Slashdot Mirror
Schneier, Journalist Poke Holes In TSA Policies
Fallen Andy points out an article in The Atlantic written by Jeffrey Goldberg. He and Bruce Schneier teamed up to put the TSA's policies to the test at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. They found plenty of evidence for security theater, and rather less for actual security. Quoting:
"'The whole system is designed to catch stupid terrorists,' Schneier told me. ... As I stood in the bathroom, ripping up boarding passes, waiting for the social network of male bathroom users to report my suspicious behavior, I decided to make myself as nervous as possible. I would try to pass through security with no ID, a fake boarding pass, and an Osama bin Laden T-shirt under my coat. I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat, put on a coat (it was a summer day), hid my driver's license, and approached security with a bogus boarding pass that Schneier had made for me. ... 'All right, you can go,' [an airport security supervisor] said, pointing me to the X-ray line. 'But let this be a lesson for you.'"
I wouldn't doubt that the whole system isn't there to catch actual terrorists, but to simply condition the populace into accepting this kind of routine as a the standard quo. Fo
Still #1 -- Lonely Gay Geek
While he occasionally manages to pass on common sense to people who are confused by propaganda, he still manages to pass on the propaganda! Where this journalist is saying that TSA policies are not there to catch terrorists, they're just there to make people feel better, Schneier is giving advice on how to improve the policies to catch terrorists. They're not interested in catching terrorists Bruce!
He rocks the boat, but he never connects the dots.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"'But let this be a lesson for you.'"
Yes, the security checks are total bogus. Glad we have shown that in the open right now...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Harry Shearer collects "Tales of Airport Security" for Le Show, and some of them are pretty funny. Search on "airport" and you'll get them, although I recommend the whole show.
1. Try to get arrested in an airport by acting like a terrorist
2. ???
3. ???
When I went through at JFK and asked questions about why they were segregating my bag the supervisor came over and accused me of suffering from "Obamaism".
I complained and TSA dismissed my complaint that the supervisor was making a joke. Really? TSA thinks that a citizen asking about his rights is a joke? Really?
After all, they didn't arrest, because he didn't present a threat. And he didn't. So it's a bit difficult to say that the system failed, based on this story.
However, it's interesting to see exactly how little actual security there is at the airport. Bruce is right - the only thing new is better cockpit doors and passengers who'd rather die than get high-jacked.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
He isn't a threat, and the system didn't treat him as once. What has he proved?
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200811/airport-security
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
You would think that if it were effective, they would be capturing people with provable ill intent. And you'd further think that if they did this, they'd want to tell th e world, loudly! After all, they could justify their own existence that way.
Yet somehow, we haven't heard of one Mighty Terrorist being caught by TSA. ONe must assume that this is because they are not /being/ caught. So... if TSA is not catching terrorists, what the hell are they doing?
The sole purpose is to make people feel protected (or violated, depending on your perspective). There's a sizeable portion of the population who feels reassured when senior citizens and soccer moms get pulled out of line for a closer search.
Land of the free.
Right.
I think the current state of airport security is just that - the best the agency can do, with it's current resources, budget and enormous demand for speedy throughput.
I myself have pondered the possibility of some kind of conspiracy, but all I'm seeing is an outdated, overwhelmed structure under a lot of pressure.
This is a very difficult problem to solve:
- fast processing of people
- spotting potential threats with minimum resources
- overstretched, tired, worn-out employees
- far from state-of-the-art equipment
- unbeliavable throughput
If the throughput is 1/100 of the LAX or JFK demands, then maybe it would be possible to look at each passanger, "check in" with them, evaluate their level of nervousness, clothing, carefully check for tell-signs etc.
With 1 second per passenger that's impossible and the best an agency can do is issue blanket policies including racial/name-based profiling, travel patterns, databases of destinations etc. and hope for the best.
I truly believe that the security policies are not an adequate protection. I don't think that's by design, rather a limitation of the design.
No conspiracy theory here, just lots of frustration with what I perceive as needless delay and inconvenience, bordering with disrespect and abuse in some cases (large-scale profiling and temporary detention of people entering the US etc.).
The flag features, as its charming main image, an upraised fist clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle. Atop the rifle is a line of Arabic writing that reads Then surely the party of God are they who will be triumphant. The officer took the flag and spread it out on the inspection table. She finished her inspection, gave me back my flag, and told me I could go. I said, "That's a Hezbollah flag." She said, "Uh-huh."
Correct me if I am wrong, but all the TSA crew are meant to watch for is if you are bringing anything onto a plane that could then be used to bring it down or hijack it.
Propaganda on the other hand cannot possibly bring down a plane from the sky, and it is surely protected to some extent by freedom of speech.
THis is completely false. Every flight ive been on in canada in the last 4 years has checked ID right when you board the plane. I suppose it could be different in amerika but that would strike me as kind of stupid, to not check right when you board.
As a potential lottery winner, I totally support tax cuts for the wealthy
How does Schneier putting on theater test whether they can detect a real terrorist? This is like those experiments where the researchers set up shocks or some such for the monkeys, they provide bogus explanations for the monkeys' behavior that totally excludes the fact that there were researchers behind the scenes doing things, which the monkeys were aware of.
Possible tag: shootingfishinabarrel ?
Is he white? That might explain a lot..
No self-respecting Islamic Terrorist would call himself "Jeffery Goldberg". Oh, wait, now we are giving the terrorists ideas -- they're gonna start disguising themselves as Jews! (A tactic that has obviously worked so well in Israel.)
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
My sister carried a penknife though security, in plain sight attached to the outside of her backpack. The security manager saw it and told the screener "I'm going to keep running this through until you see it." On the third try, the screener actually confiscated the knife. My mother also went through security with a penknife in her makeup case and nobody noticed. My mother had actually forgotten it was there; I suspect my sister was actually trying to be a smartass.
Obligatory Life of Brian:
BRIAN: Are you the Judean People's Front?
REG: Fuck off!
BRIAN: What?
REG: Judean People's Front. We're the People's Front of Judea! Judean People's Front. Cawk.
FRANCIS: Wankers.
Oh, was that my outside voice?
Much of the article talks about someone not getting things that are not illegal to fly with confiscated. He makes a big deal about carrying a flag. The screener looked at the flag. It wasn't confiscated. BIG DEAL. It isn't illegal to carry a flag on board. He wasn't arrested for ripping up paper in a bathroom. BIG DEAL. It isn't illegal to rip up paper in a bathroom. He wasn't stopped for wearing a teeshirt.
He starts out by saying he was doing things that terrorists wouldn't do, and then complains because he wasn't questioned about doing those things.
Then the "saline solution" hole. Yes, every time you create exemptions from rules you create loopholes for bad guys to get through. Thanks for advertising the saline solution loophole, I'll remember it. Do you think that the TSA screeners should be testing fluids for what they are? There are an awful lot of different things, and any false positive is going to be lept on as another example of TSA stupidity while some poor schmuck is detained for nothing.
So, a terrorist who isn't stupid steals a credit card and buys a ticket under someone else's name. He prints a fake boarding pass with his real name (?) to get past TSA. Then he uses the original pass to get on the plane. We're told that this hole can be closed by simply checking the names at the time someone gets on the plane.
Uhhh, hand raised here. Question? If a terrorist is smart enough to steal a credit card with someone else's name to buy the ticket, won't he be smart enough to get a FAKE DRIVER'S LICENSE WITH THE SAME NAME so he can get past your new, stricter policy? You haven't closed the triangle at all. You've just made everyone feel more secure when they aren't. That's the game you are complaining about.
Hey. Every security measure can be bypassed by someone intent enough on doing it. TSA didn't find some of the things this guy was carrying that he shouldn't have been. Gee. Humans aren't perfect. Combine that and the ability to bypass anything, of course you get the logical result that we might as well not do anything to stop people from taking whatever they want on board.
Security is bad and doomed to get worse. People who could be fired have been replaced by civil servants who can not be fired. The very idea that the goverment needed to take over airport security was sheer stupidity. We now pay 10x for airport security and have less.
Yes, that really is just one sentence.
Chernobyl 'not a wildlife haven' - BBC News
Quote: "... it conducts electricity like copper or silicon and disperses heat like steel or brass."
Silicon is a actually a pretty damned good insulator (much like glass, which is mostly silicon). It hardly conducts electricity at all unless doped with just the right impurities to make it a "semiconductor". Note the prefix "semi". Silicon is not a particularly good conductor under the best of circumstances. Generally, when they want electricity to move from one point to another in microchips unhampered, they use a different crystalline composite, or actual metal traces.
