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Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

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Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#141

Post by corford »

clarkmoody wrote: post #130
corford wrote: post #125

Lots of people are posting highlighting how pointless airport security is given the ease with which a terrorist can bypass it by e.g. blowing himself up in the security line, targeting buses or shopping malls, making weapons from stuff bought "air side" etc. As this hasn't been happening (despite how easy it would be for a terrorist to do), the only logical conclusion I draw is that the entire terrorist threat is so…

I completely agree with your first two paragraphs, but you lost me on the second half of your comment. The TSA's response to attempted attacks has been to clamp down on the rest of us after the fact : shoes off, no liquids. This tells us that the intelligence gathering effort was not reflected in the airport security measures. They lock down those attack vectors to prevent "me too" attacks, but there haven't been any…

Blacks, whites or cops killing blacks - whatever it is, it's more than terrorists killing blacks.

I could have worded my other paragraph slightly better - what I meant was no western person (since we're talking about potential for terrorist attacks on westerners) would normally find themselves in the mountains of bora bora or the war zones of syria/iraq. The only western people outside of UN, military or diplomatic personnel you are likely to find in these parts are radical young men from home who are living out a jihad fantasy.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#142

Post by gamerdonkey »

clarkmoody wrote: post #130
corford wrote: post #125

Lots of people are posting highlighting how pointless airport security is given the ease with which a terrorist can bypass it by e.g. blowing himself up in the security line, targeting buses or shopping malls, making weapons from stuff bought "air side" etc. As this hasn't been happening (despite how easy it would be for a terrorist to do), the only logical conclusion I draw is that the entire terrorist threat is so…

I completely agree with your first two paragraphs, but you lost me on the second half of your comment. The TSA's response to attempted attacks has been to clamp down on the rest of us after the fact : shoes off, no liquids. This tells us that the intelligence gathering effort was not reflected in the airport security measures. They lock down those attack vectors to prevent "me too" attacks, but there haven't been any…

Unfortunately, studies have found that police homicides are under-reported to the FBI's national database.

http://www.npr.org/2014/08/21/342228794/ferguson-turns-lens-...

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#143

Post by jtheory »

I keep forgetting that this whole mess is still ongoing. The articles seem to come in waves -- there'll be a new exposure of how useless the scanners are, lots of noise around that, and sometimes articles about changes to actual policy.

I actually had the impression that the silly Rapiscan (what a lovely name!) scanners had been retired a year or two ago. Then this summer I went back to the US (first time in several years!) and it was worse than ever. In the one visit (involving 4 flights including my arrival to the US and departure from) I twice had to turn down the millimeter wave scanner -- apparently having a baby in a sling on my chest wasn't enough to exclude me -- and so I got to experience (twice) the uncomfortable manual pat down process, including the by-the-book warning that they're going to slide a hand up my inner thigh until they meet "resistance".

On the other hand, I have some fairly ugly memories of arriving in JFK in the past (and going through immigration difficulties), and the airport remains horrible (their computer system went down for a half-hour while we waited to pass immigration...), but the people working there were impressively kind, especially to a family traveling with small children.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#144

Post by corford »

epochwolf wrote: post #138
corford wrote: post #125

Lots of people are posting highlighting how pointless airport security is given the ease with which a terrorist can bypass it by e.g. blowing himself up in the security line, targeting buses or shopping malls, making weapons from stuff bought "air side" etc. As this hasn't been happening (despite how easy it would be for a terrorist to do), the only logical conclusion I draw is that the entire terrorist threat is so…

> As this hasn't been happening I believe this is incorrect. In Russia, two terrorists set off a bomb outside the secure area in the arrival hall. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domodedovo_International_Airpor...

Thanks, I wasn't aware of that. I think my point still stands though. I'd be more inclined to believe there's a serious terrorist problem if something like that was happening once or twice a year.

As it stands, if you live in the US at least, it seems your child has a greater chance of being gunned down by a classmate at school than blown up by a terrorist.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#145

Post by Canada »

nhstanley wrote: post #101
Canada wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I don't fly if I don't have to. The cost of flights has nothing to do with it. The way things are now, I feel threatened in an airport. Especially a US airport, though Canadian ones aren't much better. I feel a heightened possibility that my valuables be stolen from me. That it's done under the color of law makes it even worse than being in a rough neighborhood. Some may say this is unreasonable, but I kn…

Do you know they were stolen from by the TSA, or by baggage handlers? Getting rid of the TSA wouldn't solve the latter problem.

On case is someone I know directly, the other is a friend of a friend who I haven't met personally.

Both alledged thefts were of jewelry in carry on, so if the allegations are true then it was TSA.

