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Boston Globe Outs Secret TSA Tracking Program 'Quiet Skies' At Airports (bostonglobe.com)
The Boston Globe reports of a previously undisclosed program, called "Quiet Skies," that targets travelers who "are not under investigation by any agency and are not in the Terrorist Screening Data Base." The insights come from a TSA bulletin in March that describes the program's goal as thwarting threats to commercial aircraft "posed by unknown or partially known terrorists. The program "gives the agency broad discretion over which air travelers to focus on and how closely they are tracked," reports The Boston Globe. From the report: But some air marshals, in interviews and internal communications shared with the Globe, say the program has them tasked with shadowing travelers who appear to pose no real threat -- a businesswoman who happened to have traveled through a Mideast hot spot, in one case; a Southwest Airlines flight attendant, in another; a fellow federal law enforcement officer, in a third. It is a time-consuming and costly assignment, they say, which saps their ability to do more vital law enforcement work. TSA officials, in a written statement to the Globe, broadly defended the agency's efforts to deter potential acts of terror. But the agency declined to discuss whether Quiet Skies has intercepted any threats, or even to confirm that the program exists.
Already under Quiet Skies, thousands of unsuspecting Americans have been subjected to targeted airport and inflight surveillance, carried out by small teams of armed, undercover air marshals, government documents show. The teams document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a "jump" in their Adam's apple or a "cold penetrating stare," among other behaviors, according to the records. Air marshals note these observations -- minute-by-minute -- in two separate reports and send this information back to the TSA. All US citizens who enter the country are automatically screened for inclusion in Quiet Skies -- their travel patterns and affiliations are checked and their names run against a terrorist watch list and other databases, according to agency documents. The bulletin highlights 15 rules used to screen passengers. If someone is selected for surveillance, a team of air marshals will be placed on the person's next flight.
Already under Quiet Skies, thousands of unsuspecting Americans have been subjected to targeted airport and inflight surveillance, carried out by small teams of armed, undercover air marshals, government documents show. The teams document whether passengers fidget, use a computer, have a "jump" in their Adam's apple or a "cold penetrating stare," among other behaviors, according to the records. Air marshals note these observations -- minute-by-minute -- in two separate reports and send this information back to the TSA. All US citizens who enter the country are automatically screened for inclusion in Quiet Skies -- their travel patterns and affiliations are checked and their names run against a terrorist watch list and other databases, according to agency documents. The bulletin highlights 15 rules used to screen passengers. If someone is selected for surveillance, a team of air marshals will be placed on the person's next flight.
Yes, using the hours on an airplane to write up a report, play some small games or whatever else one can do on a computer is certainly cause for alarm.
Why don't they just make stasis pods mandatory on flights already.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Thanks, Boston Globe. Another lame stream media leak which jeopardizes the nation's safety by exposing some of the vital tools our law enforcement is using to protect us.
Everyone understands the tactics created by TSA are a blueprint for implementation nation-wide in a future socialist state. The TSA is the proving ground for what can be done tactically, and what the American people will accept tacitly. By letting this happen only in airports now, we normalize the idea of it being implemented on a block-by-block basis across the country, as exists today in China, North Korea, Venezuela, and Cuba. We are not this kind of people. We are not socialists... yet. This must stop, before it is normalized, accepted, and more widely implemented by people who can't want to control our every thought.
What's the big deal? If - and admittedly that is a big "if" - there is a good reason to suspect at least some of these travellers, isn't this exactly what you'd expect the TSA to be doing? As long as that cold stare doesn't land you in a cold cell and makes you miss your flight, covert surveillance of suspect travellers sounds reasonable. And much less of an invasion of privacy than, say, pulling all data from someone's phone or nosing through their social media accounts.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
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If travelling to and from terrorist areas meant that authorities would rifle through your bank account records, that would be a fourth amendment issue. If red flags mean that an air marshall physically looks at the person while in public on the plane - meh. Sounds like standard, proper investigation and protection to me.
Very Nice Sir. I like It.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fkUHS1YcNI
...is why I wonâ(TM)t fly anymore. Happily, I donâ(TM)t have to, and I refuse to be treated in this way. Sure as fuck I wonâ(TM)t pay someone to abuse me like this. When enough people feel as I do, and realize that if you straighten your back and stand tall like a fucking man, and tell these assholes they can take their paranoid, psychotic bullshit and shove it right up their asses, theyâ(TM)ll have to stop it.
When the passenger air transportation industry chokes and dies because people like me refuse to patronize such shitty services, theyâ(TM)ll realize the error of their ways, too late of course.
All the bullshit security theater is a symptom of a dying culture.
has stopped exactly ZERO terrorist attacks. Congress has flat out asked them and the TSA claims they can't say for security reasons. Yeah that number is zero.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
omg staying awake on my next transatlantic flight is going to be hard, and my bladder will hate me
This is not a signature.
Unless the courts in the United States stand against unreasonable search and seizure, we can expect the government to behave more like an oligarchy every day.
It seems that both major political parties have abandoned the ideals enshrined in the constitution. Not a single amendment has been spared.
No wonder this game is so easy... I was wondering why I always saw them!
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
The wrong movements could show waiting to join another person, see if fake paper work was good and not about to be questioned further.
The appearance part is a classic attempt to get past some nations later layers of security.
Embassy staff often try that with amusing results on camera.
Appearance changes is another attempt to use altered, fake documents, shared documents.
The person using the documents clean digital past is not who the documents got created for.
The sleeping part would tell if a person claimed to be on a flight for the first time in a long time but was like a well traveled person. Past digital information about travel on the used documents does not match real actions.
Great to see the licence plate part. Chat downs and documents can show a person rents a vehicle but their faith group, cult is waiting.
The penetrating stare is usually a sign of a war zone stressors. Not normal for normal people with normal reasons to travel and no listed war zone past.
Someone went to a combat zone, for a longer time and the digital documents did not show that.
The idea that staff need to be told about the suspicion of actual wrongdoing just shows another US agency could be tasking a parson of interest and does not want to talk about the why.
The other agency has no ability to trust what the TSA was created out of. But needs the domestic surveillance work done.
Very much like the GCHQ and UK mil used the UK police for issues in Ireland. Never talk of method and all secrets stay safe.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I tend to become the focus of 'that guy looks weird' profiling, because I tend to look, weird.
My comfortable state of a dead-eyed, nearly unblinking stare. I find eye contact to be invasive.
The upshot of this is that I have to pretend to be normal. I have to jiggle my eyes around. Remember to blink.
I don't like having to 'fake normal.' But if I don't fake it, I get hassled by every authoritarian-leaning personality I encounter.
Well, he could be very handsome, smell good, have a Rolex or money... there are other reasons you know.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
Thank you, brave men and women, for all that you do.
I'd rather they spend/waste their money on expensive, labor intensive HUMINT than spend it on more databases, better nudie scanners, etc and so forth. If they want to send a bunch of agents on wild goose chases writing reports, so be it. At least they might be there when someone gets blind drunk on a flight and starts harassing other passengers.
Over 90% of all of the terrorist attacks in the West in the last several years have been perpetrated by "known wolves." These are usually immigrants who are known to the authorities for being extremely radical and with some sort of criminal history that suggests the likelihood they may end up acting on their rhetoric is much higher than 0%.
Simple solution to this whole problem:
1. Deport all imams that have ever legitimized jihad against the West.
2. Deport all immigrants who ever threaten violence against their host nation and/or its government.
3. Deport all immigrants who advocate common felonies against their host nation.
4. Deport all immigrants who advocate violence toward our allies.
5. Deport all immigrants who advocate violence against the civilian populations of even our enemies.
6. Deport all immigrants convicted of any felony or who are charged with many and plea bargain down w/ any sort of deal where the felonies will be reinstated if probation is violated.
We don't need secret tracking systems, mass surveillance, etc. We need zero tolerance and limited due process for foreigners who are in any way a net negative if they stay in our nations.
How many of you outraged by this want to turn control of health care over to the same government that did this?
I'd call it cognitive dissonance, but there's no cognition there...
Because it it's the number of drinks consumed in the airport bar, I'm going to be their prime target of the day. /s?
Still anyone doubting USA is not (yet) a fascist state? All expats living abroad in EU told me the same thing: They left their fine country of the brave and the free because of such contradicting claims.
they have had no success with sensible approaches and they have infinite amounts of money to waste. They may as well track people at random until they build up the capability to dedicate 3 armed undercover agents to every traveller (including the other undercover agents). They are bound to get results this way eventually, it's like investing your 401k in lottery tickets. I thought the planes were getting crowded, seems these are not fellow travellers after all.
Nullius in verba
Since I'm old and fat, I hope they're forced to check. I'll work on my "cold penetrating stare," although in the past, I've found that the penetrating part is in the illumination, The stare perceives the reflected illumination, but by then any penetration is already done.
It's your money.
If your iPhone don't work you return it to the store, right?
So if you don't like this, write and call your representative and force them to stop these activities!
I will icy stare your ass so hard your grand children will have chills.
On 8 February 1950, East Germany saw the establishment of the Ministry for State Security (Ministerium für Staatssicherheit), commonly known as the Stasi.[7] The Stasi sought to "know everything about everyone".[8] Its annual budget has been estimated at approximately $1 billion.[8] Out of a population of 16 million, the agency kept files on nearly 6 million of its citizens.[8] The Stasi had 90,000 full-time employees who were assisted by 170,000 full-time unofficial collaborators (Inoffizielle Mitarbeiter); together these made up 1 in 63 (nearly 2%) of the entire East German population. Together with these, a much larger number of occasional informers brought up the total to 1 per 6.5 persons.[9][10][11][12][13][14] People in East Germany were subjected to a variety of techniques, including audio and video surveillance of their homes, reading mail, extortion, and bribery.[15]
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Next time I fly, I guess I'll find a flight that has only own or two open seats. Will they bump someone in order to get the whole team on board?
The Lives of Others is very relevant.
I've always been paranoid on flights. You telling all I have to do is act weird and suspicious and I automatically get an armed escort dedicated to my safety. Yes please!
in jeans, at just about any retailer. In slacks, no one trails me. I find it amusing; they are easy to spot.
This is why I don't fly. I am not a criminal and don't appreciate being treated as one. Considering the TSA misses up to 95% of all fake bombstaken on board planes, they have other issues to worry about than harassing people.
Privatize the TSA, keep them in airports only. ... and 1 multitool. Figure they owe me about $200 for those.
It is clear that the call in 2001 to professionalize airport security was a total waste. I've certainly had my share of 2inch knives stolen by the TSA
And let's not forget when returning to the USA how many water bottles I bought inside security, across from the gate 5 minutes before getting on a flight to the USA where they took the water at the jet-way "el" so I wouldn't have it for the next 10-14 hr flight from eastern Europe or Asia.
Fuckers.
I'll hold what I think of the DHS for another post. They need their funding cut 95% - so does the NSA. They simply have too much money which allows them to violate citizen's rights. Take that money away to stop them - or at least drastically reduce it.
When the metrics of TSA *are* tracked, they fail miserably. Bombs and guns almost always make it through test screenings (less than 10% detected), apparently because the TSA is too busy searching for liquid soaps, blunt-tipped scissors, and feeling up adolescents and Grandma.
Let's be honest here, untrained chimps could do better randomly.
They kept the program secret because they knew that if you found out, you'd just spend time fretting about it.
Keeping it secret just shows that your happiness is their primary concern.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Anywhere you see them. They need to be sent a message.
And they claim a significant number - though that is for all terrorist incidents, not just plane related. However the fact that they do does suggest the TSA has got something to hide...
seriously they need to open their expenses to the public so we can audit them. they are blowing money left and right for things of 0 value. Show me the value here.
It would be cheaper and more effective to say such program exists and not dedicate efforts to it than to hide its existence and pay people to fly everywhere.
Only when the program is revealed can it serve as a deterrent.
Once it is serving as a deterrent, less personnel are required to implement it.
Maybe sometimes airlines don't overbook their flights. Maybe sometimes when the gate desk claims the flight was overbooked, it's actually that air marshals are forcing their way onto the flight at the last minute.
Maybe the TSA is targeting via licensed Twitter algos. We know how accurate those are at picking out subversives and malcontents based on the wisdom of the crowd and content analytics... though lots of Conservatives might suddenly have Marshalls dogging them on their trips. /s
Yeah. Got that.
Have gnu, will travel.
In the article they link to the TSA memo describing the program. First it says there are 17 rules they follow, and the very next point says they can change rules based on itelligence. Ut si!
So basically they made a watchlist for all the people who weren't on any of the other watch lists yet.
"These people aren't suspected of anything, that's very suspicious."
Fuck the TSA.
Or didn't Quiet Sky bother with them because they were already on a different watchlist?
...And simply put armed air marshals on every flight? That way they can cover 100% of *possible* cases. And without all that pesky, constitutionally-raping without-probable-cause surveillance.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
like the Stasi my first thought is, well, that's one way to do socialism.
One of the problems modern civilizations have is there's not enough work to keep everybody busy 16 hours a day. Not only that, but you've got to figure out how to give out food and shelter to people who, well, just plain aren't needed anymore. You can let them starve, but then they find themselves a strongman and he uses them for a coup. You can just give them food, but that pisses off anybody still working.
America's solution was the Military Industrial Complex. The excess productivity made possible by modern farming and manufacturing goes into an endless war machine. Given the scale of the Stasi that's probably what's going on. I know for a fact China's doing exactly that to absorb all the engineers they kept training.
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The article says the air marshals follow about 35 people per day. There are about 2 million passengers per day on average, so this is about 1 in 58,000 people, or about 1 person per NFL game. So, it's not a big privacy issue. The article quotes the air marshals as saying that their could be better spent working inside of airports, and that they don't have any good reason to be following these people.
They're bored. They have nothing to do. The government has granted themselves unfettered spying access only to find out that Americans are mostly civilized and hard working.
There are terrorists in America. You can find them on Nazi, white supremacist, and nationalist web forum. You can find them at the NRA. You can find them at gun shows. You can find them a Mar a Logo. This is what we come to expect from the Trump administration. Just another thing you can note right below putting babies in cages.
There is a difference between "immigrants" and "foreigners".
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Storm is coming.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/228/339/2191.jpg
If the deviant gets through the interview by actually making eye contact be sure to tail them with a personal stalker!
A blog I run for the wealth
Especially if he bears a striking resemblance to Liam Neeson, who often portrays characters with skills--a very particular set of skills, skills that may have been acquired over a very long career.
The resemblance is a minor problem. What makes it a big problem is that the guy is paranoid, while thinking that he has those skills.