Former TSA Administrator Speaks

phantomfive writes "Former TSA head Kip Hawley talks about how the agency is broken and how it can be fixed: 'The crux of the problem, as I learned in my years at the helm, is our wrongheaded approach to risk. In attempting to eliminate all risk from flying, we have made air travel an unending nightmare for U.S. passengers and visitors from overseas, while at the same time creating a security system that is brittle where it needs to be supple. ... the TSA's mission is to prevent a catastrophic attack on the transportation system, not to ensure that every single passenger can avoid harm while traveling. Much of the friction in the system today results from rules that are direct responses to how we were attacked on 9/11. But it's simply no longer the case that killing a few people on board a plane could lead to a hijacking. ...The public wants the airport experience to be predictable, hassle-free and airtight and for it to keep us 100% safe. But 100% safety is unattainable. Embracing a bit of risk could reduce the hassle of today's airport experience while making us safer at the same time."

Comments

Big crowds are targets

[betterunixthanunix]

Let the experience of other countries (where terrorist attacks are unfortunately common) be a lesson here: big crowds are targets. The TSA's security checkpoints at airports, especially busy airports, create big crowds, and those crowds are not behind any sort of security. A terrorist who wanted to kill a big crowd of Americans could walk in to a major airport just before a holiday and kill hundreds of people without ever dealing with security.

The fact that it has not happened yet is an indication that airport security measures are not what is keeping terrorist at bay.

Re:Big crowds are targets

[Nerdfest]

Even terrorists don't want to deal with airports during major holidays.

Re:Big crowds are targets

[Anonymous Coward]

It has been tried here in Blighty albeit with mildly comic results ie. a burning terrorist being offered help from a police officer and fighting with him while onlookers screamed to "let him burn!" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_Glasgow_International_Airport_attack

Re:Big crowds are targets

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Obvously the TSA-mentality "cure" for that problem would be to create a separate "pre-screening" screening, to make sure people aren't carrying bombs or bio-weapons into the primary screening waiting area. Problem solved. Safety achieved.

Re:Big crowds are targets

[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Dude, you should probably get that sarcasm detector looked at.

Former ______ head says we fucked up

[feedayeen]

Gee, this is new, how many times have we seen officials make statements about this regarding any of the current 'War on ______' policies? Hey, how about you fix the damn thing before you had 'Former' amended onto your title.

Re:Former ______ head says we fucked up

[quasius]

Have you considered that trying to change things and becoming a "Former X" might be related?

Re:Former ______ head says we fucked up

[betterunixthanunix]

The TSA was not created to solve problems, it was created to convince people that problems are being solved. Now that the TSA cannot go away, it has taken on the role of funneling tax dollars into corporations with connections in the government.

Re:Former ______ head says we fucked up

[iPaul]

It's not the individual so much as the process. If it were the fault of the individual, then we'd see some cases where the policies got fixed and other cases where the policies don't get fixed. Unfortunately, we see a lot more 'stay the course' simply because we don't have the kind of political environment that accepts new thinking or even modest amounts of 'risk' taking. That's the shame of the whole situation. We want people to bring forward solutions but it can't be solution 'X' because that's unpopular with voters, or solution 'Y' because the other party will crucify us, or solution 'K' because the company that makes the scanners has plants in key congressional districts, etc. So we're going to continue with the current, sub-optimal, likely counter-productive strategy. Make a change to the screening process and a terrorist attack happens, the first thing they'll rake you over the coals for is the change in the screening procedure and how that allowed the attack to happen. In part its the fault of the agency, in part it's the fault of congress, in part its the fault of a hyperactive media that focuses on trivialities and jumps to conclusions. Like you, the whole situation make me sick.

Re:Former ______ head says we fucked up

[phantomfive]

In the article, he claims he tried:

I arrived in 2005 with naive notions of wrangling the organization into shape, only to discover the power of the TSA's bureaucratic momentum and political pressures. By the time of my arrival, the agency was focused almost entirely on finding prohibited items. Constant positive reinforcement on finding items like lighters had turned our checkpoint operations into an Easter-egg hunt. When we ran a test, putting dummy bomb components near lighters in bags at checkpoints, officers caught the lighters, not the bomb parts....I wanted to reduce the amount of time that officers spent searching for low-risk objects, but politics intervened at every turn. Lighters were untouchable, having been banned by an act of Congress.

We did succeed in getting some items (small scissors, ice skates) off the list of prohibited items.

Re:Former ______ head says we fucked up

[ColdWetDog]

Here's the bottom line:

Congress and The Bureaucracy.

Happens every time in the US. See, for example, problems with Medicare, the FAA, NASA, FDA, the Forest Service and likely every other agency in the Beltway.

You have politicians with financial oversight, limited intelligence, very limited concentration and the powerful need to get reelected. You have bureaucracies who have really are examples of the undead. You can't kill them, no matter how hard you try. They grow and reproduce no matter how much you try to control it. The only way to grapple with the problem is to cut off their food supply. Since they are symbiotically attached to Congress, whose job it is to control the food supply - that option isn't available unless you're Ron Paul (and batshit insane about pretty much everything else).

The big mistake was creating the DHS in the first place. That was a clusterfuck of the very first order. Once you've created monsters like that there is no turning back. Godzilla is going to trample the countryside.

Nuke it from orbit, it's the only way to be sure.

Don't fix it, abolish it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please get rid of it.

Not only is it expensive, it is total theater.

It's useless and doesn't help anybody or anything but TSA agents and the companies selling cancerous porno x-ray machines.

Re:Don't fix it, abolish it.

[houstonbofh]

I agree. Even in 2001, more people die per mile in car crashes than in air related accidents (Including all those in the towers with 0 miles) but because it is so unpleasant, more people drive instead of flying. If you do the math, you see that TSA is killing people.

Re:Don't fix it, abolish it.

[TheRaven64]

In September 2001, more people in the USA died as a result of road accidents than as a result of terrorist action. Imagine what would have happened if all of the money spent on the TSA had been spent on road safety instead...

Re:Don't fix it, abolish it.

[ColdWetDog]

In September 2001, more people in the USA died as a result of road accidents than as a result of terrorist action. Imagine what would have happened if all of the money spent on the TSA had been spent on road safety instead...

Before you get in the vehicle, you would have to present government approved ID. Once in the seat, the driver would have to blow into a breathalyzer, give a urine sample for drug analysis and have their EKG examined by a board certified cardiologist before one could start the car. If that was successful, everyone would have to put on their helmets, fireproof jump suit, boot and gloves and then strap into a four point harness.

The car wouldn't start until you went through a computer controlled checklist. All personal electronics would be stored in a locked safe that stays sealed while the car is in motion. Should you be lucky enough to get this far, the vehicle would travel no faster than 35 miles per hour (and none of this kilometers crap) and go no more than 10 miles before you would have to ask permission to go further (which can take more than 24 hours in some cases).

Careful watch you ask for, you just might get it....

Spot on, except for TSA mission

[SuperKendall]

The thing is the TSA should NOT be the ones preventing a "catastrophic attack on the transportation system". That should be the CIA, even the military!!

The TSA should, at best, be simply a light wall to keep things reasonable as far as who goes on a plane. That is it. Thus if you think about it, the TSA really has NO proper role. Not at the level they are at anyway - security would be better managed by airport managed security.

But you say, what about the centralized no-fly list? Well what about it? Who cares who flies? That list has done WAY more harm to innocent people than it has ever helped. Even if we let someone who truly is a terrorist on, it doesn't matter. Either they fly somewhere, or the try to hijack the plane and get mauled by passengers, or possibly they get something by regional security and blow up a plane. Oh well; we lived under that system just fine for decades.

Re:Spot on, except for TSA mission

[Anonymous Coward]

The way I understand it, TSA is basically an immunity shield for airports, so if something goes wrong, TSA is liable, and not the airport and their security.

Re:Spot on, except for TSA mission

[iPaul]

So, the TSA was formed, in part, because after 9/11 we found out that many of the airports relied on contractors that were borderline. Little to no training. Enormous turnover. Effectively no ability to arrest or detain people. Subject to pressure from the airlines, etc. So someone had, what was probably a good idea, hire people as full time, highly trained screeners that could server or coordinate with law enforcement. Sure, it might cost a little more in the short run, but less than if people viewed airlines as unsafe and refused to fly. Much like the movie "The Fly" that idea morphed into the mess that we have now. With congressmen saying that "agent" should not be used to refer to a TSA worker because that demeans other law enforcement agents. But let's say, for sake of argument, that the Obama administration tries to do something about it. "He's soft on terror" or "He's making us less safe," or "He's helping the terrorists". Likewise, if Romney wins and his administration tries to do something: "He's in the pocket of the airlines," or "He's making us less safe because it's costing the airlines money." Those are both ridiculous claims, but they will be made.

In case you're all clueless...

[LanMan04]

This is a reference:

In September 2006, in response to the new policies limiting the amounts of liquids and gels that passengers could carry on airplanes, Milwaukee resident Ryan Bird wrote "Kip Hawley is an Idiot" on a plastic bag given to passengers by airport security for those substances. As a result he claims he was detained and told that the First Amendment did not apply to security checkpoints.

Re:In case you're all clueless...

[Ucklak]

The problem isn't Kip Hawley as much as it is Janet Napolitano. She is ineffective as as the head of the DHS. She is reactionary and not a visionary nor a leader. She was horrible as a governor, she is horrible as the head of the DHS. She needs to go somewhere and put her education to use instead of riding on the coattails of others who are also no good at their job.

Hijacking is still possible.

[__aaltlg1547]

Weapons have never been necessary to take control of an airliner. They just make it a little easier.

Re:Hijacking is still possible.

[Anonymous Coward]

successfully hijacking an airplane today is very unlikely. Now that is has be established that being hijacked means death in a crash there is not much that can prevent a plane full of passengers scared for their life from killing the hijackers no matter how many weapons they might manage to get on board

Don't see it happening

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

I really do not see any chance of the suggestions in this article happening. All it would take is one suicidal terrorist whose goal is simply to bring down a plane and kill all its passengers to scuttle it. I do not think the American public will view this is "acceptable", especially if it turns out that what brought down the plane in my mythical scenario was something that the current screening methods would likely have caught.

I really do not know what to think of the article's suggestions on liquids. I've read where various chemistry experts essentially say that terrorists cannot construct liquid bombs that will work at all without having to basically use chemistry equipment, ice baths, lengthy mixing sessions that no one could possibly ignore, etc. Yet here the former TSA head insists that there is a very real risk here. Who is right? Does the former TSA head know something that chemistry experts have somehow missed? Or is the former TSA head working on crap information? I sure don't know but that's one question I'd like resolved.

My experience has been that the people who bitch the most about screening are those who travel the least. I'm not saying that there aren't regular travelers who don't complain. Not at all. But in my circle of acquaintances, the people I know who just completely and utterly cannot talk about this subject without getting completely bent out of shape about it simply do not travel by plane. One of them hasn't been on a plane in more than 5 years. He's likely to travel by plane less than 5 more times in his lifetime. The other guy I know actually gets the most worked up about this. He hasn't been on a plane since before 9/11 and he is extremely unlikely to ever travel by plane again in his life, yet this whole subject of TSA screenings is some kind of hot button issue to him.

Re:Don't see it happening

[elewton]

This vegetarian kept talking about how bad abattoirs are and the ethics and dangers of intensive meat production, and I was like, "Dude, you don't even eat meat!"

alot more realistic solution

[nimbius]

is to accept the fact that terrorism is extremely effective even if it fails. it builds police states and makes everyday things like travel difficult at the expense of the target nation. it forces them to divert energy and resources into possibilities and not actualities.

a better solution is to stop this "war on terror" crap and pay closer attention to what it is exactly we do that leaves a group of people so determined with nothing left to lose that they will kill thousands of your innocent civillians.
should you consider Osama Bin Laden the cause of the terrorist attacks against america, here are his demands: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/nov/24/theobserver
now, while some of them are outlandish so are some promises from a politician seeking to gain or maintain an elected office. and so to have our demands on the middle eastern region been for the past 30 years. regime change, cia government overthrow, perpetually cheap oil, proxy wars, military bases at the expense of the indigenous citizens, propping up dictatorial regimes and the list goes on. But Bin Laden asked for some rather reasonable things as well that we could have done.
1. stop treating israel like some sort of king among theives. if their only justification for their city is rooted in religious text, thats fine for them. They should not have the right to force that opinion on other nations however and by virtue of their creation should at least attempt to get along with them instead of bombing the hell out of them semi-annually. the bombs, helicopters, and american artillery are what hes complaining about. our complicit enforcement of the palestinian 'warsaw ghetto' could probably be eliminated and save the tax payers a few billion dollars a year.

another quote, "You steal our wealth and oil at paltry prices because of you international influence and military threats. This theft is indeed the biggest theft ever witnessed by mankind in the history of the world." Well, yeah. The carter doctrine sort of mandates we do that. our free market policy at the hands of the plutocracy has become more reliant on war as a revenue source and as a big stick lately, and we could probably reign that in.

he complains about our sanctions against iraq, how we support countries like egypt and syria despite the fact they routinely murder their own people. the most contentious place in the middle east for alot of muslims is jerusalem, and we stuck a goddamn embassy there.
im not saying the guys a doctoral scholar here; the rest of his argument is based largely on the same religious crap our evangelicals push. Im just saying we could have done maybe 25 things in the middle east differently after the 9/11 attacks that would have negated the strip searches, pat downs, border searches, and other security theater that are killing the "land of the free."

Re:alot more realistic solution

[Scorch_Mechanic]

Extremism is not compatible with the modern age, and it is a huge problem.

Fixed that for you.

Religion and religious people are not the problem. Extremism and extremist people are. While I agree that certain sub-sections of certain religious groups could do with a few lessons in toleration, this is more a symptom of their extremism than it is their religion. Blaming the issue on people worshiping an invisible man in the sky is just as false as the extremists claiming that their invisible man in the sky told them to do it.

