US Congress Tries To Cut Body Scanner Funding

OverTheGeicoE writes "The Electronic Privacy Information Center reports that the US House of Representatives is trying to cut funding for new airport body scanners from next year's budget. This would prevent the TSA from installing 275 new scanners in airports in FY 2012, at a cost of $76 million."

Comments

Excellent

[Igorod]

I'm contacting my representatives offices tonight to ask that they support this. If you can't beat them with logic and reason, beat them with funding.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting that TFS doesn't mention that the republicans (the press release is right-wing propoganda) are denying the scanner budget that the president requested. I'm regretting my vote a little more.

Re:Excellent

[frosty_tsm]

Your head must be stuck in sand if you think this is about money.

Re:Excellent

[Tasha26]

Was there even an open bid process for body-scanner manufacturers or was it that one for-profit company who shoved the idea down TSA's throat and the govt was forced to go with it? I think the whole story about the current supplier is quite murky.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

left-wing right-wing they both place us for fools

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, because full body scanners will stop someone from doing that. Any idiot with a computer knows exactly where the scanners are installed and exactly how much detail they can detect. Do you really expect someone to be caught by surprise by a full body scanner and therefore not shove whatever it is they are trying to hide deep enough for it not to detect?

Re:Excellent

[jhoegl]

Links I clicked said committee..
You sir, make it partisan.

Re:Excellent

[Caradoc]

I was thinking that their head must be stuck in the sand if they think that the TSA has had the slightest effect on actual terrorist activities.

Re:Excellent

[Eponymous Coward]

If you want to save lives, that $80 million can be used much more wisely than on scanners of dubious safety and effectiveness. Where the money is spent should be driven by data and there simply isn't any data that says terrorism is something to be worried about. Not when you compare it to the dangers of traffic and simple health problems.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

Blame the tea party "republicans." The GOP is really wishing they had done their homework before courting the tea party. The libertarian agitators in the tea party really wanted those scanners to gtfo yesterday. The mainstream GOP's response to this anti-big-government push is to start grooming Trump for 2012.

I promise you one thing, this election cycle shall be incredibly entertaining.

Re:Excellent

[MikeB0Lton]

What about the manufacturing jobs this creates? Won't somebody think of the workers?!?

Re:Excellent

[corbettw]

I thought it was "if you can't beat them with logic and reason, beat them with a stick"? But hey, this works, too.

Re:Excellent

[Wyatt Earp]

Except Trump already said no to a run.

So did Huckabee, so it'll be Ron Paul or Palin for the tea bag candidate, Romney for the mainstream to get beaten by Obama in '12

Re:Excellent

[halivar]

Except Ron Paul has gone full-bore against the Bin Laden assassination. He won't get a single tea-party vote in the primary. He'll get the last few 9/11 truther's in the GOP and the Stormfront vote, and that's it.

Re:Excellent

[h4rr4r]

Palin?
So the blind leading the blind?

I can't understand why anyone would vote for that moron. On the other hand I cringed that people voted for W because they felt they could have a drink with him. I thought we were looking for presidents not drinking buddies or frat bros.

Re:Excellent

[dkleinsc]

There was 1 for-profit company, who just so happened to have financial ties to then-DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, who shoved the idea down the TSA's throat. These guys aren't even trying to hide the corruption anymore.

Re:Excellent

[Wyatt Earp]

People voted for her in Alaska because she was the outsider, gave a huge chunk of money to the people of Alaska, raised taxes on oil companies and fought the lobbyists.

Since she got on the national stage she's way different.

Re:Excellent

[dgatwood]

Or send it with a crooked employee who doesn't have to go through those scans, or toss it over the fence into the sterile area where it can be picked up by an employee who does have to go through those scans, or pack the fun bits inside the metal tubes of a piece of luggage, inside a bunch of film containers, inside a prosthetic metal leg, inside the metal tube of a cane or a pair of crutches, or in any of the other top 100 places to smuggle explosives onto a plane.

I mean, I think it's absolutely hilarious that we spent all these billions of dollars on something that only protects one relatively tiny attack surface, does so relatively poorly, invades people's civil liberties in a truly horrific way, and in spite of that, is still provably orders of magnitude less effective than bomb sniffing dogs. If you ever needed proof of why government cannot be trusted to protect its citizens, there you go. Just follow the trail of money from the manufacturers back to the crooked politicians who support this absurdity. It can't be all that hard to prove that bribes were involved. Unless, of course, they're really that dumb, in which case we're in bigger trouble than I thought.

Re:Excellent

[spitzak]

Even though I certainly did not like him, I think you really insult W by comparing to Palin. They are worlds apart.

Re:Excellent

[Anonymous Coward]

And the doctors to treat the radiation overexposure for the frequent fliers! Its a genius industry creating jobs left and right!

Re:Excellent

[ShavedOrangutan]

I have to agree with you but I really don't know why, other than what I saw on Saturday Night Live.

Re:Excellent

[StikyPad]

Open bids can be skipped when there's a sole source justification. Whether the justification holds up or not is a matter of opinion, but when there's only one provider, it's usually not much of a debate.

Re:Excellent

[mldi]

OK, at first glance I thought "Sweet! Less chance of a nudie scan!". Not that I'm so much personally impacted by it, but it's the principle as well as recognizing other peoples' wants of privacy. However, all this means is that there'll be more invasive groping since there'll be a lack of invasive body scanners. I'm not sure this is a great thing. I'd be all for it if nixing the scanners also meant nixing the invasive groping, but until that happens.... I would still like the option to choose how to be personally invaded to be available for people.

Re:Excellent

[DJRumpy]

I have never understood the US publics horror at body scanners. So they show your junk. Who gives a shit? My junk looks just like my neighbors, and his neighbors, and so on and so on. I could care less if someone downloads a weird photonegative of it.

If they shorten lines at the airport, and avoid some of the pointless 'pat downs' then I'm all for efficiency. The scanned images are not all that personally identifiable in a real sense, and as far as I know they haven't been proven to be less effective than existing pat downs, those fake 'sniffers', etc.

I don't think anyone ever believed these are the end-all-be-all of airport security and I don't recall anyone saying they would prevent someone from tossing contraband over an airport fence. A basic premise of life..never put all of your eggs in one basket, applies here. Security checks at airpots are a necessary evil, and they won't be going away. Complaining that these won't stop someone from tossing something over a fence doesn't address what they do detect, or that they do have valid uses for common contraband at security checkpoints.

Re:Excellent

[lgw]

Full body scanners are an intrusive search. Traditionally, Americans take a dim view of intrusive searches by government. Further they make the lines longer, and add no security. They're simply fascism without benefit.

Re:Excellent

[h4rr4r]

I was basing this on reality, not comedy. She could not even name a single periodical during an interview.

Re:Excellent

[ShavedOrangutan]

I had to look that one up:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkWebP2Q0Y

Yeah, and it wasn't Tina Fey.

Obama doesn't do so well without a teleprompter, either.

Re:Excellent

[GrumpySteen]

Hey! It's hard to name which paper you were reading when all you ever read were the comics and horoscopes. They all blur together.

Re:Excellent

[ceriphim]

I have never understood the US publics horror at body scanners. So they show your junk. Who gives a shit?

I give a shit, thank you very much. For me, it's not about "showing my junk", it's about a needless intrusion into my privacy that wouldn't have detected ANY of the previous attacks.

If they shorten lines at the airport

Haven't seen anything showing that they do this, and my understanding is, that isn't the point of their use.

and avoid some of the pointless 'pat downs' then I'm all for efficiency. The scanned images are not all that personally identifiable in a real sense, and as far as I know they haven't been proven to be less effective than existing pat downs, those fake 'sniffers', etc.

Then I'm for NOT spending hundreds of millions of dollars if these machines are no less effective than pat-downs (as you claim, though the obligatory *citation needed* probably applies).

The scanned images are not all that personally identifiable in a real sense

See above, that's not the point.

I don't think anyone ever believed these are the end-all-be-all of airport security and I don't recall anyone saying they would prevent someone from tossing contraband over an airport fence. A basic premise of life..never put all of your eggs in one basket, applies here. Security checks at airports are a necessary evil, and they won't be going away. Complaining that these won't stop someone from tossing something over a fence doesn't address what they do detect, or that they do have valid uses for common contraband at security checkpoints.

Correct, but the if they don't detect what they were designed to detect, then they aren't valid for their intended purpose either. Unless you understand that their intended purpose was to create the illusion of additional safety ("security theater"). Even on that point, they aren't quite working as intended.

