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TSA Screening Barely Working Better Than Chance
rwise2112 writes "The General Accounting Office (GAO) has completed a study of the TSAs SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques) program and found the program is only slightly better than chance at finding criminals. Given that the TSA has spent almost a billion dollars on the program, that's a pretty poor record. As a result, the GAO is requesting that both Congress and the president withhold funding from the program until the TSA can demonstrate its effectiveness."
Fuck 'em. Disband that shit ASAP.
But I don’t see any tigers around, do you?
I mean, no successful attacks since 9/11. So in order to obtain funding, they have to let some 'slip through?' That's messed up.
Neither Congress nor the President will withhold funding because the purpose and effectiveness of the TSA is not defined by how many criminals it catches. The purpose, rather, is to condition the American public to accept ever increasing government restrictions on our various freedoms. By that measure, the TSA is reasonably effective.
This is just another example of the government cutting funding for the arts. Sure, it may be security theatre but these days that is the only kind of theatre I see to have time for.
Maybe we can get the National Endowment for the Arts to pick up the slack. Or they could move to an NPR model and hold pledge drives.
...as all of the other security theater they spend billions / year on. Why stop with SPOT? How many terr'rists have been caught by body scanners versus good old metal detectors? How many terr'rists have been caught by Freedom Gropes? Oh, I get it, travelers don't actually see SPOT in action. Carry on.
withhold funding from the program until the TSA can demonstrate its effectiveness
Yes, I hate the TSA too, but this Catch-22 reminds me a little of debtor's prison, where you go to jail until you have money to pay your debt.
The GAO ought to request defunding the whole TSA.
Both clips are from the episode: Reverse Cowgirl. That's a Security Camera and Mind if I Touch Your Balls, Sir? Enjoy!
With random chance you get free cancer and ass-probing. Random chance just not offer that level of customer care and retention.
The report isn't about the nudie machines or the crotch groping. This was a program designed to spot potential problems based on the way people act. If it worked, they'd ditch the zappers and replace it with eagle-eyed security guards.
But it doesn't work. Presumably, they spent a billion dollars because they really wanted it to work. This is, after all, patterned after the program that they use in Israel, which is very familiar with terrorism, and has been widely touted as better alternative. In Israel, though, it amounts largely to racial profiling, which has its own drawbacks (as the report points out).
This isn't about the effectiveness of the security theater, one way or the other. It's about something that was supposed to make the security less theatrical. Except it doesn't.
This exciting position includes travel expenses. No experience necessary. Apply at the FBI - brown skin a plus!
I love a good story about government ineffectiveness.
Unfortunately, this particular story is bull. Their conclusions are based on "meta-analysis of 400 studies over 60 years", not an analysis of the TSA's current procedures. They looked at studies on whether college students can tell when reach other are lying.
The TSA has some problems for sure, but this article doesn't address those.
Terrorists at airports try not to look like terrorists, details at 11.
Sure, that's what we need. The same government that gives us the TSA (and NSA....) in charge of health care.
it'll work soooo well.....
To be fair, the TSA was give a basicly impossible job (you can't catch terrorists if there aren't any actual terrorists). The job of providing healthcare is notably more feasible.
"If it saves one life" -Joe Biden
Suck it up, Shrub and Obummer fuckers, you voted them in now you got to smell their shit.
19 terrorists that *knew* that they were hours away from their deaths and their 72 virgins managed to get on planes and not arouse suspicion from security, the attendants, or surrounding passengers. Some Rent-A-Cop TSA agent is going to improve on this by looking *really* hard? Ummm...no.
What we need is a serious application of SPOT remover.
No brain, no pain.
Chance has been working pretty hard lately, and from what I hear he is very thorough.
Oh TSA Screening.
Never mind.
Sure, that's what we need. The same government that gives us the TSA (and NSA....) in charge of health care.
it'll work soooo well.....
To be fair, the TSA was give a basicly impossible job (you can't catch terrorists if there aren't any actual terrorists). The job of providing healthcare is notably more feasible.
