Slashdot Mirror
TSA Saw My Junk, Missed Razor Blades, Says Adam Savage
An anonymous reader writes "The TSA isn't the most respected of governmental agencies right now, but at least it comes by the poor reputation honestly. The lack of standards, inconsistent application of searches and policies, and occasional rude agent all combine to make flying an unpleasant experience. It's often derided as 'security theater,' which describes the experience of Mythbuster Adam Savage before a recent flight. Savage was put through the full-body scanner, and while he joked that it made his penis feel small, no one seemed to notice the items he was carrying on his person. The video tells the rest of the story."
Okay, first -- I'd like to roast the TSA in every way possible for this joke security scheme. That said, the problem is that you just turned a bunch of people loose looking at naked bodies full time when until now they've had very little exposure. It takes awhile to desensitize yourself to the constant nudity and and have it stop distracting you.
Ask any bouncer at a strip club: The first few weeks they couldn't stop looking, but after awhile, a naked woman can walk right past them and it barely registers because it's not new anymore. Happens all the time. And they are focused on the job now.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Mod parent up.
Very true. The lines at the entrance to security checkpoints must be a terrorist's dream. A suicide bomber could rake up hundreds of casualties there.
I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
An illegal search is admissible as evidence when a 'private entity' has conducted it.
They are looking for drugs, because a cop can't without probable cause.
This is the same reason they wanted to set up a program to have postal employees peeking in your windows.
The fourth amendment is seen by LEO as a roadblock to 'unlimited' revenue based on property seizure.
Pistole, the other day, in bragging about the effectiveness of the scanners, couldn't help mentioning the drug seizures and heroin needle it had detected.
Cop makes his bust, LEO gets his seized house, car, boat, etc to auction. At the very worst, some minimum wage high school dropout nobody of a TSA agent takes any possible legal heat.
"Winning the war of tourism" means keeps most of that valuable foreign exchange at home. No doubt the Feds consider expats to be traitors, even if enviously.
I agree that 9-11-style attempts (or even the more mundane "take me to Cuba" attempts from days gone by) would probably see a hijacker crushed to mush before they had much of a chance to do anything. However, using luggage and cargo in the cargo holds is still vulnerable (as the latest attempt out of Yemen demonstrated). Mind you, all the penis imaging machines in the world wouldn't stop that sort of an attack. What stops that sort of attack, as the Israelis know from long experience (and a rather extraordinary record) is intelligence work and smart people who know how to recognize suspicious packages and activities. That saved that cargo plane coming out of Yemen, good old fashioned detective and intelligence work, not some espresso-overdosed guy demanding to see your dink on an X-ray, with the threat that he'll have to feel it if you don't go along with the policy.
It's long been pointed out that low-wage security workers is not going to cut the onions, but there seems to be this belief that if we can image penises and breasts, we will all end being so much safer. I listened to an expert on Israeli counter-terrorism who suggests the TSA is wasting incredible amounts of time and money on a technological solution to what is fundamentally a psychological problem.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I can attest to this. I am a grad student in Japan and I get flack from the immigration officers every time I come home. It's a pain in the ass explaining why I am not studying in the US and what I plan to do in my own god damned country.
Monstar L
Just like the Nazis. first they were only sending political criminals, then capitalists, and when the guards were well trained (and up to their eyeballs in murder too) they rounded up the women and children like cattle. It may be Godwins law, but here we stand at the ENTIRE POINT of the matter, scanning all the way to our skin and STILL claiming it's not enough security.
Knowing ALL THAT the bozos in Congress allowed the TSA to be created anyway. Ironically Rush was complaining about the "new" extreme procedures... of course there was no problem when "Democrats" were being hassled. It's hilarious that the right-wingers are all over this like it has anything to do with Obama. They cheered while Cheney/Bush created a whole new Cabinet level position, accountable to essentially nobody with access to the NSA, CIA, and FBI and no strings attached. This is funny that it turns around now.. after all they have to look busy or Obama will scale them back.
Personally, I feel that this illusionment comes from the indoctrinated sense that being illegal == immoral. That it is NEVER justified to break the law. EG, that it is ALWAYS wrong to steal, or that it is ALWAYS wrong to refuse to 'help' a police officer with an investigation, etc. It is implied that by being so disobedient to the civil infrastructure, that you are an evil anarchist bent on destroying life as we know it, and that you are therefor "evil".
In reality, there ARE times when theft is the correct and appropriate action, or when refusing to assist police is the correct and proper thing to do. [due to risk of enacting Godwin's Law, I will avoid mentioning certain historical events, despite their obvious applicability.]
The reality of the situation is that the civil infrastructure is only useful and good up until a critical threshold, and after that it becomes officious and destructive to the quality of life of the civilians it is supposed to be servicing. Examples are things like the difference between a home owner's association, and a simple lawncare ordinance. The former is officious, the latter is to maintain property values of your neighbors.
Others would be things like enforcing sobriety while operating dangerous equipment (Including vehicles), VS enforcing "The war on drugs(tm)".
The subtle lie that the government\civil infrastructure is ALWAYS good is what allows the civil infrastructure to cross that critical threshold. It is motived to do so, because it is run by humans, and humans LIKE to enforce their wills upon others. (AKA, being addicted to/attracted to power and authority.)
This is further fascilitated by innate human laziness, and innate human weaknesses. Modern life would be impossible/highly impractical if there were no specialists; Doctors, Dentists, Lawyers, Politicians, Automotive mechanics, IT professionals, etc. This is imply because there are fundemental limits to what individual humans are capable of accomplishing themselves. The civil infrastructure provides the basic framework upon which specialists can employ their trades, and by which their customers can make reliable use of their services. In this respect, the social infrastructure of government is indeed absolutely vital to modern human existence, and pretty much everyone except sociopaths accepts this innately at some level. Part of the problem is that "Little people" have been so far abstracted from governance due to the increasing complexities of modern existence, that they realistically cannot engage in politics rationally, because that is becoming/has become a specialist discipline. As such, they are pressured naturally, more and more, to simply trust these specialists, since the natural demans of life make it more and more difficult to effectively engage in it. I strongly suspect that this is at least partially at fault for persons continually voting for an abstracted "Party line", VS actually researching issues, and engaging in government as intended.
Likewise, the specialists (Politicians) have their own agendas, and become more and more abstracted/estranged from other demographics in society, and so the government becomes wierder and wierder, and more and more authoritarian; As the ordinary citizen understands the minutae of modern government less and less, they become less and less willing to capitulate, requiring ever escallating levels of control to ensure the reliable function of government.
I personally consider this to be the euphamistically titled "Big Government" that Libertarians rail against. The government becomes bigger and bigger, as it takes on more and more responsibilities, as the average citizen delegates more and more duties to government, because they themselves become more and more specialized.
Without reducing the complexity of the social infrastructure, the requirements on specialist knowledge, or increasing the free time of the average citizen in some fundemental way so that they can cope with dealing with government appropriately, there is really
Who needs to smuggle on your own knife; buy a first class or business class ticket and get a nice, sharp, big knife given to you!
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
I've often found that rules can turn off common sense. Once you've got a set of rules in place then you've got a flow chart of what to do and don't have to think; if you do think you get cognitive dissonance if the rules are a little bit wrong, so you train yourself not to think...
The reason the idea of a water supply attack is so scary is precisely because there are so many disparate municipals systems. Terrorism is only a physical threat to a small percentage of the population, but it's a massive mind game for everyone that isn't. Imagine what would happen if a terrorist plot to poison a city water supply (to some, say 100,000 people) were discovered and foiled. The news media would have reports from the potential victims saying they had no idea it could happen here, and the security just wasn't in place, etc etc, and the government would act rashly and without thinking, creating some ungodly structure to protect every water supply... The terrorists won the mind game, and that's just for getting caught.
I don't think the guns and knives would do much, and would possibly lead to some incidents with "normal people" losing it on-flight (too much drink, or undiagnosed mental illness, &c.) It seems plausible that the probability of this is much higher than of terrorism. At the least, it should be taken into account. I am fairly pro-2nd amendment, but on a purely numbers level it just may not make sense to have a lot of guns on a plane (or at a school, &c.).
I agree with your spirit though. I think that the post-9/11 knowledge that hijacking=death is enough. A couple of terrorists armed only with knives would be easily taken down by the bum-rush of citizens armed with grim knowledge.
A terrorist with a decent, functional bomb would not be deterred by armed resistance. Assuming he has a real trigger and isn't trying to ignite his groin or shoes, it would all be over without anyone noticing.
Which leaves the possibility of terrorists with guns. However, I'm pretty sure that we achieve 100% gun control on planes anyway (feel free to present counterexample).
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Back before the 80's high school chemistry books often contained "fun kitchen chemistry" which would explain how to make explosives from items you could find in a kitchen or bathroom. Take a look sometime at the chemicals that are used to make perfumes and makeup. You'll find that you can make a large amount of low yield explosives quite easily using only what's found in duty free. A 2lb brick of low yield explosives is more than enough to breach the plane. But a detonator is still needed. That's no problem either, stop into the electronics store in duty free. You'll find everything you need right there.
If the security serves ANY purpose, that is to make the people who are likely to actually blow a plane up look nervous about it. The profiling kicks in. Of course, if the TSA is a big laughing joke, it'll be easier for these people to be calm and confident because unlike in the old days, when flight security was a little annoying but nothing really impeding, people didn't nitpick it on a global scale and make a joke of it.
What the TSA has done to their reputation has made it so that anyone who actually wants to bomb an airplane will simply walk through the scanners, head held high, buy what they need and bomb the plane they're targeting.
They are already doing unlawful arrests and detainment of American citizens. It's called the Patriot Act, and yes they have disappeared/arrested a number of American citizens over the years since.
http://www.politechbot.com/p-04221.html
http://www.rense.com/general61/feds.htm
http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5049867/
The one I can't find now that was pretty well known, was the programmer who worked for...I think Oracle, and the FBI came in one day and arrested him and then no one knew where he was, and they wouldn't even say why he was arrested or anything. No lawyer, no phone call, no nothing, just poof and he was gone. Finally his senator or congressmen had to get involved.
i have an interesting story on those water bottles, back in 2007 i went to India, flying from Schiphol (Amsterdam airport, the netherlands). On the first flight i was not allowed any liquids over a certain capacity, the whole "liquid bomb" spiel. On my flight back, after passing through all security checks, it occured to me i still had a 1 litre bottle of water in my backpack. To make sure i asked the (dutch, was flying with KLM) stewardess about it, as i expected not to be allowed to take it with me, and that those indian security guys must have made a mistake.
As it turns out, while it is not allowed to blow up a plane flying from amsterdam to new dehli with your fancy liquid bomb, they have no problem what so ever with you smuggling the same liquid explosive device on board the same aircraft (with presumably the same sort of people on board) traveling in the opposite direction
People, what a bunch of bastards
The thing is, while people have talked about the underwear bomber, shoe bomber, etc., but has anybody established that punching a hole would take down the whole plane?
Didn't Mythbusters "refudiate" the notion that shooting a gun on a plane would crash it?
Or is all this just theater?
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog