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Auditors Question TSA's Tech Spending, Security Solutions
Frosty P writes "Government auditors have faulted the TSA and its parent agency, the Department of Homeland Security, for failing to properly test and evaluate technology before spending money on it. The TSA spent about $36 million on devices that puffed air on travelers to 'sniff' them out for explosives residue. All 207 of those machines ended up in warehouses, abandoned as unable to perform as advertised, deployed in many airports before the TSA had fully tested them. Since it was founded in 2001, the TSA has spent roughly $14 billion in more than 20,900 transactions with dozens of contractors, including $8 billion for the famous new body scanners that have recently come under scrutiny for being unable to perform the task for which they are advertised. 'TSA has an obsession of finding a single box that will solve all its problems. They've spent and wasted money looking for that one box, and there is no such solution,' said John Huey, an airport security expert."
seriously, I've done counter-terrorism and I can tell you that all the tech solutions are literal wastes of money.
Even the tests of TSA screening show a trained terrorist can get all the items aboard 4 out of 5 times, with a more than 95 percent success rate on getting them into the cargo hold as well.
The only things that work - and have worked - are:
1. Dogs.
2. Pigs. Even better than dogs.
3. Throwing your coat or blanket on top of any hijacker and subduing them, yelling "Terrorist! We're all going to die - get them!"
Everything else is an utter and absolute waste of time and effort.
And a whole lot of cash.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Eh.. it's not about making you a slave; it's about justifying their existence. People will rationalize their own purpose even when it's inefficient or ineffective.
The part about getting people to do what you tell them is just a convenient side-effect.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
That's why it needs oversight and auditing. But not from some bi-partisan committee bull that sees its right to exist rather in the ability to keep their cronies well fed.
Here's an idea for a great auditor: Every single company that wanted the contract but didn't get it. If there is someone willing and motivated to look for flaws in an implementation, it's them!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I've got an IFR pilot rating and an RV-8 - which gets about 170 knots and a decent range, although it's pretty cramped (better than coach, though), and lacks de-icing capabilities, I regularly fly it around the central US, and for most flights it's faster than commercial (counting drive-to-airport, checking in, waiting, flying, retrieving baggage and leaving airport), and no 'freedom fondle' or worrying about breakage, theft or the TSA rule-of-the-week. As an example, from my home in west-central MN to a client site in Dallas is about a 20 hour drive (direct), about a 6 hour flight in my plane (with one pit stop), or about 7 hours commercially (3.5 hours to 'real' airport, 1 hour AT airport, about 3 hours in air). Fuel is a bit more than a typical coach fare, but less than two tickets if I bring a passenger (it's a 2-seater). I occasionally have to wait or divert for weather, but I get to do it on MY schedule, not the airlines. It isn't for everybody, but it's not as far fetched as many think. I've had the plane about 6 years and I've been (for business or recreation) all over - Fargo, Minneapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Cleveland, DC, Orlando, Key West, Dallas, Phoenix, St Louis, Atlanta, and hundreds of smaller towns around the country.
On top of that, the plane is fully aerobatic and fun as hell.
Was it back when the Internet had no trolls and everyone on slashdot wrote thoughtful, well-reasoned commentary?
When did this exist?
1946.
More on topic, am I the only one who thinks the TSA should be disbanded and Michael Chertoff should be standing in an unemployment line with Michael brown?
How about we spend some of that transportation safety money on guard rails? 45,000 people die on American highways each year, but there were no airline fatalities for two years straight. Seems that the government's priorities are highly illogical; the transportation safety money should be spent on safer highways, where people die every day, not wasted on the already safe airports. The only terrorist I'm terrified of is the blond in the SUV texting on the cell phone while eating a hamburger.
Free Martian Whores!
The problem is that there is a scale where the perception of the value of a single life is zero in Islamabad, 5 in London and 1000 in New York City.
Until that changes you have a health care system focused on putting off dying for two weeks at a cost of $500,000 and airport security focused on preventing any incident from happening at any cost.
If someone were to come out and openly say it isn't worth the trouble and cost to the American people to have the TSA and if a terrorist succeeds in crashing a plane ... well, that's too bad the result would be a riot. Certainly they would be thrown out of whatever office they held.
No, this is not a point of rationality in the US. And it goes way, way deeper than simply the TSA.