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Former DHS Official Blames Privacy Advocates For TSA's Aggressive Procedures
colinneagle writes with an interesting excerpt from Senate testimony offered yesterday, on the 12th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, from Stewart Baker. Baker formerly served as DHS Assistant Secretary and NSA General Counsel, and gave his opinion on the source of the real problems within the TSA, opining: "Unlike border officials, though, TSA ended up taking more time to inspect everyone, treating all travelers as potential terrorists, and subjecting many to whole-body imaging and enhanced pat-downs. We can't blame TSA for this wrong turn, though. Privacy lobbies persuaded Congress that TSA couldn't be trusted with data about the travelers it was screening. With no information about travelers, TSA had no choice but to treat them all alike, sending us down a long blind alley that has inconvenienced billions."
Sounds like the lesser of two evils to me. If you really think they would not have done both keeping data and the enhanced pat downs I have a bridge to sell you in New York. Slightly used.
Does he mean that type of information?
Yes, I was punching, kicking, and otherwise beating the crap out of this random person.
It was the fact they put their arms up to shield their face that resulted in such a horrible beating. I bare no fault what so ever for his actions which, despite being performed after I started the beating, are still somehow the reason for the beating.
to a single event is to blame
Color me surprised.
What a strategy. Want to curtail both privacy and freedom? Set up a a blackmail scheme where you pit one against the other.
Them females showing their ankles, that's begging for rape.
It's not my fault I beat you up. If you had just given me your lunch money you wouldn't have a black eye.
Any insufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
dhs was created and given the impossible job of keeping everyone safe all the time.
if someone gets killed then dhs will be the scapegoat in endless congressional hearings.
what did we expect DHS and the TSA would do? i personally expect them to freak-the-fuck-out and go crazy with the aggressive techniques.
the public bitches no matter what.
I blame the mentality that profiling is some horrible crime, therefore everyone must be overly searched.
It was all my fault for standing in line. Being there.
Won't happen again.
the problem rests in the TSA's basic operational principle which is both invasive and arguably a violation of the 4th Amendment. The Israelis have a much greater problem with terrorists than we do and yet their airport screening procedures are far less intrusive. They use what much what used to be the standard American procedures combined with officers trained to detect suspicious behaviors in waiting passengers. Works for them and it would work for us if we'd invest in properly training and retaining personnel instead of using hiring and training practices one usually associates poorly run fast food chains. That being said, the idea of perfect airport security outside of a permanent military installation is an illusion. There are simply too many people coming and going on a daily basis to make the thing work. People who work in airports - having greater access to sensitive areas - pose a far greater threat vector than passengers.
No, the problem with the TSA is that they exist in the first place. Airlines should be responsible for ensuring their flights are safe. When airlines handle safety they can be held accountable if they do it poorly or they mistreat their customers. The TSA can clearly never be held accountable for anything.
I read this as "We can't profile, so we are less efficient." Police say the same thing and it's probably true. This is one of those trade-offs for liberty where it is good that we recognize the cost of the decision.
Just remember: it doesn't mean this was the wrong decision. It doesn't mean that phony whole-body scanners that don't work are a good idea. It's not an excuse for detaining people who recite the constitution. It doesn't justify searching laptops without a warrant.
Last question: What information does the TSA want that they don't have? We know they get the names of passengers, and they have a list of "detain these people." Do they want to know our religious beliefs? Ethnicity? Country of origin? Shopping habits? It is interesting that the article points out that the people doing the border searches get a lot more information than the TSA.
.. so now, because you can not build your own registry of American travelers, we are supposed to either submit to your useless, invasive procedures (that still can't detect things in body cavities) or "opt-in" to the Trusted Traveler program? Are those the two choices, Stewart? How about the TSA goes away and airline security is handed over to the airlines themselves.
The DHS and its bastard offspring the TSA would have our founding fathers rolling and vomiting in their graves. To say nothing of the NSA.
