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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?"
There's two seperate questions here:
If 'enough' random searches are done then I expect they would be effective. Clearly, it is unresonable to search everybody so it's a trade-off between cost, time and hastle. The exact number of searches you conduct will depend precisely on how you way up these trade-offs. It will also depend on how much training your provide to the people conducting the searches.
I believe that profile-driven searches are flawed. The flaw is that the attacker can always avoid the profile you're trying to detect. For example, if I profile for young Muslim men with turbans the attacker can simply pick disaffected white middle-class women. Sure, such people are hard to come by but it is fool-hardy to suggest that they do not exist.
Profiling by race and religion flies in the face of everything we've struggled to achieve in the last century. I think it was Martin Luther King who said:
Those words transcend race, religion and colour. We should not judge because a man reads the Koran any more than we should judge because he is Black. Muslims are not terrorists. To quote another great mind, master Yoda:
There's already a dark cloud gathering. The question is how dark can it get?
Simon.
It's simple really. The TSA has their risk model based on various factors such as race, ticket purchase habits, slow/fast day at the airport, etc. Each criteria that's met increases the chances of you getting 'randomly' selected. It's still technically random, just not uniformly random.
An even better question to ask is why you bother asking. Everybody already knows that the TSA's purpose is not to keep you safe, but to intimidate and harrass you. Whatcha gonna do about it, freedom boy? Sue the government? Ha ha ha. Like that's ever going to happen. Like you have a snowball's chance in hell of winning.
Sometimes people get picked multiple times -- that's how random distribution works.
For example, I've been randomly selected as a finalist in the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes almost every year. What are the odds?!?!
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I've only ever been randomly selected when travelling by myself.
I have never been randomly selected when I was travelling with my wife and two screaming children.
Perhaps they don't want to deal with my wife's reaction. This would be wise.
Perhaps they believe that I wouldn't want to blow up a plane with my own children on it. This would be foolhardy.
Last time we flew, back in May, we flew UK-US with BA, then took a side-trip to the Bahamas with Delta. When we checked in for the Bahamas flight, the check-in agent wanted to take my green visa waiver form from my passport. I explained that I'd asked the US immigration agent when we'd arrived and he'd said I could keep it on the trip to the Bahamas and use it for re-entry to the US. The check-in agent wasn't happy, but let me keep it. However, my boarding pass bore the dreaded SSSS marker and I duly got the full wanding, bag search etc. My wife did't get selected.
Funnily enough, on checking in at Nassau, my pass had the SSSS stamp too, but no-one batted an eyelid at it, and I didn't get any security checking different from that which my wife or anyone else around got.
I flew over to the US from Europe a few weeks ago. Six flights overall, three to California and three back.
I got "randomly" selected three times out of these six flights. In addition to this, my (checked-in) bag was "accidentally" delayed before being loaded onto the plane, and the flight attendant had to come and ensure that I was onboard before the "delayed" bag was brought onboard, just before landing (which was delayed due to my bag).
I'm mid-20s, with an Arab-sounding name, not married, travel a lot (including Eastern Europe), didn't carry a lot of baggage (I was only visiting for a couple of days).
Every time they told me they "randomly" selected me for inspection, I smiled and let them do their thing.
"Random" selection is profiling under a PC name. Of course they profile people. And of course they won't tell you that they do. Before travelling to the US, I was thinking about how suspicious I may appear and how many times they would search me, dig through my luggage and ask me questions. Surprise, surprise, they did it. Three times.
I have a large camouflage pattern duffel bag that I've been traveling with over the last two years. Every time I arrive at my destination I find one of those long TSA slips in my bag informing me that it was randomly selected for search. In over twelve trips with this bag, it has never NOT been 'randomly' selected. I don't care if my bag is searched, but it makes me wonder how realistic it is to expect a camouflage bag to more of a risk than some other bag.
My point is, I expect it. But random? Yeah, right.
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Back in june I took 4 flights, 2 within the US and 2 to/from the US, in the space of a week. I was randomly selected in only one of these, flying from Dulles to SeaTac - that time I had missed a connection flight and had a standby boarding pass, not sure if it had anything to do.
Anyway, after the metal detector I was informed that I had been selected for additional screening. I was briefly stopped in a funny looking box with a red sign, less than 30 secs later a guard took me to behind the metal detector lines. My hand luggage, shoes and jacket were carefully inspected, I was checked with a metal detector wand, and then I was on my way. The whole process must have taken about 5 minutes and didn't cause me a single inconvenience.