Better qoutes

[phantomfive]

Here are what I thought were better quotes from the article:

it's simply no longer the case that killing a few people on board a plane could lead to a hijacking. Never again will a terrorist be able to breach the cockpit simply with a box cutter or a knife. The cockpit doors have been reinforced, and passengers, flight crews and air marshals would intervene.

I wanted to reduce the amount of time that officers spent searching for low-risk objects, but politics intervened at every turn. Lighters were untouchable, having been banned by an act of Congress. And despite the radically reduced risk that knives and box cutters presented in the post-9/11 world, allowing them back on board was considered too emotionally charged for the American public. We did succeed in getting some items (small scissors, ice skates) off the list of prohibited items.

He has a list of five things he suggests to improve the TSA:
1. No more banned items
2. Allow all liquids
3. Give TSA officers more flexibility and rewards for initiative, and hold them accountable
4. Eliminate baggage fees
5. Randomize security

Reinforced Cockpit Doors?

[dryriver]

As far as I remember, a proposal to install lockable, steel-reinforced cockpit doors in airliners was floating around well before September 11th ever happened. Because airlines didn't want to pay for these doors (they would have to be custom manufactured), and didn't want the extra weight of these doors added to their planes (profits, profits, profits), there was literally nothing preventing the 9/11 hijackers from taking over 4 different airliners on that day. Instead of making air-travel hell for everybody, why not make airliners themselves more secure, by simple measures like installing lockable, reinforced cockpit doors?

Terrorism won; we sacrificed freedom for safety

[ziggy_az]

I said it back in '01 and I'll repeat it now. By giving up our freedom in the name of security, we have allowed the terrorists to prevail. Pursue them. Hunt them down. Deal with those who have harbored them as enemies of the US. But we should never have relinquished a single liberty for the sake of security.

Benjamin Franklin said it best:
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Franklin's Contributions to the Conference on February 17 (III) Fri, Feb 17, 1775

Let's give them more money!

[sqrt(2)]

I say the deserve another billion/yr because, afterall, look at all the terrorism they've stopped just this week!

Finding a legally registered, unloaded, gun belonging to a law abiding (if forgetful) citizen does not count as stopping terrorism. Not to mention that all of these objects are things that would easily be caught by standard X-rays. The TSA has NEVER stopped a terrorist. Not one. In the years since 9-11 any terrorist activity was either stopped well before they got to the airport, or they actually got on the plane and the attempt failed. But I guess the TSA needs to brag about something to justify their existence, so they point out all the absent minded people they've detained for forgetting about something dangerous in their bag.

Terrorism is stopped by law enforcement work outside of the airport. If a terrorist plot made it that far without being discovered, you've already failed and you need to move farther up the chain to figure out what went wrong and how it could have been foiled sooner. In terms of value for our dollars, the TSA is a huge waste.

and you can go overboard on anti-terrorism

[durdur]

Also, we can learn from other countries that being attacked by terrorists does not mean you have to institute a police state, or go off and start a couple of unnecessary wars. We've spend many times the actual cost of the 9/11 attacks trying to protect ourselves from anything like it happening again. But as TFA implies, nobody's asking if the cost exceeds the benefit. And now we have a monstrous national security apparatus and a military-industrial complex more entrenched and extensive than ever before.

The U.K. had terrorist attacks for years, including the fairly horrendous one in London in 2005. But they haven't gone crazy about it, or at least not as crazy as the U.S. has.

Re:and you can go overboard on anti-terrorism

[Anne Thwacks]

And we have airline check in queues so long it is probably quicker to swim to France than fly there.

When the IRA (HInt: American sponsored) were bombing the UK on a regular basis, we just took it, saying "the risk of dying from eating Scotch eggs beats the risk of an IRA bomb any day!" or, for the oldies "Compared to the Blitz, this is nothing!"

Then the Americans got hit, and it was "OK, lets circle the poodles and waggle our tails".

No one in the UK believes that airline check in procedures are about safety. We all know they are about our politicians pandering to America for reasons we don't understand, but which probably involve bribery and corruption.

Here are some rough numbers

[XB-70]

This year, the TSA is requesting 8.2 Billion dollars. In the past five (5) years, the TSA has made some 1,035 arrests. Approximately 30% of those were related to clear immigration violations and had nothing to do with security. If we use today's annual budget number, multiply it by five and divide it into the remainder of the arrests, we get a figure of approximately $53,000,000. This is extremely rough math. Give or take $5,000,000 either way, we are looking at a price of around $50,000,000 per arrest. I don't know about you, but I thank that's extremely expensive. Swirl in the unbelievable cost in TIME for each passensger to screened and you have a serious net drain on the economy. The question becomes not can we have 100% security but, as Mr. Hawley states, what will be the ACCEPTABLE level of security that will be a reasonable balance between risk and cost?