There surely must have been a reason that the first 'privacy advocate' ever in existence decided to be vocal about civil liberties and privacy rights and expectations.
Surely this person did not just wake up one day and have fear out of the blue.
I'm thinking someone somewhere was first a victim of some form of privacy invasion.
So by the TSA's logic the privacy advocate started it? We should have all just dropped our pants to our ankles up front 10 years ago, and those of us who did not want to (most of us if not all of us) are to blame for the failure that is the TSA today?
They really do think we're all that stupid. Or they really are as stupid as we all have been making fun of the TSA to be. Either way, there's a lot of stupid going on here, somewhere.
They have had the data since 2008.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Flight
Every person's name that has flown, what airline, what flight, gender, etc.
ALL OF IT FOR ALMOST FIVE YEARS.
And have they caught anyone using it? Not that I've seen.
The thing about international terrorism is that they are patient. If you go by profiles and you stop searching 70 year old grannies, eventually they will find a way to radicalize 70 year old grannies. We aren't talking football hooligans here. The 9/11 attackers didn't fit the profile for "professional terrorist" either, they looked like I.T. people in Kakkis.
It means that a (rarely observed) potential terrorist can't disguise themselves as a "normal" person that is unlikely to be screened.
Are they saying that a useful "feature" of their screening process is actually a "bug"? That seems dumb and inconsistent with what has been stated previously. Granted, it would be nice to focus attention on the people who you think are a greater risk ... but that assessment could be spectacularly wrong, especially if people get the idea of how the filtering works and start gaming the system.
With no information about travelers, TSA had no choice but to treat them all alike,
What a horrifying reality, in which the government is forced to treat all citizens as equal. If the government were only allowed to pick and choose the dissidents to subject to harsh treatment and intimidation, all the properly submissive subjects would be free to do anything that doesn't irritate the lordship. You see, it is not the ruling elite who are imposing these restrictions that are harming you, it is your filthy fellow peasants. If you could all simply learn to kneel and submit to the natural authority of the nobility, you would all be happier.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Pedestrian's unwillingness to voluntarily surrender the contents of their pockets is the primary reason for so many of today's muggings.
The TSA checkpoints, pat downs, nude scanners, and so forth are a complete waste. No competent terrorist would be deterred by such things -- and "competent" here means "able to do more damage in an airplane than out." It is easy enough to make a makeshift weapon past the checkpoints, and the 9/11 hijackers all used makeshift weapons. I am not even plotting an attack and I can think of a half dozen ways to arm myself on the other side of a TSA checkpoint.
Basically the TSA is cover-your-ass security theater. If there is any kind of attack, nobody wants to be the politicians who voted to remove the TSA from our airports, regardless of whether or not the checkpoints make a difference.
Palm trees and 8
I'm a foreigner. I had the honor to be subjected to both your border guard and TSA. I wouldn't trust them with a fucking fruitcake.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
The universal group is a direct result of being unwilling to profile passengers based on criteria such as "males of Middle Eastern origin" or "Muslims" just because 99+% of terrorists fit that profile, because doing so would be Politically Incorrect.
Evidently being part of the "Reality Based Community" doesn't involve being willing to deal with the reality of which ethnic groups the overwhelming majority of terrorists come from.
Dear Mr/Mrs Member of Congress,
Anyone that impedes process of Authority by invoking their Constitutional Rights is an un-American terrorist sympathizer who should be locked up in one of our Secret Prisons under Secret laws to be tried at some future date in a Secret court.
The Constitution is the most Un-American thing about America and should be abolished. The TSA and DHS need swift, unquestioned Authority to protect us from those who would harm America and to speed up those long lines at Airport Security Checkpoints and the long lines we shall soon be seeing at Security Checkpoints at Shopping Centers, Train and Bus Terminals and many other major facilities across the Nation
Love,
Stewart Baker
Cops assume that if you lawyer up top protect your rights you must be guilty/suspect. The TSA is no different. If we work to protect everyone's rights then everyone must be guilty/suspect.