Even though I'm caucasian, I'm from south america, so I could cry "I was targeted because I come from a third world country". I didn't. I also didn't notice people looking at me like I was doing something wrong. Essentially, this was routine, no different than going through the metal detector itself or the brief questions by the immigrations officer. I guess you'll say "that's how it starts" or that it's a matter of principle, but what's the big deal with this?
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You know, next time I fly, I'm going to make sure to pack items I know would embarass the hell out of the inspector should I be "randomly" inspected. Then I'd really look forward to them opening my bags up, and would be disappointed to not be selected. I'd just sweetly smile with a barely contained smirk and confidentally make some sort of smart-ass remark about joining the one-person mile-high club in the bathroom. ;-)
Oh, I look forward to embarassing any airline dummy who wants ot inspect my stuff!
It's a girl!
Also, there's the fact that you can't tell who's Muslim just by looking at them.
Agreed 100%. There are muslims of pretty much all ethnic groups. It'd be the simplest thing for them to hang up a cross on their neck and stuff a bible on their pockets. Racial profiling wouldn't do much good there.
It might be a fluke, but whenever I tried to board a plane with a 3 or 4 days beard, I was "randomly" selected for further inspection (including swabbing my luggage for drugs at the destination, go figure). Whenever I go clean shaven, I pass right thru. I havent' flown that much so, as I said, it might be a fluke.
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That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?
The whole mentality behind searching people to get on a airplane promotes false security. We can't even stop weapons in our prisons, and we will NEVER be able to stop deadly weapons on airplanes.
What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us, instead of trying to prevent the few who do from being able to. "They" will always be able to, especially with increasingly cheap and effective technology.
As much as I'd like to confirm the presense of some formula I definitely cannot. I have screened people and baggage in every way. I will say that as far as baggage goes, have a look at your tags and the tags of those around you. You're likely to see a difference. Same goes for boarding passes... do a little comparison.
I don't pretend to know how the process works or what the criteria may be, but I can offer some advice:
1. Just go through with it... plan on it. It's about as annoying as a traffic jam.
2. The air carriers have more to do with the "selection" process than the TSA does. (I'm 90% certain of that) So take your bitches and complaints up with the airline... they just might put you on a white list somewhere if you threaten to give your money to another "almost bankrupt carrier." They can't afford to lose your business... none of them can.
To expound upon that, if "the people" want all this crap to get better, start complaining where the money moves, not with congress, not with the president and not with the TSA. (True, there's money there, but the influencial money starts with the air carriers.) If people start complaining enough and changing airlines, they'll listen.
You can think about it in terms of game theory.
An important concept in game theory is the mixed strategy. That is where you randomise over certain choices because it is optimal to do so to prevent your pattern of play being anticipated and counteracted by your opponent. (Consider a game of matching pennies - you choose heads or tails and reveal it simultaneously to your opponent. If they match you win, if they don't your opponent winds. The optimal strategy is to randomly pick 50/50 heads and tails. Skillful players of games in general are ones that can a) randomise themselves properly, and b) exploit the fact that their opponents don't randomise properly)
Thus, in the case of 'random' searches it needs to be random to ensure that the searching strategy can't be circumvented. But that doesn't mean that the odds of every given person being selected need to be the same. For example, if it is much harder for terrorists to convince mothers with young children to become scuicide bombers that means that they are less likely to do so or, completely dispasionately, if they do there will be fewer terrorist attacks because they have fewer volunteers. This would still be better than the alternative. Importantly, for the discussion here it is provably optimal to do this.
Thus, an optimal screening strategy is random, but the probability of selection need not be uniform.
(And a statistics aside: even though the chance that someone who flies 4 times gets selected every time would seem to be 1/10000 - if they individual odds are 1/10 - given that over 10,000 people fly, you are almost guaranteed that someone will be selected 4 times in a row.)
Have you ever spoken to these so called "innocent" Americans? Pretty much all the ones I know seem really rational until the topic of Terrorism comes up and then they basically say they support Torture, Random wars and stripping everyone of their rights. America gets most of their support from these so-called "innocent" Americans. Frankly, I have no sympathy. If American culture is so great, why aren't these people living in one of the many American countries in the world?
That's odd. Where's a naked guy going to hide explosives?
Do you really want to know that?
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Now THAT would be an awesome addition to the Slashdot moderation system!
