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TSA Lied About Protecting Passenger Data
wk633 writes "A report by Homeland Security Department Acting Inspector General Richard Skinner, said the agency misinformed individuals, the press and Congress in 2003 and 2004. It stopped short of saying TSA lied.
Bruce Schneier does say 'the TSA lied' on his blog." Scary stuff, and yet it's even scarier how little the general public has caught on.
The general public never catches on, it's normal.
That's what's really scary.
Nevertheless, most of the transfers that we reviewed were executed between parties bound by agreements forbidding additional sharing or disclosure of the passenger information. Of the more than 12 million records transferred, a passenger's data was inappropriately disclosed to the public in only one instance. In this instance, a government contractor's inappropriate disclosure of information was inadvertent.
So, because it was a government contractor and not the government itself I should be fine with the one slip up because the contractor just didn't have the proper amount of care necessary to carry out the task with the proper amount of security necessary?
Let me guess, the person who's information was divulged has little or no option of recourse against the contractor. Of course this report doesn't say anything about that. Will the contractor be used again? Why wasn't the contractor listed in the report so that everyone knows who they are. After all, they leaked someone's private info, I think the public should at least know that they shouldn't be dealt with at any time.
TSA's policy environment with respect to privacy has changed substantially since its inception. From its inception, TSA recognized personal privacy and confidentiality as important concerns. Especially in the immediate aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attacks, finding a balance between these concerns and transportation and aviation security was a difficult challenge.
There is no need for a balance. Regardless of the emergency state of the nation people's privacy should not take a back seat. We all know Ben Franklin's comment and it rings true here.
Regardless of passenger data sharing, lists of known problem individuals, etc, people are going to get on that plane and cause problems (whether directly or indirectly). We are always a step behind and trying to close holes that were used in the past. The terrorists will always find some hole we haven't closed because they haven't used it before.
Our weak attempts at ending terrorism do nothing but erode our freedoms and that's exactly what they want to have happen. Way to go!
Scary stuff, and yet it's evem scarier how little the general public has caught on.
They have caught on to what they were told to. They seriously believe that they are now safer that their privacy has been eroded. They are dazzled with big numbers and small reported incident numbers (i.e. how many people were affected by the Patriot Act).
People want to be told what to think. They want to be told they are safe and they will seriously believe they are. People who think otherwise are labeled "paranoid" and not worthy of belief. Only those that continually fill the heads of their citizens with spin are worthy of listening to. Who are we kidding? How is the public supposed to "catch on" when they are bombarded by government sponsored propaganda centered around the positive influence the TSA has had on airline safety? If we watched network-sponsored TV news we might have had a different view on the whole situation right? The government propaganda pieces looked and sounded quite legit as they were meant to. So the people that don't rely on personal research and news from multiple outlets really did believe the TSA was doing things in their best interests.
What I believe is scary is that people just shrug it off and say, "all administrations do these things." Perhaps, but this one was caught and you still don't care.
Is it really that hard to write out the name of the Acronyms at least once?
Transportation Security Administration (TSA) Lied about Protecting Passenger Data. Then you can talk about the TSA until you blue in the face. Is the BSA the Business Software Alliance or the Boy Scouts of America?
Sure we work with computer all the time and take Acronyms all the time and many are very complex.. CPU, RAM, ROM, GNU, etc... It is fine when you are talking about computer stuff. But when you start moving to government Acronyms or Business Acronyms, we should get a better description. Is PSC Play Station Console, Public Service Commission, or Pubic Safety Control? Please think before you start using acronyms especially in less geeky topics such as business, law, politics, governments, and non astronomy sciences. Even if it is geeky related if there is a change that a lot of people wont know what you mean please spell it out.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
yet another thing your typical slashdotter doesn't get. The general public DOESN'T CARE!! The TSA is doing 'a good thing', they are protecting us from all those nasty terrorists, and if you have a problem with what they are doing, what are you trying to hide?
What's "evem" more scarier is the Slashdot spell checker.
Honestly? The TSA is a bureacratic mess, they can levee fines against anyone they deam fit for any reason they see fit and don't even have to tell you why. You can't complain, you can't do anything about it. Yet, it is all done for your "safety."