This argument presents a false dichotomy between access to private data and bodily privacy invasion.
gets in the way of all of our law enforcement efforts.
"To those who are overly cautious, everything is impossible. "
I have little to no trust with the people working within my government at this time and none in the people from bottom to the top levels in the TSA . They (TSA) needs flushing down the gape of the porcelain maw.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
The checkpoints are a waste of time and money that have not stopped a single realistic terrorist plot. Profiling is irrelevant, already performed, and does not improve the effectiveness of the TSA checkpoints. This is a distraction from the real issue: billions of wasted dollars, millions of travelers intimidated into giving up their civil rights, and nothing to show for any of it.
Palm trees and 8
CAPS and CAPS 2 , forced the airline to deliver so many data on traveler going *into* the USA it ain't funny. If it was the case that more data would lead to less ivnasive search, I would not have to go thru one , as do my fellow traveller, travelling *into* the USA.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Far less intrusive? Flying out of Ben Gurion, you have to stop and be questioned by airport employees at some three or four checkpoints, and when your bags are being swabbed down and tested for chemical agents, they might decide to question you yet again. Yes, they are efficient and they move you through the airport somewhat faster than you might expect, but they get up in your face much more than TSA staff.
In any event, while the Israeli method does involve scrutinizing everyone's responses to the security agents' questions, it also allows profiling of passengers according to national origin, race or religion. Barring major changes to law, the USA is not able to adopt their methods entirely.
but then I read a hundred other posts saying the exact same things. Out of anybody but a government, this reasoning in use is, in a nutshell, a fast-track to getting convicted as a felon. She wouldn't have sex with me, so I had to rape her. He protected his face, that's why I had to beat him senseless. She wouldn't give me her lunch money voluntarily, that's why I had to punch her in the stomach until she gave it to me. He wouldn't give me his bank account information, that's why I had to go through his mail.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
People who would flip sides like the army soldier did.
Well, which is it? Let's say they had exhaustive information and fingerprints on everybody in the world. Yeah, it has to be the world, because what if somebody from Monaco flies to Mexico, drives into the US, and then wants to fly out. But you can't guarantee any given person is "OK" just because you know a lot of stuff about him. Anyone could get radicalized or lose his mind at any time, or just have a secret life and secret thoughts.
Think, people. The nazis knew who Stauffenburg was. He was a Colonel in the Wehrmacht; "of course" he was "OK". But that didn't mean he couldn't carry a bomb into Hitler's briefing room.
So the idea that if they were allowed to steal everyone's privacy, that would enable them to magically be able to forego checking everyone out every time they fly ... is RIDICULOUS. Baker is either stupid, or he is blowing shit out of his ass.
The wet dream of the statists is illusory. They can never stamp out alienation because it goes along with free will. They can make slaves and they can make a large proportion into sheep, but they can't wish away free will. They would do better to ask themselves why no airplane passengers had to submit to being intrusively searched by thugs in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s and statistically next to 0% of planes were hijacked, exploded, or crashed into big buildings until fairly recently.
So which, pray tell, personal data would they take as sufficient to allow water to be carried again?
Of course as we know all those potential explosives (that are too dangerous to allowed on a plane) are disposed of.. on site.. in a trash can.... at the screening station.......
In the US, Political Correctness trumps Common Sense and Privacy every time.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Well it could start by not ignoring actual reports of people doing things, instead of being reactive and banning water.
The article pointed to a recent USA Today article that says:
We're unimpressed with the weekly tallies posted on the TSA blog of weapons confiscated by screeners; we just want to know when they've stopped a terrorist from blowing up a plane
Is that what the TSA exists for? The 9/11 terrorists did not blow-up a plane. Instead, they crashed a plane into a building. So is the TSA there to stop another 9/11, or to stop terrorists from blowing-up a plane? In reality, they aren't necessary to stop either of these goals.
