Perks of Pre-Check Highlighted in NY Times

I am against Pre-Check (formerly, Trusted Traveler; always 'Papers, Please!') as a long-term solution to airport security, as I've written about here before. However, the expansion of the program may be a promising sign that public opinion can, and has, affect airport security policy. That is a point also noted in this NY Times editorial about the Pre-Check program.

I do worry that this is an effective ploy to appease enough of the traveling public to allow the TSA to continue to shed our rights. Hopefully, I'm wrong.

The TSA Isn’t Good at Reading Body Language (And Neither Are You)

I am pleasantly surprised to see this post at Smithsonian blog. It is critical of the TSA - specifically it's wasteful spending on dubious behavior-detection training - but comes from a government-affiliated institution.

The LA Times and the scanners-are-safe interpretation

As soon as I read the LA Times' take on a new scientific article on naked scanner radiation study, I knew they had misrepresented the findings. I have now read the original research article in full, and my hunch holds.

The article, by Hoppe and Schmidt in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Marquette University, seems solid to me. The introduction nicely summarizes what studies have been done at this point. Two that were done in conjunction with the TSA (by the FDA and by Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab -- which is functionally a government research lab doing a lot of work requiring security clearances) had access to some form of naked scanner technology, although not necessarily the exact models used in airports. They both were assigned the task of determining whether the scanners met radiation guidelines specified by an ANSI, which is suspect. So this is where Hoppe and Schmidt take off. They note the shortcomings of these earlier studies, and also reference the "scanners aren't safe" articles from 2010.

Nonetheless, as the scanners have not been made available to anyone outside of the TSA for testing, Hoppe and Schmidt were left to use TSA-provided data for their analysis. They created a computational model for measuring radiation doses in various organs of the body. They replicated the radiation from the x-ray scanner by correlating it with the TSA-provided data first, then running the simulation on their human organ models. It is true, as the LA Times reports, that they find that the effective dose of radiation that passengers receive is below the ANSI standard, as has been claimed by the TSA.

They do not claim the scanners are, therefore, safe. Indeed, they make no judgement on this at all. They note the caveats that they did not have access to an actual machine several times throughout the paper, which means that they can not independently verify the radiation levels coming from the scanner. They also had to make some assumptions and simplifications with their computational model. Although I can't find fault with their methods, it is not the same as testing the real thing, or even a physical model, with an actual scanner, as the authors are well-aware.

Handheld scanners

You may have heard that the TSA is now looking for handheld naked scanners. I just can't wait until every law enforcement arm in the country is carrying around something that can strip search me without my permission or knowledge! There is a slippery slope, and we are headed down at break-neck speeds.

What I find interesting about this is how the state-friendly media (or do I repeat myself) deals with this kind of information. The original announcement that the TSA was looking for this was back in November. The ominously named Government Security News let its readers (many of whom are apparently government contractors) know that DHS "issued a presolicitation notice on Nov. 2 inviting technology companies to describe... handheld detectors that could provide such secondary screening in the event that the AIT body scanners now being rolled out to dozens of U.S. airports pick up an 'anomaly' during their primary inspections of passengers."

At the beginning of last week, there was a solicitation (not presolicitation?) for white papers on handheld naked scanners, again reported in GSN. Fast forward 6 days and this turns from a bland request for proposals-type announcement in an industry rag to a positive PR story for the TSA. Sample headlines:

• 5/26/11, LA Times, New technology may reduce TSA pat-down searches in U.S. airports
• 5/29/11, Seattle Times, TSA working on way to reduce pat-downs
• 5/29/11, Boston.com, TSA seeks tech device to cut patdowns

It may just be coincidental, but on May 29th, the story also broke that the TSA's budget is set to be cut and this may lead to higher airline ticket fees. Republicans are going to prevent this from happening by cutting other so-called government services. Democrats are joining forces with the TSA to make sure there is no real budget cut by increasing fees:

The agency, backed by Democrats in the Senate, wants to increase the security fee everyone pays with a ticket from $2.50 a flight. to $5.00 per one-way ticket. A total of $10.00 would be added to round-trip tickets.

Uhhh... why is the idea of cutting the budget of this really truly terrible agency off the table? The cynic in me knows the answer, but it's a good question to put to other citizens to get them to think about what is going on here.

Not another run-of-the-mill press release

Kudos to the KPAX reporter who wrote of the naked scanners set to arrive in the Missoula airport soon. Normally these articles are virtually word-for-word copies of TSA press releases and just repeat the propaganda  about how these are effective, privacy-protecting machines being deployed by our saviors at DHS. So I clicked through on this article expecting to see the same thing.

Not so. It starts:

Passengers traveling through Missoula International Airport security will be subject to search with those controversial "body scanners", starting later next week.
From there, it continues to use quotes for all TSA-approved words, and to highlight the controversy surrounding the naked scanners.

Chris Elliott examines the TSA PR machine

This post from last week (in case you missed it) is a must read: The Huffington Post blogger asks, "Are we better off without the TSA?"

Good question. Lame answer.

Instead of actually investigating what happens time and time again to the disabled at airports, a newspaper portends to answer a letter by quoting the TSA policies:

Q: Would you please answer a question or find the answer for those of us who have lost a body part in a battle with breast cancer? What should we expect when we walk through the scanners (at the airport)? If the scanners are any good, they will certainly spot a breast prosthesis, then what? Will the Transportation Security Administration employee reviewing the scan be able to recognize the prosthesis and pass it as benign? Will we have to go through a further security check like a pat down?
— Sandra, Muscatine

A: From Jim Fotenos, TSA spokesman: “TSA respects the privacy of all passengers. They have been trained to safely and respectfully screen all passengers, including those with medical devices.
“TSA has created an optional communication card that helps travelers discreetly inform TSA officers about any disability, medical condition or medical device that could affect security screening. Travelers can write their information on the wallet-sized card and hand it to the security officer. While these cards do not exempt anyone from security screening, they allow passengers to communicate information about their medical conditions to the officers discreetly.

“TSA recommends passengers advise our officers of the medical device; passengers will not be required to expose these devices for inspection. Security officers should not ask you to remove medical devices during the screening process and you should be offered private screening by a same-gender officer if additional screening is required to complete the inspection process.”

Excellent expose of the TSA

In Vanity Fair.

TSA 'protects' passengers from non-threats

This write-up is sad - it is so clearly just a person posing as a 'journalist' doing anything to avoid journalism, including just re-printing TSA press releases and calling it news:

Transportation Security Agency (TSA) officials at Detroit-Wayne County Metropolitan Airport found a loaded .380 pistol in an 76 year old man's ankle holster, and they are touting the discovery as a justification of the advanced body-imaging scanners used around the country.

"TSA’s advanced imaging technology using automated target recognition (ATR) software detected [on Saturday] a hidden item on a passenger’s ankle," the agency announced yesterday. "While resolving the alarm, TSA Officers discovered a loaded .380 caliber Ruger Prescott firearm hidden in an ankle holster.  Local law enforcement responded and arrested the individual."

The discovery is "just more proof that this technology can and will find dangerous items," a TSA blogger argues, even while acknowledging that a traditional metal detector would have found the weapon just as surely. "While that's a true statement, the walk through metal detectors cannot detect non metallic items lke explosives, which are the greatest threat to aviation today."

The man has since stated that he forgot about the gun. Some might find this hard to believe, but when you think about it, there is no proof that the man had ill intentions and, furthermore, if he did, he probably wouldn't have a regular gun strapped to his ankle. Metal detectors have been in place at airports for decades and this gun couldn't have been slipped by them. So, it's really quite apparent that this man regularly straps a gun to his ankle - legally, no less - and had no intention of harming anyone on the airplane. So why exactly is it an achievement for the TSA to have figured this out? (My! What gumshoes!)

Likewise with this man who had a gun suitable for injuring small mammals (but not the incompetent police officer who shot himself in the face with it when trying to disarm it!).

These men are not terrorists - their just forgetful.

Or, there's this man, who intentionally tried to get a knife through, but apparently has no intention of hijacking a plane.

How to be a better sheep

An article titled, Smoothing your trip through airport security during packed holiday season, is just like all the other articles that are trying to be "helpful" but really make me sick.

If the bully at school beats your kid up for your lunch money, is it really good advice for you to give your child plenty of money with instructions to hand some or all of it over as soon as the bully is in sight? Or is the best advice to tell the child to avoid the bully as much as possible and to stand up for himself (not necessarily violently - perhaps by getting an adult to intervene).

Want a nice holiday? Don't fly! If you choose to fly, know your rights, stand up for them, and be prepared to go to court (or worse) defending them.

(Note that the comments on this silly article are 100% questioning the TSA and its policies. How heartwarming!)

Some local nullification in Florida

Nice to see this:

The Broward Commission may request that the Transportation Security Administration go back to the old-school gropings pat-downs of passengers at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport and ditch the use of body scanners.

The item -- which was delayed from the last meeting -- would be a direction to the aviation director to send the request to the TSA asking that it not use the body scanners "until further studies can be done that will demonstrate that they are safe to the traveling public."

Note that the Commission did indeed pass this.