Re:Excellent

[N3Roaster]

It seems as though at least some airports are moving away from these things anyway. (warning, anecdotal evidence coming up) A few weeks ago I flew from Chicago to Houston. When going through security on the way out I didn't so much as see a porn scanner (there was one for the flight out of that airport I had taken before, but I went through a different security line this time). I also kept an eye out when leaving the secure area on the way back and again failed to notice one. Flying out of Houston, the security line split in two and I was free to choose either the long slow line with the porn scanner at the end of it (which was scanning everybody who chose that line) or the short fast line without it. I chose the short fast line, didn't get a groping, and was rather amazed at how many people chose the longer, slower line (I suspect most didn't notice the other line was available).

The sooner we stop wasting money on these things (and better yet, get them out of the airports so we can have room for more fast lines to get through security) the better.

Re:Excellent

[gordo3000]

being skilled with speaking and being educated are very different. Obama, whatever your opinions of his ad-lib speaking ability, is very intelligent. Palin proved time and again that without constant care, her lack of intelligence would show through. I do like to think of her as the south park character though.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/About_Last_Night..._(South_Park)

Re:Excellent

[ceriphim]

Here's 5 seconds worth of googling. Several links available in the article. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/03/scanners-part3/

Re:Excellent

[AlgUSF]

Hopefully this is the beginning of the end of our knee-jerk reaction to 9/11. The enemy is winning when our government spends trillions to treat every American like they are criminals. They spend thousands of dollars and a dozen lives, and we spend trillions and tens of thousands of lives. I just don't think "we" are winning.

Don't even get me started about the trillions it cost to get one guy sitting on the floor watching TV with the protection of our "ally" Pakistan. Get nukes, now you are our ally.

Re:Excellent

[MaskedSlacker]

I have never understood the US publics horror at body scanners.

That's because you're an idiot.

So they show your junk. Who gives a shit? My junk looks just like my neighbors, and his neighbors, and so on and so on. I could care less if someone downloads a weird photonegative of it.

That has nothing to do with why Americans don't like government searches. This is a country founded on the idea that the government doesn't get to do what it wants just because it wants to. Since the scanners do nothing for security (if you want to find bombs, you get bomb sniffing dogs--anything else is a less effective, and more expensive, boondoggle), there is no reason for them other than because certain government officials want to. In America, that is not ok.

Of course, America never really existed. So perhaps the point is moot.

Re:Excellent

[gandhi_2]

Box cutters wouldn't have shown up on these scanners?

Re:Excellent

[m1xram]

I'd like to see TSA's waiver for the Fourth Amendment.

Re:Excellent

[bryan1945]

Or the lack of preparation and knowledge. Not necessarily intelligence. No, I don't like her either. She may be smart as heck and have really bad handlers. Or she could be an idiot. I don't care, she's going nowhere. Thankfully.

Re:Excellent

[bryan1945]

First off, Charlie Sheen is winning. (Sorry, been waiting for a chance to do that here)
But you're right, the gov created an entire new department to do what airports were doing before. I'm surprised that not everyone is stripped naked and cavity searched at this point. My wife got so much crap for having her insulin stuff on her (with a doctor's note) I was about || far from punching the guy. Eventually her explanation of "I'm a diabetic" sank in. He actually said, "Oh, you're a diabetic." Apparently that's very rare from his universe. /rant

Re:Excellent

[MachineShedFred]

Locally loved politician panders to national electorate. Dog bites man. Water is wet. All these stories, plus Andy Rooney. NEXT. On 60 Minutes.

Re:Excellent

[MachineShedFred]

Yeah, who cares about the 4th amendment anyway. Laws were made to be broken!

Re:Excellent

[_0xd0ad]

If you shoved one into the spare hard drive bay of a laptop? It's a toss-up whether or not they'd spot it in the regular old x-ray, but my guess is they wouldn't.

Re:Excellent

[powerlord]

I've had friends accidentally slip a razor blade onto a commercial airliner.

They were used to carrying it as part of their kit, and apparently it didn't stand out in the x-ray.

Re:Excellent

[_0xd0ad]

And I've unthinkingly but successfully smuggled a new, full-sized tube of toothpaste through both directions of my trip. Well, not quite as unthinkingly on the return trip, and not quite as new, but still successfully.

Re:Excellent

[Wyatt Earp]

Or for a former South Dakota Senator. Local politician goes to Washington, gets totally corrupted.

Also works for Rep Cunningham, Bob Packwood, etc.

Re:Excellent

[dgatwood]

The real problem is that it's a zero sum game. Sure, to some very limited degree, they've been able to squeeze some extra dollars for the TSA, but after a point, there's nobody else to squeeze.

Thus, every dollar that they spend on these scanners is a dollar that they couldn't spend on bomb sniffing dogs that might have detected body cavity explosives, on better passenger profiling that might have identified people to be more cautious about, on stationing an agent in every restroom to listen for people crapping out bomb materials and stuffing them in their luggage (or even providing locked bins and requiring people to leave their luggage there on the way into the bathroom), etc.

For that matter, every dollar spent on air security is a dollar that can't be spent building high speed trains (which can't be steered into buildings), improving roads to allow safer driving at higher speeds, improving vehicle fuel efficiency, or any number of other alternatives to our nation's overreliance on air travel.

Prevent the TSA?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't they do the RIGHT thing and DISMANTLE the god damn TSA?

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[mungtor]

Why don't they do the RIGHT thing and DISMANTLE the god damn TSA?

I'm not saying that it is, but it could be the beginning. Cutting funding is a way of stopping something when you have to save face for the people who support it. Then you can say "it was a good idea, but too expensive" and they can say "it was a good idea, but they were too cheap" and everybody walks away with their precious egos mostly intact.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[JockTroll]

Pat them down first.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Opportunist]

It would be bad for the unemployment statistics. What industry would take all those unemployables?

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Rolgar]

This is one of the problems we have with spending in this country. Once a program is in place, it almost never gets cut, unless something even worse is put in it's place. To actually cut the TSA, you have to pass an entire bill through the House, Senate, and then get the signature of the President or an override majority from Congress.

I wish we had a provision that a simple no vote by the House of Representatives could cut bad programs. (Laws would have to be written to not only get past the current House, Senate, and President, but the future wishes of the people who have to keep paying for them.) Perhaps we could also have a citizen provision to cut these programs if Washington won't.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[lpp]

I hear they need bodies to fight the flooding along the Mississippi. No no... not labor... just the bodies...

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[0123456]

It's not clear what eliminating the TSA would solve.

People might not feel that they're in an authoritarian police state whenever they have to fly somewhere?

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[ep32g79]

It's not clear what eliminating the TSA would solve.

Ending Federally sanctioned sexual assault for starters.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Normal Dan]

I've aways felt laws, government programs and things of this sort should all have a time limit associated with them. Once they expire, they have to be debated and voted in again as if they never existed in the first place. This will also keep congress from passing too many pointless new laws, as they will be too busy maintaining the old ones.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[sharkey]

Well, it MAY cut back the number of sexual assaults on children in America's airports.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[cdrguru]

Right. Any attempt to reduce the size or scope of the TSA will be met with PSAs showing happy families with their children at play ... and then a scene showing empty playgrounds, empty homes with foot-high grass and a line of people outside a shelter in February in Chicago. See what happens if we put these nice people out of work?

The total staff for TSA is pretty large - I'm sure it is in the tens of thousands when you add up all of the people in Washington DC, all the airports and all of the off-airport facilities. Come on, you wouldn't really want these people to be out of work and their children going hungry, would you?

That is exactly what it would take. Never going to happen.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[houghi]

The beginning? This is not even the end. The moment Bin Laden was killed, it was told that retaliations were to be expected and things will get worse.

Remember: this is not about fighting some enemy, this is about controlling you. If this "enemy" is gone, another will be invented.

Once communism was the worst that could happen. The war on that was won and did it bring peace? Not, just the next "enemy".

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[david_thornley]

Because that would come awfully close to admitting they were wrong.

As geeks, we sometimes admit we were wrong, and try to learn better. Politicians cannot, it seems, get away with that. They at least seem to think it's vital for their continuing careers that they were never actually wrong, or else their hypertrophied egos (and you really can't hit high office without one of those) don't stand for it.

If Congress voted to cut the TSA back to what it should be (administering pre-2001 security), that would mean admitting that it wasn't necessary, which would mean it hasn't been necessary, which would mean that their party's President had engaged in empty scare-mongering (I'm being bipartisan here, as the destruction of civil liberties has been bipartisan), and that could mean losing their next election.