As for the 9/11 goal: That happened because the cockpit doors were unlocked, and because nobody really thought about the possibility of crashing the plane into a national icon. So simple procedures + public awareness makes a repeat of that scenario impossible.
As for the blow-up goal: Did we have a lot of planes getting blown-up by terrorists before the TSA? Nope! Has the TSA detected lots of bombs on planes? Nope! If the TSA was nothing other than an officer walking around the airport, he would have foiled as many plots as this $7 billion organization.
Instead of blaming homosexuals (Pat) or liberals (Rush) for all the problems in the world, what this country needs is a new advocate who has really found the immoral evil lurking in our society: privacy advocates. Gee, Pat and Rush have done plenty of damage without full governmental backing. Can't wait to see what damage Mr. Baker will cause with his twisted rhetoric.
Might as well face it I'm addicted to data.
If you take his wiki entry at face value, this guy, in all likelihood, had a very real hand in what the TSA was turned into, and what the NSA has done against the American people. If you dig a little deeper, it gets a little more slimey, and clear! I'm sure his book from the mid 70's on scrutinizing US citizen rights to travel would be an interesting read into this guys entire life right about now!
He's a lingering reminder of former President G.H.W Bush, and ties to all things with clandestine legalese. We're still feeling the effects of Reagan/Bush1 era assholes! Will these people NOT FUCKING GO AWAY!?!
In the mid-nineties, I experienced something similar going through the channel tunnel from the UK to France. Our car was stopped, I was asked to step out of my car and was questioned by an agent of some kind (complete with ear bud) who asked me about where I was from, where I was going, etc.. He asked me if a town was near to the one that I was from (it wasn't); I assume his collegue in the office had a map and was feeding him questions that would probe the truth of my answers. Our luggage was swabbed and the swabs tested.
I had been pulled out for extra checks before boarding flights around that time, so I suspect that I had got onto some kind of watch list.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
... Border officers are officers of the USCIS. They can be (or I should say, they are) trusted with passenger data because they are considerably better trained (and I daresay better paid) than the occasionally-background-checked high school dropout failed mall cop candidates employed by the TSA.
what they really should be debating how quickly the tsa can be disbanded as they are not providing any actual security.
Here's what I'm hearing:
Yeah, so, we could either do Option B, which is inconvenient, or Option C, which we weren't allowed to do since it's illegal, so we went with B.
No mention of the obvious omission of Option A: don't invade people's privacy. Ya know, like how it worked for the first several decades of commercial aviation in the US.
So his basic position is that "we had to search the persons of travelers because we weren't allowed unfettered access to their records and the ability to create a massive database of "undesired" citizens"? And some government officials wonder why people think their authority should be limited.
If we would simply provide the TSA information of who are the terrorists, then they would only need to body scan the terrorists instead of everybody. And if we scan only terrorists, logically, everyone the TSA doesn't scan is not a terrorist, and therefore safe to let on the plane. I don;t see any problems with this at all.
If they were actually treating everyone alike, it would be much better. The problem is they treat the old woman in the wheelchair as a terrorist and let the 24 year old male from Yemen walk right through without so much as a how do you do. Sorry, but they need to profile, not inverse profile.
The threat is over! Haven't you heard? Al Qaeda is our ally now and we support them in Syria. DHS and TSA were set up because of terrorist threat and the war on terror. We won. Al Qaeda is our friend now. Can we have our freedom back?
(yes... sarcasm and disgust being expressed here and little else and nothing particularly contributory.)
That worked three times, even on 9/11 it didn't work on #4.
It will never work again. Nobody will sit there expecting to be released eventually.
Which isn't to say they won't do anything _to_ a flight. But using a commercial flight as a missile was a use once trick.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
I blame the mentality that profiling is some horrible crime, therefore everyone must be overly searched.
