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TSA Subpoenas Bloggers Over New Security Directive

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the travel-by-camel dept.

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that TSA special agents have served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott demanding that they reveal who leaked a TSA directive outlining new screening measures that went into effect the same day as the Detroit airliner incident. Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents for about three hours and was forced to hand over his laptop computer after the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn't cooperate and provide the name of the person who leaked the memo outlining new security measures that would be apparent to the traveling public. 'It literally showed up in my box,' Frischling told The Associated Press. 'I do not know who it came from.' Frischling says he provided the agents a signed statement to that effect. The leaked directive included measures such as screening at boarding gates, patting down the upper legs and torso, physically inspecting all travelers' belongings, looking carefully at syringes with powders and liquids, requiring that passengers remain in their seats one hour before landing, and disabling all onboard communications systems, including what is provided by the airline. In a December 29 posting on his blog, Elliott said he had told the TSA agents at his house that he would call his lawyer and get back to them."

38 of 379 comments (clear)

  1. Because obscurity... by DotNM · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ... is the best security.

    --
    There's no place like localhost
    1. Re:Because obscurity... by onionman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except that it wouldn't be obscure for long... it only takes a single blogger getting run through the security process while trying to board for the whole "secret new screening procedure" to become completely known.

      To paraphrase Bruce Schneier, it seems like the DHS/TSA is now engaging in security meta-theater so that they can demonstrate how oh-so-very-important the security theater is.

    2. Re:Because obscurity... by zippthorne · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I fail to see how they could have kept "requiring passengers to stay in their seats one hour before landing" secret for any length of time.

      --
      Can you be Even More Awesome?!
    3. Re:Because obscurity... by tapanitarvainen · · Score: 5, Insightful

      [...] I doubt a majority of totally informed people would act against a minority in a punitive way, as this would leave each individual open to punitive acts from a different majority.

      You underestimate the shortsightedness of people. Those in a majority hardly ever stop to think they might be in a minority at a later date - and when they do, it just encourages them to (ab)use their majority power while it lasts.

    4. Re:Because obscurity... by HeronBlademaster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I disagree. Let's say they had kept secret the plan to require passengers to stay seated for the last hour of flight. Let's also assume a terrorist had planned an attack that requires getting out of his seat during the last hour of flight, and the planned attack was to occur on the first flight on which the new requirement was implemented.

      The flight crew is surely going to tell the passengers the new rule before it comes into effect, so that they can use the toilet before the last hour of flight; worst case (from the terrorist's point of view) he puts his plan into motion with an hour and five minutes to go.

      How does keeping this sort of thing secret beforehand increase security at all? Chances are very, very good that terrorists are going to know about any new rules almost immediately after they're implemented, negating any benefit gained by the secret implementation of those rules.

      Do you have a counter-example where an airline security procedure must be kept secret before implementation in order for it to remain effective after implementation?

    5. Re:Because obscurity... by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Your argument falls apart because of wholly baseless assumptions. In fact the rule of both "majority" or "minority" are equally nonsensical. What matters is logic, reason and science. Two apples added to another two apples make four apples irrespective if the person adding them together is the King or the mud-covered peasant, the President or his would-be assassin, the Glorious Leader of One Party or a partisan of the Resistance in a forest, a media celebrity or a leper, a member of the vast self-righteous majority or a rag-clad member of the persecuted outcast minority.

      And this is why you will find all the politicians always blather about "democracy" or "the will of the people": they abhor logic, knowing that it would deprive them of their power to manipulate the weak-minded masses in order so that perversions such as the rule of a "majority" or a "minority" can be put in place against all reason.

    6. Re:Because obscurity... by causality · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are missing the point. They were trying to keep something a secret, and then someone sworn to keep that secret, leaked it. That is absolutely a cause for concern.

      Another point is that it served no real purpose to keep this a secret anyway. Someone "sworn to keep the secret" realized this and acted accordingly instead of being a mindless drone. This made TSA look bad, it made them lose face, and now they want to get the visceral satisfaction of nailing the person who did it. That's about all there is to see here.

      If the leaking of this information did any actual damage, or had a hope of remaining secret once implemented, then you'd have a case that GP is missing a point.

      --
      It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
    7. Re:Because obscurity... by Evets · · Score: 4, Insightful

      You're missing the point. This isn't about leaking a secret, it's about intimidation and suppression of freedom.

