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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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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
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.
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.
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
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.
No wonder this game is so easy... I was wondering why I always saw them!
Well. given the criteria... pretty much any Slashdotter is screwed:
”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.”
#DeleteChrome
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.
Be that as it may, the point still stands.
I'm sorry, when's the last time anyone in a civilized country was executed for not paying their taxes?
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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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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.
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?
Because many foreign countries won't allow armed passengers into their airspace.
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.
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.
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