Pardon me for not knowing, but TSA is mentioned many times in the article write-up and isn't once explained.
Cyde Weys Musings - Scrutinizing the inscrutable
So, the DHS Office of the Inspector General says in its own report that the TSA "misled" people about protecting passenger data, which is essentially saying they lied, we'll lambast them for not specifically saying "lied" and rally around a blogger (I don't care who it is) just because they use the word "lied"?
I don't get it.
No fucking way... I can't believe it.. the government would never lie...
Conclusions:
"Although we found no evidence of harm to individual privacy, TSA could have taken more steps to protect privacy. TSA did not consistently apply privacy protections in the course of its involvement in airline passenger data transfers. This inconsistency pertained to TSA's efforts in acquisitions, contract enforcement, and internal practice."
So no evidence was leaked but they could've done a better job.
And really...if someone lies, is this really newsworthy?
It is if it's not posted in the Politics section.
Even scarier is how the original poster thinks the general public can catch on to anything. This is the country where we need to put car seat instructions in 5th grade english so parents can understand them.
Aero News Net (ANN), a great daily news site for aviation, has been covering this as well.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
~Lake
I've said it before, and I'll say it again: as far as the US Government is concerned, especially since 9/11 and The Patriot Act, citizens have no expectation of privacy. If you think otherwise, you are deluding yourself. People keep saying, "Oh, the government will never lie to me. They are required to protect privacy." As if. The government will tell you what you want to hear to passify you, and when found out will either flush things down the Memory Hole or give you a nice 'mea culpa' and continue doing the same thing.
As far back as 1995 Ellen Alderman and Caroline Kennedy wrote in The Right To Privacy that our rights, especially those under the Fourth Ammendment, were slowly being eroded.
But as another poster said, the bulk of the American population don't know, and more importantly, don't care.
I personally spoke with a large software firm about this very issue -- how can such a system keep the false positives low to nill while catching the ocassional needle or two in a very large haystack, and they waffled on the question. Considering the number of terrorists are extremely small with regards the rest of the population, how can you possible have enough data to be statistically significant? Again, they waffled on the question, giving a half-baked "executive response" rather than anything concrete.
The real truth is we are far more likely to die in a car crash than to die at the hands of a would-be terrorist. Yet, billions are being poured into Homeland Insecurity and the TSA efforts, and what do we have? High false positive rates, millions of needlessly harrased travelers, and it's hard to get a fix on the false negative rates since terrorists are so rare to begin with.
In short, the entire approach makes no sense.
But try explaining this to the general public, who tend to be dumb as boards when it comes to basic statistics and probabality.
90% of the public is simply unable to think, but merely jumps from one belief pattern to another. That my friends is the problem.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
My big question: how can it do any good to train an expert system to recognize terrorists, when all the sample data is by definition from non-terrorists? I mean, there were no terrorist actions on any Jet Blue flights in that time frame. This data is useful as "known negatives" in the test for terrorists, but where do they get the data for "known positives" to train the system?
I worked for the TSA for over a year and a half. I was a god-damned screener -- I was checking passengers and baggage both. I have little respect for most of the other screeners and for the management. (Did you know the hiring process was little more than "first-come-first-served" and that people were hired before background checks were complete? They didn't even check resumes much of the time! People were placed in management roles at the age of 18! Their last job at a burger joint! This is a no-shitter!) But enough of that. The TSA is also filled with a lot of well-meaning people who really want to do a good job. But I have yet to detect deceit in any of the people I have encountered regardless of how high in rank. I am honestly shocked.
Well, I think it is on his resume actually.
"I am participating in a working group to help evaluate the effectiveness and privacy implications of the TSA's Secure Flight program."
I think things like the TSA are Osama's greatest victory over the US. What better way to destroy a free republic with much greater strength in arms but to dismantle its own liberty from within? Make the people afraid, knowing that their leaders will erode rights and freedoms all in the name of security.
One of the major instruments of the ruling political class is to divide and distract public opinion with intense moral-laden debate about subjects that in most other countries are treated as private matters.
Morality-driven debate is such a powerful tool because you can, by fine-tuning the argument, get a balanced 50-50 split on just about any subject.
And so, we get the endless debates about gay weddings, about living wills, about abortion, about the "theory" of evolution, about the role of religion in public structures, and so on.