Spoken like someone who has never been subjected to it. "Profiling" is just a fancier term for discrimination based on stereotypes.
I am lucky to be a member of several privileged groups in society, but even I've been on the short end of that stick as a grumpy, trenchcoat-wearing teen right when the Columbine massacre occurred. (Thank goodness I was out of high school by then.)
It sucks to be preemptively treated as a criminal. It gets you angry and it makes you feel like less of a person. I only had to weather that for a few months; I can't imagine what an entire lifetime of that does to you and your sense of belonging in a community. Profiling is an evil, because it judges people not based on the content of their character but on superficial traits, and it subjects them to discrimination.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
But the next time there is a terrorist act carried out using a commercial flight everyone will be shrieking about how the gov't didn't do enough.
How many mice do you have in that pocket, anyway? Because I know you're not speaking for me or anyone I know with that bullshit rationale.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Works for them and it would work for us if we'd invest in[...]
"Invest in"? Huh. I reckon that's some awful strange talk you've got there. You're not one of those liberal, evil, liberal LIBERALS, are you? The sort that RUTHLESSLY STEAL all the HARD-EARNED MONEY from poor, poor, sad, beleaguered TAXPAYERS in REAL AMERICA, are you? If not, I'd suggest you keep your ideas of the government spending money for the benefit of its citizens to yourself, COMRADE .
Far less intrusive? Flying out of Ben Gurion, you have to stop and be questioned by airport employees at some three or four checkpoints, and when your bags are being swabbed down and tested for chemical agents, they might decide to question you yet again. Yes, they are efficient and they move you through the airport somewhat faster than you might expect, but they get up in your face much more than TSA staff.
In any event, while the Israeli method does involve scrutinizing everyone's responses to the security agents' questions, it also allows profiling of passengers according to national origin, race or religion. Barring major changes to law, the USA is not able to adopt their methods entirely.
Flying into Tel Aviv is similar. At the originating airport, once you go through security, at the gate before you board you go through additional passport screening (done by airline employees) and rescreened through x-ray and metal detector (by non-TSA contractors). There is literally an extra layer of security added to Tel Aviv flights before you ever even get on the plane.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
All alike couldn't POSSIBLY have been with the dignity and respect human beings deserve and consistent with the expectations of a free and democratic nation. Oh no, can't have that. Next thing you know, the public might start expecting public servants to serve the public good or some uppity junk like that.
And don't EVEN expect acting as if they have a collective IQ above 50!
He's trying to blame everything on not getting SOME of the information he wanted because of privacy advocates. Our intelligence forces IMO have used terrorism as an excuse for a 1984ish grab bag approach, even at the expense of focusing on the REAL potential terrorists. Somehow, we have the resources to generate mega databases of all our transactions, travels, and communications, yet we didn't have the resources to track a guy (Boston bomber) who the Russians provided pretty good evidence actually WAS pursuing terrorist ties.
They should be squarely focused on the potential guys and the terrorism outfits rather than trying to dragnet everyone hoping to luck up and find a bomb on a "random" security check of anyone who looks the wrong shade of brown. We're wasting resources and money. A look at the list of so-called domestic terrorism plots they've actually stopped is evidence enough.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
How about this: Use some sort of friggin' judgement rather than treating everyone like criminals? Let us look at other countries that have literally generations of experience dealing with terrorism -- the UK, France, Spain, Germany -- and they don't have everyone lining up to drop their trousers. People who don't want to be humiliated and have their privacy respected are a *problem*? This is right out of one of Yossarian's conversations with the psychologist from Catch-22.
"You have deep-seated survival anxieties. And you don't like bigots, bullies, snobs, or hypocrites. Subconsciously there are many people you hate."
"Consciously, sir, consciously," Yossarian corrected in an effort to help. "I hate them consciously."