... he wasn't a terrorist, and they let him through. Amazing. He's bitching that they did not make a false positive.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs
Always proofread your writing when criticizing the writing of others.
I once had to take a flight out from the Fort Wayne airport. This is a very small facility and and it was almost completely empty when I arrived, checked in, and went through the security screening. At this point there were less than ten travelers waiting for flights out of the whole airport. After a cancellation announcement due to an approaching storm I went back to the ticket counter and got rebooked on another plane. The second time through the security checkpoint I got "randomly selected" for the extra check for explosives residue. The checkpoint was manned by three TSA agents and there is no way they could have forgotten me from my first trip through. I accept that they had no choice in the matter and I had nothing better to do but the whole scene was a bit absurd.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Here in NYC if you go to a subway you will sometimes see police officers near the entrance with a little desk in front of them. They are supposed to randomly pick out people to check their bags. This is supposed to do what deter a real terrorist?
What if a real terrorist walks into a subway upon seeing the cops just simply does a 180 and walks about a block to the other entrance to the same station. Somehow I think I rather have the officers be involved in their usual crime stopping work, at least at that way they sometimes succeed.
In the story "The Langoliers", the main characters utilize a drop in cabin pressure, and the resulting lack of oxygen to incapacitate themselves so they will not be dematerialized.....
Flight Attendant: Captain, we got problems back here........
Captain: Serious?
Flight Attendant: Do it, sir.
Captain: Have a seat and buckle up, Gladys. I don't want you falling down and hurting yourself.
(After checking the reinforced, hermetically sealed cockpit door and disabling the emergency oxygen mask system in the main cabins, the Captain vents cabin pressure to atmosphere)
Whoosh!
Hell..........maybe even follow it with an incapacitant so the oxygen can be turned back on.......and not kill everyone.
"Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."
Deleted
Propaganda on the other hand cannot possibly bring down a plane from the sky, and it is surely protected to some extent by freedom of speech.
Firstly, they're not looking for things that can bring down an airplane -- they're looking for things that could indicate your intent to bring down an airplane. Though I agree with you that such-and-such a t-shirt is not necessarily an indicator.
In terms of your First Amendment rights, there are two locations that we care about here, and they're treated differently in the law: (1) the airport, and (2) the airplane.
The airplane is simple: it's owned by a private company, so you're on private property. That means your free speech protections are nonexistent: the airline can impose any ban on speech or expression it wants. Sue them on First Amendment grounds all you want: the judge will throw out your case.
The airport is a little more complicated. Under the law, it's a "non-public forum" (which is different than being a private place). The Supreme Court has shaken it out like this: your rights to speech and expression may be restricted by regulation as long as the restriction is "reasonable" (as determined by the courts) and as long as the regulation is not intended to suppress expression simply because it's counter to airport officials' views.
Lower courts have decided that "reasonable" means "in line with the main public purpose for the airport".
As an obvious example, you can't hold a rally in an airport. It creates congestion, which is counter to the interests of the bulk of people using the airport: they want to get to their destination speedily.
So, getting back to the main point, a US airport is within its rights to impose bans on (let's say) t-shirts picturing known terrorists, because such t-shirts could reasonably cause airport delays.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mA3voZUZrk
Read the TFA. At least the first sentence.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Half the population has an IQ of under 100, and many of them work for the TSA.
And, shit... THEY GET TO VOTE, TOO!
what I did in the bathroom of the Minneapolisâ"St. Paul International Airport
at least be the recipient of a thorough sweating by the FBI, for dubious behavior in a large American airport
I splashed water on my face to mimic sweat
put on a coat (it was a summer day)
Sound like this could be someone trying to test the security system, or it could be a friend of this guy
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
It seems to me that we (well, you in the US really) have two choices:
1. Spend lots of money and have lousy security.
2. Spend little money and have lousy security.
To go with number two and save cash while implementing procedures that actually work (or at least work better) is however, something that will never happen. Simply because of what Schneier says: The security theater is there to protect officials from criticism.
Which would you rather have, a tax cut, or the TSA?
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
I guess you didn't bother to read TFA either?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens