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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?
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.
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.
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.
is how much taxpayer money can it funnel into private hands thanks to paranoia and security theater?
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 that's much better than I would have guessed.
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.
I've always thought that working for the Government Accountability Office (GAO) must be incredibly depressing. They must just see billions upon billions wasted, produce reports or try and enact change, then get ignored because the right congress people have been paid off. Must be a sad and depressing existence.
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.
Had flight 93 had a lock on the cockpit door (a measure that I DID say is appropriate), it wouldn't have crashed at all. None of the other planes would have crashed either had they had locks. The problem is entirely solvable by a trip to the hardware store.
As for weapons, one of those dinner plate sized belt buckles will mess you up before you can even get close enough to someone to harm them with a box cutter.
So yes, I absolutely positively *DO* advocate a return to pre 9/11 when people were free(ish).
If you like, the cabin crew can have guns.,/p>
3. Not harassing American citizens other than domestic terrorists like the Tea Party.
I don't much care for the Tea Party folks myself, but I wouldn't call them domestic terrorists. When was the last time they blew up a building? Refusing to compromise with the broader populace and causing government gridlock are not illegal terrorist actions.
A terrorist with brains still has his edged weapon onboard. A piece of broken glass makes a fine weapon and passengers are free to bring laptops, cellphones, and tablets with glass screens aboard. Break the screen, extract a nice glass shard and all you need is a handle.
Airport security is just a big wank. Think how many people that yahoo at LAX could have killed if he really wanted to. Dozens of people trapped like cattle in the security line waiting for be mowed down.
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!
Not true.
I won't go into details about Autoland here, as you can read the Wikipedia link below. The takeaway is that Autoland has triple redundancy through the entire control and sensing systems, and will continue to function even if it has lost 2 out of 3 of any device in the workflow.
"During system design, the predicted reliability numbers for the individual equipment which makes up the entire autoland system (sensors, computers, controls, and so forth) are combined and an overall probability of failure is calculated. As the "threat" exists primarily during the flare through roll-out, this "exposure time" is used and the overall failure probability must be less than one in a million.[5]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland#Autoland_for_civil_aviation
With regards to takeoff, I admit, this is the most vulnerable point of the flight (limited or lost forward thrust, extremely limited altitude). This will still be automated in good time though, as software won't panic. It'll be able to determine just how much the aircraft can still travel with limited or no power, and the safest area to put down.
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.
Giving guns to the cabin crew sounds like a terrible idea. Then, instead of having to try to sneak a weapon onto the plane (possibly getting caught, which could ruin any sort of 9/11 style simultaneous multi-plane conspiracy), the terrorists merely need to overpower a crew member to obtain a firearm.
It would also discriminate against pilots who are pacifists, and would refuse to operate a weapon.
Not to mention the risk of a pilot going postal with a gun. And there have been several instances of pilots flipping. They have a high stress job, abnormal sleep patterns, and it's expected that they have a higher risk.
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
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