"You're antagonistic to the idea of being robbed, exploited, degraded, humiliated, or deceived. Misery depresses you. Ignorance depresses you. Persecution depresses you. Violence depresses you. Corruption depresses you. You know, it wouldn't surprise me if you're a manic-depressive!"
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
For everything else use NSA.
Why don't supermarkets frisk everyone leaving the store, to catch possible shoplifters? I would rather risk the occasional terrorist attack than surrender my liberties in an impossible quest for perfect safety.
If you have one class of people that zip through security, and a second that has to go through all the checks, then you have reinvented Apartheid.
If Americans are doomed to live in a police state, let's at least have an egalatarian one.
Doesn't that sound a little bit like "Look what you made me do to you?"
That particular little line is a distinctive indication of an abuser... blaming the abused.
-- Abusers - Denying the Abuse
Now it seems all very clear to me.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
Or they could just treat everybody equally and assume they're NOT terrorists. Which side are the odds on?
In any event, while the Israeli method does involve scrutinizing everyone's responses to the security agents' questions, it also allows profiling of passengers according to national origin, race or religion. Barring major changes to law, the USA is not able to adopt their methods entirely.
Seeing as they're ignoring the highest law of the land (Constitution) on any number of issues, why would they need major changes to law before trying this?
Sorry, but this is just one more expression of 'security through obscurity', which is not viable.
Posting AC because modded
They wouldn't have had to fuck us a new asshole.
Its her fault she shouldn't have worn that dress......makes about as much sense
"It's her fault I had to rape her"
TSA and DHS threatened to close down Richmond International Aitrport (RIC) a few years back because TSA wanted to assign convicted felon that they hired to the security screening process there. RIC had to allow this criminal due to the threats from said agencies. Are these the people that should have access to my personal information?.. how about all the pieces of shit that have been arrested due to theft and extortion at the checkpoints?.. should these people have access to our information?.. Tell me TSA.. how many of your own employees are on do not fly lists due to their criminal past?
Sure, the TSA's "be afraid, be very afraid" and "be compliant sheep" commercials while you're waiting in line tell you that, but they were making people take their shoes off at lots of airports before the shoe bomber. Why? Because lots of mens' dress shoes have metal shanks in them, and they set off metal detectors a lot, so they were slowing down lines dealing with them. By making everybody take their shoes off before that, they could avoid the problem, just like making people take their belts off avoids the delays from large belt buckles setting off metal detectors. The shoe bomber was just an excuse to expand the rule to everybody.
Before they started doing it, I tended to wear Teva sandals, which are all non-metallic, and I've lived in places where lots of people wear flipflops, but the airports that had randomly started doing the "it's always been the rule" rule about taking shoes off would sometimes make us take our shoes off anyway, even before the shoe bomber.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Baker does have a sense of humor - the "1984, we're behind schedule" T-shirt was a quote from him back in 1994 - and he's a smart guy, but he's always, always, an apologist for the Government Security Mafia. This is just another troll from him.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
The issue is not access to data it is classifying the data into valid buckets.
All attempts result in the equivalent of racial an religious profiling.
No agency knows how to do that. No agency is clairvoyant in the search for novel attacks.
Then there is the no fly list. The list is punitive because it denies individuals of the ability to do as other citizens can. There is no due process, clearly less process than we have for holding a passport.
I think this is false logic at its roots -That in turn invites bad policy and law.
The government HAD info on the 9/11 hijackers and did precisely
NOTHING to prevent the hijacking.
And now there is this asshole Stewart Baker who wants us all to surrender
all privacy so the job of those who are charged with "security" is made easier.
Fuck Stewart Baker.
And fuck the US government and its lies and deceit. Anyone who has even a shred
of respect left for the US government is either an idiot or a fool, because the only real
difference between the US government and a common criminal is the amount of power
available to the US government.
Seems to me that the biggest threats to Americans' prosperity are the Executive and Legislative branches of government. Get rid on them and that would do more to secure freedom and property than any number of privacy-invading government functionaries.