So explain the NSA spying on the US.
for decades, and is a nation that much more frequently faces domestic terrorism. What are the chances they have a better, and cheaper method? Oops, they use common sense. Never mind.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/OPINION/01/11/yeffet.air.security.israel/
Sent from my ENIAC
is how much taxpayer money can it funnel into private hands thanks to paranoia and security theater?
We know what works.
What works is:
1. Spying on the Middle East and Pakistan/Afghanistan.
2. Police interrogation techniques (not torture, that never works - ever)
3. Not harassing American citizens other than domestic terrorists like the Tea Party.
4. Defunding overseas wars of adventure we can't afford that have very long logistics chains and letting people solve their own problems and China lose their ships and oil facilities if need be.
That works.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
That means that for each 100 people abused by the TSA or just detained for a deeper inspection, 50 were found guilty of something? Or must be read like it could be random chance throwing 100 dices and that all hit 6?
Anyway, if they are forced to improve numbers, they will find enough victims, after all everyone commits 3 felonies a day
that's the strongest argument against the TSA I've ever heard.
That which is not dead may eternal lie,and in strange aeons even death may die
maybe not -those- 19, or not any of those?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylNgK8k2kt8
Sent from my ENIAC
How bad is that?
I mean when hearing "random chance" the thing that typically springs to mind is a coin, 50/50, heads or tails.
However, we've got to think there are millions of travellers every day and only at most a handful of criminals.
Random chance of getting it right would be roughly say 1 in 1,000,000?
So what the report says is the SPOT guys are barely doing better than chance.
So, they're getting it correct, what, twice out of a million times? Seriously?
This would have never been an issue to begin with.
200 armed assholes, err, passengers wouldn't have let any jerkoff crash a plane intentionally to begin with.
Then we wouldn't need TSA screening us.
I can't believe i still live here.
Flame on, pussies.
zenlessyank was here.
Again, slashdot, fuck your karma & your advertising.
I thought their mandate was to keep people from hijacking/blowing up planes. They are *not* police. They are not there to bust you for doobies or unpaid parking fines.
TSA is not about providing security, despite the word being in it's name. TSA is about the appearance of security..
If it was about security, they would have never spent a billion on such worthless tripe. They would have spent a billion buying blue gloves for pat downs, doing background checks and buying boat loads of video cameras to watch.
This was somebodies billion dollar boondoggle idea to try and sound like they where doing something.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Well, to be fair, the TSA was not created to catch terrorists, it was created to prevent terrorist attacks. And it does that, like nothing would.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The NSA spying on the US may be why the TSA results are slightly better than average, instead of abysmally worse than average.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
Put the door to the cockpit on the OUTSIDE of the plane. Nice armored wall between them and the passengers.
Treat the passengers like cargo. No matter what happens in the back of the plane. It IS going to it's destination. Period.
Worst comes to worst the plane will just crash somewhere on it's flight path. It won't be flying into any buildings on purpose.
The major piece is already in play too. People won't sit back and do nothing when a terrorist stands up and shouts stupid shit on a plane. They'll kick his ass.
Keep the pilots safe and let the people in the back self police in the event of any problems. We'll sort it out when we get to where we are going.
Combine it with ObamaCare: we can get our medical exam at the same time, cutting costs.
Table-ized A.I.
"We have an Accountability Office?? How much does THAT cost??"
That is why they were given the job, think of the spin-offs:
- make work, how many new government employees were trained and hired? That probably required an entire infrastructure to be built out.
- Keep the "security theatre" front and centre. Every time you go to the airport you are reminded of what your gvt is doing to keep you safe.
- See, after all this there are no more bears in the streets (they lack of caught terrorists prove it works).
Well that's much better than I would have guessed.
Since when is that the job of the TSA? Surely, the TSA's job is to stop people from bringing bombs, guns and knives onto airplanes.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
It looked at the meta-analyses to see if there was any support at all to behavioral detection. It looked at the TSA data to see if the TSA could defend its own assertions. The few positive points were basically nullified by poor data collection.
Half of the GAO summary was devoted to the part of the story you ignored, which was the relevant part. It's like you can read, but chose not to for the middle half. The story you will love is that the TSA is inept at capturing relevant data. The GAO is capable of seeing through that.
Don't bother straining yourself, I'll even paste the words here so you can ignore them more easily.
The TSA was founded to extend the welfare state. Why else would you create an agency that's sole purpose is to stack grey trays. Remember, the original name for the agency was The Tray Stackers of America. At the last minute, they were forced to change the name, but since their spiffy uniforms and badges were already on order they needed to keep with the "TSA" initials.
After all, if the TSA was really supposed to catch weapons, terrorists, etc. at the airports I believe that even the Feds could have set up a better system.
It worked just fine for the most part, and the locks and passengers no longer being instructed to sit quietly and enjoy the stopover in Cuba would have taken care of 9/11 just fine.
Well, yes and no. The folks on Flight 93 paid the ultimate price for resisting the hijackers. They saved a lot of lives on the ground, but the choice between "take the bastards with us" and "keep the bastards off the flight to begin with" is a no-brainer.
That isn't to say that a lot of what TSA does isn't pure security theater. The liquids ban makes precious little sense to me, and even less to those who know more than I do about explosives. Ditto for having to remove your shoes. Both of those were knee jerk reactions to "what might have been", rather than sensible reactions to things that actually happened or were likely to happen. The most effective security is the security we never see, intelligence gathering behind the scenes, catching and/or killing the bad guys before they even get to the airport, that sort of thing.
Few people would advocate a complete return to the pre-9/11 regime. Random example: Do you think people should be allowed to carry box cutters in carry-on? It's inevitable that a few bad guys will slip through the cracks, and if I'm unlucky enough to be on the flight where it happens I'd rather be facing fists than edged weapons. Put edged weapons back into that environment and I want the ability to carry my firearm, which all will agree is a political non-starter.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Where are all the predictable-as-shit Slashdot parrots all squawking about Security Theater, Security Theater? There they are! Yes they are, they are! Parrot want a fucking cracker?
Slashdot Parrots are as stupid as the Americans who believe dat teh terrists exist. Shove that fact up your cloaca, parrots.
Another technology that gives essentially random results in polygraph testing.
...this kind of government idiocy, ineptitude, and invasion of privacy is exactly the same kind of crap we're inviting into our healthcare system. TSA, NSA, DMV...ACA. Yeah, gimme more of that fucked up shit.
In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say to us, Make us your slaves, but feed us. - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
So true!! TSA screening doesn't work so well when the TSA agents are laying on the airport floor, dead from gunshot wounds (e.g. LAX airport). I guess that strategy doesn't seem to work.
El Al has about fifty international flights per day (not much point to domestic air inside Israel). The USA has tens of thousands.
El Al can hire high-end, experienced intelligence operatives for this task. TSA obviously doesn't.
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/attack/2001/10/01/elal-usat.htm#more
They can spend 10 minutes asking question to half the passengers of each flight.
The report isn't about the nudie machines or the crotch groping. This was a program designed to spot potential problems based on the way people act. If it worked, they'd ditch the zappers and replace it with eagle-eyed security guards.
But it doesn't work. Presumably, they spent a billion dollars because they really wanted it to work. This is, after all, patterned after the program that they use in Israel, which is very familiar with terrorism, and has been widely touted as better alternative. In Israel, though, it amounts largely to racial profiling, which has its own drawbacks (as the report points out).
This isn't about the effectiveness of the security theater, one way or the other. It's about something that was supposed to make the security less theatrical. Except it doesn't.
There's more to it: in Israel, you talk with people that have a three-figure IQ, and they _will_ engage you in a conversation that pertains to your interests and/or profession and how that links to your trip to Israel. They actually listen to you with what appears to be genuine interest.
Aye, Fuck the TSA. All you need is someone to make sure that passengers aren't getting on the planes with guns or highly flammable materials (gas, explosives, etc). A couple of bomb sniffing dogs should be able to take care of that.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
is this again how intelligence doesn't scale with population, being also the reason for ballot machines?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
pistol ports in the doors would probably be an easy solution to this problem. Of course, a much simpler solution might be a trap door in front of the door...
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Some people who were in charge of security contracting want to make a lot of money by setting up a few companies and subcontracting it out to airports, along with a nice profit of course.
The detectors won't go anywhere, just the uniforms will change, and there will be a lot more middle managers and upper management taking home fat paychecks because they are the only game in town.
And people are buying into it...
"the GAO is requesting that both Congress and the president withhold funding from the program until the TSA can demonstrate its effectiveness."
How about withholding the funds of the TSA from the TSA until the TSA can prove its effectiveness?
celle
Imagine if they only spent half a billion; the program wouldn't even be as good as random chance!
Liberty in your lifetime
Can we do this to D.A.R.E. as well?
That's another program whose success is not supported by of the studies done on it.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
The cruise portion of the flight can be handled by autopilot, 98% of the time. Landing is a totally different matter. Landing is HARD. During my first flight lesson, I flew figure eights at altitude. I never could manage to learn to land safely. Landing requires a skilled pilot.
Also, while 98% of the cruise can be handled by the autopilot, there's another 2% that can't. Shit happens, just like with any other activity, and when shit happens aboard an airliner you want a good pilot handling the situation.
Taking off is the other dangerous part. If you've flown a few times you've probably felt turbulence, when the wind blows the plane up and down. If you're at 30,000 feet and a downdraft pushes you down 150 feet it feels like going over a hill. If you're 120 feet off the ground when you drop, you're dead.
Obama-boy has his Gay Lover cuming to TSA thanks to Congress.
The TSA DC employees should don Body Condoms for the Inaugural 21 Gun Salute.
The real answer to TSA DC is to apply a W88 (from Kirkland AFB) on a MX (North Dakota) with DC as ground-zero target and
explode the pre-primaries at 800 m asl and the "Bad Boy" at 500 m asl.
Well Yes. In order to kill TSA DC employees a LOT of DC citizens (Northern Virginia and Maryland) will need to be vaporized.
Tough Tittie Yanks.
There is zero chance that Congress or the White House will withhold as much as a penny from TSA. As soon as someone says "do you want the terrorists to win?" the GAO and everyone else will collapse.
Airplanes are easy to kill lots of people with a small bomb. A backpack bomb can kill ~20-30 people on a bus, or a high speed train. Islamist terrorists did both in London, and in Madrid. Hell, in Madrid, 191 people were killed by 10 bombs on 4 trains. A single backpack bomb can damage a 737 enough to kill all 160 people on it. A 737 can be traveling 500+ mph, at 35,000 feet in the air, with 10+ tons of combustable fuel, and only ~200 kg of structural material per person.
So, yes, light, weak airplanes should be subject to security, in order to reduce fuel consumption. Buses and trains are strong, and do not need over zealous security.
In conclusion, isn't it time America got some high speed rail?
Of course, a much simpler solution might be a trap door in front of the door...
I believe you were joking but look at the 2013 winner of the Ignobel prize for safety engineering.
Is the effectiveness really measured by how many people you catch in the process of the crime/attack etc.?
If that would be the right measurement, the security procedures employed by banks are a waste of a LOT of money. If you calculate how much money is spent on that security, in comparison to how many banks are robbed or attempted to be, then this large investments become quite ludicrous. Even if all attempted robberies would go through, the amount of money lost there would probably only amount to a very very very tiny amount compared to the expenses now made for all the security (building, personal, lost in productivity etc.)
The point to make here: The number of attempts of bank robberies are reduced, because there are visible measures taken. The effectiveness of these measures are higher, the higher the public opinion is about the "effectivness" and doesn't really depend on the real effectiveness.
Step 1. Defund TSA
Step 2. Terrorist attack 2015
Step 3. Blame Obama
Step 4. Republicans/Tea Party for 8 years.
Autoland is useful when there's little flying to be done because there's little to no wind, little traffic, an uncomplicated approach, but the pilot can't see. That's when radar based systems have the advantage, when visibility is poor.
I've landed a plane a few times, with help from my instructor. You read Wikipedia. You go land a few and then come back and tell us about it.
I've only landed Cessnas, but it's easy. Line it up, get the right approach (easier with a computer than by eye, especially for the beginner), and wait until you hit the ground to apply the brakes. Flare at the end more comfortable, but not required.
Learn to love Alaska
Why do you think the Israeli method is cheaper? They spend about 10 times as much per passenger as we do:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay_25_for_71_seconds_of_scrutiny_in_an_airport
PS, if by chance you ARE a commercial pilot, I would defer to your expertise. My comments are based on primarily on performing a few landings myself and some knowledge of accident rates, reinforced by experience in realistic simulators and flying models.
They're not banning gatorade because it's dangerous - they're banning it because there are liquid explosives that you can dye unnaturally fluorescent colors and carry in a Gatorade bottle.
On the other hand, even pre-9/11 you couldn't bring an open beer onto a plane at most airports, because the US has silly laws about such things. Even though there's a bar in the airport right across from your gate, that'll give you your beer in a to-go cup so you can drink it at the gate while waiting for your plane.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Yup. They don't have to catch criminals and terrorists significantly more often than chance, and even catching them less often than chance is just fine, as long as most people submit to the bullies and they can beat up the ones who don't. (Occasionally they fail, like the other week when some loser decided to shoot up the TSA because he had a problem with authority.)
I'm skeptical about the "scientific study", though, because TSA is almost never actually dealing with terrorists; they're much more likely to be dealing with people who are carrying politically incorrect plants and pharmaceuticals, or reading politically incorrect books, or worrying about the TSA thugs rooting through the underwear in their carryon bags.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Should have been from the security-theater-tickets-proven-expensive dept.
VKh
Our method doesn't work any better than flipping a coin, so ALL of our money is wasted. Any method that works better is therefore cheaper lol.
Sent from my ENIAC
Scales fine. 50:10,000 flights, $90,000,000 per year:45,000,000,000 per year. Cost for screening taken from your link. $45 billion isn't that much, compared to the cost of going after Iraq and Afghanistan. Yes, even $45,000,000,000 per year. But it doesn't matter. Even if it was funded to that level, we'd still screw it up. The simple point is that it does scale, and not that poorly.
Learn to love Alaska
Autoland does just fine with windy conditions. IIRC (and this may have changed) the 777 is/was certified for a higher crosswind component with autoland enabled than under manual control.
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
(not an armchair pilot here either - commercial multi engine rated).
-- "...I'm a bad guy because I, well, I sing some rock-and-roll songs." M. Manson
So since TSA has been around I've accidently gone through with knives, a couple of spare .22 bullets and a fully packed aluminum pot grinder. None of them I intended on taking through and not once did they detect anything or stop me.
So whats the point?
All of that discussion relates to TSA's attempt to implement behavioral detection in limited markets. The sections quoted describe TSA's failure even to design studies capable of evaluating their effectiveness. None of that discussion relates to TSA's widespread use of metal detectors, backscatter or millimeter, automated background checks, shoe shoe removal.
So, I think GP's interpretation stands: This is not about failure of TSA's current procedures, but about failure of their proposed 'next generation' procedures. So, TSA has (probably) failed to train mind readers. Color me surprised, but I guess "Lie to Me" was more fiction than documentary
Humans are pretty good at noticing anyone that looks or acts different. We are social animals and this type of observation provides all kinds of useful information in all kinds of contexts. My guess is this capability was heavily selected for all down our primate lineage.
The problems here are two. The first is that looking or acting slightly strange in a situation ( air travel ) that is common and normal for some, stressful and foreign for others and somewhere in between for the majority isn't necessarily as good an indicator of malicious intent as it is of who is going to need help filing out the gate check slip for the luggage.
The second is hindsight bias, everyone who does have some malicious intent gave some indicator, if you look hard enough after the fact. That indicator is probably imaginary and meaningless. You get a bunch of people saying "you know the underwear bomber guy did kinds shuffle funny when he walked". So now you get a bunch of agents standing around watching how everyone walks, the next guy they see shuffling though is just in uncomfortable shoes.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
So almost half of the TSA behavioral indicators were *negatively* correlated with risk - more than those positively correlated with risk. What kind of 'science' did they use to develop TSA screening?!
"Specifically, the validation study reported that 14 of
the 41 SPOT behavioral indicators were positively and significantly
related, and we found that 18 of the 41 behavioral indicators were
positively and significantly related. However, the findings regarding
negatively and significantly related SPOT indicators were not consistent
between the analyses we conducted and the validation study.
Specifically, we found that 20 of the 41 behavioral indicators were
negatively and significantly related to one or more of the study outcomes
(see app. II). That is, we identified 20 SPOT behavioral indicators that
were more commonly associated with passengers who were not identified
as high-risk passengers than with passengers who were identified as
high-risk passengers." (page 49)
(1) They hire idiots
(2) They tools they have won't find shit
Ist, I've flown a bit lately, and lets be honest, abusive and uneducated are the only words I have for TSA. Just assholes with a uniform there to make your life miserable, not to make people safe, but to make people "feel" safe. A prison cell with a locked door is pretty safe too.
2nd, none of the toys and scanners they have can find anything they are looking for because they really don't understand them or their use.
Welcome to the police state where abuse of citizens means an effective police force.
Well, to be fair, the TSA was not created to catch terrorists, it was created to prevent terrorist attacks. And it does that, like nothing would.
That's not true. I bought a terrorist prevention rock right after 9/11, and ever since then, there hasn't been a terrorist attack.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Just because an activity is hard for a human, that doesn't translate to being too hard for a computer. There are plenty of things that computers can do much better than humans, and of course a number of things humans can do much better than computers. To have a point you need to explain why landing a plane is too difficult for a computer (with appropriate sensors and programming) to be feasible as a human replacement.
I'd be prepared to bet that a major factor that cripples their effectiveness is political correctness.
Young, muslim, male, arabs are the ones most likely to be bombers but for the sake of political correctness they have to make up the numbers by frisking old grannies.
I say reduce the budget significantly and stick to x-rays on carry-ons. I don't mind a security for air travel but it's not being done in an appropriate way. Cut the budget down and stick to the bomb checks. No more of this toothpaste and Acqua di Gio disposal business.
http://blog.tsa.gov/2010/05/tsa-spot-program-still-going-strong.html
This TSA blog post from 2010 makes this old news, which is to be expected with the TSA, IMO.
its a people problem not a tech problem...
if someone looks suspicious you track them
i wounder how it compares with the israli airline screening... they have real guns
I just flew a few days ago, and overheard two screeners talking as one relieved the other. While one was handing over a boarding pass scanner and an explosive scanner (the cloth patch type) to the second one, I overheard "I don't know how to use that." Followed by "Don't worry about it, just do what I do, just stand there and scan people's boarding pass."
It didn't give me a warm fuzzy feeling.
I wonder if the BDO's were not allowed to use all the same techniques, like racial profiling, that they use in Israel. It didn't say in the report.
Why do you think the Israeli method is cheaper? They spend about 10 times as much per passenger as we do:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay_25_for_71_seconds_of_scrutiny_in_an_airport
Which still only amounts to 76 dollars per trip for real security instead of security theater according to your link.
I bet a lot of people would pay 76 dollars extra to get through the line faster and without having to endure all the new crap. Get to bring full bottles of shampoo or bring your drink on the plane, leave your belt and shoes on, don't have to be seen naked with the new xray machine or be groped, etc..
GAO doesn't want TSA to have more money unless it abuses people even more.