This means that they can't get rid of it without either having an obviously game-changing event (I've seen speculation that what the nuclear weapons did to the Japanese government was give it a way to save face while surrendering), or being able to blame it on the other party. Anything Obama does is fair game for the Republicans, so a Republican-controlled House might be able to cut back on some of Obama's programs, and if we're really lucky they'll target the bad ideas more than the good.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[tepples]

I wish we had a provision that a simple no vote by the House of Representatives could cut bad programs.

We have that. It's called a government shutdown when the House fails to pass a budget.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Darinbob]

Because then we'll go from having overbearing and often ineffective security into having absolutely zero security. There should be a middle ground in there somewhere.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[SnarfQuest]

But, sandbags don't keep sneaking off for a quick beer.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[gman003]

Well, then you run into the problem the PATRIOT Act did - it will just get silently voted into effect again and again, until most people are shocked to learn that it actually was supposed to be temporary. Hell, the Roman Empire made such temporary laws last for decades, even centuries.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[s73v3r]

I don't see how that's any better. Why shouldn't a change in the law have to go through the same process as a law does?

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Blakey Rat]

The bill in Texas is also doing its damnedest. You can kill a program (or make it toothless) with a thousand papercuts, it just takes longer.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[dgatwood]

Sure, as long as one law is written that way. Ideally, all laws should have to be written that way, which would effectively bound the total size of the body of law, thus forcing lawmakers to choose which laws to keep based on their actual importance.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Blakey Rat]

The Bush tax cuts (penned in a very very different financial climate) were supposed to expire in 2010. They were renewed.

Even when it takes effort to renew a law, it still happens 100% of the time.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[StikyPad]

I agree that there will always be a new enemy, but I think it's less inherently about control and more about perception. When there's another superpower, that superpower is the greatest threat. But when that's gone, gradually the previously lesser threat is (rightly) perceived as the greatest threat. Its absolute magnitude hasn't necessarily changed significantly, but its relative magnitude certainly has. People don't think in absolutes very well. Their perceptions, and thus their responses, are almost always relative (Libraries of Congress, anyone?), and therefore they fear/fight terrorism as strongly as they fought communism, or the savages, or whatever the next threat is.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[lgw]

What's more: ending Federally sanctioned sexual assault of children.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Ihmhi]

It might just be cynicism on my part, but when bin Lubejob got clipped my first thought was that we had already set up Qaddafi as the next big boogeyman. Did bad things to his own people, wants to destroy the U.S., nearly everyone hates him, out in hiding, etc.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[StikyPad]

I've aways felt laws, government programs and things of this sort should all have a time limit associated with them. Once they expire, they have to be debated and voted in again as if they never existed in the first place. This will also keep congress from passing too many pointless new laws, as they will be too busy maintaining the old ones.

Ha! You give them far to little credit. All they'd do is wrap up all of the old laws up into a single bill that only took a few seconds to vote on (with plenty of earmarks and new laws hidden throughout). Case in point, the Patriot Act expires every year, and yet somehow it persists...

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[shutdown -p now]

Right now, laws and programs that expire are exceptions rather than rules; and worse, after a few renewals they might just decide to vote this in permanently.

Who knows how it would be if it expiry dates were the norm and, say, you'd need 3/4 of the Congress to vote in something without an expiry date? The idea sounds interesting. At some point, the complexity of the system goes beyond the point where it can be efficiently managed - this would be a counterbalance to that.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[FrankieBaby1986]

TSA hasn't been around that long. They all presumably could have gotten jobs if it hadn't been there or had jobs when it wasn't. If they try, they'll find work. It may not be as cushy. They may make less money. They may not be able to have the latest new shiny. But they'll live.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[skywiseguy]

except that the TSA does nothing but grope babies and keep you from taking toothpaste and contact lens fluid on a plane. i have personally lost two of those TSA "master lock" luggage locks because they either took them off and kept them, or cut them off and threw them away. either way, the TSA needs to go no matter who the government invents as the next boogeyman to frighten us all in our sleep.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[The Master Control P]

We did get the 10 years between the fall of the spectre of Communism and the rise of the spectre of Terrorism. They were pretty good if you ask me.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Undead Waffle]

Because then we'll go from having overbearing and often ineffective security into having absolutely zero security. There should be a middle ground in there somewhere.

Or maybe we'll just have the airlines hire their own security like they did before rather than spending $8 billion in taxpayer money on it?

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[vegiVamp]

One would think the death of Osama can be seen as a game-changing event sufficient to, say, cut funding to the TSA in anticipation of it no longer being needed?

They could perfectly get off with "it was needed, it did a good job, but now that we cut the head off of the main terrorist organisation, we expect the need to go away after some last spasms."

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Remember: this is not about fighting some enemy, this is about controlling you. If this "enemy" is gone, another will be invented.

Well, I think you picked a great imaginary enemy. The government's never going anywhere, and they don't have the resources to defend themselves against slander from the various conspiracy theorists out there, so they're an absolutely perfect scapegoat.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[_0xd0ad]

I've heard if you pack a gun in your luggage you are required to lock the suitcase securely and check it, and it gets treated with a higher level of security and the TSA isn't allowed to open it. You don't need to pack any ammunition, and I'm really not sure you even need to pack a gun, since they can't open the bag...

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[bostongraf]

This is actually a method used by some photographers to protect their expensive gear from random searches and theft. They obtain a valid gun permit and buy a simple starter pistol, which still needs to be treated like any other gun. Apparently the process is to register the firearm at the luggae check in area, and display that you are locking the firearm in secured luggage (which of course also contains all of your pricey photo gear). And then, yes, it does get treated with a higher level of security, and no, it can not be opened.

But you you do actually need to pack a firearm. (Not sure about ammo)

And I have no idea if it costs extra, but I imagine the airline industry would charge you where ever they can...unless the NRA lobbyists got to them...which I would have no trouble believing to be the case.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[BeanThere]

Regardless, it really is literally too expensive. I mean, it's apparently so critical that we've been borrowing money we don't have for it.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[BeanThere]

Are you being serious? I can't quite tell. Because if you are, then gee, why don't we just pay all the unemployed to dig holes in the ground all day and fill them in again - we'd have zero percent unemployment.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[BeanThere]

It will happen, because there is no money left. Reality bites.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Opportunist]

Doesn't work. First, they'd notice that they're being paid for nothing. Doesn't really sit well with most people who prefer to be able to talk about their job. "Security officer" has a better ring than "the idiot that digs a useless hole which gets filled a minute later", don't you think?

Plus, how do you explain those expenses to the taxpayer? The first thing people will ask is why those holes have to be dug and filled. Nobody dares to question expenses that increase our safety, though. No matter how much of it is an illusion, why do you question our war on terror, why do you hate America?

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[CelticWhisper]

Doesn't work. First, they'd notice that they're being paid for nothing. Doesn't really sit well with most people who prefer to be able to talk about their job. "Security officer" has a better ring than "the idiot that digs a useless hole which gets filled a minute later", don't you think?

The way things are going, not for long.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Thing 1]

Government was never about efficiency, always about control. Now get back to coding your efficiency in your noisy cubicle, while management plays golf in the nice sunny day.

Re:Prevent the TSA?

[Thing 1]

Come on, you wouldn't really want these people to be out of work and their children going hungry, would you?

Actually yes, yes I would like to see that happen. Perhaps their children could be groped by strangers as well.

Hrm...

[Mashiki]

I see no problem with this. Then again I always believed that behavior profiling is a better method of screening anyway. It's very hard to train yourself to not set off behavioral queues for evasion, and so on, unless you've had a head injury that screws everything up.

Re:Hrm...

[Hazel Bergeron]

It's very hard to train yourself to not set off behavioral queues for evasion, and so on...

...which is why militaries and paramilitaries offer hard training for the sort of people who need to evade behavioural queues (sic, intentional? because that's all they're going to create).

Re:Hrm...

[dogmatixpsych]

But behavior profiling gets you sued here in America for violating civil liberties. It also gets you the label of racist. That's why the government is willing to do much more invasive things that are much less effective. It's not politically correct to perform behavioral profiles because you start the profiles based on what people look like and then all the sudden you are discriminating. Behavior profiling transcends race but for airport screening, race is one of the most helpful places to start, unfortunately. Racism is bad but political correctness results in a lot of needless complexity. It would be far better and cheaper to higher a few good profilers to scan airports rather than waste millions of dollars on machines of questionable efficacy.

Re:Hrm...

[Mashiki]

Uh-huh. I'm guessing you know how many years it takes to do something like that right? It's not exactly a crash course. You're not going to dispose of someone who's had training for that long, on being a splody-dope, etc.

Re:Hrm...

[Mashiki]

I've always thought of political correctness as just another form of racism, with a dash of sexism, and bigotry all mixed into one happy basket. And I say that as someone who's half-japanese. But otherwise you're spot on.

Re:Hrm...

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually we can't do behavioral profiling because idiots like you don't understand that it's not the same thing as racial profiling.

Racial profiling: "That guy is black but he's driving an expensive car. He probably stole the car."

Behavioral profiling: "That guy is driving conspicuously slow and it's 2:00am on a Saturday night, there's a good chance he's drunk."

Re:Hrm...

[guspasho]

Behavior profiling is not racial profiling, nor does it even require racial profiling. The simple solution to not getting labeled racist is don't be a fucking racist. Don't racially profile. Starting with race, yeah, that makes you a racist, and it's completely irrelevant to the job.

People want to blame this whole fiasco on the oppressive, all-powerful, "political correctness" but that's a bullshit strawman. Liberals had now power when the TSA was enacted, it was an entirely Republican invention, created at the height of Bush's popularity, and Democrats cheered it along with nary a complaint. The TSA doesn't want to hire well-trained employees and would rather have McGuards in front of expensive scanners bought through cozy no-bid contracts with companies that are paying off the TSA chiefs.

Re:Hrm...

[Thruen]

Since when do we train every Marine to do this? Since never. Think big, more along the lines of special forces or spies, there's quite a bit of training involved overall and it goes far deeper than trying to consciously control your actions to look less suspicious. I haven't gone through boot camp myself, so this is no expert testimonial, but from what I've been told that time is what you need to train and learn to survive in the battlefield, they don't touch espionage, infiltrating enemy forces, or anything that would require hiding behavior patterns to be in your skill set. There's no doubt in my mind that behavior profiling would be more effective than random selection to go through a scanner.

Re:Hrm...

[Hazel Bergeron]

It's hard not to look slightly off when what's going through your head is, "I hate everything you stand for and, come revolution, your masters will be the first against the wall. But, as long as you're not being a jackass, I kinda feel sorry for you."

Re:Hrm...

[metlin]

You think it's not racist now?

I fly several times a week, and except for those times I've opted out, I can remember two distinct times when the agent said I could go through the metal detector instead of the body scanner. It's funny, I see caucasian men being let through, and they notice me, and they make a couple of the men ahead of me go through the scanner as well, and then me, and the ones after me are all back to being happy campers.

Of course, in some places, they subject everyone from a 4 year old to an 90 year old to the scanner, but that's only the crazies.

Re:Hrm...

[dogmatixpsych]

You're mostly correct, it isn't, necessarily. However, under the auspices of fighting terrorism of the 9/11 / Al Qaida sort, race has to factor in to behavioral profiling. I say race but really mean demographics (which usually includes race). We know that people who are more likely to perform the type of terrorist attacks that we are supposedly trying to prevent are most likely from a particular region of the world. That does not mean you ignore other people at all but to not try and filter your behavioral profiling based on race/ethnicity is cognitively inefficient. Does this idea offend people? Yes, it does but I've formally studied psychology and behavior for many years now and this is the most efficient, most effective way to process people with the goal of reducing terrorist acts. If we were in Ireland, talking about the IRA or in Africa talking about acts of terrorism there or even in Israel, the story would be different and race would not factor in as much. Unfortunately it does here in this circumstance, otherwise we are tying the hands of behavioral profilers and are better off with "McGuards in front of expensive scanners."

For example, here's a quote from a research article about profiling in counterterrorism: "Although behavioral profiling has not received much empirical scrutiny and has become even more controversial since passage of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (2001; see section 215), the technique remains a tool of law enforcement. Profiling has also garnered the attention of forensic psychologists, whose knowledge of human behavior and methodological expertise lend themselves to collaboration with law enforcement (Kocsis, 2003; Winerman, 2004; Woodworth & Porter, 2002). Profiling involves the construction of a demographic and psychological template of an individual who has committed or might commit a crime, such as terrorism. For example, the political ideology of American terrorists has been linked to their demographic and tactical characteristics; right-wing terrorists tend to be relatively uneducated and underemployed white males, who reside in rural areas and are networked nationally (Smith & Morgan, 1994)." (Source: Stevens, M. J. (2005), What is terrorism and can psychology do anything to prevent it?. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 23: 507–526. doi: 10.1002/bsl.652 )

This means that demographics (race, socioeconomic status, age, weight, etc) have to be part of effective behavioral profiling. Yes, it would be great if we could leave race or religion or sex or whatever out of behavior, but it is not possible. By the way, the TSA was not "entirely [a] Republican invention." It had broad bipartisan support and it's Senate sponsor was a Democrat (Ernest Hollings).

Re:Hrm...

[dogmatixpsych]

I wasn't arguing for racial profiling, I was simply stating that race has to factor in to behavioral profiling at airports when we are trying to prevent terrorist attacks similar to what Al Qaida and similar groups pulled off and is trying to pull off.

Racial profiling is wrong. What I said was, in effect, if you have a 25 year old man who appears to be from the Middle East who is acting suspiciously in an airport, and you have a 25 year old Caucasian who appears to be from the Northeast (let's say he's wearing a I
As I said, I'm not arguing at all for racial profiling - that's different; that's closer to the example you gave - "That guy is black but he's driving an expensive car. He probably stole the car" - what I'm talking about is allowing race to factor into our behavioral profiles. If it doesn't, we have inefficient profiles. The problem is that many in our country are too afraid of allowing race to factor in that we pick more inefficient ways to try and stop terrorism (body scanners, etc.). How you prevent racial profiling is by teaching proper behavioral profiling as well as tolerance and diversity. But, you cannot behaviorally profile well without factoring in demographics, which in the case of counterterrorism in the U.S. in airports, means factoring in race.

Re:Hrm...

[Dahamma]

Yeah, but the same can be true for training people to spot behavioral cues. And I'm pretty sure it's easier to find and train a few motivated terrorists than 100,000+ competent TSA agents.

Re:Hrm...

[Rob the Bold]

I see no problem with this. Then again I always believed that behavior profiling is a better method of screening anyway. It's very hard to train yourself to not set off behavioral queues for evasion, and so on, unless you've had a head injury that screws everything up.

What "behavior(s)" are you profiling for, and how will it detect whatever it is you want to detect?

Re:Hrm...

[scot4875]

Congratulations! That may be the best example of proving your debate opponent's point ever seen on Slashdot!

Also, to add to GP's response; you need to learn about false positives, then come back to the table with a useful solution if you have one.

--Jeremy

Re:Hrm...

[justinlee37]

Race does not have to be a factor in behavioral profiling. I don't follow your argument, and it sounds like nobody else does either.

Re:Hrm...

[dogmatixpsych]

Unfortunately, most of the middle section of my post (the GP one to this current post) disappeared in posting, which is unfortunate because it contained the bulk of my point. I wasn't trying to contradict the parent (AC), I was clarifying my original post. I was merely pointing out that I was not confusing behavioral and racial profiling - the AC GP put words in my mouth and misinterpreted what I had originally written, I was pointing out that race has to factor into behavioral profiling in some instances. I've read published articles on behavioral profiling and they all make that point.

I know all about about type I errors (false positives). It's better to have false positives than type II errors when dealing with terrorism. I know people will disagree but I'd rather temporarily detain some innocent people rather than let someone get through who then does a lot of damage.

As far as useful solutions - I've already posted some elsewhere in this thread. The key is to stop spending all this money on backscatter machines and other things like that and rely more on having well-trained professional behavioral profilers (with psychological training) who watch and interact with people in airports. We need to make airport security smarter, not more high tech. We know behavioral profiling works, almost all the technology added after 9/11 in airports has not been shown to stop attacks. You have to stop attacks well before airports or train stations and then use profiling in airports as a last measure.

Re:Hrm...

[MaxBooger]

The TSA was proposed and pushed for hard by Democrats in the weeks and months following 9/11. When the Bush administration objected, the Democrats proclaimed that any objections to the TSA were purely motivated by partisanship, something that was supposedly set aside after the towers fell.

The belief at the time was that the TSA was a means to federalize all the airport security personnel and to pork up the enrollment in the federal unions.

Re:Hrm...

