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Aviation Security Debate: Bruce Schneier V. Kip Hawley (Former TSA Boss)
Fluffeh writes "A nice summary at TechDirt brings word that Bruce Schneier has been debating Kip Hawley, former boss of the TSA, over at the Economist. Bruce has been providing facts, analysis and some amazing statistics throughout the debate, and it makes for very educational reading. Because of the format, the former TSA administrator is compelled to respond. Quoting: 'He wants us to trust that a 400-ml bottle of liquid is dangerous, but transferring it to four 100-ml bottles magically makes it safe. He wants us to trust that the butter knives given to first-class passengers are nevertheless too dangerous to be taken through a security checkpoint. He wants us to trust that there's a reason to confiscate a cupcake (Las Vegas), a 3-inch plastic toy gun (London Gatwick), a purse with an embroidered gun on it (Norfolk, VA), a T-shirt with a picture of a gun on it (London Heathrow) and a plastic lightsaber that's really a flashlight with a long cone on top (Dallas/Fort Worth).""
There's no limit to the amoung of thermite you can carry on, and no limit to the amount of calcium carbide.
Just to name two.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
For congress, and they were, as usual, too spineless to tell the TSA to take a hike. After all, it's congress who spent all that money to line Chertoff's pockets (guess who makes the useless scanners now), and they didn't want to look bad for it - hearings are just photo-ops for the next election, to give the appearance of "doing something" when of course, the only thing going on is bribes and blackmail. Ever notice how DHS gets every excessive dime they ask for? Well, I know if I had warrantess wiretaps and all that kind of thing, the first thing I'd do is get the dirt on congress for future blackmail. This would occur to any bureaucrat in a few seconds. So you have to assume that's why these agencies never get seriously questioned about their ridiculous antics and waste, eh?
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
They're in the business of making passengers feel safe. Passengers like that. They'll gladly suffer through free prostate exams if it means they can sit comfortably on the flight, believing they won't be one of the next set of 9/11 martyrs.
And it's a popular product: Look at how many people fly. If people didn't like the product, they wouldn't buy it. So whenever someone says "Ah! They're taking away their civil liberties!" ... Well, yes, but that's no worse than you forcing your own beliefs on them that they shouldn't be able to buy free prostate exams.
At the end of the day, you can only be responsible for your own behavior: These people aren't being forced to board a plane at gunpoint. They wllingly accept what the TSA is doing, regardless of whether or not it is necessary.
If you want the situation to change: Don't fly. Let the airplanes rust in their hangars. Let the corporations go bankrupt one by one. The TSA is only allowed to live by the patronage of the passengers. No passengers = No TSA.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
It's clearly ineffective, but never mind that: we don't have the money for it. In case we haven't noticed, we're spending 1 point some odd TRILLION more every year than we take in.
Unfortunately, like most large bureaucracies, the TSA is self sustaining. It work hard to justify itself, despite never having caught a single terrorist in its entire existence. Replicate that to hundreds of other useless federal agencies, and you have a government that far overstepped the bounds of what it's supposed to be for, and now exists to give jobs to the phone sanitizers (RIP, DA) of our country.
Yet Americans will cheerfully keep voting for Republicrats, no matter what they do, so I guess the TSA is what we deserve. You get the government you deserve, they always say.
Your sarcasmometer is overdue for calibration.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
The USA has been on my no-fly list since I was disgusted by the government's lies over Iraq.
Jonathanjk.com
You make a decent attempt at a sensible explanation. Unfortunately, you're wrong.
I know something about this incident. It was quite simple. The security guard was pissed off - he had been in an argument with his boss earlier - and was looking to take it out on someone. He picked a teenager with a T shirt which had a picture of 'Optimus Prime' on it, and told him to take it off, simply because it looked flashy to him. There was not even any concern about the fact that all 'Transformer' robots hold a gun initially. The issue about the gun was raised later because the family made a fuss, and they were looking for a retrospective excuse. Of course, at that stage, all the guards stuck together and ordered the family off...
The point here is that, in the West, we have appointed people to 'look after us' and 'tell us what to do' in every conceivable activity in life. And a large portion of the people who apply for these jobs are assertive bullies. You can see it everywhere - people telling us what to eat, how much we should exercise, what kind of sex is legal... And when they run out of sensible things to tell us, they just start to make it up...
I present to you the TSA VIPR program.
