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TSA’s Roadmap for Airport Surveillance Moves in a Dangerous Direction
- Zaheer 8y agoImportant to note that the TSA has largely been ineffective: "In a 2016 survey by the Department of Homeland Security Inspector General (IG), the TSA missed 95 percent of the weapons and assorted contraband carried into commercial aircraft cabins by undercover investigators" https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/366998-the-tsas-lax-performance-amounts-to-security-theater https://thehill.com/opinion/national-security/366998-the-tsa...
- throwawayyyy666 8y agoI’m pretty sure you’re aware catching imaginary friends, terrorists or otherwise is not the purpose of the TSA.
- dang 8y agoCreating throwaway accounts to troll or flame HN threads will eventually get your main account banned as well. Please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- fooker 8y agoIt acts as a deterrent, similar to door locks in homes. Lockpicking is relatively easy, and there is always brute force.
- AckSyn 8y agoThe TSA does nothing of the sort. If you had read the various reports indicating their massive failures, stopping passengers from carrying firearms and knives has a terrible track record. So no, it does't deter anyone.
- verelo 8y agoI'd argue a better deterrent is knowing that there /might/ be an air marshal on the plane AND/OR the unknown security screening done on my checked luggage after it leaves my hands. The TSA are a terrible experience for anyone that encounters them, often giving a poor impression of the US to many first timers, and they are bad at their job! Yet we're not looking to take another approach? It's frankly...pathetic.
- Lkjhmnbv 8y agoWith all do respect, that's not the best deterrent. The best deterrent is the door. Anyone who knows anything about the Germanwings crash (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germanwings_Flight_9525) knows this. The pilot used an axe on the door for minutes while knowing he was going to die. He didn't get in. Everyone died. The risks of hijacking are slim to none, unless you're going to hack the plane. If you're going to hack the plane you just need a laptop. The TSA is a federal jobs program. A nice joke I heard is to disband the TSA and have them be the workers building the wall. Sure it would be useless, but at least it wouldn't inconvenience law abiding citizens just trying to go about their day, treating them like criminals.
- Gibbon1 8y agoWe could in theory draft them into the Army Corps of Engineers and make them push wheelbarrows full of sand and gravel around in the Sonoran Desert. I like this idea.
- verelo 8y agoWhile it might just make me feel better about all the times they made me remove my laptop from my bag, or take off my shoes, I would almost rather see them given real skills so they can be a useful part of humanity.
- verelo 8y agoIf you’re talking hijacking sure, i still think someone claiming “i have a bomb” will get commands through the door without it ever opening if they’re smart enough about it. The door is a good defence from immediate physical harm for sure, and probably the best change the industry has made in a long time, but i still think the security through stated obscurity element of the TSA could be improved to socially influence those considering any act against an air crew.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Zelphyr 8y agoI suspect the better deterrent, and the reason we haven’t seen another attack remotely similar to 9/11, is that the terrorists know we won’t fall for that again. There would be a whole airplane full of people willing to take down a would-be terrorist. The TSA is just a pacifier for people who buy that they’re effective.
- paulsutter 8y agoYes that attack was viable for less than 1 hour. On flight 93 the passenger revolt began at 9:57AM, and the the first plane hit the World Trade Center at 9:01AM [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_93 > After the hijackers took control of the plane, several passengers and flight attendants learned from phone calls that suicide attacks had already been made by hijacked airliners on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia. Many of the passengers then attempted to regain control of the aircraft from the hijackers. During the struggle, the plane crashed into a field near a reclaimed strip mine in Stonycreek Township And if that hadn’t worked, before the crash the military was already authorized to shoot down that flight. So the system adapted quickly.
- lawlessquestion 8y agoThat's if you believe the fiction of 9-11. Free fall wtc, tower 7 falling for no reason other than the information it contained, and phone calls to family members that were most likely faked by the government
- rootusrootus 8y agoAlso, we lock cockpit doors now and pilots aren't going to let someone in just because they threaten passengers or crew members with harm. I think we should give up on the TSA theater, but most people seem to want it. Makes them feel better, even if their rational minds know it's a lie.
- WalterBright 8y ago
- hourislate 8y agoIt seems like the Intelligencia is leveraging the TSA to collect as much information as possible on all US Citizens that use an airport while the TSA pretends to keep Americans safe. You have to admit it does make good "Theater for the Masses" when you see them stripping down an 80 year old in a wheelchair or dragging an 8 year old off to the side for additional screening. This is what happens when "The People" lose control of the Government.