    8. Re:Because obscurity... by tapanitarvainen · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There's more to democracy than simple "majority rules". In particular, there usually is and IMHO needs to be some mechanisms for slowing down too drastic changes, if only to force people to think again what it actually is they want. In particular rules for changing constitution are usually written with that in mind, but also various rights in constitutions themselves strive to make it hard to do too much damage too quickly, even if transient majority so wants. Just about everything in the US Bill of Rights will do as an example, but some (even limited) possibility of anonymity is also important for that reason.

      It is not a binary choice between majority and minority rules. It can and should be set up so that majority has more power, but not unlimited, instant power. If the majority wants something bad enough and long enough, they'll get it, sure. But not instantly, and the smaller the majority, the harder it should be to make drastic changes.

      "Majority rule" should mean majority over some non-trivial period of time - and in practice it always does, partly or perhaps even primarily because various technical reasons necessarily delay execution of all decisions, by design or by accident. And more drastic changes should and do require more time. That also allows the minority a better change to persuade others of their viewpoint - also IMHO an essential feature of democracy.

    9. Re:Because obscurity... by Mr.+Freeman · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Methinks perhaps a better idea would have been to leak it to wikieaks, rather than a US citizen that could be arrested and possibly tortured (gotta love that "patriot" act) into giving up the information. Even if the US journalist or blogger had no desire to reveal his source (as is the case here), the government seems to think that it has the right to force them to.

      This is a lesson. Only leak things to places that aren't easily within the US's reach.

      --
      -1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
    10. Re:Because obscurity... by IgnoramusMaximus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Logic does not answer questions of morality.

      Of course it does. It is just that you (and a lot of other people) really, really do not like the answers.

      Logic does not answer questions of ethics.

      See above.

      Logic does not answer questions of aesthetics.

      True, but then again aesthetics has no place in governance, does it now?

      How many apples must be added together to find out if it's "OK" for two men to lie together?

      Non sequitur. Sexual conduct is a natural function of human bodies, sexuality is hard-wired into human brains by countless millions of years of evolution and subject to genetic and environmental variations and you nor the frothing-at-the-snout mob nor the power-hungry-lynch-mob-whipping-up-politicians nor the cracked-up religious zealots of the minute have any "moral" business in dictating who can lie together with whom.

      The only concerns with sex are logical, i.e. dealing with incestuous activities which are likely to result in genetically damaged progeny and the issues of consent and age.

      The rest is just another unreasoning, idiotic, rabid, woo-woo of the minute, the only purpose of which is for some individuals to control and persecute all the others.

      How many apples must be added together to find out if it's "OK" to deprive another of freedom?

      Non sequitur. Freedom (depending on its definition) is a logical concept which can be analyzed logically, although it is unlikely that arithmetic is applicable in this case.

      How many apples must be added together to determine if something is "Porn" or "Art". And how many more to determine if there is an actual difference?

      As I indicated, art has no meaning in governance and you, nor anyone else, has any business deciding what can or cannot be seen by others.

      To date, the only way people have found a way to 'answer' those questions that logic can not answer is to rely on someone's authority.

      Bullshit. People intentionally discarded the answers offered by logic and reason because they did not like them, instead replacing them with arbitrary "authority", for it suited their various malicious intents much better. Following which they enforced this "authority" (usually by means rather violent) onto all who did not subscribe to it.

      Be that the authority of the majority or minority, the "rule" of any is seen as the only way for more than two people to live in this world without being constantly at each others throats.

      That is the reasoning of every dick-wad King, Emperor, Duke, Baron, Generalissimo, Glorious Leader and all smaller fish politicians, all casting themselves as our "protectors", and all we have to do is to defer to their "authority" to be "protected" against each other.

      And while in practice it "works" for them, because majority of humanity are indeed thoughtless animals who abhor all reason and logic, it does not change the fact that the only sane rules by which to establish enlightened society are those very rules that are so contemptible to you: logic, reason science and the like.

    11. Re:Because obscurity... by Casualposter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They are wasting our time and money on this obviously stupid stuff and because it is so stupid, they slap "super secret" on it. Just because something is "secret" does not mean that it is in the best interest of the public to not know about it. The real national security issue is that some jackass got on a plane with a bomb in Nigeria, and then made it through Amsterdam and all the way to Detroit before trying to blow up the plane. Making passengers sit still with their hands in the air for the last hour of a 12 hour flight doesn't address how the bomb got on the flight to Detroit in the first place. The TSA has a tough job: keep the bombs off the planes without making air travel so odious that it doesn't work. But when the TSA does something like this proposal - something so obviously not related to fixing the actual problem, they want it to be secret because everyone will think, and rightfully so, that Colonel Klink and Sergeant Shultz of Hogan's Heros are running airport security.

      To me, this leak falls under the whistleblower laws. This type of stupidity is negligent.

      But of course, the TSA thinks that all of its requirements and lists must be secret because the "Bad Guys" will get through much easier if things are known. But then, secret laws and secret rules with brutal enforcement are fundamentally unfair and ineffective. Far too easy to catch the ignorantly innocent rather than the nefarious. The TSA has a history or trying to hide their rules and go with arbitrary requirements, and by golly they don't want ANYONE to talk about it.

      --
      Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
  2. Fuck George Bush! by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When will Obama be inaugurated?

    --
    "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
    1. Re:Fuck George Bush! by wizardforce · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well the problem is that we aren't "climbing out of this mess" if anything, things are getting worse. The problem is that people naively thought that electin Obama would improve things. The truth is that the government does what the people allow it to do. Bush was a warning sign that the checks and balances that were supposed to restrain the federal governments' power are essentially destroyed. The conditions that allowed Bush to frak up this country as bad as he did still exist. Now is it any wonder why the "change we can believe in" didn't happen as people believed it would?

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
  3. I still say... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The terrorists won. And won big!

    They spent what... couple million? some of their dumber guys who they could talk into blowing up.

    And got back what... The usa crapped itself and spent BILLIONS of dollars on totally useless 'security'.

    Man... they won huge!

    1. Re:I still say... by wizardforce · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's no longer in the billions. If you count Iraq and Afghanistan, the tab is over a trillion dollars. THe human cost is well over 5,000 dead soldiers, tens of thousands wounded, countless thousands of dead Iraqis and on top of that, they've managed to have the US ruin its own international reputation permanently. The US has become self-terrorizing ever since 9/11 making future terror attacks completely unnecessary.

      --
      Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
    2. Re:I still say... by csartanis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Same thing?

    3. Re:I still say... by joe_frisch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      They won because we (Americans, Europeans) are stupid cowards. Your chances of being killed by terrorists in the US and Europe are vanishingly small. One estimate puts it at one in 10 million per year, about the same as being eaten by a shark and a thousand times less likely than being killed in a house fire.

      (source was http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/05/07/13/the_six_most_feared_but_least_likely_causes_of_death.htm, now independent verification)

      Another statistic gives 22000 worldwide deaths / year from terrorism compared with 57 million from other causes.

      What is the big deal? Why should I give up freedoms, privacy and time for this?

      I fly very frequently and I am not afraid of terrorists. I'd be happy to walk through a metal detector set to pick up conventional guns, and run my luggage (laptop still in case) through an X-ray to look for obvious weapons. When terrorists down a US airline every month for a year we can talk again.

    4. Re:I still say... by fermion · · Score: 4, Insightful
      The terrorist did win by diverting resources from activities that would increase our national prosperity to activities that at best do nothing.

      Very little tangible has been done to limit the threat. For example, here is a US news report on the Saudi Link to terrorism from 2003. Recent articles state that the link is still there, for instance there may have been a 15 million transfer from Saudi fundamentalists to Yemen terrorist forces. For those who do not know, Saudi Arabia earns much of their money through oil, and almost nothing has been done to limit the amount of money they earn. In fact many people they have a right and responsibility to use as much oil as they want, thereby funding the terrorists.

      A better example is the lack of training of the TSA. We have had eight years to create a professional police force. If the TSA screeners were seen as a professional force, instead of simply a work program for people who would otherwise be unemployed, I bet there would be much less protest against the body scanning machines. As it is, the airport screeners are treated as easily replaceable figureheads, not really there to do much of anything. Yet the screeners should be the most important part of airport defense, not only to prevent terrorists from entering the plane, but to prevent suicide bombers in the airport.

      My concern is the TSA does not have leader, and instead of concentrating on making it a professional organization, Conservatives are bickering about unionization. Most police forces in the US are unionized. It is a non issue. This would not really have effected this case. What might have helped, and what will help, is if every country would take the screening process seriously, instead of just assuming that machines will do everything. This is something that is a human problem, and CCTV and x-rays will not solve it. Humans know how to subvert machines. The only flexible agent is another human

      --
      "She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
    5. Re:I still say... by redhotgranny · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And, frankly, the whole country is close to bankrupt. So, terrorist might win the war on terrorism sooner than anyone expected. I am pretty sure that even they were not really thinking about winning that big. It was coincidence of expensive wars and Wall Street crisis. Resources are running thin and wars just keep going. The biggest problem will soon be increasing cost of new loans when rating goes down. Old loans expire too and they need to be refinanced, which becomes easily vicious circle if you have a bad rating. To think of it does losing 'world leader' status count already as a small victory for terrorist.

  4. The terrorists aren't even trying hard. by Alcoholist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The terrorists aren't even trying that hard.

    They're setting their sights too high. Stopping all air flight in the Western world is easy. You don't even need to get on the plane. Walk into an airport with a few pounds of explosives strapped on under your coat. Think of how many people tend to get queued up at those checkpoints.

    When they stop you at the security checkpoint, go boom. It'll only have to happen a few times before air flight is completely stopped indefinitely.

    --
    Bibo Ergo Sum.
    1. Re:The terrorists aren't even trying hard. by shadoelord · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I've argued this same point time and time again; the TSA and airlines are only worried about expensive planes and the buildings they could hit. Blowing up a security line at Atlanta's Hartsfield airport (busiest in the world) would cause unheard of levels of panic.

      It would be an interesting 'art piece' to draw concentric rings around a random point in line to demonstrate "90% kill", "50% kill" zones.

      --
      this is my sig, there are many like it, but this one is mine.
    2. Re:The terrorists aren't even trying hard. by kevinNCSU · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh totally, just like everyone in Israel completely stopped eating when Hamas and company were blowing up cafes. There's a psychological effect to blowing up an airplane because deep down on a primal level people are already scared of flying because it just aint natural. Plus the view of an airplane falling out of the sky is much more enthralling and attention grabbing then a simple explosion.

      They don't want to attack you where you know you can be attacked, they want to attack you somewhere you're already afraid of, and where the government is trying to tell you is safe and protected to prove they can get to you anywhere, and instill fear.

    3. Re:The terrorists aren't even trying hard. by mikael · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Then the security checkpoint would be moved to the front of the airport, and queues would form there, which would then be another target for the terrorists.

      --
      Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    4. Re:The terrorists aren't even trying hard. by Alcoholist · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The permutations of terror of this kind are endless because there are so many points of failure in airport security. These are just off the top of my head:

      - A big fat bomb in your checked luggage. Set to go off say 15 minutes after they check it (bad guy flicks a little switch or something). Would totally bring an airport to a halt.

      - Since you are committed to die for Allah anyway, why not stride into the lobby of an airport with an AK and as much ammo as you can carry and just start shooting until they get you?

      - Car bomb in front of terminal. It's not hard to make a stupid pile of ANFO and cram it into the back of a stolen taxi.

      - Rent a small plane at a regional airport, fly it to a big airport and crash the bugger into a terminal.

      - Drive a truck chock full of explosives on to one of the runways and blow it up. Now you can't land planes on that. Hell, you might even be able to escape from that one with your life.

      I'm not even a terrorist and I can dream up shit like this in a few minutes. Imagine what the actual terrorists are hatching.

      --
      Bibo Ergo Sum.
    5. Re:The terrorists aren't even trying hard. by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Insightful
      When they stop you at the security checkpoint, go boom. It'll only have to happen a few times before air flight is completely stopped indefinitely.

      You mean the way there is no bus service in Israel or police stations in Iraq?

    6. Re:The terrorists aren't even trying hard. by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Or you could forget about sexy targets like aircraft entirely. Just put a decent sized bomb, dressed up like a lost duffel bag, under the bleachers of some random middle school in Iowa, just before a little league game.

      There is no way in hell you could ever watch, let alone usefully guard, all such locations; but, once the 24/7 news cycle got ahold of a bunch of kids who've seen their cheering friends and families blown to fragments right in front of them, the public will absolutely lose its shit.

    7. Re:The terrorists aren't even trying hard. by Knara · · Score: 3, Insightful

      They can hatch all they want, however, it seems to me that the main problem Al-Qaeda has lay in some disconnect between their 21st century access to technology and their 12th century outlook on reality.

      I'm not so much saying that their leadership isn't clever and intelligent in terms of coming up with plans. Rather, that their rank-and-file are incompetent, at best, when it comes to carrying out their plans. You can only IED and suicide bomb yourself into a limited amount of success.

      After all, it our security infrastructure had to fail at multiple basic levels in series and the folks on the planes on 9/11 to do nothing to restrain the hijackers in order for the plan to succeed (and in the one case where they did do something, unfortunately too late to save anyone, the plan was foiled -- just like these last two times).

      I'm not saying we should stop trying to improve our security infrastructure, but let's realize that the folks who are planning this stuff are being forced to utilize fodder that is significantly sub-optimal with regard to the task (a short logical leap to make, since they believe that blowing themselves up is a reasonable and sustainable tactic vs the largest military force in the history of the world).

  5. Typical of the fools. by BCW2 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Another proof, to join the seemingly endless list, that Napolitano is totally unqualified to head DHS. A talking head on TV this week made the following reference to her "leadership ability"; She couldn't lead Tiger Woods to a free weekend at a whorehouse!

    I am beginning to wonder if there are any qualified people in this administration at all.

    --
    Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
  6. Re:government goons by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Except for the fact that this "leak" is something that all Americans should know to begin with. If the average American doesn't know what the policies of the TSA are, they can't check for abuses. The right and responsibility to check for abuses in government is critical in any sort of a free government.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  7. And insightful post by an annonymous poster.. by RingDev · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Terrorism is the use or threat of use of violent to bring about a social, political, or economic change. Any single violent action taken by any terrorist group can not alter any of this. Yes, people will die, destruction will occur, and lives will be change. But it is only in our response to their attacks that our way of life can be changed.

    You want to send a chilling message to those who would attack our very society? Find them with our existing intelligence systems. Try them in our existing court systems. Imprison them in our civilian detention system. And build back the Twin Towers just as they were with an anti-aircraft cannon sitting on the top of both of them. Show them the might of a free nation.

    Or our politicians (on both sides of the isle) could use these attacks to justify sweeping changes to civil liberties, the judicial system, the creation of a new "security" department, and gross consolidation of federal and presidential power.

    -Rick

    --
    "Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
    1. Re:And insightful post by an annonymous poster.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Always remember - "They hate us for our freedom."

      So in order to protect ourselves, we give all our freedoms to the government so that we don't have them anymore. If we don't have them, the terrists won't hate us, and thus all terrorism will stop!

  8. Forced? by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Frischling said he met with two TSA special agents for about three hours and was forced to hand over his laptop computer after the agents threatened to interfere with his contract to write a blog for KLM Royal Dutch Airlines if he didn't cooperate ...

    Hmm.... I think Steve and I have different definitions of the word "forced", but it sounds like standard Gestapo - I mean TSA - practices to me.

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  9. The statistics would show that FORD by crovira · · Score: 3, Insightful

    is the biggest killer in history.

    More people died getting TO the front that AT that front.

    I think that an online, constantly updated "Cause/mortality bar chart" would be an extremely helpful/useful thing.

    Maybe Google should do a little research project, with that "result page" on the data mining processes required to get those figures.

    --
    MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
  10. No surprise there by Jodka · · Score: 3, Insightful

    So the government announces a massive initiative to protect our rights from the terrorists and here we find it harassing online journalists for informing the public about what the government is secretly up to. Not so different from the way it is charged by the Constitution "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries," and subsequently creates a legal morass which rewards patents trolls, suppresses innovation with legal harrassment, and extorts campaign donations from perpetual copyright extension. Then there is the initiative to lower health care costs and in improve the quality of care which will raise the costs of medical care and ration medical care. Next up: "Net Neutrality". What could possibly go wrong?

    When will Americans wake up and recognize that no matter how noble are the stated goals of politicians that the actual outcomes usually oppose the stated goals?

    --
    Ceci n'est pas une signature.
  11. How about this approach? by khasim · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Explosive goes into condoms which are then stored in your body cavities.

    Show up for the flight very early.

    During that time, recover the explosives and PREP THE BOMB BEFORE HAND IN THE PUBLIC BATHROOM. You've already cleared security. They don't care about you anymore (until the headlines hit).

    So far, our best defense against terrorism seems to be that they're all rather dumb.

    1. Re:How about this approach? by dgatwood · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Explosive goes into condoms which are then stored in your body cavities.

      This is what I've been pointing out ever since they started talking about those millimeter wave scanners. It is a trivial escalation that completely defeats both backscatter X-Ray and millimeter wave scanners. That means that the only way those machines add ANYTHING to security AT ALL is if they are installed without anybody knowing they are there. Now that we know about them, they are USELESS.

      And still our government is spending millions of dollars on this complete waste of money. Follow the money and I'd be willing to place a sizable bet that the manufacturer of those scanners has contributed a large sum of money to one or both major political parties and/or the campaigns of several high-profile members of our government. That's the only explanation for our government's complete and utter inability to comprehend what a colossal waste of money these things are.

      There is exactly ONE scanner technology that will do ANY good, and that's NQR. Spending even one penny on millimeter wave or backscatter X-Ray systems is just flushing money down the toilet.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  12. The TSA is really fast with new measures... by Lazy+Jones · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The incident happened around 11:20 am (EST) and they managed to send out a new security directive on the same day . One would have thought they'd take longer to draft something as elaborate as that. Who knows, perhaps they had it prepared already for such an incident...

    --
    "I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)