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The Sensible Body Scan Alternative
An anonymous reader sends in a CNN article that looks at airport security from more reasonable point of view, suggesting that looking for every last micro-gram of potentially explosive material is a waste of time, since very small quantities of explosives are unlikely to significantly damage a plane. The author also recommends incorporating parts of the Israeli method of securing airplanes — look for the bomber, not the tools. Quoting:
"Clearly everything should be done to prevent explosives getting on board an aircraft in quantities sufficient to cause structural failure and bring the plane down. But is it worth chasing lesser quantities that would result in zero or minimal damage? The enhanced pat-down that some find so offensive is designed to search for these small amounts. It often ends with a swab being taken to test for explosive residues. Technology does have a role to play, but imaging is not the solution. Operator fatigue sets in after short periods of time staring at computer images. That's why there are reports that contraband items have been smuggled through X-ray units used to scan carry-on bags. The aim should be to detect high explosive in quantities that are sufficient to cause significant damage. We don't need a machine that takes pictures of the human body. It makes more sense to develop a detector that clearly discriminates between high explosives and human tissue or water."
Have sexy agents of the opposite sex do the manual tapping method.
People will line up for the privilege. Some of them will even stand up for it.
The goal is to make money for government contractors and politcians, not enhance safety. Inefficient, ineffective solutions produce much more profit for government contractors and the politicians that support them.
Oh sure, we'll just get a trained counterterrorism specialist to look every single airline passenger in the eye every single day. Easy. Why didn't anyone else think of this?
EVERYONE CAN RELAX, THE WORLD IS NOW DEATH-PROOF!
The only way to do security of this type effectively IS the way other countries (like Israel) do it - and that is with profiling, of course the bleeding hearts here in the U.S will never stand for it, so we end up screening little kids, 80 year old invalids, and other unlikely candidates, because we are afraid of offending someone. It might not be 100 % but I'll bet it beats random checks any day of the week....
Anything less than a full rectal scan followed by cranial RFID chip insertion would be unAmerican. Go Freedom Fries!
The big problem right now is that billions were spent on getting the scanners that nobody wants to have used on themselves. So we have an "enhanced pat down" which primarily serves to push people into the scanning booth. Still, people are voting to have their children felt up and various body parts manipulated rather than getting scanned.
If they try to walk away from the billions spent on the scanners taxpayers (like me) will rightly be rather angry that this much was spent on something utterly unsuitable for the job and they are just walking away from it.
The only winning hand here is for them to convince the flying public that the scanners are the right way to go. Which is exactly what you can expect in the coming months.
Could the underwear bomber have done any worse than what happened on Aloha airlines flight 243?
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
America has no existential threat. Talking about "an alternative" is a waste of time and counter productive.
The alternative should be to dismantle the TSA, put every single person who works for it on trial for treason, and have them executed.
This particular agency has taken it upon itself to turn America into a police state where freedom of speech, assembly, and movement no longer exists. They do it under the guise of security, but it is unnecessary (and frankly incompetent) security. They use techniques which coerce citizens to give in to "less intrusive" measures by means of fear and intimidation. It's a damned shame, and Obama ought to be impeached for supporting this.
Crazy that it takes CNN to make sense of the situation, but yes!
The day you exclude 80 year old invalids from the same scans as everyone else is the day that the terrorists start recruiting 80 year old invalids.
You'd lose that bet. Random checks (really random) mean that the terrorists will never know who will be checked. So there is no way for them to "game" the system.
And "gaming" the system is exactly how we ended up with the shoe bomber and captain underpants.
The author of the editorial is Peter Rez, a physicist at Arizona State. As someone who has had an opportunity to take a couple of classes from this guy, let me say that he is very smart and reasonable, and while I don't always agree with what he has to say, I think it's definitely worth a bit of your time to read what he has written.
The Israeli method relies on very talented people taking a very close look at the brains of the passengers. It's pyschologically intrusive, as opposed to see-how-fat-you-are intrusive. Regardless, I don't think the TSA could hire enough people with those skills to handle the much larger (than Israel) air traffic that wanders through the US. Even more importantly, the US public (well, the more vocal part of the lefty punditocracy, anyway) won't tolerate even the notion that, gosh, further scutiny of someone might be called for because of things like where they're traveling from, how they're dressed, what they appear to do (or not) for a living, how they appear to handle - culturally - where they are and what's going on around them ... you know: profiling. The Israeli system works as well as it does because they're ready, willing, and able to say that word out loud without collapsing in a quivering heap of politcally correct jello. The current administration prefers to have Grandma groped and full-body-scanned because the alternative is to talk - out loud - about how judgement about people would be required. And we can't have that, because it's wrong to form opinions about people from the clues they present in their bearing, manner, clothing, habits, transactional history, blah blah blah.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
I don't think Israeli solutions will scale. It's a fine idea to look at what they do and mine it for good ideas, but you can't argue that what they do will necessarily work for anyone else just because it works for them. It may not be effective, or it may simply not be practical, when applied elsewhere.
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
" the Israeli method of securing airplanes — look for the bomber"
How can I say this without sounding racist? Oh well here goes - The average uneducated American( without tertiary and beyond) is not very worldly. I am not American. I have traveled extensively.
It is little wonder. While things may have changed a bit, some years ago I was watching television in Minneapolis and the Newscaster says "Moving to international news - Bill Clinton is in Arkansas this week....". While I laughed out loud at that, it is somewhat indicative. Even the father of the recent child pat-down video said similar - inferring that they were basic people trying to do a job that needed skills that was beyond them. He stopped short of saying similar to quote from Blazing saddles re the common people: "You know? Morons".
The israeli "TSA" agents are usually tertiary qualified, highly trained, or from police type jobs(and with all the rest of the qualifications then piled on top). Given that the job required a high level of "worldliness", an awareness of cultures etc, the TSA could have an uphill battle sourcing resources, or having to realize a paradigm shift. And what to do with the current batch of TSA agents?
The TSA may be incapable of implementing such drastic change.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
If only we had some sort of device that could detect bomb materials by smell and could easily be used around humans. Perhaps some sort of animal that could be used for this purpose, these could then be stationed in airports and detect this material at the entrances or at the security checkpoint. Then we would not need invasive groping or X-rays and we would be able to detect even material a subject has swallowed. I realize this is only a dream, but one day we will surely have it in our power to produce such a creature.
Who's been caught by the TSA?
Not a single terrorist has EVER been caught by the TSA while trying to board a plane.
And if they thought your can of Coke was really a threat, then why don't they treat you like a threat when they find it? Instead they just demand that you throw the POTENTIAL LIQUID EXPLOSIVE into a garbage can next to them.
It is 100% bullshit.
Why you ask? Because the first person to point out how useless all of the scanning is will be singled out as anti-American by their opposing Congresscritters. Same problem when it comes to common sense with child porn laws and sexting by those under the age of 18. If you don't throw the book at the offender, you're not "thinking of the children!"
Instead of going through a scanner, walk through the metal detector and a fan blows over you and into a kennel of trained dogs.
Since the fan is blowing your stink to the dogs, you don't have a problem with allergies.
Then you just need to keep rotating the dogs so that someone cannot come through with something that will damage their noses to cover for the next guy in line bringing through a bomb.
In fact, they should randomize the check points so that the terrorists will never know who will be going through which checkpoint in what order.
Wish I had those points now
"But is it worth chasing lesser quantities that would result in zero or minimal damage?" If 10X of a bad substance is your damage threshold and 2X is your detection threshold then all Terry Terrorist has to do is smuggle X ten times.... stashing it somewhere after security. On the 10th time he picks up 10X after passing security and boards a plane. Boom.
The most effective detector for hidden explosives is the bomb-sniffing dog. My unit used dogs to great effect in Iraq, and yes we did find bombs and hidden explosives on people, in cars, buried in the ground or in houses. Dogs can even sniff explosives from several meters away. So all the passengers would have to do is walk by a bomb dog and his handler on the way to the airplane. If the dog signals a positive, then that passenger could be taken aside for a more detailed search. An indication from a trained working dog is legal grounds for probable cause to search a person.
Dogs are so effective that DARPA even has a challenge to come up with a machine detector that could match a dog's nose. So far, no one has won the prize. I admit that dogs do have limitations such as needing rest, food, water and play time. But those limitations can be easily overcome with a little careful planning and cycling dogs in and out. The DEA and the US Customs services already use dogs at airports to screen luggage for drugs or illegal animal trade. So many airports probably already have the infrastructure to attend and care for working dogs. I honestly do not know why the TSA hasn't even openly considered bomb dogs as an acceptable alternative to full-body scanners. The TSA is obviously aware that the military and police have been using dogs effectively for many years.
And yet Timmy McVeigh and the UniBomber weren't Arab.
Nice work. You should apply for a job with the TSA because you are operating under the same mental limitation as they are.
Stop trying to defend against the LAST attack.
If you check all Arab men, then the guy will just get his girlfriend to carry the bomb through security.
Here's a history lesson for you.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindawi_affair
Seems like your approach has already been gamed by the terrorists. Over 20 years ago.
FTA , "they never suffered any delays after interviews" - How many passengers do they serve a day? Can you imagine putting such a system in JFK?? I dont support the current pat down or radiation therapy , but the Israeli scheme is not scalable to US levels. Besides, I feel that attacks on Israel have been crude and their system works well to avoid them. The US fears of more sophisticated attacks ( or atleast wants us to fear ) and hence wants a nothing-suspicious-left-behind strategy. To summarize, I think it is easy to study the Israeli system and come up with a way to beat it!
Israel's system works because they profile.
So the method that the TSA uses works because the TSA hasn't caught anyone by using that method.
But people are caught.
But not by the TSA.
Wanna buy a rock that prevents crocodile attacks?
The comparison isn't very apt or fair. Israel has a single airport to protect, the US has something on the order of 100. Add in the fact that unless you're an Israeli Jew or part of an established, organized tour group, you can expect a 3-4 hour wait and it quickly becomes infeasible to do something similar in the US without making air travel a very painful process. There's things the Israelis do that probably should be adopted in the US, such as having the secure, bomb resistant areas for checked luggage and interviewing areas so that potential alarms don't result in the evacuation of the entire terminal. However, I don't think turning a flight into a 3-4 hour ordeal to board for anyone that isn't white and christian is going to fly in the US.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
As much as I admire the success of "the Israeli method of securing airplanes" on a day-to-day basis, it has failed abysmally in the decade-to-decade time frame. Not because it has permitted planes to be hijacked or blown up, but because it is still in place after so much time. It (along with the quality of the Israeli armed forces, its nuclear arsenal, and the insufficiently qualified support of foreign governments) has served as a kind of "enabling behavior", making it possible for the Israeli government to maintain hostile relations with its neighbors and even so many of its (non-Jewish) subjects. I'm not saying that the political situation in the Middle East is entirely (or even mostly) their fault. But their ability to make a state of war tolerable enough to live with decade after decade has kept them from finding a real solution. (Obligatory geek reference: ST:TOS episode "A Taste of Armageddon".) Likewise, the US government's efforts to make its "war on terror" tolerable for its people to live with - with no planes blowing up or other experiences of "war on US soil" - enable it to avoid dealing with the real root causes of this problem. Not Islam. Not Iraq or Iran. Not Israel. Running with the "i" theme I've got going here, I'd call it "industrial imperialism". If we want air travel to be safe - if we want our people to be safe - we need to look at that, not individuals' skin color or body cavities or religion.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
The underpants bomber was black, not Arab.
I'm surprised that a security expert like yourself doesn't know that. It almost seems like you are an ignorant know it all talking about things you don't understand.
By the way, engineers have been carrying out many terrorist attacks lately. Maybe we should profile people who have engineering degrees. Or libertarians.
Bottom line, I agree with you that we should single out races and and political ideologies for scrutiny and discrimination.
Seems that the TSA does have "coyotes" so yes, we can rule out the fence as preventing them.
Particularly since, as I've stated before, the TSA is not catching ANY terrorists. Not a single one.
Now, you seem to be arguing that this is because the TSA is so effective that the terrorists just don't try any more.
But that is contradicted by the facts. The shoe bomber.
So your "logic" is that the terrorists don't even try except for the ones who do try and who elude the TSA and get onto the planes but that's only because the TSA stopped them which it did not.
The long lines are going to stay, as this gives observers time to analyze the people, and the people to get jittery. The person who checks tickets will stay, as a well trained skill worker there is the best line of defense. The current protocol is quite useless, as at least a minute of questioning will be necessary.
Bag scanners with neutron bombardement will detect explosives and weapons. We must invest in software to make these detections automatic and reliable.
Full body scanners are useless. The underwear bomber would have been caught if professionals were observing and procedures were followed. Random nuetron scans of humans will detect explosives.
If we want security, there is simple means to minimize explosions. Cargo holds can be kept in vacuum or flooded with Argon. If as the DoHS says passengers require assurances, we can all fly sedated in a 10/90% oxygen argon mixture.
Otherwise, cockpit doors must remain closed. Passengers are not going to scared by a few people with knives knowing they are going to die anyway. Small quantities of explosive may cause panic, but won't take down a plane if the pilots are secure.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Until we have idiot-resistant, hard-to-spoof, low-false-positive and cost effective chemical sniffers for explosives and NBC weapons, we will have to rely on other methods.
The behavior profiling methods used by the Israelis are effective, but rely heavily on experienced and highly motivated screeners. A computerized implementation of these methods might be combine facial recognition (for known threats), eye tracking and full body motion detection to characterize behavior and identify atypical behaviors for further screening. Voice monitoring might also permit some assessment of stress levels. Of course, those with nervous ticks or Parkinsons may have to submit more often to supplemental screenings. If you were stressed out from a bad day, it just might get worse. Nothing's perfect.
Invenio via vel creo
I think that the reason that the TSA would not be happy with this idea is that the TSA seems a LOT more focused on technology as a "solution".
But that makes sense. How much money is there in training dogs as opposed to selling/maintaining/upgrading new scanning machines?
Michael Rivero (whatreallyhappened.com) postulated that maybe the current scans/gropes are supposed to be outrageous to make iris scanners, which are now being installed and tested in a town in Mexico, seem more benign. After the gross improprieties of today's system, iris scanners will be an easier sell. And of course iris scanners would be the ultimate ID (for the feds) and could easily connect with the big databases, aka "fusion centers" so at a moment's notice your entire life's history could be recalled. If in fact iris scanners become the default security device, 1984 will have arrived in full force.
Remember these words from Zbig:
"The technotronic era involves the gradual appearance of a more controlled society. Such a society would be dominated by an elite, unrestrained by traditional values. Soon it will be possible to assert almost continuous surveillance over every citizen and maintain up-to-date complete files containing even the most personal information about the citizen. These files will be subject to instantaneous retrieval by the authorities." - Zbigniew Brzezinski, political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman, United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981 [and advisor to every president since]
I'm not comfortable with the government keeping tabs on each citizen, where they go, who they talk to, and who they may be related to. That is what the Israeli profiling will bring to our country, and it is just as wrong as these scanners.
Exactly. The Israeli method is to do detailed questioning (they call it "interviewing") of every passenger. Not just the ones "profiled" according to some prejudice-- ever one.
Do you really think that it's less of an invasion of privacy to give the government the mandate to have their agents ask detailed questions of everybody who wants to travel, with no limitation on what subjects are fair game for questioning, and if you answer "wrong" you get detained (for how long?) for further questioning?
This would mean saying "goodbye privacy" for anybody who wants to travel. Actually, I'd rather have them scan my junk.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
I remember back when we had real trolls. Not these thin-blooded wanna-bes.
So you cannot parse basic English or you are completely ignorant of recent history or you're trolling.
And you even got some mod points. Interesting.
No. You said that the method used by the TSA worked. I said that it did not because it didn't catch any of the terrorists since the WTC attack.
You said something about fences and coyotes. I pointed out that the "coyotes" were still there and had not been stopped.
Now you're talking about whether the shoe bomber had been caught by the TSA. He had not. He was stopped by other people on the plane.
All that and you even started off this thread with "racist".
Feel free to wander around the subject, but the fact is that the TSA has never caught a single terrorist. Never.
But the shoe bomber got through the TSA's checks.
Therefore, the methods the TSA used did not stop a terrorist from getting a bomb onto a plane.
You have a problem with that. Whatever.
Racial profiling fails. It was gamed over 20 years ago.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindawi_affair
Seriously; We can avoid scanners and gropers, and America gets the security it wants if we knock out everyone on the plane. The Pilot/Copilot have a seperate O2 supply, but the main cabin is gassed as the plane taxis onto the runway.
Think of the cost savings for airlines: no in-flight movie, no cell phone interference, no TV sets in the backs of headrests, no having to serve Pepsi and Peanuts, no Stewardesses required.
And advantages for you: No screaming babies, no people climbing over you to get to the rest-room, no trouble sleeping during the flight. You arrive rested. When the plane lands, fresh air is pumped in and everyone wakes up.
So the terrorist has no opportunity to light up his underwear, or take over the plane armed with a sharp piece of paper. Air Marshalls no longer required. TSA no longer required.
This plan is even better than the TSAs because the airlines might be able to make money with all the cost-savings. It's just that the Military Industrial Complex doesn't make money, and neither do the well-connected people in D.C. -- which is why this plan will never be implemented.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
To accomplish what? As a practical joke? To shut down the airport? To try to get a real bomb through?
The rational for the action would indicate the response to the action.
The only way to do security of this type effectively IS the way other countries (like Israel) do it - and that is with profiling
Except that Israel does not use profiling for airport security.
Israeli security experts have repeatedly emphasized that, in their view, profiling is an open invitation to terrorism. Terrorists need only to find out what profile is being used, and then they're in; they just use a terrorist that doesn't fit the profile. Profiling fails.
The Israelis use questioning. 100% questioning.
The US, on the other hand, does use profiling. The last time I was detained for detailed questioning (because, for reasons beyond my control, I'd bought a one-way ticket at the last minute-- a profiling flag), every other person in the group was a middle-Eastern or Indian male. It was pretty darn obvious what the profile was.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Dogs. Put a bomb-sniffing dog at each security checkpoint. When the dog alerts to a substance, stop the line and use pat-down procedures (performed in private) on the individual(s) who caused the alert. This is cheaper and much, much more reliable than any scanner.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
Would you rather have your child walk past a line of dogs on the way to the plane or go through an "enhanced pat-down" by Chester the TSA agent?
The Japanese have been working on this scanning technology years before 9-11. ...basically because they are totally paranoid about illicit drug use in their country, which is why model glue is right up there as a recreational drug in Japan. Millimeter wave scanning technology can be fine tuned and tell one substance from another quite easily. This kind of technology properly used could become the next kind of medical scanner, Imagine being able to detect the tiniest blobs of malignant cells before they even become a tumor... This is great technology but perhaps it isn't being used properly. They could just tone down the resolution a bit as they only need to detect the explosive... they don't need to see your goodies in high detail.
as you recall both the shoe bomber and captain underpants were young Arab men, as were all the 9/11 terrorists.
The underwear bomber was African. The shoe bomber was half English (caucasian) and half Jamaican (African descent). As such, neither was a young Arab man. Perhaps you confuse "Arab" with "Muslim"?
The reason for scanning people thoroughly is to throw terrorists off their game.
The underpants bomber failed in part because his bomb wasn't big or powerful enough. If people were still allowed to bring in large amounts of liquid, his job would have been much easier.
The TSA is there to prevent terrorism, not catch terrorists.
Also, many of the trash cans near the TSA checkpoints seem to be hardened against explosions. Those that aren't should be. Not only that, but the injuries on the ground from a small explosive pale in comparison to the hundreds of people that would be killed if the explosive were to make it on a plane.
The TSA is here to keep us flying safely, and while they aren't perfect, people still feel safe enough to get on a plane. The impact on the economy and the could
I know a few years ago I went to the CN Tower in Toronto Canada, and you had to walk into this big bomb smelling machine.
Basically it swooshes you with little jets of air, and then measures if any minute explosive material is present. If your going after bombs that seems like the best and least offensive way to go about it... won't help with the guy with a plastic knife in his shorts though. Of course you don't get naked shots for the internet either!
Also about all the liquid explosives and chucking them into a bin, I don't know about home made explosives, but most commercial grade (and likely military) liquid and gel are specifically made NOT to explode (only under very specific conditions). Most would require significant concussive force, more than you can deliver with a hammer. That is they would require a primer, likely a blasting cap or some such thing. The home made stuff might be sketchy enough I don't know. Even TNT is pretty stable unless you let it sit around in unsuitable conditions for a long period of time.
Gasoline is one of the more common reactive and dangerous liquids out there, yet I can take a bottle and bounce it off a wall without fear. Might not want to throw the bottle in an ashtray however.
Clearly everything should be done to prevent explosives getting on board an aircraft in quantities sufficient to cause structural failure and bring the plane down.
Actually, that should not be the goal. And it is that mistaken basis that causes all this strife.
All of this security stuff began after 9/11. 9/11 wasn't about terrorists destroying planes - it was about terrorists using planes to destroy other things. Planes are expensive, and they carry lots of people. Just like malls, cars, stadiums, and restaurants. But the goal is not to find every possible gathering of people and prevent bombs from getting in. That's impossible, and doesn't scale. The goal is to prevent terrorists from taking over planes, because planes can be turned into WMDs.
We are in this debate over millimeter wave scanners and body cavity searches because we, Americans, forgot what we were trying to prevent. One of the best bosses I ever worked for will often listen to a suggestion and reply with "What problem are we trying to solve?"
You are currently interviewed to a greater or lesser degree when you enter a country.
I am "interviewed" when I enter the US and when I return to Canada. I would rather have a slightly more through interview than to have my junk felt up or photographed.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
FTFA:
For the last 40 years, El Al did not have a single tragedy. And they came to attack us and to blow up our aircraft, but we knew how to stop them on the ground. So let's try to implement the system at one airport in the country and then come to a conclusion...
Maybe not blown-up airlines, but since 1970 there's been quite a few incidents: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Al#Incidents_and_accidents
SAS hasn't had blown-up airliners either. They don't interview everyone. What about Estonian Airlines, they've not had blown up aircraft or serious incidents either.
I doubt that the interviewing is the only thing which makes El Al shine. I believe it's that El Al actually relies on good people to do their job well, instead of coming up with a dodgy technological solution and hiring the cheapest people.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon baseless suspicion, supported by trickery and deceit, and stating after the search the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
FTFY
"Cursed is he who rises early in the morning..." Isiah 5:11
TSA isn't Immigration and Customs.
Coming in to a country should not be an ordeal. There are only a handful of questions that should be asked.
Determine identity:
* Is the person's passport valid? Does it scan cleanly and does the image shown on the screen match the person? If yes, skip to entry eligibility.
X If the person's identity cannot be determined, detain person or deport person to originating country. If detained, determine identity.
Determine entry eligibility:
* Is the person a citizen? If yes, skip to questions.
* Is the person from a country with a visa waiver program? If yes, skip to questions.
* Does the person have a valid visa to enter the country? If yes, skip to questions.
X If the person fails all these, temporarily detain to determine eligibility on the spot. Deport if necessary.
Questions:
* Prior to entry, what other countries have you visited? Check for match between answer and passport stamps.
* If person is citizen or permanent resident, say "welcome home" and send the person to Customs for customs declaration and processing.
* How long will you stay in this country? Verify that answer does not exceed visa permissions.
* What will you be doing in this country? Verify that visa permits such activities.
* Where will you stay while in this country? Verify that person has either a lodging or in special cases a plan to travel about the country.
X If the person cannot answer these questions sufficiently, temporarily detain to ascertain person's status. Give the person the benefit of the doubt.
Final:
* Say "Welcome. I hope you enjoy your stay." and send the person to Customs for processing.
In practice, establishing rules for this kind of thing doesn't work. Rules only work when they are designed to promote social cohesion (i.e. driving on the same side of the road, stopping for red lights, communications protocols, linguistic rules, building codes, standards, etc. . .). Rules intended to prevent crime are ineffective because criminals intend to commit crime and therefore have an easy time ignoring or skirting rules. Rules intended to promote social cohesion are effective because people want to fit into society and have an easy time of things.
Clearly you haven't thought this through, or you'd realize that "everything" includes ending air travel, or doing full medical-grade X-rays of every passenger. No, what should clearly be done is to reduce the risk of injury due to terrorism below that of things people put themselves at risk to every day, like car travel. The rest is a matter of educating people. At that point, by definition, the terror caused by the risk of someone taking down a plane is less than that of traveling in a vehicle, and we have won and the terrorists have lost. That's the way to win without subjecting the very people we want protected (us!) to any unnecessary hardship.
It's no better to be interrogated every time you fly. It's none of their business who you are, who you know, where you are going, what you are doing there, what kind of work you do, etc.
We can't racially profile in the US because that's racism, and that's not allowed
That's funny, because in every population statistics (state, town or prison populations) of the US, there is a detailed description of the "ethnic origin" of the population. That look like racial profiling to me. But that is not really racism.
Grandma Mable gets scanned because the TSA isn't racist
You imply here that some people are more likely to be terrorists because of their origins. Now, that sounds like racism to me!
Say we privatize the TSA, let the airports do it or something. They in turn impose these rules and then the libertarians defend them because we can't have government mess with business...
People just love to pose unreasonable puzzles for libertarian with the implication that if they don't immediately provide a perfect solution, the government is the default alternative without having to solve the same puzzle itself. The incentive for private business it to serve their paying customers, not to piss them off with unnecessary and humiliating procedures and to balance that with the potential expense of lawsuits in case security fails. The incentive for a government bureaucrat is all on one side: to set more and more stringent security rules because if security fails he may lose his job, if the customers are dissatisfied he doesn't lose anything. In any case, national security is a legitimate duty of the government, I don't know any libertarians who would like to privatize it.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
national security is a legitimate duty of the government, I don't know any libertarians who would like to privatize it.
/me raises hand in favor of privatizing national security
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
I'm not for the overdone security theater we are doing know. I think that personality and behavioral profiling is more effective e.g. if you bought a one way ticket last minutes, if you are sweating bullets or your biorhythms give off a hint of deception, etc... but the argument posed by the OP is faulty. So lets say there is some critical amount of explosive, delta, that is required to cause structural damage. Then two people smuggle in delta - epsilon, where epsilon is very small. Now you have *nearly* double the critical amount of explosive and yet you are searching for a consolidated quantity greater than or equal to delta, which does not exists until it is assembled on the plane in perhaps the restroom.
We might be talking about different things here. I am in favor of outsourcing certain security functions to private companies under strict rules and ultimately under the government control. You wouldn't want to privatize US military the same way a utility company might be privatized - by putting it under control of a private company, right?
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Over the past week a lot of knuckle heads here and in the "lamestream media" including the Times have uncritically regurgitated Israeli security hasbeens, wannabeees, werenaughts, "experts" that the El Al way is the `only true way forward, you dunderhead Americans,' Oy vey! Getthefuckoutahere! You ever seen one of those El Al interrogations in person. How about on PBS, Frontline, 60 Minutes, whereverthefuckelse?! You wanna see their chosen land, fine do it their way, it's their fucking country. This one is mine! Keep your ticket counter, skyway, gate interrogations, intrusions, pushiness, profiling out of my way. If I want that shit I'll go to the ghetto, oops! inner city, and get constitutionally violated by a random frisk, profaning, threat of arrest from the NYPD---thank you. I'll get backscatter scanned, have my ass sniffed by Snoopy if ya want Israeli d00d. What works for 7 million will not work for 310 million, a 43 fold increase.
It seems like the escalation of groping is conditioning for what is next, which is full colonoscopy for each traveler. Don't think so? Well, what happens when a bomber puts PETN in their rectum and successfully blows a hole in a plane?
Why the three frigging hells is this story tagged Islam?
I believe it would only take the time and patience of one dedicated person to end the use of the body scanners.
Get a job with the TSA
In this economy, I'm sure that someone out there passionate about ending the use of body scanners is currently jobless. Go work for the TSA. Obviously it's not difficult- you don't even need a high school degree. Try to get yourself in a position where you may have access to the body scanner images. Know that this could take a long time- perhaps even more than a year.
Once you get access, sneak your mobile phone into the imaging room- this may be very difficult, but with enough determination I'm confident it would be possible. Take as many photos of the naked images as you can, then post them to the internet.
Done. The public outcry would be so great as to force the TSA to at least suspend (and possibly permanently end) the use of the body scanners.
Obviously you need to be careful about what you post. Don't post images of any minors, as you would be guilty of distributing child pornography. And for the sake of the travelers, block out their faces.
If you're so up in arms about it, then do something about it. You could single handedly end their use.
I'd be OK with outsourcing much of the military's functions to mercenaries/private military contractors, as long as the decision on when to go to war is left in the hands of the Congress and President. Then we'd only have to pay for professionals when we needed them and could get by with a much smaller army.
Obviously this wouldn't work across the board. We'd still need a Navy, and I wouldn't trust private companies with nuclear weapons, and we'd still want a small standing army for security reasons. But why not hire mercs to man the bases around the world? Or to supplement the army in case of invasion? Even if they were paid higher salaries the cost over time would be less due to the way military pensions are structured.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
What's so silly about this is, if you have one milligram of some dangerous compound stuck in the back of a pocket or something, this will pick it up and you will be in for a hard time. But if you try to bring 2 liters of it on board in a water bottle and they catch it, they'll just toss it in with the rest of the confiscated liquids and let you try again next time.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
The article is about behavioral profiling...doesnt matter what race. Try reading before you call someone an idiot.