- rootusrootus 8y ago> This is what happens when "The People" lose control of the Government. That seems doubtful. Nearly everyone agrees that TSA checkpoints are irritating and slow, how many would actually vote to abolish them? Even just returning back to pre-9/11 security? I think we have exactly the government most of us want. That's the uncomfortable truth. If the majority of voting citizens wanted the TSA gone, it would be.
- Gibbon1 8y agoI've always said why don't we let the market decide. Offer flights with TSA screening for $10 extra or flights with no screening.
- ralph84 8y agoThe “let the market decide” solution is to make the airlines strictly liable for what happens with their planes and let them and their insurers figure out the best security strategy.
- mcguire 8y agoEl Al, anyone? https://onemileatatime.com/el-al-security/ https://onemileatatime.com/el-al-security/ https://www.chronic-wanderlust.com/how-to-survive-the-el-al-pre-check-in-security-procedure/ https://www.chronic-wanderlust.com/how-to-survive-the-el-al-...
- StudentStuff 8y ago
- craftyguy 8y agoThey've still managed to find 100% of the bottles of water I've forgotten about and 100% of the water bottles with trace amounts of water still in them.
- marnett 8y agoWell Coca Cola doesn’t make any money on Dasani or Smart Water if you slip on by!
- 8_hours_ago 8y agoI assume that’s because they see them all day long so they are pretty good at spotting them in an X-ray. They don’t see weapons or actually threatening objects very often, or ever except for training.
- Scoundreller 8y agoYou can bring frozen water through. Just drink the liquid before you actually get screened. Once you drink half, refill it at a fountain (or lukewarm water from a bathroom sink if you can funnel it in) to have more cold water.
- craftyguy 8y agoMany major airports (and many minor ones it seems) offer a way to refill empty bottles after the 'security' check. That's not really the point of my comment though.
- betterunix2 8y agoIneffective at preventing hijackings of airplanes, but that is assuming that the purpose of the TSA's airport security measures is to prevent hijackings. More likely it was originally intended to reassure the public that flying is safe by presenting conspicuous screening processes, and considering that it remains politically impossible to wind it down, I think it was very successful. Consider this: a few years ago the TSA leadership suggested that it would probably be OK to allow small knives through the checkpoints, and not only was the idea killed by Congress, I even heard my otherwise intelligent aunt express how terrifying the idea sounded to her. The basic purpose of the TSA is to prevent a collapse of the air travel market, and now it seems that a few related business interests are also part of that picture. What is or is not allowed through the checkpoints is as much determined by what the public is afraid of as by what will work well for airport businesses and airlines. The shoe rule is slowly but surely going away (it does not apply to anyone who participates in the various pre-screening programs that have been developed; I am guessing it will be gone in general a few years from now), but the equally pointless liquid rule remains in place for everyone. The only difference is that one of those rules boosts sales for airport businesses while the other only makes the lines to get through the checkpoints longer and discourages flying. The proposal to have all laptops go into checked bags was killed almost as soon as it was thought up, even though there was some legitimate concern about attacks strategies involving laptops (it seems to be more realistic than the liquids plot), simply because airlines said it would have too negative an impact on their ticket sales (especially for business class seats, which are the most profitable per square foot of cabin floor space).
- justinmk 8y agoWhat makes you think the TSA has a net positive effect on the air travel industry? TSA is dehumanizing and makes me hate traveling. It's insulting and humiliating to be forced to wait in line and perform useless rituals. > one of those rules boosts sales for airport businesses This is pub talk, essentially the broken window fallacy. Making travel unpleasant is unlikely to have helped the airline industry.
- betterunix2 8y ago
- caseysoftware 8y agoAnd think of it this way.. they went from zero to over 50k employees in two years. You don't get that by hiring the best and the brightest but by lowering the bar so far that as long as you're semi-literate and don't have a record of violent crimes, you're hired. I've flown ~100k miles each of the last few years and they're getting more arbitrary and few can point at the actual rules they're enforcing. And it's worth noting that they are agents and not officers which places them closer to bureaucrats than law enforcement.
- brownbat 8y agoI was pretty alarmed by the culture described by This American Life: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/647/ladonna https://www.thisamericanlife.org/647/ladonna Even if we were just erecting pure security theater, it'd be great if we could not build a refuge for pervasive sexual harassment or psychological abuse at the same time.