[dogmatixpsych]

How does race not factor in behavioral profiling when in airports trying to catch Al Qaida-trained (or other terrorist groups) people? This is a serious question. How would you behaviorally profile someone (based on sound psychological techniques) if you were a profiler working in an airport trying to stop attacks on or with airplanes? Would you completely ignore race? Yes, I know this is a specific instance, but we're talking about the TSA and post-9/11 airports. That was the original example. I'm not talking about police behaviorally profiling potential drunk drivers or anything like that, I know there are many ways and circumstances to behaviorally profile, but in an airport setting where we are trying to prevent another attack like 9/11 (at least in magnitude or type), behavioral profiling takes on a specific flavor. That means ceteris paribus - all other things being equal - someone behaviorally profiling people in an airport will focus first on the woman who looks like they are from the Middle East rather than the young mother from Wisconsin. If you're trying to profile an eco terrorist (I don't like using that word but that's how it's used), you focus on specific demographic characteristics (probably white, 20-30s, middle class or affluent, maybe a background of juvenile delinquency, etc). If your initial profile is wrong, then your hypothesis is wrong and you can move on to someone else.

In any case, my argument was incomplete because half of it got lost in submission.

If you want an example of a psychologically-valid and effective way to behaviorally profile, here's one: "Although behavioral profiling has not received much empirical scrutiny and has become even more controversial since passage of the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act (2001; see section 215), the technique remains a tool of law enforcement. Profiling has also garnered the attention of forensic psychologists, whose knowledge of human behavior and methodological expertise lend themselves to collaboration with law enforcement (Kocsis, 2003; Winerman, 2004; Woodworth & Porter, 2002). Profiling involves the construction of a demographic and psychological template of an individual who has committed or might commit a crime, such as terrorism. For example, the political ideology of American terrorists has been linked to their demographic and tactical characteristics; right-wing terrorists tend to be relatively uneducated and underemployed white males, who reside in rural areas and are networked nationally (Smith & Morgan, 1994)." (Source: Stevens, M. J. (2005), What is terrorism and can psychology do anything to prevent it?. Behavioral Sciences & the Law, 23: 507–526. doi: 10.1002/bsl.652 )

That's just one example, but incorporating demographic (socioeconomic status, ethnicity, age, weight, etc) information is necessary. You certainly don't have to agree, I'm just putting forth what I've learned by reading the research literature on behavioral profiling as well as in my numerous behavior classes getting a BS, MS, and PhD in psychology. Sorry for the appeal to authority, I know it's a weak logical argument and kind of lame but I'm not just making this stuff up.

Re:Hrm...

[x6060]

Thats not what his point is. He is pointing out that you can completely "rewire" someones physical responses to just about any stimuli in a relatively short period of time. The Marine bootcamp is all about breaking a man down and rebuilding him from the ground up.

This is different

[GameboyRMH]

The US *cutting* the budget of fear & safety stuff? The scanner manufacturer company must have done something to seriously piss off the US government...

Either that or they're getting ready to upgrade to the new tech that can detect explosives hidden inside body cavities, the APM X-RIBS (Anal Probe Mounted X-Ray Internal Body Scanner)

Re:This is different

[Opportunist]

There's only so much pork you can throw to your buddies before you derail the budget completely. They are greedy, but not suicidal.

Re:This is different

[vegiVamp]

You hopeless optimist, you.

Re:This is different

[Opportunist]

Jaded, ain't we?

Seriously though. Reps are greedy. But not stupid. The US economy is on the brink of collapse, and they know well that all their money ain't worth its weight in toilet paper if the USD suddenly lost all meaning in international trade. My guess is they noticed that it's time to protect what they got instead of gambling for more.

Re:This is different

[vegiVamp]

The world is full of stupid, greedy, power-hungry assholes who care nothing if their country goes down the drain, as long as they get whatever they want. The dollar being worth nothing is of little consequence if your hoard is in another currency, gold, or other valuables.

The only thing keeping US reps (and /most/ other firstworld politicos) vaguely in check, is the threat of being held accountable - the one thing that's not available in any random banana republic.

Re:This is different

[Opportunist]

Accountable? When was the first, last or any time in between a (sufficiently important) politician was actually jailed for being a crook? At worst, their career is over. Boo-hoo.

Re:This is different

[vegiVamp]

Indeed. It is better than in the Republic of Bananastan, which is why they're not running the country all the way into the ground. However, as you point out, is is also not enough to fully stop them.

Re:This is different

[Opportunist]

Politician is the only job I know that's well paying and you're still by no means accountable for any blunders.

The Wallet

[DaMattster]

Hit the TSA where it counts, the wallet. Face it, the body scanners aren't really doing anything anyway. In fact, security screening measures should be privatized again. There is no concrete evidence to suggest TSA is doing anything to thwart terrorism. Rather, they seem to enjoy groping people.

Re:The Wallet

[Opportunist]

Hey! If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have any sex life!

(but refrain from telling them, they don't seem to enjoy hearing about it... believe me that!)

Re:The Wallet

[mini me]

The market really should decide. Some people want to feel safe, so if people are willing to pay to board a flight that has been screened, then the service should be available. But if people want to board a plane with no screening, that should also be available to them.

Re:The Wallet

[robot256]

That is the best idea I've heard in a long time. Plus, you can make the screened flight cost extra! Just how much is "safety" worth to those people?

Re:The Wallet

[skids]

Great! How much do the people on the unscreened flight have to pay me to make my building airplane-collision proof?

Re:The Wallet

[nebaz]

The obvious counterargument to this is that even "unsafe" planes can be made to fly into buildings, and I'm not even a big fan of a lot of these TSA measures.

Re:The Wallet

[mixmatch]

Not if it's impossible to enter the pilot compartment from the passenger compartment.

Re:The Wallet

[mixmatch]

You do realize we were screening for all the things that would have prevented "building airplane-collision" before 2001, don't you?

Re:The Wallet

[skids]

You do realize we haven't NOT been screening for the duration, so you have no clue what the rate of incidents without screening might be. The GP wants to make all screening measures optional. I have no doubt lots of customers would take that deal. I say let them as long as their ticket also pays for the hefty insurance premium needed to pay renters and investors in damaged buildings.

Re:The Wallet

[Palal]

How about "Some people want to feel safe, so if people are willing to pay to get screened before boarding a flight, then the service should be available.". For the rest of us I don't mind a basic metal detector + bag scan without all the shoe and liquid nonsense.

Re:The Wallet

[schlachter]

Yea, price out the terrorists with more expensive flights.

Re:The Wallet

[s73v3r]

Terrible idea. Where do you think all of the hijackers, terrorists, etc, will go?

There needs to be a baseline of security on every flight. It just doesn't need to involve seeing me naked, or groping my balls.

Re:The Wallet

[Dahamma]

Of course it is - it's just less accurate when you crash the plane with a bomb instead of the flight controls.

Re:The Wallet

[robot256]

The obvious counterargument to this is that even "unsafe" planes can be made to fly into buildings, and I'm not even a big fan of a lot of these TSA measures.

It's only obvious because we're continuously bombarded by sensationalist propaganda even though it's statistically insignificant. Don't forget that you are orders of magnitude more likely to die just by crossing the street than in a terrorist attack on an airplane. Those TSA agents would be saving more lives if they were out stopping drunk and reckless drivers or keeping kids out of gangs.

Re:The Wallet

[Dadoo]

What I don't understand is why we're not allowed (at least in the US) to carry guns on planes, especially now that pilots are locked behind a strong door. I'm pretty sure potential terrorists would have a hard time hijacking a plane, if half the people on it had guns. We wouldn't even need security checkpoints.

Anyone know?

Re:The Wallet

[Haeleth]

What I don't understand is why we're not allowed (at least in the US) to carry guns on planes, especially now that pilots are locked behind a strong door.

Because it would be a terrible idea.

I'm pretty sure potential terrorists would have a hard time hijacking a plane, if half the people on it had guns.

Why the fixation on hijacking? You don't need to hijack a plane to terrify people. There's a reason why basically all the attempted attacks on airplanes since 9/11 have involved bombs, not hijackings.

Making it trivial to take a gun onto a plane would make it trivial for terrorist attacks to succeed.

Picture the scene. It's a crowded plane. It's late at night, so everyone's also sleepy. Now a bunch of guys all suddenly pull out the guns you deliberately allowed them to take on the plane, and start murdering people! (Sure, they're doomed, but they don't care about that. They're suicide attackers. That's what terrorists use these days.)

What exactly do your armed passengers do? How do they figure out, half asleep, which of the other people holding guns are the terrorists? Whoops, turbulence! Johnny missed the terrorist he was aiming at and killed a young mother who was trying to shield her baby from the fighting. Whoops, Grandpa got up to shoot just as the guy behind him pulled the trigger. It's a bloodbath, with most of the killing being done by patriotic Americans who are geniunely trying to help.

And that's why you don't get to take a gun onto a plane. A bunch of random, uncoordinated passengers with no plan and no situational awareness do not constitute a well-regulated militia.

