TSA Announces Pilot of Trusted Traveler Program

Bob the Super Hamste writes "CNN reports that the TSA has announced the pilot of their trusted traveler program. This is the program where an individual gives up additional information to the government and then gets expedited security. The pilot program will only be available to certain frequent fliers on Delta passengers flying out of Atlanta and Detroit, and to American Airlines passengers flying out of Miami and Dallas. Plans are in the work to expand this to other airports and other airlines as well."

Comments

Implying

[Anonymous Coward]

All other travelers presumed guilty.

Re:Implying

[BagOBones]

None of the current tech really addressed the inability of the TSA preventing people from taking box cutters on plains as illustrated by things like this http://www.blackmediascoop.com/2011/06/17/chef-gets-by-tsa-onto-a-plane-with-4-knives-in-bag/ .

Since 2001 the door to the cockpit has been improved and the procedures for the pilots... Nothing on the ground has really fixed the issue.

Lovely

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

This is a perfect solution that balances the public wish for appearance of freedom, with the government and corporate wish for the appearance of security.

Re:Lovely

[gearsmithy]

Now that's what I call freedumb!

Bad idea

[DanTheStone]

We all know how this will go. Fewer lines will be allocated to normal lines, pushing people to give up tons of personal information in order to return to the speeds they previously had (as everyone will want the faster lines), instead of the skyrocketing time of the normal lines. It's the carrot approach to getting people to give up all their rights and personal information.

Re:Bad idea

[Lust]

And there is no guarantee the system will not be revoked in future - personal information cannot suddenly become private again.

I Am Trusted Traveler

[lordDallan]

Until I am PROVEN GUILTY of not being one. I don't have to "opt in" for what should be my no-questions-asked constitutional rights.

Re:I Am Trusted Traveler

[0123456]

Except that there is no constitutional right to fly in an airplane. If you don't like their rules, don't fly.

Argument over.

Except the whole point of the US Constitution is that lists the rights of the government, not the rights of the people. And prohibiting people from traveling in private transport is not one of them.

Re:I Am Trusted Traveler

[Digital Vomit]

Um, Freedom of Movement *is* a constitutional right in the US -- and there is no exception for movement via airplanes.

Re:I Am Trusted Traveler

[CelticWhisper]

Reference 49 USC S40103(a)(2): "A citizen of the United States has a public right of transit through the navigable airspace."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/49/usc_sec_49_00040103----000-.html

Re:I Am Trusted Traveler

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll add that the TSA's policies are consistent with those of the People's Republic of China.

That is an unwarranted insult to the Chicoms. As far as airports go, the Chicoms are nowhere near as bad as the TSA. Airport security in China is FAR, FAR more accommodating and FAR FAR more respectful to passengers than the TSA is.

That is first hand knowledge.

Multi-Step Approach

[ThinkWeak]

Step 1: Create new "elite program" requesting additional privacy invasion
Step 2: Initially limit ability into "elite program" to create artificial demand
Step 3: Make it more painful for those not in "elite program" to travel
Step 4: Create new "platinum elite program" requesting even more privacy information
....
Step n: All your base are belong to us

In all seriousness, this is the slippery slope everyone talks about.

Be polite...

[Lord Grey]

When my doorbell rings and the Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons are on the doorstop, I tell them "No, thanks."

When the TSA offers to restore a small bit of the freedom I used to have anyway, but only after forcing me to give up something else, I say, "No, thanks, you intrusive motherfucking bastards."

Mom did try to raise a polite child, you know.

Self pat-down

[gomiam]

Are trusted travelers to pat themselves down or supposed to do a striptease? :)

This is worse than the current system

[dkleinsc]

Any terrorist with half a brain trying to plan an attack on an airplane now knows exactly how to do it: Forge an identity or recruit a new terrorist that can meet the Trusted Traveler requirements. Then use the Trusted Traveler identity to bypass the security that might catch your terrorist plot. Bruce Schneier writes a great deal about this: If you create an easier-than-standard path through security constraints, the bad guys, just like the good guys, will take the easier route, every single time.

Re:This is worse than the current system

[ColdWetDog]

No, any terrorist with half a brain knows to bypass the passenger cabin completely. You know all of those people that service the plane? That have access to all manner of hidden spaces in the plane and the airport? Those people who are given a cursory background check and even more cursory supervision.