- ironic_ali 8y agoI remember reading not long after the TSA (operationgrabass?) started they were advertising on pizza boxes.
- andrewvc 8y agoI saw a guy in front of me at the airport get stopped for a water bottle after the scan. They said "you can't have anything on this list"... at which point he pulled a box cutter out of his carry on and asked "do you need this too"...
- barsonme 8y agoI once made it through TSA with a set of screwdrivers and razor blades (painted houses for a while) in my backpack. Noticed those in the hotel after I landed and they most definitely went in my checked bag on the trip home.
- twtw 8y agoSo, this statistic is a little bit incomplete. It's relatively easy for clever operators to sneak contraband past TSA, but the TSA does confiscate a lot of potentially edgy stuff from travelers' carry-ons: thousands of firearms (including loaded), knives hidden in deodorant, many pounds of black powder. So while it is easy to beat, the TSA screens do succeed at enforcing the most obvious violations to current regulations. Whether the signal (things that seem like they reasonably should be confiscated) to noise (toothpaste, water, nail clippers, pocketknives) is acceptable, I don't know.
- graeme 8y ago....but, the goal isn't catching violations of regulations. It's stopping actors with bad intent. There was no epidemic of "plane knife fights" or "accidental pistol discharge in planes". Catching incidental weapons that weren't going to be used for harm is basically zero value. All of the value comes from stopping people with bad intent from having weapons. If 95% of them can get through, then that's a very bad system. In other words, I don't think you've correctly identified signal vs noise.
- twtw 8y agoI disagree. The TSA has no mandate to determine intent - the organization was created to stop those with bad intent (and others) by enforcing regulations on all travelers. Maybe that isn't a good approach, and the high level goal is misaligned with the TSA's goal, but it is the current approach. There was no epidemic of plane hijacking, either. I have no data on the intent of people taking loaded firearms or black powder on planes (or knives in teddy bears, Saying that 95% of people with bad intent can get through is unsupported by the statistic OP linked. My point here is not that the TSA is great (I personally think it is pretty useless), but to suggest that single statistic is insufficient to demonstrate that the TSA is useless - you also need something indicating probably nothing bad would have happened had the TSA not confiscated all the currently banned stuff.
- graeme 8y agoThere absolutely was an epidemic of hijackings, in the 1970s. Then new laws were put in place banning weapons from planes. That's the system that was in place up until 9/11, and it was run by private airport security. The TSA was a response to that. But it wasn't the only conceivable response. Changes to private security screening rules would have been another option. The TSA isn't just there in a vacuum. And if people who try to sneak items past it can succeed, then its mandate isn't very effective. Part of why another 9/11 hasn't happened is that terrrorists know that people know that hijackings can be very deadly. So people wouldn't be so passive anymore. The 9/11 hijacking was done with box cutters. That feat couldn't be repeated again, even with box cutters on the plane. https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-egyptair https://www.vox.com/2016/3/29/11326472/hijacking-airplanes-e...
- goodcanadian 8y agoThere was airport security before September 11, 2001. The planes were hijacked with relatively mundane items. The reason the hijacks succeeded was not because of the weapons that got past security. It was because up until that point, the standard operating procedure was to cooperate with hijackers. By the time anybody realised that they were not "normal" hijackings, it was too late.
- iramiller 8y agoThe one change that actually made this problem go away was adding a secure door to the flight deck. A box cutter isn’t going to be a threat to pilots behind that door.
- throwawayyyy666 8y agoLand of the free, home of the brave /s Of course, next thing you know, besides the downvotes and the flag, the comments claiming Chine is worse, and Russia is worse, and Murrica #1 bullshit.
- jstanley 8y agoWhat is going on in the world? Why are governments bringing in authoritarian measures all the time? I don't get it. It can't always have been this way.
- saagarjha 8y agoIt’s always been this way. It’s always easier for governments to do x, y, z if they have more control over their citizens; it’s our job to make sure that there is a balance between losses of certain freedoms and the benefits that we can get by losing those liberties.
- diydsp 8y agoIncreased airport security allows nation states to defend themselves better from situations they create. e.g. the u.s. impinges on countries around the globe. we could never survive the blowback without strong border security. as partwise beneficiaries of the booty, we Americans are expected to endure the dangers of releasing our biometry. to answer your question, the u.s. used to be the oppressed... england left us well-enough alone when we rose up, and we were growing internally, not bombing six countries at once, like we are now. so no one hated us enough and we had little hate for immigrants- we wanted them to help us grow. but then WW2 happened and we sold our souls to Saudi Arabia for oil the grow. And simultaneously, the military industrial complex happened. thats how its been for three generations now and hardly anyone wants to pull out. yes there were many other terror operations between 1800 and 1940, but their side effects, without widespread media, couldn't be leveraged to stymy the citizenry.
- tumahimikka 8y ago>we had little hate for immigrants- we wanted them to help us grow. This is hilariously wrong. Almost every single immigrant group to the US has faced discrimination and backlash before being assimilated (if ever). Just because immigration has a net positive doesn't mean people liked it
- newnewpdro 8y agoOn a micro level, it could always be little better or worse than it is, more or less authoritarian, we can debate the details of the moment ad nauseum. On a macro level, the global population keeps growing ~exponentially on a finite planet. This inevitably results in loss of freedoms/liberty. You can see symptoms of this everywhere.
- sverige 8y agoThe idea of airport surveillance is itself dangerous, since "profiling" is prohibited. Either do it the way El Al does it (obsessively complete inspection of all persons boarding an aircraft) or forget it. Half measures don't accomplish the stated purpose and are only a means to population control, not for "security."
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- edoo 8y agoIf security was private the companies involved could do it however they wanted, including using AI to profile. The TSA was created not for security but to shield the airlines from liability, and also a bit as a jobs program. In those regards it is a success.
- dawnerd 8y agoAnd now the airlines and airports want private security. Go figure.
- Nasrudith 8y agoProfiling doesn't make it better - it just limits the inconvenience to a minority population. I mean that isn't new at all - there was already a 'terrorist attack swap' done between Japanese communists and Palestinian nationalist terrorist groups to dodge profiling. In 1972, the Lod Airport massacre. Not looking at the Japanese men's luggage in Israel wouldn't have helped them at all since they didn't fit the profile at all. The truth is the airport security is worse than useless because anyone who wants to kill a lot of people can just use guns, bombs, or vehicles through walls while people are in a dense area.
- solatic 8y agoWhich is why one of the conclusions that Israeli airport security had after the Lod Airport Massacre was for the need to profile people for anxiety and other psychological signs of attempting to evade security, plus other risk factors like young adult males traveling alone. Israeli airport security profiling policy hasn't taught racial profiling in decades.
- edoo 8y agoOne thing to consider is anything that the government is allowed to do will eventually be maximized by technology. The slightest allowed oppressions will be amplified exponentially. Since tech is going to serious amplify anything we do that makes the root principles all that more important.
- nimbius 8y agoif you think TSA is getting hard to handle with unreasonable surveillance, you havent taken a road trip lately. Riding my motorcycle from the east coast to the southwest I was stopped by "border patrol" at least 100 miles from any border I could see. After refusing to answer any questions, I was detained for an hour near the AZ border until agents could photograph my sugar skull patch and empty all my bags on the side of the road.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- swozey 8y agoI'm not sure if there are more than usual now but those of us in TX have dealt with interior checkpoints traveling anywhere near MX I'd say most of our lives. We go out of our way to take paths that avoid them. If you didn't know they existed it makes sense that they'd surprise you. I didn't know until moving to TX and going on aimless roadtrips in my Jeep, quite the surprise. And yeah, they'll harass the hell out of you. Everyone has some friend who was detained for something or other then released. That's why we avoid them if we're not actually going to MX. Specifically I remember a friend getting detained for an expired drivers license when he was just a passenger. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_interior_checkpoints https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Border_Patrol_in... edit: Evidently there are some near Canada as well, didn't know that.
- blattimwind 8y agoBorder checkpoints inside the country?
- cbkeller 8y agoThe article mentions that this push to collect biometric information is happening at the same time as biometric information is being used more frequently in device security. While I don't know if it's reasonable to think DHS is sufficiently organized and competent to actually put these two parts together w/r/t their "going dark problem", this is probably as good time as any to reiterate that as a best practice biometrics should only be used as username information, not password information.
- jwally 8y agoGiven that 9/11 style attacks have been mitigated with cockpit locks and guns are kept out with metal detectors what exactly are they trying to prevent?