Re:The Wallet

[shutdown -p now]

How, pray tell, would you use the bomb to fly the plane into a building?

(Note that we are very explicitly not talking about merely crashing the plane itself - presumably, all people on board have decided that their convenience is not worth the security screening.)

Re:The Wallet

[Dan667]

you do realize there are reports all the time of people "accidentally" bring knives and weapons through tsa security. I have also heard about reports that the tsa's own red team has a really high success rate of getting guns through checkpoints. Waving hands to make people feel safe is more dangerous than doing nothing. The naked scanners and other stupid policies like confiscating toe nail clippers needs to be ended. Then money saved can be used for real security.

Re:The Wallet

[GWRedDragon]

Pilots still use the bathroom, right? And if the flight is super long maybe they grab a meal from the galley?

Reinforced cockpit doors only work if the door is never opened. If it is opened and bad guys use that opportunity to attack, the door now means that the superior numbers of the passengers attempting to resist the attack are worthless. There is nothing they can do now to retake the plane or stop it from being used as the bad guys wish. In short, reinforced doors not only ignore but actually work against the effectiveness of the most proved defense against aircraft terrorism: regular passengers.

Add a separate head in the secure cockpit area and require that the secure door never be opened, ever, and we'd be talking real security. Until then it's just a feel-good measure that actually has a negative effect.

Re:The Wallet

[LoganDzwon]

Their life.

Re:The Wallet

[_0xd0ad]

Depends... how important is it which building it hits?

Re:The Wallet

[Dahamma]

Exactly my point...

It's irrelevant if the people on board want to opt out of security unless all of the potential victims on the ground do so, as well. Not that the airlines or their insurance companies would even consider the idea, anyway.

I hope this passes

[yog]

I hate those machines. I travel a lot, and I'm worried that (1) the radiation levels are higher than the manufacturer claims, and (2) it does nothing to protect us from terrorism.

Machines can only go so far. You have to have intelligent, well trained and highly motivated people on the scene.

A friend who was traveling in China recently told me that when he went through airport security there, it felt like he was in a modern, free country. Then when he came back to American airports, it felt like he was in a backward dictatorship.

The fact that they won't let us bring a 4 oz. or 6oz. yogurt, or a bottle of pure water, or a tube of what is obviously toothpaste, does not make us safer. It inconveniences us. I love yogurt and it's ridiculous that it can't be carried through security. Go ahead, open it, sniff it. It's milk, not nitroglycerine, or a binary explosive. Water is water. Toothpaste is toothpaste.

I also miss traveling with my little flat Swiss card which contains a one inch knife and a scissors and a tweezers. It was so convenient and I used it all the time. They confiscated the knife twice, because I forgot to remove it from my backpack before traveling. So I just stopped carrying it at all.

They blanket ban these things because they don't trust their employees to be intelligent enough to recognize the difference between a dangerous weapon and a bottle of shampoo or Coke. We're not safer, we're just angrier and hungrier as a result.

Ok I'm getting off my soap box now :(

Re:I hope this passes

[swanzilla]

The fact that they won't let us bring a 4 oz. or 6oz. yogurt, or a bottle of pure water, or a tube of what is obviously toothpaste, does not make us safer. It inconveniences us. I love yogurt and it's ridiculous that it can't be carried through security. Go ahead, open it, sniff it. It's milk, not nitroglycerine, or a binary explosive.

I can't help but make a connection between this odd rant and your username.

Re:I hope this passes

[i.r.id10t]

They blanket ban these things because they don't trust their employees to be intelligent enough to recognize the difference between a dangerous weapon and a bottle of shampoo or Coke.

Actually, either could make a handy weapon ...

Re:I hope this passes

[guruevi]

Anything can really. I can (and have) disassembled parts of my seat (or the one in front of me) and they are much more dangerous (size of a club) as a weapon. Much of the cheaper airlines have been cutting cost on maintenance to the absolute bare minimum and as a result the interiors are literally falling apart. Most of them have loose components on or around the chairs which can easily be bent off or loosened by hand, one of them I traveled in had duct-taped one of those plastic divider walls because it had come loose. If they still have those in-chair computers (some don't anymore) you can easily loosen them too. Some of them run Linux, others Windows CE.

Re:I hope this passes

[jlutes]

I agree. Airport security is just a very expensive dog and pony show. There have been more incidents of banned items found on aircraft such as guns, knives, etc. than terrorists arrested and the majority of the items were put/left there by...security. We taxpayers are paying insane amounts of money not to arrest terrorists but to get felt up and patted down.

Re:I hope this passes

[DinDaddy]

I hate those machines. I travel a lot, and I'm worried that (1) the radiation levels are higher than the manufacturer claims, and (2) it does nothing to protect us from terrorism.

If I were you, I'd stop worrying. I'd bet pretty heavily those are both facts.

In the case of 1, I am of the oipinion that the dose is probably still safe, at least compared to in flight radiation, but I am reasonably sure their BS handwaving arguments understate the effective dose at skin level, and that at risk people should be exempted from it (as should everyone else for your second point).

Re:I hope this passes

[Idbar]

They have had security checkpoints in my country for way longer than I can remember. I used to love the US airports because you got to stay with your loved ones until you boarded the plane. Now, you just see them embarrassingly getting rid of their shoes, belts, x-rayed while saying good bye.... how lovely.

Re:I hope this passes

[pz]

They blanket ban these things because they don't trust their employees to be intelligent enough to recognize the difference between a dangerous weapon and a bottle of shampoo or Coke.

Yes, and we see the same thing with the incremental proof of age at bars. First, it was left up to the judgement of the bartender. Then, policies were enacted that anyone who looked under 30 were blanket carded. Then 40. Now, at the airport bar at IAD owned by a large chain brewery, I happened to visit last week, they proudly announce that they require proof from everyone.

I am at present old enough that a hypothetical offspring of mine, born when I first became eligible to legally consume alcohol in the US, also would be above the legal age to drink. No one in their right mind would think I might be under 21. And yet because this congolmerate does not trust its employees (or, perhaps more accurately, does not pay its employees enough to be able to hire trustworthy ones), it annoys and alienates a certain fraction of its clientele. People are no longer required or expected to take personal responsibility for their actions, and it saddens me, for it surely is a harbinger of the decline of Western Civilization.

Re:I hope this passes

[SnarfQuest]

They blanket ban these things because they don't trust their employees to be intelligent enough to recognize the difference between a dangerous weapon and a bottle of shampoo or Coke.

Actually, either could make a handy weapon ...

Yes, haven't everyone ever got Coke in your eyes when they are showering? Think what a terrorist could do with that! That's why we need "No More Tears Baby Coke"!

Re:I hope this passes

[godless dave]

I'm more pissed that I have to removed everything, even my chapstick, cash, and boarding pass, from my pockets and remove my belt before going through the thing. Apparently it can see through clothing, but not a cloth belt. And no, I don't trust the people manning the x-ray machine not to steal whatever cash I had in my pocket. I'm not sure if this is a TSA rule or just the private contractors at ROC not knowing the procedure.

Re:I hope this passes

[PCM2]

Actually, I think you fail to grasp the reason for the "incremental proof of age." If you selectively decide whom you are going to card, you run the risk of a discrimination lawsuit. You didn't card me because you thought I was underage, you carded me because I was black. You carded me because I was a woman and you wanted to find out my address to stalk me. You turned me away because I didn't have an ID even though I was obviously over 21, and that's age discrimination. Eventually the only option is to just card absolutely everybody, even if they have a grey beard down to their knees.

Re:I hope this passes

[pz]

Interesting idea that by providing a cutoff of any kind that involves subjective judgement, you're enabling unwarranted discrimination. We actually do want a certain kind of discimination here, so that those under the legal age are not served alcohol, but, if I understand the argument, you're suggesting that because the person behind the bar must decide on subjective grounds whom to ask for identification, there's potential for abuse. Perhaps valid, but I don't think it explains the incrementalism that's happened over the last 20 years.

Re:I hope this passes

[akgooseman]

"Carding" everyone is not (completely) about ensuring everyone in the bar is of drinking age. It's about identifying people of any age with a court ordered ban on alcohol consumption. Typically due to multiple drunk driving or domestic violence convictions. In Alaska, driver's license and state ID card indicate in bold red letters if there's an alcohol restriction in effect. Other states are likely similar.

Just for show

[elrous0]

A few Congressmen will make get a lot of press for this--defending our rights, standing up against the TSA for the common man, etc. Then at the end of the day, they'll back down and nothing will ever come of it. It's just to get themselves some positive press. They have no intention of really accomplishing anything.