But, back to the original article about the pending vote, I take serious issue with this statement:

In fact, the TSA's website hosts a boatload of documents proving the machines are safe.

This is not a fact, at all. There may be a boatload of documents on the TSA website, and they may portend to "prove" that the machines are safe. But every single agency that was contracted to study the scanners has specifically stated that they were never asked to - and never did - determine whether the machines were safe to use on the general population as primary screening. For an overview, read some of my own coverage and analysis of this topic.

The TSA's response to Broward's request is full of, if not lies, then intentional misrepresentations:

Our backscatter technology was evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health (CDRH), the National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), and the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. All results confirmed that the extremely low radiation doses for the individuals being screened, operators, and bystanders, including frequent flyers, aircrew, and operators, were well below the
limits specified by the American National Standards Institute/Health Physics Society.

JHU/APL, for example, issued a statement awhile back saying that their studies were not done on an actual scanner, but a prototype. They stated that they were not asked to address the safety of the scanners, but just measure the level of radiation. Furthermore, in their results, they noted a much higher level of radiation exposure in the areas surrounding the scanner than are consistent with the other claims being made, calling into question the actual radiation levels or functionality of the machines.

The FDA's role in scanner safety was summed up in the ProPublica exposé:

The FDA does not review or approve the safety of such products. However, manufacturers must provide a brief radiation safety report explaining the dose and notify the agency if any overexposure is discovered.

Also from ProPublica, we know that the ANSI/Health Physics Society claim is suspect:

...ANSI convened a committee of the Health Physics Society, a trade group of radiation safety specialists. It was made up of 15 people, including six representatives of manufacturers of X-ray body scanners and five from U.S. Customs and the California prison system. There were few government regulators and no independent scientists.

Columnist remains inside the box

A column in an Oklahoma paper is titled Airport security abuses power. I was going to say that the "Columnist states the obvious," but not all of her title is obvious - just not imaginative in the least.

The column is about a teenager who had trouble at the airport because she had an image of a gun sewn onto her purse. Low-level bureaucrats tend to get in more trouble if they think, so it is in their best interest to do really dumb stuff that is, nonetheless, by the book. The columnist's discussion of this is apt, but is decidedly less cynical than I am.

My issue is with this non-sequitor:

I am OK with the full-body scanners that were so controversial earlier this year, and I’m happy to put my travel-sized liquids in a resealable bag.

...All citizens deserve freedom and privacy, whether or not they’re in the air.

How are full-body scanners and precise inane instructions on how to carry your personal items consistent with "freedom and privacy." They're not! This is not a matter of some aspects of the TSA abusing some power. This is a case of a bureaucracy being given way more power than is legal, and running with it.

The Atlantic gets it right

I'm a bit surprised by the tone of this editorial in The Atlantic, albeit pleasantly surprised. I'm used to really toned down opposition from most corners of the media.

For example, in reference to the Turkish and Chinese (more police-state like) airport security, the author writes:

Logically, there's no reason why the U.S. shouldn't ultimately apply the same approach... The logic, of course, is the screening-line premise that every traveler should be considered a potential terrorist. The TSA Administrator, John Pistole, says he wants to move away from that premise -- and we'll get into all the ramifications thereof...

So the author insinuates that more severe security is not off the table for the US - it's withing the realm of reason that the TSA will follow in Turkey's footsteps. He then points out that the TSA's plan to pretend that they don't view all mundanes at the airport as threats has flaws.

The author, James Fallows, also openly promotes opting-out.

I look forward to the next article in this series where Trusted Traveler, or PreCheck, or whatever they eventually call it, is taken to task.

The other Washington rag blasts the TSA

It's a good piece. I especially like that it calls out the TSA's claim that there are few complaints:

 Travelers at Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport who tell a security manager that they wish to file a complaint aren’t asked to document their concern on the spot. Instead, as experienced by Washington Times staff, they’re handed a three-inch strip of paper with contact information for the TSA claims-management office. They’re also instructed to visit the TSA blog. It’s not surprising that few have waded through the confusing layers of bureaucracy just to register an opinion that they know is going to be ignored.

The policy recommendation in the conclusion is sufficiently vague, so it can be construed as recommending true privatization, or faux, fascist privatization (à la Mica). I'll take it for now, but, in light of the Washington Post's recent article, I am cynical about the motives here. When W was in office, did the Wash Times criticize the TSA while WaPo praised it? I honestly don't know, but I doubt it. Most likely, both promoted the propaganda. But, now that  Dem is in the White House and prominent Republicans are currying favor with Tea Party voters - and promoting a fascist plan to hand TSA implementation to contractors - the Wash Times is being more critical. They are an ally now, but what happens after the next election?

