An assessment I agree with

The Atlantic has an editorial amid the recent pushes by Rep Chaffetz that the TSA implement more use of dogs. The truth of its final paragraphs can't be denied:

...  Most Americans ... understand that reinforced cockpit doors and the determination of airline passengers to fight back against hijackers are the most important security innovations to occur since 9/11.

In my estimation, TSA's failure to encourage assertiveness among the traveling public is its biggest failure of omission. Passengers, not screening personnel, stopped the shoe bomber and that guy who lit his underwear on fire. But air travelers are never explicitly told to fight if necessary. Nor are volunteers trained to function as something between a neighborhood watch program and a mile high national guard. We rely on surprisingly costly air marshals when with a little effort, a percentage of the traveling public might be persuaded to undergo training. Certainly they would've done so if asked by the president shortly after the September 11 attacks. Instead we've created a clunky bureaucracy that has mostly succeeded in making a subset of the traveling public feel embarrassed, violated, harassed, or otherwise upset. On the other hand, they've got 500 cute puppies.

So many security breaches

The news this week has been about the 250,000 security breaches at airports across the nation since 2001. The TSA is right that taking a raw number as a total across 10 years is a scare tactic and not very helpful. It's better to look at this as a percentage: there are about half a billion boardings per year, so 25,000 out of 500 million is 0.005%. But it illustrates very well that even with the draconian measures and vast power taken by the TSA, they still can't get a no-fail rate. This doesn't surprise me one bit. First, life is uncertain and unpredictable and people aren't perfect. So even in my airport utopian dream, there would be a non-zero fail rate. Second, government bureaucracies by their nature have perverse incentives that basically guarantee this type of failure.

Unfortunately, many who hear about this say "airports are not secure," with an implied conclusion of the TSA must do more.And the TSA is happy about this. As long as they can spin it as "we did our best" so they don't get fired (I'm talking about Pistole and his management team), they can simultaneously say "we need more money to do better."

But I do think that the point is still helpful. Everytime a stun gun gets through, it's an argument to throw at people who say that searching my daughter is the price I have to pay for security. Well, the security is a joke. And, as has been pointed out by pundits this week, the argument that focusing on 6-year olds and 95-year olds is making it easier, not harder, for the real bad guys to get through is gaining popularity.

I just disagree with the conclusion that the TSA could ever improve upon this, or that we should want the rights of some people breached so that the rest of us can pretend everything is fine. Or that bomb[and drug]-sniffing dogs are somehow less of an invasion of rights. I think we've seen in plain view what happens when you give state agents a little leeway to invade our rights, they just keep taking more and - even when it gets absurd - people are willing to submit.

You can do better than this, Rep Chaffetz

If a parent currently refuses to allow their child to be patted down by a stranger in uniform that happens to have a job at an airport checkpoint, they may be arrested or fined, or - at the very least - will miss their flight. It doesn't appear that this changes with Rep Chaffetz's new bill. However, this bill would address a concern that he has based on what happened to his own daughter: she was patted down without his wife (who was traveling with their daughter) knowing where she was. (Here's the full text of the proposed legislation.)

Moral of the story: if you have children and don't want to have them confused or worse by an invasive custody search: Don't fly!

Mica is annoying

Rep John Mica (R-FL) is a corrupt politician who is jumping on the anti-TSA backlash for his own gain. While he has some good rhetoric, such as in the following exchange:

"The equipment is flawed and can be subverted," House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman John Mica (R-Fla.) said. "Our staff has subverted it. (TSA Administrator) Pistole said 'GAO is very clever.' Well what the hell does he think a terrorist is?"

he ultimately does not care to address or understand the fundamental problems. Check out this ignorance on display:

Additionally, it is not very hard to know where to place contraband you do not want to be found in the event of a TSA pat-down, Mica said.

"Most folks know they're not going to touch your junk," Mica said.

On the other hand, while I don't think Rep Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) is radical enough, he was sounding the alarms on the scanners long before the public was aware of the issue, and he has not let up.

The panel appeared unconvinced. Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) compared the pat-downs now being used as part of airport security screening measures to sexual assault.

"There are many of us who believe this would be deemed a sexual assault on a person," he said.

 Unlike Mica, who thinks there is no sexual assault and that private contractors using identical methods are somehow less offensive, Chaffetz realizes that this is a serious assault on individual liberty and tantamount to criminal behavior.

A miniscule victory

Word is that Congress may actually do something about the TSA overstepping its bounds. Don't expect too much, though. Like airport security, it is likely to be a lot of theater. Ron Paul's bill to make TSA agents culpable will be helpful in bringing down morale and breaking the organization from the inside out. It's even possible that Jason Chaffetz's oversight of DHS will play out well - he authored the "Chaffetz amendment" prohibiting TSA scanners before there was a public outcry over them Of course, his amendment failed, which is why Congress is to blame for the TSA abuses and I am not hopeful that much will change.

Senate's complicity

Since today is voting day, just a reminder of who is really at fault in abusing our 4th Amendment rights. In 2009, the House overwhelmingly passed an amendment to the TSA bill that would have disallowed the scanners as primary screening. The Senate let the amendment die, clearing the way for the hundreds of scanners now in use in airports across the country.

June, 2009: 

The House then voted 310-118 to approve a Chaffetz amendment banning it, adding that to a Transportation Safety Administration authorization bill. The whole bill passed later, and now goes to the Senate for consideration.

January, 2010:

The Senate did not adopt the Chaffetz amendment, so the TSA is free to press ahead with installing the body scanners.