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.'"

Comments

Schneier bothers me

[QuantumG]

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.

 

Re:Schneier bothers me

[Carnildo]

Kick the cockpit door in(there pretty easy) and make your demands, meanwhile your partner(s) also gut a few people to keep everyone in order.

At this point, you're going to run up against the one advance in airplane security that *has* been made post-9/11: you're not getting through the reinforced cockpit door with anything less than a battering ram.

Re:Well...

[JakartaDean]

Is it? How about kids being fingerprinted to enter Disneyland?

I can, I think, top this. In July, on a flight from Hong Kong to Toronto, the plane made a refueling stop. Nobody, repeat nobody, had bought a ticket to Anchorage, this was a refueling stop and there were no tickets for sale Hong Kong - Anchorage. Nonetheless, everybody was ordered off the plane and had to show passports to American immigration officials. The people in front of me also had to press their thumb against an electronic fingerprint scanner. When it was my turn, I asked what would happen if I refused to surrender my fingerprint, or that of my two children. He said not to worry, they didn't do that for American and Canadian citizens. Only everyone else.

This was not, I repeat, was not, a flight into the United States, except for a refueling stop. I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but the US government is going far beyond what used to be considered acceptable.