAT innocent is very suspicious.
- mywittyname 8y agoSome companies could get together and create a WATCO score. Something like a credit score, but is based on information from various watchlists. Then you could sell consumers products the help them lower their WATCO score.
- otakucode 8y agoHow would a person even know how to be that innocent? Only through researching and studying what criteria are focused on when determining guilt. And who would do something like that? A turrurist.
- koolba 8y agoHow do they know if you're on the list? I don't see anywhere in the article where it explains how the boots on the ground would know that John Q. Public is a persona non grata. Does it get flagged when you scan your ticket and then coded into the otherwise meaningless scribble they write on it?
- txcwpalpha 8y agoAFAIK it's handled through the airline when you purchase the ticket, and then is marked on your boarding pass that you get from the airline. If you've ever seen a boarding pass that has "SSSS" printed on it, it's to indicate to airline staff and TSA that the pass holder gets additional screening. I imagine this "95 list" is similar. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_Selection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secondary_Security_Screening_S...
- Latteland 8y agoI used to get that on my tickets if I bought them in the last day. That doesn't seem to happen to me anymore though.
- kleiba 8y agoI'm pretty sure I don't have to show my boarding pass to the airport security when going through the screening here in Germany..?!
- hectormalot 8y agoI’ve had SSSS on my boarding pass multiple times when flying to the US. At Stockholm and Copenhagen they will take you out of line at the extra check at the gate (post security), to do another GC check of your luggage. Swedish airport security typically would also take my passport away until after the check. Amsterdam has a central area for this with Delta, after which they tell you the real gate (which is not on the monitors). United is again at the gate. Also: on days that I would get SSSS’d, mobile and self-service check-in would not work, forcing me to get the pass at the counter. Flights not to the US, even if outside the EU don’t have these checks. Honestly, If I would have something to hide, the SSSS on my pass would give me ample warning to just leave the airport again. Wondering if I can ask ‘why’ using a GDPR request now
- cv1123 8y agoI miss the East German border. It was relaxed by comparison.
- hodgesrm 8y agoUmm not really. By one count over 900 people were killed trying to cross the border to West Germany. [0] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_attempts_and_victims_of_the_inner_German_border https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_attempts_and_victims_of...
- fjsolwmv 8y agoThat's because people were desperate enough to try to cross. Here we'll just cancel our planned trips.
- kzrdude 8y agoThe checkpoints on the other hand (and not escapes across the border) were rather intimidating and slow, but didn't kill visitors who went through orderly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_inner_German_border https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_inner_German_bord...
- forapurpose 8y agoOn one hand the comparison is absurd. But we can use it as inspiration to think: How many have died at the U.S. - Mexican border? How many have been killed by border agents? How many died in the desert or due to other causes - of omission or commission by the government, and of first order, second order or further consequences of those (in)actions?
- chrononaut 8y agoWhile the OP is making a wild comparison, I am not sure this is a fair counterargument. If random people decided to "escape" through TSA checkpoints by wildly running through them, would those people be killed at a lower or higher ratio? I don't know what the answer is, but I know the ratio is probably higher than 0.
- ajeet_dhaliwal 8y agoDon’t be overheard mentioning ‘hacker news’, sounds dangerous enough to be on the list perhaps.
- indemnity 8y agoPossibly coincidence, but the two times I bitched about transiting through the US on an upcoming flight on Twitter (which has my real name), I got randomly selected for SSS.
- edwhitesell 8y agoPart of me (a small part) wants to be OK with this. Because, a person/business/organization should be able to maintain information on interactions with people where "issues" have occurred. Example: "Hey, if this guy comes into the restaurant, he tends to drink too much and cause trouble." Unfortunately, the TSA's track-record with pretty much everything is terrible. So, I don't see anything good coming from it. *edit: example in the first paragraph
- whoopdedo 8y agoTSA is not a business, it's a government agency. There are things businesses can do that the government is prohibited from because there's one very big thing the government can do that a private business cannot: deprive you of your freedom.
- edwhitesell 8y agoExactly. That's why, among many other things, transparency is important. I'd have no issue being on a list if I knew I was on it and had a process to get a fair decision to be removed. However, that doesn't happen. So, we're stuck with an ineffective bureaucracy that is a waste of time, money and resources that labels itself "security".
- insulanus 8y agoI agree that transparency is important. But also, don't forget the force multiplier that being an organization has against an individual, even if they (ostensibly) have to play by the same rules. I'm saying that you keeping a notebook with information on people who have offended you is much different than Amazon or the government keeping a list of people who have offended them.
- sndean 8y agoPossibly a counter example: Public schools can expel students. But, I’m not sure: can other schools (other school districts?) generally find out whether you’ve been previously expelled?
- Karishma1234 8y agoJust wondering why do these polarising news articles from Main stream media being allowed on front page ? I do not see how HN community can have a healthy discussion around this topic that did not happen in past.
- sbhn 8y agoIt’s for your security. Nothing to hide, then nothing to fear. If it saves just one life, who cares how much it costs, or what freedoms you have to sacrifise. Just think what might happen. People sacrifised there lives for your freedoms. You can’t put a price on safety. Think of the children. God works in mesterious ways. It’s time to reflect, and open page x and chapter y of the bible. Ask not, what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country. God save the queen
- NegativeK 8y agoI've downvoted you because parroting the phrases of people we disagree with as a form of mocking doesn't contribute to the conversation.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoI thought the comment was a wonderful form of satire. It wasn’t just parroting, but doing so in an artful way. IMO
- sbhn 8y agoSince when did repeating the doctrine become mockery. There always seems to be a need for the bullies of society to have there say. The TSA in this case. You disagree and they will beat you. You agree and they will beat you for mockery.
- jeremyt 8y agoWhen a doctrine mocks itself.
- bradknowles 8y agoWould that a doctrine could. But a doctrine is not sentient, nor sapient.
- pritambaral 8y ago
- greggarious 8y agoI'm curious how the TSA accesses this list? For example, does the person scanning my boarding pass see it? IIRC the ID checkers often don't have radios or full blown computers. Likewise, the screeners themselves don't look at your BP or a computer. Do they just... warn the entire staff a known soveriegn citizen will be coming through? (I'm not endorsing such a list, but others have commented how it's problematic... reservations aside I'm curious about the logistics of how they would even make use of such a list)
- frenchman_in_ny 8y agoSo what happens if you're a member of TSA Pre / Global Entry and you land yourself on this list?
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoWhen we see stories of China’s social credit system, I always see people who automatically shudder at the thought. But in the end, the US wants the same thing. The Chinese system almost seems more honest, because they admit what it is and embrace it. In the US such a system would be piecemeal and hidden. It’s not clear to me that that’s better.
- josephjrobison 8y agoThe beautiful thing is you know you’re in a truly free society because we can react to this stuff publicly and have absolutely no fear of reprisal.
- baudehlo 8y agoYay you can be annoyed. Yet 17 years of being annoyed and neither political party wants to change this situation. Why?
- joeblow9999 8y agoBecause everyone keeps voting for them anyway that's why
- propogandist 8y agothe american people have been led to believe they Only have two choices, either the left or the right
- krageon 8y agoThere is no "left" in american politics. Only right and extreme-right.
- TaylorAlexander 8y agoCitation needed. Freedom of speech does not mean total freedom.
- harry8 8y agoThis is what happens whenever you have unchecked power. It grabs more power. There is likely nothing deliberately malicious or malevolent here and those grabbing this new power have probably convinced themselves its necessary for safety and similar reasons. Any power without proper checks and balances will be used to garner more power. Any power without proper checks and balances will be abused by the person wielding that power - maybe without them even knowing they are doing so.
- emodendroket 8y agoAt a certain point so many people are going to be on one "list" or another that the purpose is completely defeated (well, one wonders if that's not already the case).
- throwawaymanbot 8y agoHow is this constitutional? At least the Chinese are public about their system unlike the shadow social credit system we are currently using/testing/sleepwalking towards here in the USA. Disgusting.