Re:Just for show

[chemicaldave]

Do you even know how federal legislation works? Why would the people who proposed this decide against it?

Re:Just for show

[elrous0]

The decide against it by proposing it without the votes to pass it. It dies, they get the good press, and nothing comes of it. It's just for show.

Re:Just for show

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Please everyone take note. Here is a perfect example of a mind so closed, he can't see anything other than his grinding axe. He sees the world happening around him, and rather than the normal, healthy method of allowing what he sees to shape his conceptions, he allows the conceptions to shape what he sees.

Where is the evidence that this is just for show? How many other carrots have been dangled in front of the public in the past? More importantly, when has such carrot-dangling ever worked?

You see, this viewpoint comes from no rationale other than cognative dissonance. He thinks to himself that the government is evil, but reducing the TSA's funding is not an evil action. His brain either has to deal with the possibility that his conception of the government may not have entirely been true, or compensate by inventing, from no evidence, some potentially implausible scenario in which he is right, and the government is evil.

These lines of thought tend to concern me, because this is how misinformation starts and is spread. Sure, perhaps it's obvious here, but what about when it's not? A senator supports a tax hike? Oh, he must be greedy. Why is he greedy? Because we think politicians are greedy, so therefore this particular action is motivated by greed. Do we think that the tax money is needed for programs that are in the public's interest? Not typically. Why not? Is it because we have considered it, and been pursuaded out of it by evidence or reason?

Perhaps it is the fact that we've seen it 100 times before. Or have we? How many times, when a politician, government, police force, judge, or some other person in position of power (or even just someone we hate) has done something that is potentially suspect, have we simply jumped to the conclusion that they are doing the wrong thing? Exactly how much do these false impressions come to bear on conceptions, the same ones that our minds use to create other false impressions?

Think for yourself. Write down exactly the instances you remember where the conclusion was inescapable, where clear evidence was brought to light (enough to secure some kind of criminal conviction, assuming it was a crime). Then think of other instances where people in positions of power have done something evil. Bearing in mind the wide variety of interests in the public, for how many of them did their actions become inconsistent with someone with the public's interests at heart?

I'm not saying that people in positions of power are saints, or even that they're not as corrupt as we assume them to be, just that, for the sake of integrity of information, it pays to know exactly how sure of the conclusion to be. If you place too much confidence in a conclusion that it is sketchy, you risk reinforcing it and spreading it, until it becomes misinformation.

Thank you for your time.

Re:Just for show

[elrous0]

Ah, to be young and naive again. Those were great days, when the world was fresh and I still believed that politicians weren't just a bunch of self-interested sociopaths who who climb over their own mothers' dead bodies to win reelection and pad their own pockets. Back in those days I used to believe stuff that people told me, even when their actions completely contradicted their words. Great days.

Re:Just for show

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Back in those days I used to believe stuff that people told me, even when their actions completely contradicted their words. Great days.

Now you just believe what you tell yourself. When actions contradict what you tell yourself, you come up with some fanciful way to make it somehow reinforce what you tell yourself. It's terribly naive to believe that this state of affairs is somehow better, or that you're somehow wiser because of it.

As a rather immediate example, notice how you responded to me as though I had just defended the politicians involved. I gather it is because previous arguments that question your cynicism have come from young and naive people who have actually defended politicians (or whatever other party in the wrong). These arguments are easy to dismiss as a lack of worldly experience. To have an argument that is not so easy to dismiss would be, well, more difficult to defend against, and might cause the uncomfortable feeling of challenging long-held beliefs. So, you want to conclude that I am a naive pushover, and your cursory glance over my text did nothing to contradict that conclusion, so you leapt to it fallaciously (and in this case, incorrectly).

Re:Just for show

[cffrost]

When actions contradict what you tell yourself, you come up with some fanciful way to make it somehow reinforce what you tell yourself. It's terribly naive to believe that this state of affairs is somehow better, or that you're somehow wiser because of it.

That is the exact opposite of what elrous0's post states. Elrous0 said that before coming to this later state of mind, that they were "great days."

Re:Just for show

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

That is the exact opposite of what elrous0's post states.

Elrous0's post states that his mind is changed with time not necessarily with experience. Besides, even if that were true, I didn't say it was always true, just true now. If his opinions and viewpoints were ever falsifiable, they certainly are not now.

Doing it for the wrong reasons

[Nimey]

House Republicans are doing this to save money. They don't give a damn about privacy or the Fourth Amendment, the porn scanners are bad because they cost money.

Re:Doing it for the wrong reasons

[cobrausn]

...the porn scanners are bad because they waste money.

Now I agree.

Re:Doing it for the wrong reasons

[exentropy]

...the porn scanners are bad because they waste money.

Now I agree.

It's not a waste if they sell it o.O

Re:Doing it for the wrong reasons

[yurtinus]

Hey, I'll still take it!

Re:Doing it for the wrong reasons

[Shotgun]

Yes? Do you have a point that everyone doesn't know already? We also know that the scanners are useless. Being expensive and useless, is it wrong to try to save money?

Re:Doing it for the wrong reasons

[sribe]

ouse Republicans are doing this to save money. They don't give a damn about privacy or the Fourth Amendment, the porn scanners are bad because they cost money.

You've got half the answer: they're bad because they cost money and they do not contribute to safety. If there were any evidence at all, or even particularly reasonable assumptions, that these things are an important improvement in safety, these Republicans would certainly not be spending their time, effort & political capital trying to shut them down.

Re:Doing it for the wrong reasons

[Dachannien]

Actually, they're doing it for the same reason any politician does something: because it's politically popular. The fact that it can be done by not spending money is just a bonus.

Re:Doing it for the wrong reasons

[Nimey]

Obviously I'd like them to say "hey, we've been wrong this whole time about these things, and we're sorry we haven't cared about the 4th Amendment's protections, and we won't do it again".

Re:tsa opt-out loophole

[kannibal_klown]

I flew recently, the first time in a while.

At Logan airport in Boston, MA I saw the full body scanner. They didn't make me go through it, no anyone else I was with.

We went through the metal detector right next to it.

Re:tsa opt-out loophole

[berashith]

I guess they wouldnt like it if you explained that you preferred for a woman to hold your penis . I would opt out of the xray for a handjob too!

Filter bubbles

[Solandri]

After that article on filter bubbles yesterday, it's amusing/disconcerting to see an effort by Republicans to strip funding for these scanners characterized as "the House of Representatives" trying to strip funding.

Economizing

[PPH]

Latex gloves are cheaper.

Trying?

[DinDaddy]

How can Congress be "trying?" Either only some of Congress is trying, and some is resisting, or they are doing it. Congress as a whole does as Yoda says.

More groping, less radiation

[assertation]

I guess this means more groping and less radiation.

If they were smart, they could turn it into an income source. Just hire really attractive guards, play some Barry White music, etc.

The House GOP is trying, not "Congress"

[DavidinAla]

The headline here was written by someone who either doesn't understand the process or was being sloppy. Congress as a whole isn't trying to cut scanner funding. Republicans in the House of Representatives -- just one house of Congress -- are trying to cut funding. Even if it passes the House, it won't pass in the Senate. And Obama wouldn't sign it if it DID pass both houses of Congress. But on the basis issue of accuracy, it's wrong. "Congress" isn't trying to do anything at this point on this issue.

Re:The House GOP is trying, not "Congress"

[scot4875]

Nice unbiased sources you have there. It's a good thing they're there as bastions of 100% honesty, to comment on the huge left-wing conspiracy known as the news media.

In short: if you're going to complain about one source being biased, then use an equally biased source as some sort of "retort," you don't deserve some sort of pat on the back for somehow escaping the sway of the original biased source. In fact, you deserve a "fuck off, partisan hack."

--Jeremy

Thank God!

[adairw]

That is all.

Dogs...

[tsnorquist]

From the explosives side, I've just simply never understood why or how these machines are better than a bomb sniffing dog. Dogs are impartial to: age, sex, race, religion.. etc. They can do the job significantly faster and are generally liked by passengers.

I suppose someone could bring through a composite knife passing through metal detectors, but just lock the cockpit doors and give the pilots a couple .357's. /shrug

Re:Dogs...

[MrDoh!]

Dogs ARE better, but they don't have lobbyists. More money to be made selling a tech solution. Therefore we ended up with the most expensive solution, not the best.

And the TSA responds...

[wcrowe]

No doubt the TSA will respond with the threat of more gate-rape.

LIKE he was in a backward dictatorship?

[TiggertheMad]

A friend who was traveling in China recently told me that when he went through airport security there, it felt like he was in a modern, free country. Then when he came back to American airports, it felt like he was in a backward dictatorship.

I went to Canada a few years ago. The Canadian customs officer I spoke to on the way in was friendly, polite, and asked me a few intelligent questions about my business there, and then waved me through. Coming back I was greeted by a squad of armed surly guards that were dressed like they were extras from the movie 'Brazil'. They were far more concerned with my 'papers' than anything else, and were even less friendly when I didn't have my passport with me. It was double plus ungood.

had to happen sooner or later

[Tumbleweed]

They actually do something that makes sense.

Even a stopped (analog) clock is right twice a day. And boy is the GOP ever _analog_.

If so, their wrong reasons are wrong

[jfengel]

If they're trying to save money, they're looking in the wrong place. $76 million is a pittance. It's 1% of TSA's budget and .002% of the overall budget.

So maybe they're managing to do the right thing for the wrong reason for the wrong reason. I think that sentences parses and is meaningful, but it makes my head hurt.

The way I see it, they're not doing it either for the money or the privacy but because they heard a lot of people were disgruntled and they figured they could score some points. The actual reasons for the disgruntlement, whether they're valid or not, are completely immaterial.

Re:If so, their wrong reasons are wrong

[SnarfQuest]

If they're trying to save money, they're looking in the wrong place. $76 million is a pittance. It's 1% of TSA's budget and .002% of the overall budget..

And, when you consider the number of terrorists they've caught with them, you can calculate the reasonable cost per terrorist caught to determine how economical these are for each terrorist captured: OK, $75,000,000 divided by 0 terrorists cost = *%^# stupid calculator must not be working right, keeps coming up with some weird error message.

Re:If so, their wrong reasons are wrong

[jfengel]

"Terrorists caught" isn't a really useful metric, because the goal is to prevent damage, not catch terrorists. If the system is any good, terrorists wouldn't even try to challenge it. Unfortunately, "damage prevented" is an even worse metric because a metric you can't measure objectively isn't a metric.

You can count up "number of successful attacks", which is also zero. So we're reduced to the question of people picking the metric that seems most valuable to them, which is really the same as no metric at all.

Which is, unfortunately, how politics usually works. Numbers are for us techies, but the Real World is stubbornly hard to measure.

Reason - Finally!

[Virtucon]

It's about time that Congress started overseeing this program. After standing in line for 50 minutes today at DFW going through security I can attest
at what a failure this whole program has been. Huge lines, angry passengers, inappropriate touching and civil rights violations all in the vain attempt to make people feel safe.

After I finally got past the ID/Boarding Pass Check what did they do? They deferred me through the Metal Detector instead of the Backscatter device. There were already three people in line for the Backscatter screening.

I'm sorry, this is one program that

a) It hasn't been proven safe. Scientists have called for an independent study and one hasn't been done. We're taking huge risks with people's health here by not doing the proper checks and analysis.
b) It hasn't been proven to stop anything. The TSA is always looking for "the last attack." Like taking off your shoes. Humm, after Richard Reid, has anybody tried attacking us with shoes except that incident with George W. Bush in Iraq a few years ago?
c) It delays people traveling through airports. You may as well stop everybody in line and ask them 20 questions ala the "Bridge Keeper" "What is your name? What is your Quest..."
d) Give up already, if all you want to do is give me a weekly proctology and rectal exam, fine just make sure you check the oil at the same time and I have these corns on my feet from standing in TSA lines I'd like you to look at as well. Just do the pat downs on everybody. That way everybody gets the sensation of the back of a hand in a rubber glove.
e) Stop with the gizmo widget fantasies. I'm sorry Secy. Napolitano was out of line for ordering these things to begin with and shame on congress for giving them the money, or were they funded out the the ARRA $787Billion?

I travel through airports every week and the lamest thing of all? Your Congressmen and Senators don't go through any of that. They have private entrances, they get VIP treatment. They need to go through the same hassles, stand in the same lines and deal with the same rubber gloves all without their special VIP identification. I'm sure if Al Franken or Kay Bailey Hutchinson had to go through this shit there would be some changes!

I saw people freak out today because they missed their flights, I saw airline counter agents have to work and rebook people and re-route them all in the name of making them safe when they fly. Bullshit! There's probably a higher probability that a Canadian Goose will down my plane than a terrorist.

Congress needs to step up and do the right thing here and step in where these retards at DHS have clearly overstepped their bounds.

Re:Reason - Finally!

[the eric conspiracy]

It's about time that Congress started overseeing this program.

And this will help how?

Huge lines, angry passengers, inappropriate touching and civil rights violations all in the vain attempt to make people feel safe.

How is that any different from a visit to the Post Office, Traffic Court, DMV etc?

  IMHO the Republicans are on the right track here, but they should be aiming higher. Like defund the TSA. It's completely security theater anyway.

Re:Reason - Finally!

[Virtucon]

Congress is accountable to the voters, not bureaucrats at the TSA, the DHS and the rest of the administration. Yes the purse strings are one form of control but so is prudent legislation to protect the rights of the traveling public. The DHS and their agents the TSA have been given free reign under both Democratic and Republican leadership.

I don't agree with de-funding the TSA entirely. I think they have a role but they have to be reigned in and held accountable for their actions. Some nut job puts explosives in his underwear and that warrants all of these machines popping up? I'm sorry, that's not prudent threat assessment as was proven when somebody tried to ship explosives in a toner cartridge that was cargo. There are thousands of tons of air cargo going on cargo aircraft and passenger aircraft every day and I doubt that even 20% of it is checked. For all this money DHS has wasted on screening passengers and making sure they have our middle names there hasn't been one demonstrable terrorist caught. Where they have been caught is by acts of the intelligence community and by passengers who won't let another 9/11 happen. If you also read the news lately there's also been a little increase in nut jobs trying to get onto the flight deck. I think those doors are now secure after 9/11.

So, again, what is the TSA protecting us from? I'd like to be protected from those individuals who couldn't make McDonalds management training program and who are now TSA agents.

As for your point on the Post Office, Traffic Court and the DMV, bad customer service sucks regardless but the Post Office will always suck, Traffic Court is avoidable and the DMV? Most of that can be handled by the mail so buy stamps and don't speed.

Regarding the knife

[mdmkolbe]

Scissors are not banned, so instead of bringing one knife, you just need to bring two of knives that combine into a pair of scissors.

One knife: banned. Two knives joined by a pivot: not banned.

in Israel

[schlachter]

in Israel they hire intelligent, ex-military (everyone is ex-military) personnel to interview each and every passenger who is flying from their airports. The interviews only take 2-3 minutes per person, may be intense at times, but they are effective because they are watching how you respond to their questions and stress. If they detect something is wrong, they investigate further. They also use ethnic profiling. If we weren't such pansies here in the US..we'd do the same.

There are no ridiculous scans.

Too bad we can't hire intelligent people to do something like this. Instead we have the TSA who must rely on technology over training/brains.

Re:in Israel

[Dan667]

nobody wants to live like the israelis. israelis also build bomb shelters in their homes and live in fear. No thanks.

Free Enhanced Pat Downs For All !

[cbass377]

Thats right, officer, feel the resistance.

Getting better...

[Anonymous Coward]

I flew out of San Francisco recently and was questioned by the guy when I gave him my card. Simple stuff: "What name do you go by? When is your date of birth?" Obviously he was just checking my reaction, but THIS is what I expect. On my way there out of JFK they had tried to slide me through X-ray scanners, and rolled their eyes when I said "No." The 'pat-down' was not as intrusive as it was time-consuming.

Total Recall body scanner

[lopaka1998]

Like many other things, I like the intent of the scanners, but don't like how it's implemented. Give me a scanner that looks like the one in Total Recall (see link below for youtube reference). Also make it safe (low radiation) and you'll have me sold. Until that happens though, the TSA won't be seeing my privates in any form - I'll refrain from flying until this is fixed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wY0bk31ylA

Thirsty corpses

[zooblethorpe]

I hear they need bodies to fight the flooding along the Mississippi. No no... not labor... just the bodies...

But, sandbags don't keep sneaking off for a quick beer.

Whoa, what kind of morgue do you work in? Or maybe the local brewery makes up some really special ale...

Cheers,

Re:Thirsty corpses

[Jedi Alec]

Hmmmmmmm, beer zombies. Can you picture the ads? "Who cares about brains anyway? To really get me off my slab, pop open a fresh $brewski!"

Re:This could hurt other industries

[MaskedSlacker]

No geek card for you sir.

Dems and the GOP need to support this

[Dan667]

wasteful spending on these naked scanners that don't do anything needs to be cut from the budget. Sad it is even being discussed.