James Bovard on the TSA's Watchlist

Of course, it's not a terrorist watchlist. It's aimed at self-respecting travelers, who have no criminal intentions but make the TSA workers feel ashamed. Read James Bovard's take.

NY Times: Arrive early and smile (and don't look behind that curtain!)

Another travel season, another advice column on how to try to minimize stress-while-flying. I'm not at all surprised to see a piece in a prominent publication acknowledge that security add to the stress, and you make the best of it by being extra cooperative. Specifically, arrive early and be polite.

It's like the traveling public is the codependent partner to an abusive spouse.

Throwback: The story behind Thousands Standing Around

I recently came across this old story about the heroic TSA agent (now ex-TSA agent) who was behind the Thousands Standing Around whistleblowing blog. It's a good read, and quite revealing. 

"Shut down the TSA"

I really didn't expect much when I clicked on this article from thehill.com. An op-ed that calls for ending the TSA (that's not by James Bovard, either)! How about that?

Frequent flyer finally gets it

A frequent flyer, who also happens to be a news reporter, was sexually assaulted by the TSA. I'm glad she decided to publicize it:
"The pat-down began and was uneventful until she went down my leg, up my dress, and her hand sideways hits me right in the crack of my labia. Startled, I jump and feel a lump in my throat trying to hold back tears."

On the new TSA opt-out rule

There has been regular media coverage of this story about the TSA'S "You can opt-out, except when you can't" rule.  However, it had been uniformly boring and uncritical. It also seems that the lower the TSA  is in existence, the more the public is cowed, so most quotes from travelers and comments on media reports are not critical of this absurdity. What a pleasure to see someone take the TSA to task at the New American!

Double-speak from the TSA

I was so bored by the predictable calls from the Congress to Do Something! that I didn't blog about it here. I didn't expect any elected officials to acknowledge that there might be fundamental issues with a system that peers under passengers' clothing. Sure enough, it is only how a small fraction of the passengers subjected to such incredible invasive procedures are treated that the elected officials think is an issue.

So, we now have a response from the TSA. It is a typical non-response, where they are going to make some superficial changes and promises (always more training!). What is very interesting, though, is that their story is contradicted by an advocacy group:

However, after reading this story and reviewing TSA's comments, NCTE Director of Policy, Harper Jean Tobin, issued a clarifying statement walking back the organization's involvement with TSA. In an email to The Advocate, Tobin said:

"TSA's response completely misses the point. Whatever they call it, a machine flagging someone for questions or pat-downs of intimate body areas just because of their body parts is unacceptable — no matter how politely officers handle it.

While NCTE offers training to government agencies as a matter of course, our training has so far reached a small fraction of TSA staff who don't actually screen people — but most importantly, they haven't retrained the machines. If TSA is going to rely on body scanners at all — and there is plenty of evidence they're not only too invasive but ineffective — they have to be able to tell the difference between a body part and a bomb. Right now they can't, and that needs to change."

Three chears from Harper Jean Tobin for pointing out that these scanners really oughtn't be used on anybody!

And here's the band-aid

The string of negative publicity following the IG report of the TSA's 95% failure rate at detecting bombs, combined with a Congressional hearing on other TSA ineffectiveness, was so thrilling to see! With editorials across the country calling for abolishing the TSA or at least a top-to-bottom revamp of the TSA, we instead get: a bipartisan bill insisting that the TSA maintain its equipment better (Yeah. That'll work.)

Rice’s legislation, the Keeping Our Travelers Safe and Secure Act (HR 2770), would require the TSA administrator to develop and implement a preventive maintenance process for airport screening technology within 180 days. The process must include specific maintenance schedules, guidance for TSA personnel and contractors on how to conduct and document maintenance actions, mechanisms to insure compliance and penalties for noncompliance.

Note how that barely scratches the surface of the IG's concerns:

“Our audits have repeatedly found that human error— often a simple failure to follow protocol—poses significant vulnerabilities,” [DHS inspector general John Roth] said. Further, despite the billions spent on aviation security technology, “our testing of certain systems has revealed no resulting improvement.”

Other areas of concern include how TSA plans for, buys, develops and maintains equipment; potential for misuse of the expedited PreCheck screening system; continued vulnerabilities in baggage screening equipment; unreliability of the behavior detection program; cybersecurity; and more.

Not to mention all those lost badges.

Is it too much to hope that this loser bill will fail and something with real muscle will be proposed instead?

Fresno Bee editorial on the TSA failure

I just love how this story isn't going away! Another editorial in a mainstream newspaper slams the TSA.

Ever optimistic that we'll see some real changes and I can start flying again one day.

What's worse than the TSA?

A good editorial in the Las Vegas Review Journal makes a very good point:

"Close this agency [TSA] down and allow every American airport to retain private security contractors... They certainly can’t perform any worse than the TSA."

TSA failure (and spin in 3...2...1...)

The TSA failed some in-house tests. When a student receives a10% on an exam, it's usually time to drop the class. When the TSA gets a similar score (missing 67 out of 70 bombs), it's "out of context"; an indication of weaknesses to work on; and time for a high-level scapegoat to be fed to the media.

(Melissa Block of NPR interviewed John Pistole, former TSA director, about this. It was completely mundane. My cynical side says she isn't a journalist, but rather just part of the media machine that can get interviews with officials anytime she wants as long as she never really presses then to actually inform taxpayers about what is really going on and how they are culpable.)

TSA in the news again: Sexual Assault in Denver

Two great takes in prominent publications on the recent news of Denver screeners manipulating the naked scanners in order to grope the genitals of attractive men:

Time.com has former TSA screener recommending that

One or two full-body scanners per terminal, through which the occasional passenger could be randomly directed (alongside passengers on watch-lists), would provide that adequate deterrence. The vast majority of the traveling public need not pass through a full-body scanner, and need not be groped at all.

That would be a good start, for sure. But, even better, WashingtonPost.com has an editorial calling for abolition of the TSA.

A TSA apologist in Connecticut

Yes, there are still people who publish about how hard it is to be someone on the state's payroll doing things that are otherwise illegal. Jim Cameron wrote an opinion piece in the Easton Courier that actually says we should lay off because TSA agents are only doing their job. Just like British troops in colonial America, Nazis, Soviet Gulag Guards, and Saddam Hussein's henchmen. The whole point is that it is not heroic to take a paycheck to abuse the rights and privacy of innocent civilians. That's why we must make TSA agents think twice about what they're doing.
He then goes on with "evidence" about how the TSA agents keep us safe. The proof is all of the weapons they seize. Nevermind that these weapons trend to be legal and in the possession of non-criminals who usually just forget to remove them from their bags before they get to the airport. So the TSA agents are not protecting anyone; they are just taking property from innocent travelers. (I'm not sure what his point is about the woman who faked a bomb threat...seems neither here nor there for this discussion.)
The last thing I want to take down from this op-ed is this:

Remember the holy triad of service: Fast, good and cheap. You can achieve any two of those, but not all three. Clearly, the top priority is “good” security. So, in this era of sequestration, we’re unlikely to see quality compromised for speed or lower cost.

The TSA is not a business, it is a government bureaucracy (and a bloated one at that). There is no service being provided, no calculation on the trade-offs between profit and loss. It is supremely naive to think that the institution of federal airport security can ever consistently achieve even one part of the service triad.
So far, the evidence is on the side of those who give TSA agents grief: security is not fast, not good, and not cheap.

The last hold-out?

I am surprised that there are any airports left without naked scanners. But, Syracuse is about to get its first one:

TSA had been waiting until a bigger checkpoint was built that could accommodate the expensive devices, Airport Executive Director Christina Callahan said...

This particular write-up is actually less pandering about the scanners than I typically see. Even the final "postive" quote is nuanced:

“I in no way feel uncomfortable when going through a full-body scanner,” said [passenger] Hernandez. “Going through a metal detector is only a few seconds quicker so it’s not really an extra hassle. If full-body scanners are helping airport security be more efficient and trustworthy then I’m all for them.” [Emphasis mine.]

That's a pretty big "If!"

Ad-hoc security, and media bias

From an article about property stolen from air passengers: "The takeaway: Knitting needles and ice skates are welcome on board planes, but not sparklers, nunchucks or fake chain saws."

These are not rules that any rational person can anticipate. They are ad-hoc rules that are not based on what a weapon is, but on what the TSA can get away with.

Also, this article is yet another example of puppet journalism (the bureaucrat-media complex?). I saw 4 identical headlines in my news feed in one day, with links to see all related articles. There are dozens of them. Here's how it works. A state agency, such as the TSA, issues a press release to all of the mainstream media outlets. Each media outlet reprints the press release, sometimes with local details (like a stat for how many things were confiscated at the local airport this year), and with no critical thinking. Thus, the bureaucrat's message gets out - in a big way, since every local and national affiliate Carries the story within days of each other - and any alternative presentations are marginalized to the non-professional, alternative media.

In this case, we are led to believe that the TSA is doing a good job - even protecting airline passengers - because it has so many real and fake weapons that have been taken from passengers. Nevermind that none of these passengers are terrorists, and almost all of them are mentally stable, well-intentioned, non-criminals (in the true sense of that word).

Remember this lazy journalism solidarity with the state next time you you hear about anything you're benevolent government has done. Particularly when foreign nationals' lives are being targeted by the US military.

Kudos to Slate

Slate doesn't give the TSA a pass with regard to naked scanners.

NY Times can't stop praising the TSA

To follow up last week's column filled with positive comments about pre-check and how pleasant it is to fly now, the NY times has a new column praising - get this! - naked scanners and how well the TSA treats people with metal implants.

The author, and the people he quoted, are missing the forest for the trees: What if disabled people neither had to be seen naked, nor had to be groped? In other words, what if security at airports was humane and customer focused?

To praise body scanners because it avoids a pat-down (aka, full-body custody search, without the formal declaration of arrest) for people with certain (personal, private) medical conditions is like saying slavery is okay as long as no one is whipped. Both the naked scanner and the pre-custody search are morally offensive!

Anti-scanner protests going mainstream?

NYTimes.com has a blog post about protesting the scanners (!)