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TSA Investigates... People Who Complain About TSA
Hugh Pickens writes "CNN has obtained a list of roughly 70 'behavioral indicators' that TSA behavior detection officers use to identify potentially 'high risk' passengers at the nation's airports, and report that arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator TSA officers consider when looking for possible criminals and terrorists. When combined with other behavioral indicators, it could result in a traveler facing additional scrutiny. 'Expressing your contempt about airport procedures — that's a First Amendment-protected right,' says Michael German, a former FBI agent who now works as legal counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union. 'It's circular reasoning where, you know, I'm going to ask someone to surrender their rights; if they refuse, that's evidence that I need to take their rights away from them. And it's simply inappropriate.' Interestingly enough, some experts say terrorists are much more likely to avoid confrontations with authorities, saying an al-Qaeda training manual instructs members to blend in."
...and it's getting boring to have to read things which imply it.
So all I need to do to get felt up by a guy who's clearly as unhappy about it as I am is to bitch about the lines at the airport and how poorly the TSA's uniforms fit? Where do I sign up again?
One could assume from this that the TSA is here to teach us to not talk back to the Authority, rather than to actually catch terrorists.
If you're not guilty then you won't have anything to hide. ( which, ironically, I think we should apply generously to politicians/corporations )
War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, and Ignorance is Strength...
Politics is Treachery, Religion is Brainwashing
Please Remove Your Shoes In this documentary, it shows the agreement between the FAA and airlines industries to put security at a low priority while getting passengers on planes as quickly as possible was the highest priority. A "red team" agent who audits security put a bomb in a suitcase, threw clothes on it and put a water bottle on top of the clothes. The screener detected the bag, opened it up, confiscated the water bottle and allowed the bag to go through. TSA agents complained because he "thought outside the box" and invalidated the test because it was "unfair" to their procedures on how to audit security. This documentary is from ex/current TSA, FAA, and air marshal agents. Did you know the TSA was more interested in having an air marshal dress code than actually "blending in" on the plane? The guy in a suit and tie sitting on the plane to Hawaii was a dead giveaway when everyone else was dressed appropriately.
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Interestingly enough, some experts say terrorists are much more likely to avoid confrontations with authorities, saying an al-Qaeda training manual instructs members to blend in.
This seems like the most obvious flaw in reasoning, and probably didn't require expert research to predict. What nefarious character is going to draw attention to themselves when trying to get away with something evil? This didn't stand out as a "duh" to the folks crafting this list? That scares me too... assuming the goal of these criteria was to catch the bad guys, of course.
Wrong quote.
"Facecrime: An indication that a person is guilty of thoughtcrime based on their facial expression."
The article isn't about surveillance, it's about BDOs and SPOT agents on the lookout for facecriminals.
"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself, anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face, was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime"
If the Orwell's getting tired, I'd settle for a quote from the other design document on which TSA is based.
"Happiness is mandatory. Are you happy, Citizen?"
- Paranoia XP, the post-9/11 revision of the classic 80s role-playing game.
I'm not so paranoid that I'm reluctant to post this as an AC, but I am paranoid enough that I didn't want to use the acronym for "role-playing-game."
Complaining got you send to gulag.
According to CNN, the TSA is actually more ineffective than I initially thought:
False Positives-
Members of Congress also expressed concern about the number of "false positives" -- people flagged for additional screening that resulted in nothing being found. For every person correctly identified as a "high risk" traveler by (the behavior detection officers), 86 were misidentified, Willis said. At random screening, for every person correctly identified, 794 were misidentified.
Effectiveness at detecting terrorists-
Experts agree that the fact that there is an extremely small number of terrorists makes it hard to evaluate the effectiveness of behavioral observation programs. The Accountability Office said it looked at 23 occasions in which 16 individuals -- people later charged with terrorism-related activities -- passed through high-threat airports. None is known to have been identified. But it is not known if the behavior detection officers were working at the time, the agency said.
So, in the best case scenario, for every person ultimately charged with a crime (not necessarily convicted) 86 are misidentified. And that is using "trained" behavioral analysts. Most TSA searches are random, which results in one charge for every 794 false positives. Note also that nearly 40% of the charges are immigration related. Most of the rest are probably drug related.
The TSA can't point to a single incident where its random searches or behavioral analysis actually has prevented a terrorist attack. Despite their utter failure, the TSA plans to spend another $1.2 billion over the course of five years on behavior analysis techniques.
Source: http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/15/tsa.screeners.complain/index.html?hpt=C1
Just like people carrying drugs in their cars might suddenly get angry and combative with police about being pulled over "for no good reason".
Who told you that nonsense?
They don't. The people moving drugs use rental cars, since the car can get seized, and they tend to do the speed limit or right around it. If they get a ticket they are as nice as possible, no reason to want to attract attention. Your average methhead does not of course fit the description I gave, but that is because he is a moron meth user not someone moving large amount of drugs for profit.
Or SO I HEARD.
The TSA did not exist on 9/11. Mohammed al-Qahtani was turned away by immigration after his flight landed in the US. He was chosen for Secondary inspection because he didn't fill out the paperwork properly. He was denied admission for a long list of suspicious activity ($2800 cash, no hotel, no return ticket, multiple stories, etc) in addition to being "creepy." That case really doesn't have much in common with what the TSA is attempting to do. That is also CBP's job. They are tasked with undesirable people out of the United States. When the TSA does their job (keeping weapons, explosives, and incendiaries off airplanes), it does not matter who boards an aircraft.
Full Testimony: http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing7/witness_melendez.htm
"saying an al-Qaeda training manual instructs members to blend in."
Why did you have to tell them that? Now they'll consider everyone blending in to be potential al-Qaeda terrorists.
Interesting. I know first hand that detective instruction and manuals state that one should focus on those in an investigation that are overly compliant when searching for suspects.
It is common sense anyway? When you cold call a neigborhood, those that have nothing to hide, invariably people are hostile to anything beyond "have you seen anyone suspicious out on the street."
"Where were you on x date?" and things go rapidly downhill. Normal people get upset and start making a fuss.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
1984 was not an instruction manual.
Sincerely,
The rest of the World.
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
I don't fly any longer, because I'm almost certain that I'd get picked for screening and I refuse to submit to the machine or a manual search, and I would assert my 4th amendment rights if they attempted such and probably end up in jail for doing so. The fucking bastards.
I still cannot find the droids I am looking for...
> Dissident speech instills terror in the minds of authority.
Not for the most part. Mostly they just find it annoying and respond by being authoritarian because they're pissed off. When reporters report on torture in Chechneya by the local strongman, they get killed because they're a pain to him. Not because the guy who tortures people every day is somehow afraid of them. He *should* be afraid of them. But mostly he's pissed at them. And he runs the apparatus of the state. He's not afraid of them--at most he's afraid that his bosses will replace him if anybody cares about new public knowledge that Russia sponsors terrorism.
Similarly (and obviously very differently, since most TSA employees are good people who are not actively torturing lots of innocent civilians, but similarly for the point about whether terror is inspired), TSA employees, like cops, are generally not terrified by dissident speech. They are annoyed by it because someone is making their day harder.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
1) Use smarter screeners. We don't need better scanners or more of them, just screeners able to stay alert and recognize a problem.
2) Anything that can take down a plane (aka the pilots). As far as I'm concerned, as soon as they secured the doors, a 9/11 style attack is no longer possible (and nobody's tried it again). Killing a few passengers doesn't matter because other passengers will react quickly now to defend themselves.
3) As long as it can't blow up the plane or kill the pilots, it shouldn't be on the list anyway.
4) There's a difference between irritation and nervousness. The former is a typical reaction associated with normal travelers, the latter is an atypical reaction associated with terrorists and criminals.
We shouldn't be worried about anything getting on a plane unless it can hijack the plane or cause parts of it to rain down in little pieces. Anything else can be just as effective as a terrorist act anywhere else on the ground. We've secured cockpit doors to prevent hijackings. Now the terrorists are more interested in explosives. They've used new methods pretty much each time, and we've only been playing catch-up. What's the one common factor in all of them? Passengers reacted quickly and put a stop to it. Personally I don't mind if there's a guy on my plane who tries to light his shoe on fire, as long as flight attendants and other passengers react quickly when they see him try. So for goodness sake, let me keep my shoes on in the security checkpoint.
And let's not forget, if the terrorists are smart enough to make it to a security checkpoint without detection already, they're smart enough to get through the security checkpoint without being stopped. TSA should be our last line of defense, not our only line of defense.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
Just like people carrying drugs in their cars might suddenly get angry and combative with police about being pulled over "for no good reason".
Huh? If you ask my cop friends, this almost never happens. Usually the confrontational people are the ones with nothing to hide, and they know it. The ones with drugs in their trunk are always very reasonable, in the hopes they'll get to 'go on their way.'
its funded by public dollars and just as public as the streets.
by printing something on paper, that alone does not make it correct interpretation of law.
they also post 'no photos allowed' but that is a KNOWN falsehood and of course photos are 'allowed'. they make fear-mongering rules up all the times. does not make them completely legal.
go ahead and add me to the fucking list for complaining. I stopped flying about a decade ago. my dollars are not going to help the airline industry or anything directly related. I vote with my dollars since my elected officials stopped voting for what was right.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Your premise is false, therefore your rhetorical question without meaning.
That's the cry of someone who wants the system kept as it is. The "official" mechanisms for changing the system don't work; they exist because they don't work. The system is stable, and one of the means by which it achieves that stability is by diverting those who would change it into ineffective paths. One of the other means, of course, is the cruder method of imprisoning or killing those who would change it.
And what did all this politeness and tolerance get you? Right... more onerous searches and greater restrictions.
That's not their job.
TSA was founded for several purposes:
1. To shift the power over airport security to the federal government (several subpurposes to this -- among them shifting responsibility in the case of another failure, and creating a single point of influence for contractors to target.)
2. To, simply by being created, be a visible act of "doing something", regardless of substantive effectiveness or lack thereof, in the immediate, wake of a major terrorist attack, and
3. To condition the public to accept greater arbitrary intrusions on personal liberty.
#2 was a short term goal and was probably reasonably successful (it was a political measure, and there were lots of others at the same time, so its pretty hard to isolate its effectiveness); #1 was obviously successful in general (and its subpurposes seem to have been achieved effectively). Despite some pushback over some measures, #3 seems to have been successful at least in the context in which TSA operates (though its less clear how successful it has been at conditioning the public to except more intrusion generally.)