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Congress Wants Your TSA Stories
McGruber writes "Transportation Security Administration (TSA) program challenges and failures will be the focus of a joint hearing of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform and the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, on Monday, March 26, 2012. The Hearing is titled 'TSA Oversight Part III: Effective Security or Security Theater?' Bruce Schneier is scheduled to be a witness at this hearing. Additional information on the hearing is posted on the oversight committee's website. The Congressmen who serve on these committees are soliciting questions from the public to ask TSA officials at the hearing ... provided the public is willing to submit their questions via Facebook."
There's the first complaint, right there...
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
Not sure who's choice that was... "Mr. Schneier will not testify at Monday's hearing (UPDATE: 3/23/12)"
Is it right to sexually molest every man, woman, and child and get away with it under pretext of security? How does the USA like it's foreign tourist trade now that it's dropped off a cliff?
That is all.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
By opting out from the stupid Nudeo Scan 5000s I get two great benefits. First I get free bag service through security and second I get a free bump/wart/growth check on a weekly basis. All of this courtesy of the TSA. Besides I keep an otherwise un-employable person employed and I keep the latex glove industry in business.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
The thing that annoys me about the anti-security theater rant, is that in fact there is a non-zero value even to security theater.
Yes you CAN get past screen checkpoints as we have them. But it does not mean we should give them up totally. Even just a veneer of security can be enough to dissuade a lot of people from trying something, or to make them nervous enough they screw up. It's enough of a deterrent that a lot of people simply will not try who might be convinced otherwise, because signing up to die in a glorious explosion is one thing but being set up to rot in jail is quite another and without honor.
That said, the TSA as-is has gone way, way too far. We should have an immediate jump back to pre-9/11 security screenings, meaning we all get to keep shoes, bring water, and walk only through metal detectors, not the stupid body scanners that mean you cannot even keep a kleenex in your pocket but you can strap a gun to the side of your body.
I do not care about the remote chance of a plane being blown up in the air, and there is no way hijacking a plane will succeed any more. Sure they could blow up a plane over a city but that's not going to take out a building as they would like to do. So let us have some dignity and easier passage on to our plane again. Heck, let loved ones meet you at the gate instead of shutting down the airport if one guy gets through the line with an unregistered kleenex by accident.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Schneier will _not_ be testifying. Sorry, nerdlingers.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
TSA agents harassed, beat, and murdered me. I would have to rate my experince as "less than satisfactory."
A special camp, for political re education. And a little gold mining. By hand.
We want your stories of the TSA. We won't actually do anything, but we want a good laugh. Now strip naked and get on the probulator, plebs.
Intelligent thoughtful questions that illuminate the issues from the House in this polarized election cycle. I watch Cspan and so see hearings without any media distortion and am disgusted at the posturing and speachifying and browbeating of witnesses that goes on under the guise of hearings (both "sides"). How we expect competent people to serve in any administration only to be abused in the way they are escapes me.
I've flown once since 9/11. Helped a friend move across the country then flew home. While I didn't exactly jet all over the world before the TSA was created, I've gone from flying every couple of years to flying once per decade and the main reason for that decline in flying has been the bullshit security theater of the TSA. Take my shoes off and put them in a tray? What the hell for? You can't run a sniffer over them while they're on my feet? When presented with absurdity, I'm wired to decline to participate and the TSA has provided plenty of absurdity. Doesn't mean I'll never fly again but I'll need a good reason.
They could potentially save a lot of ink on the printouts if they just change the title to "TSA: Effective Security Theater".
Forcing millions and millions of people to walk barefoot over the same carpet year after year promotes super-accelerated evolution of athlete's foot fungus and has helped spread it throughout the world. TSA is therefore aiding and abetting bio-terrorism, and should be immediately shut down as specified by Patriot Acts 1 and 2.
Here's my story. I went through the TOTALLY-HEALTHY scanner that has no negative effects whatsoever, then was still felt up. Thankfully it was only above the belt. It was enough to turn me off flying except when that was the only viable option, which I have actively worked to avoid.
Then Congress has to rename it Clown Security Theater and make the agents wear red plastic noses.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I've flown a fair amount since 9/11. It's a literal pain in my ass. The last time I flew, I declined the body scanner. Why? I honestly don't believe they've been tested well enough, and I'm not about to put my health at risk. This means, of course, that they scream "OPT OUT! OPT OUT!" in an attempt to embarrass you, and then they have to feel you up. Now, when I say feel you up, I fucking mean it! This hairless weirdo was trying to talk to me, clearly enjoying himself, as he's "checking" for weapons. He quite literally was shoving his thumb into my asshole. It was, to say the least, unpleasant. To be perfectly honest, I wanted to give him a quick knee to the face out of sheer reflex. It was fucked up. It was a violation of my rights. It was illegal.
and do the nude-o-scopes detect hot grits poured down ones pants?
(Reminder: Congress wants to know what you really want to ask TSA.)
Dear Penthouse,
The focus on dramatic stories is misplaced. The simple loss of dignity in traveling should be sufficient. I'm tired of being assumed to be a criminal when I travel.
Apache guy, Open Source enthusiast, runner
Mr. Schneier will not testify at Monday's hearing (UPDATE: 3/23/12)
"Committee on Oversight and Government Reform: Effective Committee or Political Theatre?"
FTFY
If you do what you always did, you get what you always got.
Wow, US tourism is absolutely booming!
Careful - the statistics you show are ALL visits to the US not just visits for tourism. For example Canada counts as 21 million and I'm sure most of those visits were to buy things south of the border not for "real" tourism, not to mention the large number of business trips. I must say I do find the statistics surprising though but I note that some places like the UK and Japan show a marked drop in numbers of visits so if the OP cames from somewhere like there that may be the reason for his impression in a drop in US tourism.