We are forced to divest ourselves of metalic objects and then put them through an xray, out of our sight, operated by a low class, unaccountable workforce.

Going through there gives me this mix of feelings: anxiety from being on my guard, fear that I may lose costly property, anger towards whose who designed this awful system and the liars who enable it, pity for the poor losers who work in it, and despair that Americans allow themselves to be treated this way - like chattel.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#146

Post by corford »

mncolinlee wrote: post #131
corford wrote: post #125

Lots of people are posting highlighting how pointless airport security is given the ease with which a terrorist can bypass it by e.g. blowing himself up in the security line, targeting buses or shopping malls, making weapons from stuff bought "air side" etc. As this hasn't been happening (despite how easy it would be for a terrorist to do), the only logical conclusion I draw is that the entire terrorist threat is so…

Correction: You can estimate the number of truly dangerous terrorists targeting the US easily. Israel and Russia seem to attract more and they tend to hit easy targets that are more difficult to secure than airports.

My conclusion: providing you don't share a land border with the area you are upsetting (Chechnya, Palestine), most 'would be' terrorists lack the means/skill/desire to make a trip to your homeland to perform an atrocity.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#147

Post by JackFr »

glenra wrote: post #16
stevefeinstein wrote: post #8

If this isn't the answer, and I'm not asserting it is or isn't. What is, and how do implement it. Or do you suggest if we scrap it all and go back to 1950's like airport security that the few incidents that are inevitable are an acceptable risk? I don't know the answer, but I'd like to have the conversation.

I do suggest we scrap it all and go back to the 1950s. Let people walk right out to the gate to meet arrivals. Let people run through the airport right to the gate without having to stand in a line at all. Even the level of security we had before 9/11 was misguided and caused more deaths than it saved. Here's all we should do: leave security policy up to the airlines themselves. Then there won't be the sort of single…

> Even the level of security we had before 9/11 was misguided and caused more deaths than it saved.

Even if I grant that it saved no lives, it's not obvious to me how it caused any.

> Here's all we should do: leave security policy up to the airlines themselves.

Airplanes filled filled with thousands of pounds of jet fuel hurtling overhead create externalities, with costs borne by the community. While customers certainly would consider safety and security in choosing an airline, those killed on the ground in Lockerbie and in the WTC and at the Pentagon did not make that choice.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#148

Post by bicknergseng »

sleeping_pills wrote: post #83
pmorici wrote: post #66

Typical. Government organizations think IT security means having strongly worded statements and reams of bureaucratic rules and procedures. If you look closely though the strong words often aren't backed by any meaningful action. In a government official's mind if the 50 page IT security document was filled out and is on file that means the system is secure. It's all a big joke really.

I don't think most of them would be that stupid. Just lazy. In a government official's mind, if the 50 page IT security document was filled out then he can't be held responsible when the shit hits the fan.

To be honest, I don't think laziness is a problem, either (or at least, THE problem). The problem is the utterly impossible goal of 100% security from all possible threats with a nearly unlimited mandate to do so. The goal is improbable, the consequences dire, so the result is the mad scramble to do visible things. And so we get security theater instead of reasonable precautions and courage in the face of a statistically insignificant threat.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#149

Post by a_c_s »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #56
a_c_s wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, all of this scrap-the-TSA talk makes me wonder how much people have flown internationally: in places I've been, security has been very similar to the TSA with minor variations. It seems like for every policy that had something a little less strict about it there was also something else it was a little more strict about: some care about liquids, some treat iPads as laptops, some make you remove your shoes. I've…

How is that relevant? I don't want to suffer through TSA shenanigans on domestic US flights. What they do in Brussels has nothing to do with that.

The point is that the TSA model, with minor variations, seems to be the dominant model of airport security.

So, aside from Israel (which has far more invasive procedures), there doesn't seem to be an alternative model to subscribe to.

Re: Pulling the Curtain on Airport Security [pdf]

#150

Post by JoblessWonder »

MeinCrapf wrote: post #93
nikcub wrote: post #80

I ended up finding a way to get cigarette lighters through with a 100% success rate just by brute forcing it. If you travel a lot and you're a smoker you'd know that the worst part is getting off the flight, crawling through the airport at exit and then not having a lighter because they took it off you at departure[1]. No penalty for being caught with a lighter, so I kept leaving lighters in my bag in different place…

You sure you didn't make that change around August, 2007? http://www.tsa.gov/traveler-information/lighters-and-matches

Is that an example of confirmation bias? "I finally moved it around and tweaked it enough and that is what caused the success" instead of "the TSA changed the rules?"
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