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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.
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Socialism does not have to equal a fascist police state. Your entire post is on point and insightful, but you should really have left the socialist tangent out.
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So you didn't read the article huh?
Except for misspelling fascist, (it is f a c i s t, not s o c i a l i s t,) you might have a point. Might, I say, because I did not read the rest. If you cannot tell the difference between fascism and socialism, you have nothing to say.
A nation-wide socialist state? More like a wide national-socialist state if you ask me...
Oh, and there's nothing blueprinty or futuristic about it: it's here right now, and it's been implemented many years ago.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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.
You're right about everything but the word "socialist". Replace it with the word "authoritarian". The US is by far the least socialist western nation, but it is getting more authoritarian by the day.
If video games influenced behavior the Pac Man generation would be eating pills and running away from their problems.
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.
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.
Yep, tell that to Sweeden, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Canada, etc.
Ignorant trumptard.
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...
It really depends on the way a socialist state gets set up in the USA.
East Germany with internal controls making travel halt before any international escape can be considered.
China with a social tracking report that prevents international travel depending on all domestic actions.
The lack of a passport depending on tax and criminal problems.
To go Cuban domestically with Committees for the Defense of the Revolution all over the USA?
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
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?
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.
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
They also have the rest of Europe and the US to fall back on to bolster the populace.
Still, it's good to grant the government as few tools a dictator uses as possible, to stave off group collapse over the decades.
What history there is for democracy, or even just true legislative control, doesn't give one much hope beyond a few hundreds of years.
Most of Europe is still sub-100.
You are foolish to presume this amount of time is a statistically reliable indicator of long-term stability.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
No, it doesn't. Not always. Socialism is just the concept of family in a wider scale. Allocation of resources based on need rather than selfish ambition. Capatlism is I'm never ending passive aggressive War, everybody for themselves at the expense and detriment to others. socialism demands we take care of our people. Capitalism demands that you sell out your grandma if it adds another useless trinket to your treasure hoard
Because when humans are given percieved authority over other humans, it breeds dissassociation with the consequences and effects of their decisions over others, breeding an addiction to demostrations of power, culminating in casual abuse of said power. When humans can control other other humans, atrocities and false documentation for cover-up puposes, run rampant. Is important to limit the power of would-be authorities lest they sacrifice others unwillingly for their agendas
A lot of his authoritarianism, like creative, expansive use of the regulatory power granted the executive by a cowardly, supine Congress who did not want to risk direct votes on anything that threw people into jail or took their money, you'd cheer in other contexts, read: a president you liked.
Come on over to the dark side, and oppose it in all contexts (which you now know how to interpret.)
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
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.
Hasn't this long been established by Federal courts, that borders (including international airports) are at least a partial exception to some rights? Wikipedia has an article on it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... , and admittedly the lines seem fine (a fixed border outpost versus roaming patrols). Now maybe there's some criticism of where the Supreme Court has drawn these lines, but let's be clear here, borders have always been special situations, and the Federal Government certainly has a unique interest in policing national borders, seeing as one of its constitutional obligations is to defend Americans against foreign threats. This is why, I imagine, the Supreme Court has allowed these partial exceptions; because you essentially have the Bill of Rights colliding with another constitutional requirement, and faced with "border agents can do whatever the hell they like" and "border agents can't do anything at all without going through the full process of getting a judge to grant a warrant", they decided on a non-binary bit of logic; that border agents can do some things that infringe on the Bill of Rights, but with limits.
Now I think there's a good deal of debate about what those limits should be, and doubtless over time the border search exceptions may be more finely honed, if ultimately the courts decide that there are egregious enough abuses to warrant it, but if Fourth Amendment is interpreted absolutely, I can imagine the Federal Government would have to hire thousands of judges whose only job is to sit at airports and border posts, and wait for someone to get nabbed by border officials, so that warrants can be obtained in anything approaching a timely fashion. When two constitutional principles collide, sometimes the best anyone can hope for is a bit of a Solomon's choice. And yes, it sucks really bad when innocent people are harassed at the border for nothing more than a TSA agent raising an eyebrow, but one wonders if better training is more the answer than demands that agents be disempowered because sometimes they go after the wrong guy.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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...
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...