Oh, that'll happen..
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
excuse me, but let me see if I understand.
the US creates this thing called TSA, entirely without people's support.
they now want us to believe that they *care* what we think?
this facespook stuff is neither here nor there. the fact is, government created this and it could banish it tomorrow if it wanted.
it does not want.
you all are being toyed with. discussin FB this or FB that. what a shame that we are so easily distracted.
our wishes do not matter. facespook or not.
don't waste your time. you'll get what they say you'll get. period.
new era, but still very old rules.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Nobody cares about "communicating with the Congressman." If we wanted to do that, we could easily write one any day of the week and send it in, only to get a form letter back (if you're lucky) explaining why you're wrong and how your letter doesn't affect shit, but thanks for wasting everyone's time anyway.
The real complaint some people are making here is that a supposedly "public" discussion is taking place in a closed off, walled off private community. So if the guy wants to air his voice in this "public forum", he effectively can't do so without having to agree to 3rd party terms and conditions. This isn't how a democracy is supposed to work.
The state rationale for using the body scanners and pat downs is to detect explosives. So why not have sniffer dogs in and around the checkpoints checking for explosives? Keep the bag x-ray and metal detector but ditch the body scanner and the pat-downs.
They already have dogs for detecting drugs so why not for detecting explosives?
Any bomb big enough to actually do any damage will be picked up by the dogs.
as you choose to grace us with your presence, to look down from on high to the serfs and peons below and inquire, "tell us of your follies at the hand of our laws," we are humbled to oblige you with hillarious tales of our misery, suffering and strife. as minstrels to your beckon call we perform, knowing full well you shant ever lift a finger to improve our jolly hardships at the hands of the TSA.
Good people go to bed earlier.
No facebook account. Also not an American Citizen[tm], nor resident there, so I'm sure Congress[tm] wouldn't be interested in any case. The TSA and similar measures is obviously free of security-improving merit whatsoever and a direct reason I've simply struck all of North America off my acceptable destinations list. I have a few contacts yon, but simply will not go there, not before the security circus recedes sufficiently. This will not happen in our lifetimes, so I won't willingly visit again. Always possible I'll get extraordinarily rendered or something, of course, but then I wouldn't have had to say a thing about it in the first place.
Also: I want a passport back that doesn't have RFID or requires fingerprints. Outside the USA you actually need your papers, so it behooves us not to make them unsafe to carry, or make them an adversary to keeping your own identity.
First prize for the best story is an all-expenses-paid trip to a beautiful holiday resort in Cuba.
Theatre is BY DEFINITION harmful
I can't see how that makes any sense.
You could perhaps argue it has zero value, but I explained why I think that is wrong.
But to claim it is actually harmful is simply wrong, when in fact security theater always provides some degree of psychological deterrence.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That is the case if the criminals don't know that the measures are fully and utterly ineffective.
That is not true.
Theater is about a play to the mind. Even if there are ways around that, like say the gun strapped to the side thing - you never know if perhaps THIS time they catch you ant an angle, or if that "weakness" is misinformational bullshit, or whatever. All you see is the large array of people before you trying to catch you at what you are doing.
Security theater is a deterrent because it exploits the mind, which you really cannot overcome without difficulty. The simple fact that it can deter a number of people who do not have the mental fortitude to overcome it already reduces the pool of people that can cause harm on an airplane.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I said I'll just drink it, if its explosive I'll probably not be feeling to well after I do so.
I admire the action, but I have to say that chugging a whole flask of scotch could easily lead to some puking on the spot, given your previous statement that would almost have been an admission that what you were drinking was not scotch!
Still, well done...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Sounds to me like a hearing to gather ammunition to use against the Obama administration during the upcoming election campaigning...
Telnet (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc854.txt) and RPC (http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1831.txt) are standard protocols that anyone can implement. "Facebook" is not. "Facebook" is a closed propriety system completely controlled by a single individual who can for any reason eliminate anyone's account or use their data for any purpose that suits him.
Bruce Schneier is crossed off the list of witnesses scheduled to testify...
I have a picture of 30 TSA agents standing around doing nothing in front of the x-ray machines
Another way they get you. A lot of the foreign airlines don't make you remove your little 1quart toiletry bag, so you forget about it upon re-entry to the US, so they have "reason" to hand search you and your dirty underwear.
There are 2 groups of people you can make fun of on the Internet without fear of attack. The illiterate, and the Amish.
As opposed to the people on the right like the administration which implemented this TSA nonsense to begin with, and want to tell people who they can marry, what they can watch, or read, or say, and would really love to be able to tell people who they can fuck and what religion they're allowed to have?
You're showing your obvious bias if you think totalitarianism is entirely a leftist thing. The right is just as bad if not worse these days. "Right" does not mean "libertarian" -- there are left-libertarians and right-libertarians both, and authoritarians on both sides too. (I'd say the American right is more polarized into extreme right-libertarian and extreme right-authoritarian groups, while the left is more unified into a pool of left-moderates).
The difference is not even "economic" vs "social" freedom as the Nolan Chart puts it; the only historically enduring difference between "left" and "right" politics is populism vs elitism.
Both of them have their authoritarian streaks which would force everybody to go along with their way, and their libertarian streaks who are concerned with fighting the other side's authoritarians. It's just a difference of whether they want everybody to go along with the majority, or everybody to go along with some minority.
There are as big of differences between anarcho-socialists and Stalin or Mao as there are between anarcho-capitalists and Hitler or Mussolini, yet the former three are all "left" and the latter three are all "right".
One-dimensional political analysis doesn't cut it at all. Even two-dimensional is barely acceptable.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."