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