Note how it consists of some Mall Ninja acronym/name, like the murderous "Fast and the Furious" program put on by the justice department and ATF clowns.
The reason I suggest it might not be too late is because they pissed off Amtrak by molesting train passengers (leaving the train, no less), and were banned from Amtrak property for a while (still?).
So, at least a government-sponsored entity is willing to tell these jack-booted thugs to go pound sand.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
Yet somehow, I manage to make it through every day with nobody but my wife telling me what to do.
If you think we're over-policed and over-regulated that's fine, but the notion that we've got someone "telling us what to do" in "every conceivable activity in life" is the kind of ridiculous hyperbole that would qualify you for a job as a right-wing AM radio host.
Can you say, "This government has taken away all our freedoms!" for me? And also, "They took our jobs!"?
You are welcome on my lawn.
If it means I get an empty middle seat between me and that fat lady with the perfume, I sincerely thank you.
It is my fond hope that your decision not to fly is taken up by a wide majority of Americans.
Be careful what you wish for...empty seats are only temporary... If demand decreases, airlines will cut back on scheduled flights (or plane size (or both)) to eliminate as many empty seats as possible.
Unlike a hotel that has a reason to keep occupancy below 100%, an airline is happiest when occupancy is at 100% (and the only way to get there is to sell 105% (or more) of the seats)
The TSA guy said that by preventing terrorists from using complicated liquid explosives, they have to move to more exotic explosives. Ignoring the very porous security perimeter of an airport (many tons of airline parts and supplies are trucked in every day, there's no way to inspect everything), what's going to keep a dedicated terrorist from using old fashioned C4 explosive hidden in an obvious body cavity. I've seen enough internet porn to know that with proper training and motivation, a quite sizeable chunk of explosives could be hidden within the body. With surgical help and no desire to stay alive for more than 12 hours, I suspect that even larger portions of explosives could be hidden within the body.
I don't mind seeing bomb-sniffing dogs in major rail stations, because that makes some sense.
It makes sense only in that someone might try to bomb all those people concentrated together in the rail station, but no more sense than in any other place where there are a bunch of people standing around. Preventing bomb attacks on trains (or buses, or any other form of ground transport) by inspecting passengers makes no sense whatsoever. Things that travel on the ground don't need to be attacked from within by passengers. Someone who wants to bomb a train doesn't need to sneak a bomb onto it, they just need to walk up to the tracks when the train is coming and drop the bomb on the tracks. Or they can skip the bomb and derail the train by attacking the tracks with hand tools, etc. If they want to hijack a train to hold everyone hostage, they can force it to stop and board it. Same things apply to buses. Anyone can drive up in front of a bus and drop a bomb from a car, or run the bus off the road with a larger vehicle, or point a gun at the driver and force them to pull over, then board it, etc. Screening passengers makes zero sense in those situations.
For planes, at least it makes some sense. Planes are fast. It's not exactly trivial to catch up to them in mid-air to board or attack them. The pilots can't just pull over and stop anywhere, either. To hijack a plane without being on it when it takes off, you have to have a pretty impressive plane yourself. Hijacking a plane in mid-air from the outside doesn't make any sense anyway since, if you had the resources to do it in the first place, the only thing you'd need would be the passengers and, unless there were specific passengers you were after, you could just start your own airline, load up your own plane, then kidnap those people in mid-air. So, for planes, at least there's some security excuse for screening passengers like that. For ground transportation, it's just stupid.
Interestingly, that would mean that the TSA has indirectly caused more deaths since 9/11 than the terrorists caused during 9/11.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
He's doing a marvelous job of systematically shredding the bullshit that the TSA is trying to sell.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
normally would not use the term "dumbass"..
The amount of economic damage from one talcum powder bomb in a chip fab says you are looking at the wrong metrics for what terrorism hopes to accomplish.
-- Terry
Who said the virgins had to be female?
Mielipiteet omiani - Opinions personal, facts suspect.
Too soon.
Over a decade later is too soon? OK, I guess I'll switch to Pearl Harbor jokes.
Breakfast served all day!
Yep. If they had reason to believe someone had released mercury in a cargo hold, the outcome would be like the old practical joke where someone releases two pigs in their high school building late at night, with "#1" spray-painted on one of them and "#3" on the other.
They will never find pig #2, but they will take the whole school apart with a screwdriver looking for it.
That's basically the TSA's entire organizational charter: "Find Pig #2."