Meanwhile debate about subjects that in any open democracy would make the front pages, would bring millions onto the streets, and would topple presidents... almost totally absent.
The general public does not debate the role of the state, the yawning chasms in the democratic process, the boom in military spending, gerrymandering, government-sponsored TV "news", political prisoners, torture, the corruption of every agency meant to protect the public, the environment, the economy into an agency designed to exploit and abuse...
Give the plebians bread, and circuses, and you can pretty much do what you like.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
The public does not catch on, because it does not want to know. They wrap every little problem with euphemism and hope for the best. Hence the patriot act II and beyond.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Is Slashdot vouching for the fact that the TSA lied? One investigation says it didn't, and one individual says it did.
The investigation said that the TSA claimed to have privacy precautions in place when, in fact, it didn't.
Even if the investigation didn't use the word -- how is that not lying?
The general public doesn't want a democracy. It wants a group of people to solve all their problems. Protects us from these bad men. Give us free food because I don't want to work. Keep my comunity safe from drugs.
The government doesn't want a democracy. It wants a group of people to let them decide everything. To take their protection from percieved threats. To give them tax money because they don't want to work. To keep comunities safe from drugs so people will work and pay taxes.
The truth is usually quite simple. Real governments exists to serve themselves as much as the people.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
THIS IS A RANT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
What the fuck is all this rhetoric about "the general public" not realizing their rights are being trampled and billions of their dollars are being wasted on the TSA?
Who the fuck are you, and what are you doing about it? YOU are the general public, assholes. All you are doing is whining on Slashdot about how goddamned smart you are compared to everyone else because _you_ really know how inept the TSA is, and no one else is clever enough to figure this out.
WTF?? Put up or shut up. Do something about the problem, or simply shut the fuck up.
This is just bullshit from people who aren't doing a damn thing except following the herd to slaughter while marching meekly to their deaths, self-righteously proclaiming their outrage louder than the next.
Well, folks, when the guys with funny helmets turn up at the gates on their little horses and the government turns out to have done a runner, don't say you weren't warned.
Oh, actually it just turns out that a government agency was doing what government agencies do all the time. I apologise for the wild exaggeration. So now please put down the Taser and let me get on the goddam airplane.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
While we're on the subject of that, why do they not let nail clippers through security, but let you take glass bottles on to the plane?
I'm not saying Osama hates us for our freedom. I am saying that he is using the most effective technique for weakening our country being that he cannot defeat us with military might. His motivations are immaterial to the point I'm trying to get across, please don't pollute it with your politics.
The lie being that if the US government spend loads of money on checking on people who come into the country by air, this will have any effect on terrorists at all? As I see it, the known terrorists would all be planners, the operatives aren't expected to last long anyway (life expectancy as a human bomb is not good). So, unless you have some way to identify a person, who has never been heard of before, as a fanatic, you have no hope of catching anybody this way. Even then, terror operations can take weeks or months to plan and execute, whats to stop them from coming in via Mexico for example? So if the people involved in it lie, are you surprised?
I might not be a wit, but at least I am more than half way there.
President Bush has been running a huge fraud. The ultimate opportunist, he exploited the 2001 planebombings to invade the totally unrelated country of Iraq, though now selling F15s to our "allies" in Pakistan, whose intelligence agency backed Qaeda's takeover of Afghanistan, while distributing stolen nuke tech to Libya, N. Korea, and Iran. He has been running a vast police state that tortures and kills people rounded up on circumstantial suspicion, holding them for years without even charging them or any due process, without producing any results. He's produced gigantic laws based on known lies and elaborate fictions, from the false Saddam/Osama connection through the need for violating Americans' Constitutional rights to capture Osama - where is he? Lying about WMDs to terrorize Americans and Congress into invading, his dereliction of security has bred an actual armed threat in a postapocalyptic state in Iraq, as former conventional military bases are looted by a predictabel international convention of the usual bad guys.
I'm old enough to remember when Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about a blowjob. Bush has lied about a war that has killed thousands of Americans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, hundreds of our allies, and gets worse every day - counter to all their lies about brevity and local support. If ever there were a "high crime and misdemeanor", it's sending us to a disastrous war on a series of lies. Where are the Republican cries for presidential "dignity" and "integrity"? Let's impeach this monster immediately, for treason. Before he does any more irreparable damage.