The next terrorist attack will not the the same as the last terrorist attack.

Already tried and shut down

[IP_Troll]

This is nothing new. They had a program in 2009 called Clear to speed you through screening and it was abruptly shutdown without explanation. http://daggle.com/clear-airport-security-program-closes-707

It was then started again, but more limited. http://daggle.com/clear-airport-security-with-all-downsides-2179

So... how long will this incarnation last?

WTF?

[gstoddart]

It's like watching all of the scariest bits of 1984 and Brave New World all coming together.

A world in which citizens have no liberties, and think that's how it should be. The state controls everything and tells you what to think. McCarthyism meets the Keystone Kops.

If the Americans are voluntarily giving up all of their liberties for this farce of security ... then the rest of the world us screwed. Because governments which have slightly less compunction about running roughshod over their citizens will be quite willing to do this as well ... in fact, they'll be required to in order to allow a flight into the US. Give it time, and the US will require these like the other heightened security measures.

So, the great bastion of personal liberties is essentially leading the charge to stripping them away from themselves and dragging everybody else along with them. All in the name of protecting those very liberties they're giving up.

I grieve for what America used to stand for. I also grieve for how it bodes for the rest of us.

Re:From Detroit?

[RyuuzakiTetsuya]

A one way out of Detroit isnt suspicious. It means you've got the good sense not to come back.

Because frequent flyers are *never* terrorists.

[DamnStupidElf]

Ever. It's unpossible.

Divide and conquer

[Runaway1956]

Yeah, it's a little bit of "divide and conquer" in the works here. 10, 15, perhaps 20% of air travelers get this "trusted" status. The rest of the herd has to tolerate the indignities, and obviously they deserve it. If they were "trustworthy", after all, they would be like "us", cutting in at the head of the line.

So, with a special class of elites to show off, the TSA will get away with yet greater indignities imposed on the unwashed masses.

Didn't Orwell work this same thing into his story?

Re:Divide and conquer

[slick7]

Didn't Orwell work this same thing into his story?

Trust in a government that doesn't trust its own people? Trust in a government that has so many secrets that it can't trust its own people to keep them. Trust in a government that gives more money to its enemies than it does to its own people. Hmmmm....Let me get back to you on that.

Another "class" of citizen.

[Jane Q. Public]

You are absolutely correct. This is simply more government blackmail in disguise.

This system would establish a new class of people who are allowed to travel without question while most of the people are left to undergo "screening".

The system, even as ideally envisioned, is a breeding ground for abuse, because people who give even decently manufactured information to the TSA will get privileged access. Just like RFID passports, it gives the illusion of more security while actually reducing real security, because intelligent criminals will then be trusted without question.

The TSA needs to be abolished, not allowed to create discriminatory, security-harming policies.

Re:In other news

[betterunixthanunix]

Except that the measures which actually prevent terrorists from hijacking or bombing airplanes -- bomb sniffing dogs, locked cabin doors, armed agents on planes -- are not going away. This program is just a tactic of getting people to give up what the government wanted all along: personal information. The basic concept is this:

1. Grope people or force them to enter backscatter machines, giving them a choice between having an uncomfortable government-approved sexual assault or an uncomfortable and possibly dangerous exposure to radiation that results in a nude photograph.
2. Create a policy that requires TSA agents to "screen" kindergarden aged children and cancer patients, creating bad press about the screening process.
3. Announce that you are going balance security with the public demand to end the screening process, by allowing travellers who give up their privacy rights by volunteering information to the government to avoid the groping and X-ray process.

Note that people who opt for the "trusted traveller" program are going to be subject to exactly the same security measures that we had in airports immediately after the 2001 attacks. The only difference is that now the government gets to access personal details that they were prohibited from accessing before. The best way to avoid constitutional restrictions is to get people to voluntarily give up their rights.

Re:Higher Risk Areas

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Right.

You realise that, from a purely statistical perspective, airline terrorism is non-existent.

If risk mitigation were an aim, why create the giant, soft-target of a couple thousands - bottled up in airport queuing areas?when they can

Governments feel secure completely control behaviour. Corporations feel secure, when they have governments captive.

All of them advance their agenda, without the slightest real concern for your individual or collective "safety".