Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

US Airports Still Fail New Security Tests (go.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the an-F-for-the-TSA dept.

schwit1 quotes ABC News: In recent undercover tests of multiple airport security checkpoints by the Department of Homeland Security, inspectors said screeners, their equipment or their procedures failed more than half the time, according to a source familiar with the classified report. When ABC News asked the source if the failure rate was 80 percent, the response was, "You are in the ballpark." In a public hearing after a private classified briefing to the House Committee on Homeland Security, members of Congress called the failures by the Transportation Security Administration disturbing. Rep. Mike Rogers went as far as to tell TSA Administrator David Pekoske, "This agency that you run is broken badly, and it needs your attention."

37 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. TSA Intro by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Cartoon take on the original official video.

    1. Re:TSA Intro by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      Actually they were very respectful of the TSA goofballs. They depicted them as being able to talk in whole sentences.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:TSA Intro by mjwx · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Actually they were very respectful of the TSA goofballs. They depicted them as being able to talk in whole sentences.

      First off, I get that you're joking.

      But as a frequent traveler I've found the TSA frontmen to be quite polite and personable. Sure there are bound to be exceptions but I've never been mistreated or misdirected by the TSA agents I've had to deal with. The problem with the TSA comes from up high, their key metric is how safe passengers feel, not how safe they actually are so they run a 3 ring security theatre circus based on perceptions rather than proven security methods.

      Also, I think a fair few TSA agents are ex-military.

      --
      Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
  2. Fuck security; eliminate it; the risk is still low by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I'm sick and tired of people arguing for more security theatre. The world isn't perfect. The world isn't this safe utopia and the costs of "safety" are enormous. It's much more cost effective to get rid of the security and accept that life has risk. It has risk with or without the "security" and paying more for security theatre just makes us all worse off. If you really insist of throwing that money away consider insisting it be thrown at something that might someday lead to something of value like research. Research of all kinds at least has a potential real benefit. The top 10 causes of death are probably where that money should be thrown. Not speed limits, police, or TSA. These are more or less just superficial efforts that act more as a means of distributing wealth to the most powerful gang in a given region, state, or country.

    If you agree that the only role of government is to criminalize murder, violence, and theft then you should move to New Hampshire and take part in the Free State Project. A migration of liberty and freedom minded individuals looking to minimize or near eliminate the biggest gang in town: Government. We're succeeding little by little and have elected 20+ state reps, decriminalized marijuana, eliminated permission slips for those wishing to conceal a firearm, eliminated regulations on crypto currencies, established New Hampshire as #1 for crypto currencies (two of our cities on #1 and #2 on a per captia basis for crypto currency acceptance), secured our rights to film police and hold them accountable, and much much more.

  3. It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by BobC · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Anyone who confuses TSA checkpoints with actual security is sadly missing the point.

    These checkpoints are truly, in the words of Bruce Schneier, "Security Theater". And I'm not using that in a pejorative manner equivalent to saying they are useless. Far from it!

    First, the checkpoints are first aimed at discouraging the stupid, a category that includes most terrorists and mass-murderers. It can't prevent folks smart enough to see behind the curtain, but it can discourage those unable to think at a deeper level. For simple folks intent on disruption, the checkpoints work.

    Second, the checkpoints are intended to reassure the public. Even when the public is told how ineffective the checkpoints are against real threats. Even when the actual risks of airborne terrorism in the US are statistically tiny. Again, despite our knowledge to the contrary, the checkpoints work at an emotional level to reassure the public.

    The above successes do come at a substantial cost for taxpayers, but we can't say the results are "worthless", even though the checkpoints utterly fail to meet all of their stated purposes.

    1. Re:It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Terrorists" are not a homogeneous group. They come in varying levels of intelligence.

      It's a reasonable bet that many people who are tempted to commit terrorist acts are, simply, too stupid to figure out a way around those "immense resources" you speak of.