H/T Jeff Keller

Washington Post Joins the TSA Propaganda Parade

The Washington Post carried another TSA propaganda statement over the holiday weekend, serving up creampuff questions for the corrupt administrator. The article attempts to praise Pistole for reigning over this criminal workforce and violating the basic rights of travelers.

Under his “leadership” over 60,000 people a day are harassed and molested at his direction. Of that 20,000 are subjected to his groping at random, without any rational security basis for this harassment.

He has presided over a criminal workforce that has had 62 screeners arrested for serious offenses so far this year.

His "professional" employees include 10 screeners that have been charged with child sex crimes this year including four child rapes.

Over a dozen of his vaunted screeners have been jailed for stealing over $800,000 from passenger baggage this year alone.

He has lied in testimony to Congress over ten times this year. He claimed that TSA would stop molesting children on four separate occasions, in November 2010, again in April, then again in May and November 2011 yet their invasive groping of children continues.

He lied about Congress and the public saying that the scanners produced a chalky, cartoon like outline, but in August Denver TSA Director, Pat Ahlstrom admitted that the images were indeed “very graphic”. So millions have been digitally strip searched despite the propaganda earlier this year.

He has deliberately misled the public into believing that the privacy software exists at all checkpoints. In reality, they continue to have male workers view the nude images of men, women and children. TSA has not added the privacy software on the 250 x-ray scanners installed at many major airports, including LAX, JFK, O’Hare, Orlando, Boston and Phoenix and has not said when, or if, this will be installed.

He has told Congress three times since January that the scanners would be independently tested yet again reneged on the latest promise he made in October, saying that he deems the scanners safe. Meanwhile, millions of passengers continue to be digitally strip searched and irradiated by these dangerous devices. He continues to expose passengers to these dangerous scanners despite expert testimony that these will cause over 100 cancer deaths a year.

TSA has been adamantly refused to allow independent testing. He has not explained what TSA is afraid the tests will reveal or why they are so willing to sacrifice passenger privacy and health other than to protect private manufacturers’ products and their profits. There is clearly an implication of corruption in the deployment of these scanners and demands investigation by Congress.

Under his “leadership”, complaints about TSA screening have increased dramatically. According to an article in WSJ on 9/1/11 complaints about TSA screening jumped this year. TSA logged 1,975 screening complaints in June alone, more than double the 814 received in June 2010.

Since Pistole assumed control and instituted these Draconian procedures air travel has declined. The US Travel Association reported this month that “We can reduce the hassle of flying without compromising security” and estimated that TSA is costing the travel industry $85 billion in lost revenue and 880,000 additional jobs.

TSA can plant all the stories they want saying that people like TSA but the fact remains that the vast majority of travelers despise this agency and want it dismantled.

Bill Fisher mentioned in NY Times

Bill Fisher's due diligence has paid off with a little publicity. Here's the relevant passage:

While it is difficult to evaluate the overall performance of airport screeners, Bill Fisher, a former frequent flier who has cut back on his own travels, maintains an online list at Travel Underground of reports about screeners who have been arrested, airport security breaches and incidents involving mistreatment of passengers by agents.

Mr. Fisher said he started the list to help answer his own question about airport security: “Is it really as bad as it seems or are people overreacting?”

A year later, he thinks passengers’ concerns are not exaggerated, and have not gone away.

“The fact that these stories still surface routinely is probably a good indication that this issue hasn’t died down as much as anticipated,” he said.

Congrats, Bill!

Up? Really?

An Anchorage, Alaska new site has a column titled "Who's up/Who's down." Because of the cartoon software, the incoming scanners are earning the TSA an "Up." Talk about the slave thanking his master for not whipping him today!

FDA responds to ProPublica story

You can read it as well as ProPublica's response here. The takehome message?

ProPublica takes seriously our responsibility to correct mistakes and clarify misstatements. But while the FDA may prefer different terminology, we believe the way we conveyed the facts was accurate.

A bit of push-back in New York

In an otherwise run-of-the-mill article, in an upstate New York news site, repeating the Wall Street Journal's report on the expanding Trusted Traveler program, we find this conclusion:

The TSA should find a way for all passengers to keep their shoes on, too.

The tone-deaf TSA

A reporter notes that the expansion of the "Trusted Traveler" program is really out-of-touch with the whole OWS protests sweeping the nation:

That means going through security without removing shoes and jackets, leaving laptops undisturbed or having to follow restrictions on toiletries the other 99 percent of us must adhere to.

...OK, so maybe it's not totally unreasonable, but the idea of hassle-free check-ins for a lucky chosen well-heeled few, considering the times, could hardly be more tone-deaf.

I have to agree.