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
Socialist doesn't mean what you think it does...
Assault is illegal. and often sends the wrong message.
Ostracizing is much more effective.
Yeah. Got that.
Have gnu, will travel.
Stone axes are three orders of magnitude older than money.
No, capitalism is the most generous form of governance there is. You want to enforce charity of others by mandating fees and taxes be placed upon them, and if they don't comply, jail, and if they don't comply. Death. Don't come here pretending socialism is kind and just and like a "wider family". Socialism is enforced charity with others who you may or may not feel charitable for. That's coercion, any way you put it.
Fuck me. Sounds like you'd fuck your mother for a buck. Do you even know what socialism is?
Me speaky no good words, repeat stupid me heard on internet
Who's 'he'?
The fact this is modded up just shows that stupid doesn't stand alone.
"Socialism is evil" is a Fascist dogma.
The Fascist dogma even. Everything else in that ideology follows from that.
If you condemn both Socialism (of any kind) and Fascism, you must be a feudalist.
Fascism has never worked in practice, which is probably why people who think it should work and still is a good idea call themselves something else, like the oxymoronic "anarchocapitalist". Even "social darwinist" has fallen out of favour because the term contains an adjective pertaining to society, which apparently is already too similar a word to the anathematic "socialist" than Fascists are comfortable with.
Be that as it may, the point still stands.
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.
I'm sorry, when's the last time anyone in a civilized country was executed for not paying their taxes?
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> He 'hires' a couple of his mates and teaches them his methods
Ah, imaginary property.
He'll hire a couple of his mates alright - to handle anything that might defy his... exclusivity. A word I am not using with the praiseful tone you did.
Do you even know what socialism is?
Considering that I was born in a country with "socialist" in name, I believe I do.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times.
#DeleteFacebook
Just like the DPRK is Democratic?
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.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Well, then you must believe that the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea to you) is really a democracy, because its in its name.
The Nazi Party had "Socialist" in its name essentially for the same reason that "Democratic" is in the name of North Korea -- it was a popular marketing term, regardless of validity.
Here is a good discussion of this issue.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
>"A lot of his authoritarianism, like creative, expansive use of the regulatory power granted the executive by a cowardly,"
"His"? Which "His"? Obama? You do realize he was just as "into" authoritarianism and abuse of power as all other recent presidents. This expansion of the Executive branch "powers" has been going on for many, many decades now....
Oh, and the expansion of the Federal Government powers has been absolutely rampant for many generations. Way beyond what the Constitution demanded.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
capitalism is the most generous form of governance there is
There's no way I can parse that that makes sense. Strictly, capitalism is defined by private individuals owning/controlling the means of manufacture (trade/profit).
I cannot understand where, in that, generosity fits. In as much as capitalism is often associated with some form of free market it's competitive. Still not generous. Please, can you clarify?
You want to enforce charity of others by mandating fees and taxes be placed upon them
Language is important. You call it 'charity' when you describe taxes being used for people other than those that paid them. The problem with a strictly personal and competitive system is that there are numerous cases where individuals are bad at making rational decisions (cognitive biases like discounting future negatives) or where individuals, acting rationally, can cause themselves harm that could be avoided by acting in concert (tragedy of the commons). There are economies of scale that can be achieved where people contribute to a pool and a centralised system provides services or utilities where profit based competition would degrade service (healthcare, utilities) and that's before we look at social contracts and whether being born and raised in a country whose previous generations have provided you with peace, prosperity, education and health obligates you to at least leave the system no worse for your participation.
Call that 'charity' if you will, but you're being either obtuse or misleading.
'Socialism', in its pure form is just as toxic as 'capitalism'. Both need to be regulated and restricted, those countries with the longest history of high standards of living for most of the population have a mix of socialist policies along side of capitalism.
Noting that socialism fails at extremum is trivial. Your inability to consider anything less than 'pure' socialism is a kind of blindness that I can only presume is some relic of the US school system.
New Zealand and Australia do not have national id cards and are FITHY SOCIALISTS by your yard stick.
Does Canada have an ID card system?
New Zealanders are well balanced with a chip on each shoulder. One represents Australia, the other the rest of the world
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.
most countries in Europe do afaik require id-cards
Ironically, none of the Nordic or Scandinavian countries (Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland), which are often upheld as the classic examples of European Socialism, do.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
Get a load of this guy. He thinks words still have meaning.
Only crack the nuts that crack. You don't put the ones that don't crack in the sack.
I think about that, what if the the US really is an authoritarian police state?
If it is, why doesn't it feel like that all the time? I mean, how do you explain how easy it is to get a gun, go places, bitch about the government, etc?
Am I just a lucky member of the police state's favored class? Were there people like me in East Germany or wherever who never really worried about losing their privileges, etc? I mean, I worry we're becoming more like a police state, but not that we really are in one now, but that's just my perception more than some scientific measure of the police state-ness of the US.
But does make me think about the role of perception, and if a police state is "done well" does that mean most people can't tell? Is that how it always is?
It's not socialists, they are about helping downtrodden and providing services. If anything it's more about a conservative vision of the world where there is not civil or privacy rights.
He is trump of course
There is a difference between "immigrants" and "foreigners".
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro" -- HST
Quite right. We are even now the antithesis of socialist; as a nation we aren't even fundamentally socially responsible. But we certainly are going gangbusters on the fascist state thing.
mnem
This is what it was like to live in Germany during the rise of the 3rd Reich.
You make socialism out to be a threat but these tactics aren't being developed by socialists, but by the world's largest capitalist country. You're worried about the wrong thing.
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/000/228/339/2191.jpg
Correlation is not causation. And here it is even dangerous to say so, because people will think: we are not socialist, so we do not have to worry about this.
East-Germany was not socialist. North-Korea was not socialist. Yet both have/had high levels of spying on their people.
Germany now uis and does not have this level of general spying like the US has.
In the US companies can buy data from each other. Illegal in Socialist Europe. The UK is pretty well on its way.
So no not drag socialism into a discussion where it clearly does not belong. It distracts from the real issue. (But then, perhaps that is part of FUD)
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
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
Brazilian money is pretty strong. You need just 3.5 Reals to buy one dollar. Comparing the eighth economy [fifth in 2008] in the world with Zimbabwe shows your stupidity pretty well.
It's currently about 4 real to the dollar. Just 4 years ago, it was around 2. That may not be up to Zimbabwe's level, but that's crazy high inflation.
Worse than that, Canada has VOTER ID!!!
+2 Flamebait? That's a new one to me, not sure how the moderation system makes that happen.
Someone with mod points must have had an delicate little ideology protect.
All I did was point out a very exact parallel between believing that the word "socialist" in the official name of the Nazi Party - and beleiving on exactly the same grounds that Kim Jong Un runs a democracy, and give a sober factual link analyzing the false "the Nazis were socialists" belief.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
I think about that, what if the the US really is an authoritarian police state?
If it is, why doesn't it feel like that all the time? I mean, how do you explain how easy it is to get a gun, go places, bitch about the government, etc?
This is a good thing. Your logic is kicking in!
Your doubts make sense. Why, indeed, can you say anything you want about the political leadership, if we're a police state? It's because we aren't one.
There are legitimate concerns and debates we can have, but the overheated hyperventilating going on is absurd. You are catching onto that. That's a good thing!
I'm sorry, when's the last time anyone in a civilized country was executed for not paying their taxes?
When they resist the big guys with guns who show up eventually when they refuse to pay them?
Force is behind laws.
No, it turns out that bartering is younger than money.
See David Graeber's book Debt: The First 5000 Years.
I'd say that is only likely to happen if you start shooting at the police when they show up to take you to court or jail, at which point you are not being shot at for not paying your taxes but for being actively dangerous to other people.
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Socialism is merely guaranteeing that people are supported when they need it. It doesn't change anything in the mechanism of taxes. Democratic Socialism means that voters choose what is guaranteed.
I think you are confusing the onerous responsibility of paying taxes with a type of governance. There are good and bad socialist countries. I was shocked to learn that many Europeans have guaranteed health care AND pay less in taxes in some cases.
>>"ad space available -- low rates!!!"
Everything in law at the end of the day is enforced at the end of a gun. If you do not comply with law, you are punished. If you resist, you are killed. Mod as troll all you want, it doesn't change anything.
OK, so you have no idea what socialism is..
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.