      After all, the Twin Towers attack - was simple. It could have been done, at minimal cost, by anyone from about the late 1960s - when air travel became cheap enough and planes big enough - onwards. But it took until 2001 for it to actually happen, because it took a genius to think of it.

    2. Re:It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Interesting

      But they don't reassure me. All they do is getting me really angry, actually angry enough to replace flying with trains if there is at least a remote option of doing so.

      And I can't really think of anyone who actually feels "safe" with those checks. How could you feel safe if you knew that the Three Stooges are running security?

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    3. Re:It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      The difference is maybe that getting past the lock is trivial and not a hour long procedure that costs me, besides time, any shred of dignity left. If it was, people would probably stop locking their doors.

      Or, more likely, find a better way of securing their stuff.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I have a hard time imagining the goofballs blowing themselves to kingdom come for the promise of goodies in some afterlife as anything resembling intelligent. Then again, I have a hard time giving anyone above the age of 8 with imaginary friends much credits in the mental department.

      There are intelligent ones, no doubt about that. The whole planning and logistics is certainly run by people who use religion for what it was invented for, but the goons they send to redecorate the interior of airports are hardly Nobel Prize material.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 2

      That was the angriest "I hate you and I agree" post I've ever read.

      Dude, chill out. Have a lood or something.

    6. Re:It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by drinkypoo · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The TSA isn't for any of that stuff. It is first and foremost a jobs program for deplorable unemployables (no one who is not deplorable would be willing to sign up to sexually molest air passengers, and no one who is not otherwise unemployable would want to in the first place) and second a way of making the American public more used to doing whatever they're told no matter how insane it is.

      --
      "You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
    7. Re:It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      Some of the domestic terrorists in the UK have been highly educated, up to medical doctor level.

      It's not about intelligence, it's about radicalization. It's easier to understand if you think about non-religiously motivated terrorists and criminals, the ones who mow down "leftist" protesters in their car, the ones who shoot up a school because girls won't date them. Over a long period of time their world-view has been distorted to the point where they think their actions are rational and correct, or alternatively that even if they are wrong at least they are part of something bigger than their dull, prospectless life.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    8. Re:It's Taxpayer-supported Theater! by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      my experience they pretty much exclude each other

      So just ignoring fact then. There's sound logical thinking right there.

  4. Hasn't Changed by superstargoddess · · Score: 2

    Yes they do, I went to Las Vegas in 2006 and managed to get my cigarette lighter onto the plane, even though I told them I thought I forgot to leave my lighter in the car and they missed it in the x-ray machine.

    1. Re:Hasn't Changed by Known+Nutter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Last week, flew out of LAX, same old shit. This past Friday, flew out of LAX again, and am told that all foodstuffs (things like granola bars) must come out and be placed in their own separate bins. I ask the agent when that change took place (because they weren't saying that shit last week). She says, "December" -- okay, whatever. I have three granola bars in my backpack. I take two out, throw them in the trash, leave one in the bag deliberately. Through the scanner it goes and out the other end it comes -- naturally without a peep from anyone. It's all such bullshit.

      I will be flying out of LAX again in two weeks. I wonder what will happen to the new granola bar program.

      --
      Beware of the Leopard.
    2. Re:Hasn't Changed by ledow · · Score: 5, Interesting

      In the height of the immediate post-9/11 paranoia and security changes, my friend brought his American wife back to the UK. Then to Corfu. Then back to the UK. Then to America.

      On the final leg of the trip, we took them to Heathrow and were walking with them to see them off at security, where the bins are for "this is your chance to ditch prohibited items", before you join the fecking long queues.

      The American reaches into her bag and says "Do you think I should bin this?" It was a can of CS spray. Probably nothing to you Americans but it's illegal to even own in the UK, let alone carry around with you, let alone take on a plane. She'd have been having a very long discussion with an armed officer if that had been pulled out at the check.