--
make install -not war
>The real truth is we are far more likely to die in a car crash than to die at the hands of a would-be terrorist. Yet, billions are being poured into Homeland Insecurity and the TSA efforts, and what do we have? High false positive rates, millions of needlessly harrased travelers, and it's hard to get a fix on the false negative rates since terrorists are so rare to begin with.
More people in the United States were killed in traffic accidents in September 2001 than were killed in terrorist attacks in the same month. That is also true of August 2001, October 2001, and all subsequent months. The difference is that the figures for terrorism deaths in all of thase other months is zero. (2001 deaths =42,900)The thing stopping airliner takeovers is the passengers willingness to take on the terrorists as in the Pennsylvania hijacking. TSA is there to comfort the rubes who fly once every five years. It also provides jobs for those who can't hack it at McDonald's.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
Well, you can be certain that that policy will
not be allowed to continue - thanks for pointing
that out to the TSA.
In the past, the TSA has allowed passengers to
carry butane lighters on-board planes, as well
as books of matches. Someone pointed out that
if the British "shoe-bomber" had had the number
of butane lighters allowed, that plane would
never have made it across the Atlantic Ocean.
That policy has been changed.
The Dubya regime has been far too busy trying to
convince the public that they are more secure now,
rather than doing what it really takes to do so.
No doubt, the TSA has a plan drawn up for air
passengers to disrobe and don paper hospital gowns
and slippers, just for added "security". All this
while air cargo goes largely unchecked, seaports
go largely unchecked, borders remain porous, and
none of the airport ground crews pass through the
same security measures as the passengers.
I am not impressed by the PR campaign that passes
for genuine security improvements. It's called
"feel good" politics, and it little more than a
soap bubble in the wind. But when the terrorists
do strike again, the current regime will claim
that they have done everything in their power
to avert the disaster. (NOT!)
In order for a government to make the common man depend on it, it needs to give the common man an arch enemy. It used to be the Kaiser, communists, drug dealers, and now it's terrorists.
When the common man doesn't have an absolute enemy to fear, he'll tend not to depend on the government as much. Of course this isn't in the lawmakers best interest.
Keep your dependents living in fear and they'll always remain your dependents.
I have an obviously foreign name, and my luggage was searched two in a row for the last two times that I travelled. They put in a "notice of baggage inspection" slip in my bag. Now, the fact that they were searched wasn't a problem. The problem is that last August, they (1) delayed one luggage for a more thorough search, and (2) when I finally got my luggage, my $300 minidisc player/recorder was missing. The minidisc player was kept in a soft pouch; the pouch was stored inside a hand bag, which sit inside the luggage. They apparently opened the hand bag, pulled out the contents, found the minidisc player/recorder and found it convenient to transfer it to the inspector's own pocket.
..."
Now, I tried to contact TSA and it wasn't helpful. The phone number they provided, (866) 289-9673, always responded with a busy tone. I e-mailed the airline, United Airlines, and they never got back to me. Maybe I was too cynical. I told them I don't think an innocuous little device like my minidisc player is a threat to airline safety.
But it is funny if you think about it. TSA steals my stuff and put a slip saying "we did it." Then the fact that there is no where to complain is like them saying to me, "nanner nanner nanner
I once had a signature.
it was just released yesterday that FOIA requests have released official documents showing the Saudis were shipped out of the USA when noone else could fly right after 9/11 by the FBI.
...
Sigh, don't you hate it when the conspiracy theorists are right
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Can't you just picture it? He's there shovelling chips into the fryers in Burger King, or sitting behind the refunds desk in PC World, with his beard and his "Hello My Name Is Osama" badge, and everyone says "Hahaha, you look *just like* Osama bin Laden, too" and he laughs and pretends like he's never heard that joke before, and gobs in their coffee or charges them a double restocking fee.
And you can make a knife using metal epoxy and a piece of posterboard. Fold the posterboard in half, pour in the epoxy, hold two minutes (presumably in the restroom), boom, knife. Hopefully not epoxied to your hand. Alternately, use the folds of one of those innumerable pamplets they have at the airport.