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I used to work at a major airline. Not at the ticket counter but I was there enough to figure out random means a profile. The profile has nothing to do with you the person. It appears to be a weighted average of what someone believes might seperate you from the average person. Last minute ticket, one way, no checked in baggage, do not fly often, paid with cash, part of a group that all did the same, many tickets for different people on one credit card, flying alone blah blah blah. I guess if they use such parameters that does qualify as a profiling but you the person are not being profiled, your habit or events that lead to your ticket purchase seemed to fit someones idea of what a terrorist might do as well.
Is this effective? I have no idea, some of those parameters might but they are easy to alter as well and a lot of those above are done by real every day Joes as well. That is why every day Joe gets those random checks as well. I doubt anyone outside the TSA really knows exactly what they look at to determine who might be a risk or how effective it really is.
Insurance companies profile as well. 16-24 year old male? You pay the highest rates regardless of your driving record. That age sets off a flag that you are of the highest percentage of unsafe drivers. Own a home or have a 4.0 GPA? You get lower rates then the person that does not own a home or is the sick in school. They have determined through profiling that home owners and kids that buckle down in school are more responsible and less likely to be involved in an accident.
Don't act so suprised that the TSA/NSA/FBI and what ever other 3 letter law enforment types think they can profile as well. Is this passenger profile thing worse then truely random? I have no idea. If you do not meet what ever criteria they are looking for, I guess you would have a less chance of being picked at random assuming they only pick a certain percentage of people overall. If they pick a certain percentage of truely random people AND pick people that meet a certain profile then profiling is not worse then random.
What we need to do is come to the realization that the ONLY way to make technically fragile public transit work is to promote an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us,
Like the Germans, French and Spanish did. That worked out really well for them, didn't it?
This whole "I'd like to teach the world to sing... in perfect harmony" mentality is the kind of thing that will get us killed.
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The guy does so, then looks at me and offers to move me to a window seat. I say, "Sounds good" and hand back the boarding pass I've already received. Sure enough, the one I get back has a bunch of S's drawn on it. I get the VIP treatment at security, of course.
So, was that question really a big terrorist tipoff or something? Or did I just irritate the guy a bit and he decided to have some fun with me? And either way, am I supposed to feel safer?
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You're absolutely right, not protecting ourselves against known threats would be suicidal.
On the other hand, doing provocative, stupid things that are guaranteed to turn otherwise friendly or neutral people into our enemies is equally suicidal.
The whole "fuck what everybody thinks, we'll keep ourselves secure through military force alone" mentality is based on the assumption that we have the physical ability to do so. The hard truth, however, is that that simply isn't the case -- our military can barely keep the lid on Iraq, let alone any of the other 3-4 dozen countries where terrorism is a concern. Our only option is to enlist the aid of the rest of the world's governments and people in helping us stop terrorism. The good news is that that shouldn't be too difficult to do -- almost nobody likes terrorists. But to work with people (or governments), you have to treat them with respect -- in particular, you have to understand that it's a two-way street. Double-standards do not go unnoticed by the world's public.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
"If you really consider that terrorism." What the hell? Honestly, what definition of the term do you use, such that McVeigh doesn't qualify?
The analogy from the talking head also fails to make sense, because we're not looking for the nineteen guys who executed the September 11th hijackings. We already know what happened to them, and they're beyond the reach of our justice. What we're looking for are people who might be attempting to do something similar. A less superficial analogy would have your one-armed bank robber cracking his skull open on the sidewalk as he exited the bank, and having the bank respond by demanding all people with missing limbs undergo a background check before opening a checking account.
There are a dozen reasons why racial profiling is counterproductive. My primary objection is that it feeds the belief among many Muslims that the "War on Terror" is really a war on Islam, and as such it makes even moderate Muslims more inclined to be our enemies than our allies.
But even if we ignore that it may be creating new potential attackers, it's ineffective at thwarting a given attack. First, there is the fact that whatever profile you select, the attackers will be able to learn how not to match the profile, even if that requires skin lightener, fake IDs, and voice training. More likely, though, the attackers would look for someone who sympathized with the cause, but didn't fit the profile. Beyond that, a focus on skin color is going to distract from more useful indicators, like behavior. Given the choice between screening the scruffy Arab and the white businessman, I'd search the one who is shaking and sweating like the proverbial whore in Sunday School.