      After some discussion, we got her to bin it as she went past, because it looked like a deodorant and the bins were for stuff like that. During the discussion, however, we discovered that she'd already taken it, in her hand luggage (carryon), on all those previous flights and been carrying it around in London quite happily.

      Meanwhile I was asked to contaminate a baby's bottle by proving it was "real milk" by drinking it in the queue before it was allowed through. While doing so, I honestly thought of at least three ways that I could make a bottle look real, carry something incredibly nasty, and still be safe taking a swig of "something" from it, without them being able to notice via this amazing security method.

    3. Re:Hasn't Changed by Opportunist · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's kinda arbitrary what's allowed and what's not. I was nearly tackled and pinned over a bottle of water, but they didn't have a problem with my lockpicks...

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    4. Re:Hasn't Changed by aaarrrgggh · · Score: 3, Informative

      Granola bars (especially a box of them) have been flagged for over a year, presumably due to the glycerin. They seem to be trying to do more to prevent secondary screening of bags, but they need huge input and output conveyors to let people unpack and strip.

      The system is stupid, ineffective, and inefficient; it is especially bad at certain airports (LAX is on my list), but an effective alternative strategy isn't obvious.

    5. Re:Hasn't Changed by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      I once spent 30min talking to security because of a laptop battery. I also once spent less than 10 minutes talking to security after testing positive to explosives. It's arbitrary as heck.

      These days at Schipol Airport I ignore them. Through the entire bag through and let the security person request to go through it in detail. It's much faster than unloading all my stuff.

    6. Re:Hasn't Changed by thegarbz · · Score: 2

      *Throw - Slashdot really needs a preview function.

  5. This keeps getting proven again and again by whyyisthissohard · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Anti-terrorist measures are actually terrorism themselves...against the people they are supposed to protect

  6. What's with USA and units? by DontBeAMoran · · Score: 2

    When it's time about land it's measured in football fields, when it's about documentation it's measured in librairies of congress and when it's about percentages it's measured in ballparks...

    Do you even school?

    --
    #DeleteFacebook
    1. Re:What's with USA and units? by sysrammer · · Score: 2

      Fourteen schools per parsec, baby!

      --
      His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
  7. wrong problem... by supernova87a · · Score: 2

    It may be security theater and it may be so leaky that it only stops the stupid. But one thing is for sure, there is an abundance of stupid people in this country, and a general unwillingness to nip problems in the bud, so I'm willing to accept this security theater as a compromise.

    Can you imagine the situation if there were no security? Welcome to public bus territory. We have so many people clamoring about the ability to carry weapons in public already. You want them to have airplanes as the next debate ground? Feel free to create that unscreened airport system, and let people decide if they want that or what we have now.

    There is no way, with the level of air travel we have, that we can ever have the perennially-admired goal of Israel-level security. They have 1 airport, and a willing/skilled/alert security service. The goal here is preventing the lowest common denominator, not UBL again. Sometimes, you have to do something stupid just to prevent something even stupider from happening.

    1. Re:wrong problem... by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Because the only two possibilities are total absence of security and the insanity we have now?

      The older ones among us might remember a time when you could actually use planes for a faster transport from A to B than ... well, by now pretty much any other form of transportation. You'd put down your bag to be x-rayed, you'd go through a metal detector and you'd be done. And, lo and behold, the amount of planes that were bombed or otherwise "terrorized" was pretty much on par with today.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    2. Re:wrong problem... by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because the only two possibilities are total absence of security and the insanity we have now?

      The older ones among us might remember a time when you could actually use planes for a faster transport from A to B than ... well, by now pretty much any other form of transportation. You'd put down your bag to be x-rayed, you'd go through a metal detector and you'd be done. And, lo and behold, the amount of planes that were bombed or otherwise "terrorized" was pretty much on par with today.

      Locked cockpit doors made the TSA's mission obsolete for all practical intents and purposes. That's why they've tried to expand to train stations and buses, and even post offices and other locations under the VIPR program.

      I remember back when you could smoke on a flight, and you were also trusted with steak knives to eat your in-flight dinner with.

      It's easier and more profitable for the government to punish us than do the hard work of solving real problems.

      Strat

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  8. So now it's 100% .. by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    ... because there ain't a goddam other thing that's secure.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  9. Re:Fuck security; eliminate it; the risk is still by CaptainDork · · Score: 2

    Alternatively, perhaps security vs the crap you propose isn't a binary choice.

    --
    It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
  10. Re:Bureaucracy by youngone · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The is there any other objective?

    There is also the objective of getting us used to standing in line while a uniformed agent holds his hand out and says "papers please".
    I have overheard people in airports (foreign, not US, so not actual TSA agents) argue with the Security Theatre guys.
    In Melbourne airport I actually heard a guy in a suit call the security guy a " Fucking useless Jobsworth" which usually a British expression and pretty insulting. The Aussies can be quite a direct bunch though.

  11. Re:Fuck security; eliminate it; the risk is still by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    Do we really have to single out a religion or can we just off everyone with an imaginary friend?

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  12. Airport "security" is not about security by gweihir · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It is about giving the appearance of "doing something" to impress the stupid masses and it is about giving some top bureaucrats a lot of power and boost their egos. Remember that a bureaucrat becomes more important by being able to "bind" time of others (i.e. waste it) and hence any bureaucracy tries to waste as much time of their victims as possible. Of course, any pretext is is acceptable. "Security!" is the best of them, as it will cause an immediate shutdown of all intelligence in most people.

    I.e. the TSA wastes time, money and insults people, while it does not create security. This is as intended.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
  13. Re:Fuck security; eliminate it; the risk is still by Opportunist · · Score: 2

    Singling out an attack is as sensible as singling out a religion.

    Look back in history and show me one religion that has not been the source of unspeakable atrocities.

    --
    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  14. Re:Shouldn't we privatize airports? by hyades1 · · Score: 2

    So why does Israel, which has the best airport security on the planet, not privatize?

    And it's only Libertarian idiots who ignore the real-world fact that not one of the private sector captains of finance who delivered the world into a catastrophic recession lost their job. They got bonuses.

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  15. Re:Shouldn't we privatize airports? by spazzmo · · Score: 2

    Oh please, Ayn Rand's words didn't even last her lifetime...

    --
    The cheese stands alone...
  16. The most retarded thing... by baker_tony · · Score: 2

    The most retarded thing I encounter in US airports, is security screening transiting passengers, by sending them out to the beginning of the main security line after making them queue for an hour, fingerprinting and stamping passport.
    I mean, seriously, if someone was going to do something to a plane, it would be on the flight in and how it is "safer" to put security screened passengers back out in to the public areas for 60 seconds to put them back through security again?! All it does is fuck off passengers and make additional work for EVERYONE.
    It's like you want to fuck off everyone, even if you want nothing to do with going to America.
    Meanwhile, on my return flight to the UK I went back via Singapore. Massive, kick ass airport, stayed there 17 hours, slept at a transit hotel (with pool!). Never went through security or passport control at all (which makes total sense as I never needed to leave the airport).

  17. Re:Fuck security; eliminate it; the risk is still by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Interesting
    There's no alternative to cars yet. Once self-driving cars become feasible and can be rolled out, yes we should.

    There is a perfect alternative to guns though, it's simply banning them. They serve no purpose.

    They'll use knives or clubs if they can't find a gun.

    There won't be mass shootings. Do you get all your arguments from bumper stickers?

  18. Re:Fuck security; eliminate it; the risk is still by orgelspieler · · Score: 2

    Great job couching your argument so that it's impossible to disprove. You'll just change what you mean by "modern-day" or "terrorist" or "majority" until the remaining facts fit you assertion. The Lord's Resistance Army, Malegaon bombings, the Troubles, the NLFT in India, the list goes on and on. No single religion has a monopoly on people doing horrible things in the name of their god.