Granted, it has a non-straight blade and no handle, but is very sharp, and you could certainly hold it to someone's throat.
Of course, I think he's failed to notice you can make a knife from a CD by snapping it in half, if you don't mind flying shards of plastic going everywhere. Wear eyeglasses for that one.
Trying to keep the class of 'sharp objects you can use to hurt people' from existing on an airplane is idiotic. We've got hundreds of thousands of years experience with sharp objects, often with using them against other people.
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
I had my digital camera stolen from checked luggage by these people! I accept that I am partially at fault but packing it in luggage in the first place. Still, it should not be defacto assumption that my items will be stolen by the same people that are checking for BOMBS and WEAPONS in luggage! If these people are engaged in petty theft, what's to stop these same people from accepting $10,000 to PLANT a foreign object into someones bag??? And I'm not basing my opinion solely on my own experience. After some research, I found that theft complaints went up after TSA started checking bags! If they can't even do simple background checks on their own employees, how can anyone feel safe???
This is the government that Americans trust with a significant portion of their retirement (Social Security), their railroad system (Amtrak), their postal system (USPS), education, law enforcement, and so on?
Bill Clinton lied (about sex w/ Monica), Bush Jr. lied (about WMDs in Iraq), the FBI lied in a secret court (to get wiretaps), the TSA lied (about protecting passenger privacy)... where does it end? (especially given the record of older agencies like the FBI and CIA lying to the public)
At least when Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers lie, their companies go bankrupt and they (at least in Ebbers case, most likely, though probably Ken Lay too eventually) go to prison.
But when government fails, what happens? Generally, nothing.
Mod me as troll/flamebait/overrated now for not promoting heavy doses of socialism (a necessary precondition for a large government to exist, so it can accomplish such abuses as this one)...
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
It seems that all these "security" policies are about the "perception" of security and not about actual security. Geesh, they were even collecting fingernail clippers from people visiting the Statue of Liberty....
Even with all the holes in the original CAPPS system, WHAT were they actually looking for? After all, it flagged most of the hijackers. Then NOTHING resulted from that with regard to actually securing the aircraft. The easily opened cockpit doors also begged to question of how intelligent our security "experts" really are. I've only flown first class a few times but I remember my first time. When they closed the cockpit door and blocked my view of the instruments, I thought how silly it was since that door was so flimsy. This was the early 90's... People already knew about crashing airplanes to impart more damage beyond that of the aircraft and it's occupants.
All and all, when you look at they foibles of our security systems before Sept 11, 2001, you actually see a system which surprisingly flagged most of the hijackers AND exposed their plan. What else you see is how badly that information was handled. Somehow, this was taken to mean that massive changes in the management of all the existing security departments was required.... It's like a bad wheel bearing is causing vibrations in the car and the owner of the service station tells you to replace the car.
Bin Laden may have started the ball rolling, but WE are doing a great job at really messing up this country. What next, putting the 10 Commandments in front of every government building to help improve security?
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Beating a dead horse:
Yeah, I'm sure some of you have magical instant-loading PDF viewers of some sort, but for those of us stuck on sluggish Windows machines using the incredibly-slow-to-load, lock-up-my-computer-while-it's-loading, Adobe Acrobat Reader...
could we please add a [PDF] warning to links to PDFs?
It may not be *quite* as bad as goatse, but it still merits a warning...
here's the link about the FBI lying about shipping the Saudis out, thanks to a post deeply embedded somewhere else.
Registration, sadly, is required to read it.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Your argument uses a logical fallacy, and therefore is moot. By implying that polygamy is bad, you are appealing to social tradition, which is not a correct means of persuasion. If someone can provide for two or more families, and the two wives can get along with one another, who am I and, more importantly, who are you to question their decisions? It's not like a dude with two successful families is going to screw up society any more than a deadbeat dad who leaves his kids' well-being to be picked up by state welfare agencies.
I know this is going to negate any semblance of logical argument, but besides, two extremely cool wives would virtually ensure a threesome every night, and the good kind on top of that!
"No beer until you finish your tequila!" -Leela's Dad
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
they could give us some chocolate or movie tickets in exchange for our personal information. Then it wouldn't seem so evil...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton