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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.
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 )
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.
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
> 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!