In the end, the best way to avoid another September 11 is not to seek out and destroy those who hate us, or to closely scrutinize every person who reminds us of someone who hated us in the past. We can't lock down the 'bad guys' to the point where the 'good guys' are completely safe, because there is no such clear distinction, and we're in danger of losing our freedom as we make the attempt. Consider that it won't be remotely possible to secure every conceivable vector of attack. If we lock down air travel, our buses are still vulnerable. If we stop everyone from buying explosives and their precursors, they can fall back on our abundant firearms. If we protect our stadiums, they can go after malls, hospitals, dams, etc. Targeted assassinations, random arson, destruction of fiber optic cables and power lines... and that's leaving out the scenarios where something manufactured abroad is snuck into the country.
No, our best defense is to reduce the number of people who passionately hate us, and are willing to act on their anger. Killing them doesn't work--not on the scale that any reasonable person is willing to contemplate--because even the people who hate us are still people, people with families and friends who will learn hate as they watch us butcher their loved ones.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
EX TSA here
If you buy a one way ticket, you were not randomly selected, If you buy your ticket at the last moment you were not randomly selected. If you did one of the many unknown "bad" things you were not randomly selected.
The airlines ticketing system is set up to flag certain actions, and prints out that line of SSSSSSS on your ticket and you get extra screening... nothing random about it.
Random screening happens when the screener at the walk through metal detector sees that one of the people running the hand held detectors are not searching anyone so whoever is next is sent that way. Or when the screener searching bags out of the X-Ray machine finishes a bag, they just grab the next bag out of the machine and search that.
So random in this case comes from just keeping the screeners busy.
Well one morning i was on a 6am flight and I hadnt had any coffee and I was 'randomly' searched for the billionth time. I kind of flipped out and asked the TSA people why the hell I was always searched. They calmly turned me around and showed me the back of the metal detector. Your response on the detector is zero to four indicated by 4 lights lighting up or not. When you walk through you will notice the guy/gal looking up above you at these lights. A big chunk of metal will get an obvious '4' and the thing will beep etc. But a 2 or 3 just means you have a bit more metal than usual and they will then ask you to step aside. Now heres the kicker, the response is higher based on how close you are to the detector so fat and tall people naturally set off a higher signature. Im 6'4 so they said I will always ring up a higher response, hence I get 'randomly' searched. Now i duck when i go through the detector and have not been pulled aside once since then. Hooray.
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No matter how thin you slice it, its still baloney.
I get "randomly" selested for "special attention" EVERY time I have flown in the last 5 or so years. I'm a 6'1" large, bearded guy. I have also had a Federal Firearms Liscence and had Concealed Handgun Permits in several states. Coincident? I think not.
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How is this comment insightful? Please explain this more. I see this comment is driven by the fundamentalist, black -n- white mentality that drives most of the current insanity.
First, you are fear mongering: using single incidents and news reports to support statements about whole nations.
Second, you are ignoring that there is a wide and available gap between peace and appeasement.
Our options are not just "appease" or "war" - there is a huge middle ground. It used to be called "diplomacy".
When I say "an atmosphere where people do not want to attack us" - don't assume that only can occur because they love us - just that others don't hate us SO MUCH they are willing to die for their cause. Everyone living in peace and love would be great (but to get there we need to eliminate property entirely) - and we should shoot for that, but it's not feasible in the short term. There are lots of ways to get to the place where people don't want to attack you. It takes a LOT of fear and hate and misery to get a group of people who are so downtrodden and lost they resort to suicide bombing.
I flew an awful lot (60-80% of my work time spent out of the office) prior to 9/11. After 9/11, when that job went belly-up, I quit traveling for business and now fly only occasionally for recreation or family needs.
My pre-9/11 experience: Often flights would be delayed. When the rest of us were seated, three or four embarrassed-looking businessmen (and yes, they were always men) would board. Their carry-ons would sport vivid orange stickers. Their common bond would be that they were not-white. They might be Black (from Africa or here--who knows), Arab, Asian, Indian (from India) or from some other not-white ethnic group. They were the ones selected for the "random" luggage checks. Only once do I recall a white person being pulled aside. It was a woman. While she was nice-looking (clean, well-dressed, middle aged, not wild-eyed), her carry on bag was a mess. I recall a hair dryer and lots of electrical wires sticking out of the top. She, too, boarded late sporting the orange sticker.
Post 9/11 I had an experience of my own. Summoned to a distant city on an emergency basis, I needed to board a plane, go fetch an elderly relative, and drive the person back to my home. That meant a one-way ticket and no checked bag; I had only a knapsack with some overnight things. I'm a white woman. I was pulled quickly from the line, thoroughly patted down by a female attendant, and had my bag gone through very thoroughly. They also wanted to chat a bit about the reasons for my trip. I didn't get an orange sticker, and I didn't make the plane late.
To me, the "random searches" were a rather odious form of profiling based on the not-whiteness of the person's complexion. They may not have been called "profiling," but that's what they were. The pre-9/11 white woman had a carry-on that made everybody suspicious, and I can't blame the security folks for wanting a closer look. As for myself, I fit a pattern that obviously set off alarms--no return ticket, no checked bag. They probably check everybody who fits that pattern regardless of their ethnicity or gender. I didn't find it too objectionable.
There has to be a way to do this without profiling people on their looks.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
"Are random searches effective in keeping everyone safe?"
Random searches wouldn't have stopped the 9/11 terrorists. They used box cutters to threaten lives, but if such searches had been in place they would have used dental floss garrotes or their bare hands for the same purpose. Several times people have successfully defeated the searches just to prove it could be done and do not prevent even untrained citizens from bringing contraband on planes.
Random searches are not effective in keeping us safe. What they are effective at is lulling the public into accepting routine violation of their constitutional rights under the guise of protection. Back in the 80s, during the cold war, the paranoid and abusive treatment of travelers by the USSR due to "national security" concerns was properly seen as proof of a fascist government and held up for scorn and ridicule. How sad it is that we have allowed the destruction of a few buildings and loss of 3030 lives to turn us into what we fought against. Something several wars with much higher losses both economic and human failed to do. Many free and democratic nations suffered repeated terrorist violence before 9/11 but did not allow it to warp their societies. In contrast we have sacrificed our rights as citizens and our values as a country in response to a single attack and promote such sacrifices of rights and values by our allies.
The random searches and other intrusive treatment of passengers has not resulted in the conviction of many (any?) terrorists, but it has endoctrinated millions to accepting treatment they would not have tolerated previously. In pursuit of physical safety, we have sacrified liberty. A libertarian might say that the undefined risk of pre-9/11 security was less objectionable than the daily violation of the rights of tens of millions of citizens that takes place under post-9/11 security. It is worth thinking about.
Period. My father works for a major carrier, and he's flat out told me and I have personally experienced, that if someone buys a one-way ticket, it raises a red flag. If you don't check any luggage, it raises a flag. If your name is a close match to the 'watch' list, it raises a red flag. Yes there might be some 'random' searches, but many of them are conducted as a result of a profile that was established soon after 9-11. This even applies to buddy pass riders, and family of airline employees. Since I've been profiled because of my race since second grade (told my parents I was a behavioral problem and should be in a Behavioral Handicapped class, even though I hardly spoke in class), stopped by police numerous times for no other reason than DWB (a special F-U goes out to the Claremont, CA police), and in general thought to be up to no good if I'm in the 'wrong' place at the 'wrong' time, all I can say to the rest of the population that thought that it was at one time exempt from being profiled for whatever reasons, welcome to reality(tm).
like a man without arms, you can't hang......
>The hard truth, however, is that that simply isn't the case -- our military can barely keep the lid on Iraq, let alone any of the other 3-4 dozen countries where terrorism is a concern.
Make no mistake: Our military is quite capable of dealing with Iraq, or just about any other nation on earth.
The problem lies in that no one has the stomach for really turning them loose to do just that, and thanks to the speed of modern news networks, no one can get away with Dresdens or Hiroshimas anymore.
Steve
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Once you realize this, then the practice of profiling makes perfect sense -- you pull aside the people that you think the other passengers are nervous about, and you search them. The other passengers see "dangerous looking" people being checked, and they feel safer. And you pull aside a few other random folks just to make it look sort-of fair.
And for folks who have the Unabomber look, or the fundamentalist Muslim look, or who generally wear any sort of non-standard clothing, you pull them aside for the full body-cavity search etc. This trains people to clean themselves up and not look dangerous when they fly, which makes the public feel safer.
And of course, there is the other mechanism; you announce it is random, and you look for people who look nervous, and check them. I had a math professor in college who used to do this; he had a deck of 3x5 cards with everyone's name on it, and he would make a great show of shuffling the deck and picking someone to put each homework question on the board. Of course, he actually picked whoever was squirming in their chair, or otherwise looking nervous, thus training folks to do their homework.
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'