You Have Been 'Randomly' Selected?

dpbsmith asks: "One thing I've noticed is that the people who are told by the TSA that they have been 'randomly' selected for baggage inspection have a tendency not to believe it. I know one couple whose wife has been 'randomly' selected four times, while the husband never has been. The wife believes that it is because each of those times, she was traveling by herself, without checked baggage, (whereas she has never been inspected when traveling with her husband with checked baggage). In 'Uncommon Carriers', John McPhee accompanied a truck driver to write about the experience, and bought a trucker's cap to blend in. He says 'I would pay for my freedom at the Seattle-Tacoma airport when, with a one-way ticket bought the previous day, I would arrive to check in my baggage.' His baggage was 'randomly' selected for inspection, and later he was 'once again "randomly selected" for a shoes-off, belt-rolled, head-to-toe frisk.' So, what about it? Is the TSA simply flat-out lying when they tell you that you have been 'randomly selected?'" The better question to ask is: "Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"

Comments

I think the question is:

[SB5]

Is profiling effective in keeping everyone safe?

"Random" searchs just means there will be an exact percentage of people that will get "randomly" searched. That would mean, if 10% of people were "randomly" searched, there would be 1 in 10 chance if you went through the security to getting searched.(Note: this is back of the napkin type style, without even a class in statistics or probability).

Would someone take that risk to getting "randomly" searched, especially if they knew the system was completely random. More than likely I would say yes, they are playing an odds game. Now the thing with "profiling" is will they do it even if they know certain passengers are profiled to get inspected. I think the answer will be a yes there too. Profiling might be the more inconvient method of selecting passengers for all passengers involved, but I bet its the more effective one. Random is just that, random, now random searches with profiled searches is going to the most effective.

Or at least I would imagine. I ain't no security person.

A couple of my post-9/11 travel experiences.

[Ritchie70]

I was in Orange County, CA for work. Round-trip ticket had been purchased maybe a week in advance. I got done early and wanted to get home, so I got on an earlier flight. Boarding pass had a bunch of printed SSSS on it. I got patted down and my carry-on searched. (I didn't have any checked luggage.)

I flew from Chicago O'Hare to Fargo, ND November or December of last year with a couple coworkers. We all made our own travel reservations, but there's only so many flights from Chicago to Fargo, so we were all on the same plane. One of us got his bag thoroughly searched (on the trip back, I think) but it was full of electronics and gagetry and probably looked crazy on the X-Ray machine. The other one got there and found a package of utility knife blades in his coat pocket. They had passed thru security completely undetected.