From the Boston Globe: Common sense and airport security

The Boston Globe today has an interesting editorial concerning TSA security.  It's quoted below.  Common sense suggests that since the Globe invites me to email it to others they won't object to having it quoted with attribution here.  It provides a factual and common sense perspective on the TSA and it's ineptness.

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© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

Jeff Jacoby

Air travel: One step behind terrorists

NOT EVERYONE has reacted the same way to the Transportation Security Administration’s aggressively intimate new frisking technique. Air traveler John Tyner created a minor sensation when he recorded himself warning a TSA screener in San Diego: “If you touch my junk, I’m gonna have you arrested.’’ Journalist Emmett Tyrrell, on the other hand, says he would “welcome a soothing pat-down. . . especially if the patter-downer is a cute little number on the order of, say, Sarah Palin.’’ It takes all types to fill a passenger plane.

But what are we to make of TSA Administrator John Pistole, who told a congressional committee last week that he has no intention of relaxing his agency’s intrusive new screenings? These include both the hands-on body search (which at least one pilot has compared to “sexual molestation’’), and — for those who would rather be ogled electronically — full-body X-ray scanners that leave nothing to the imagination.

“I’m not going to change those policies,’’ Pistole testified, brushing aside a flood of recent passenger complaints as the price to be paid for security. Why, TSA’s current methods are so effective, he insisted, that had they been in effect last December they would have thwarted Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the al-Qaeda terrorist who tried to blow up a jetliner on Christmas Day with a bomb sewn into his underwear. That would have been quite an achievement, considering that Abdulmutallab was flying into the United States from Europe, and was never screened by TSA.

“There is an ever-evolving nature to terrorist plots,’’ Pistole told the Senate Homeland Security Committee. “It is clear we have to be one step ahead of the terrorists.’’

One step ahead? That isn’t how TSA operates. Knives and sharp objects were banned from carry-on luggage after 9/11, so Richard Reid boarded American Airlines Flight 63 with a bomb built into his shoe. Passengers ever since have had to take off their shoes, so the 2006 Heathrow terrorists came up with a plan to use liquid explosives. TSA responded by confining liquids to tiny containers sealed in baggies, so Abdulmutallab smuggled explosive powder in his underwear. Now TSA scans or feels even air travelers’ nether regions, so terrorists based in Yemen hid two bombs inside printer cartridges and shipped them to addresses in Chicago. TSA promptly responded by announcing that “toner and ink cartridges over 16 ounces will be prohibited on passenger aircraft in both carry-on bags and checked bags.’’ Just who has been staying a step ahead of whom?

Precisely because terrorist plots are “ever-evolving,’’ it is fruitless to keep trying to prevent the last terror attack. Yet that is just what TSA keeps doing. What’s worse, it treats every airline passenger as a potential terrorist who must be searched for weapons — any imaginable weapons — before being allowed to board. That is a crazy system — crazy in its ineffectiveness, in its breathtaking cost, and in the staggering degree of inconvenience and invaded privacy it imposes on innocent passengers. In security expert Bruce Schneier’s cogent term, TSA provides not security, but security theater — “measures that make people feel more secure without doing anything to actually improve their security.’’

Anyone who has traveled through Israel’s Ben Gurion airport or on El Al, the Israeli airline, has experienced what is widely considered the finest aviation security system in the world. That system doesn’t involve taking off shoes, confiscating water bottles, patting down toddlers, or conducting nude X-ray scans. Nor does it involve shutting down an entire terminal because a passenger inadvertently walked through the wrong door.

It does, however, involve careful attention to behavior, individual conversations with every traveler, and a lack of politically-correct inhibitions about profiling. Unlike TSA, the Israelis focus not on intercepting dangerous things, but on stopping dangerous people. It is hard to argue with their results.

The federalization of airline security after 9/11 was a grave mistake. Instead of creating a vast new bureaucracy, Congress should have made the airlines themselves primarily responsible for guaranteeing their customers’ safety, with clear legal liability if they failed. With their bottom lines riding on it, the airlines would have been far more likely than any government agency to figure out how to get security right. Instead we ended up with groin gropes, naked X-rays, and “security’’ procedures that irritate everyone while keeping nobody safe.

The time has come to rethink air-travel safety from the ground up. Eliminating TSA might make a good start.

Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com.

© Copyright 2010 Globe Newspaper Company.

More TSA foolishness

So the director of the TSA thinks the TSA agents who offended John Tyner "did a good job."  Apparently that includes the part where the agents provided Mr Tyner with two different contradictory directions.  But hey, it's the TSA.

In a related comment the TSA thinks whole body scans are not unreasonable search noting that since they are done for a good reason, ie. security, they are therefore reasonable!  Someone ought to have the TSA read a first year law book.  Good intentions do not make a search legally reasonable as the courts have held on many occasions.

Common sense wonders why we continue to allow the TSA to grow and grow and grow while assuming more and more powers that contravene well established law.

Most recent airport security foolishness - body scanners

Body scanners, pat downs prompt traveler backlash

New airport security measures, particularly full-body scanners, are angering many passengers. One man's refusal of the scan has galvanized others across the US.

A video of a passenger refusing to undergo a full-body scan at an airport in San Diego has gone viral, propelling the man, John Tyner, to celebrity status.

His instant fame reflects widespread frustration with increasingly invasive security methods at US airports nine years after the 9/11 attacks.

Tyner was irate about having to either undergo a full-body scan or endure security officials' new pat-down methods, which the Associated Press said now include running hands up the inside of passengers' legs. The New York Times said the more aggressive pat-downs – "in which women's breasts and all passengers' genital areas are patted firmly" – began Nov. 1.

Pilots and crew are among those growing increasingly frustrated with security measures, according to the Associated Press. "I would say that pilots are beyond fed up," pilot Tom Walsh told AP. "The TSA is wasting valuable time and money searching the crew – who are not a threat."

It's been clear for some while that the TSA common sense is an oxymoron.  This is just the latest foolishness out of the TSA. 

For openers lets go back to the events that lead to the TSA.  For those that don't remember, aircraft were hijacked.  The hijackers gained access to the aircraft control cabins and crashed them into the World Trade Centers and the Pentagon in one of the worst acts of terrorism in US history.  Something clearly needed to be done to prevent similar acts in the future.  Something was eventually done, though why it took months is a complete mystery, cockpit doors were reinforced.  Common sense to be sure and it is no longer possible to for a terrorist to enter the cockpit.

Now comes the TSA and enhanced airport security.  Today if you want to fly add 30 minutes to an hour to your travel time to allow for TSA screening.  Oh, don't plan on bring along a tube of toothpaste, a bottle of shampoo, can of shaving cream, etc. from home since the TSA wants to be sure that you don't bring along the chemicals to make a bomb.  Be sure to wear shoes that are easy to take off since the TSA wants to xray your shoes for explosives.  Don't forget to take your belt off.  Oh, be sure and take your laptop out of it's case.  And it you are one of the lucky ones, be prepared for enhanced screening AFTER you go through the metal detector and your luggage has been xrayed! 

Now to be fair, on one hand it's true that there have been no more aircraft hijackings.  What there has been in a continued stream of TSA failures when their 'security' measures are tested by both the TSA and independent testers!  The TSA doesn't like to talk about this but it's true.  Various tests have brought all manner of contraband including guns through TSA.  Oh, while we're in the area lets not forget the demonstrated inability of the TSA to stop contraband brought into the airport by workers! 

While it is true that the TSA's security measures will stop the stupid terrorist it's clearly not true that the TSA's passenger security protocols will stop committed smart terrorist.  What will stop those is on the aircraft.  You do remember that reinforced cockpit door, don't you?  The one that stops a terrorist from gaining entry.

Now the TSA brings us full body scanners and pat downs that in any other context would be sexual assault.  This helps stop what?  Common sense is completely mystified by this one.  It's expensive.  Passengers are offended.  It's unnecessary by any reasonable measure or necessity. And, most importantly, it doesn't stop the threat of someone blowing up an aircraft!  Don't forget that the aircraft controls are already secured behind a reinforced door.

It seems that flight crews are tired of the TSA's nonsense.  That's easy to understand as anyone that flies is tired of the TSA foolishness.  But common sense is offended when the flight crews argue that they are not a threat.  Now, it's likely true that flight crews are not a threat.  It's also likely true that neither are the children that the TSA routinely traumatizes or the millions of passengers still willing to fly!

For my part I've quit flying unless it's absolutely necessary.  I quit when it became clear that it's quicker to drive from Boston to NY than it is to fly.  Don't think so?  Just add the airport time to the drive time and do the math!  When I don't feel like driving I take the train.  It's almost as fast and much more comfortable than flying!  I'm a big fan of nationwide high speed rail.  Don't think it's practical.  Consider that when I was flying weekly between Boston and Atlanta the average ground speed including airport time was roughly 180 MPH.  That's right, three times the interstate speed limit, and less than half the Accela speed!  I even drive to Charlotte from Boston.  It takes roughly 14 hours, a bit more than twice the time it takes to fly when I include dealing with airports and, lets not forget, the TSA, and I don't have to rent a car when I arrive.

All of this is by way of providing a common sense view that the TSA is the poster child for a government entity that is entirely out of control.  Their security measures don't work particularly reliably as evidenced by test.  They are expensive and increasingly offensive and intrusive.  Common sense suggests that the TSA needs to be reigned in and management replaces with someone that has some appreciation of what's necessary and appropriate and what isn't.

Just a common sense POV, rant included.

Another polarized 'wave' election

Another polarized 'wave' election

Moderates fed up with both parties have led to rapid swings in control of Congress - much like the start of the 1900s.

By Thomas Fitzgerald

Inquirer Staff Writer

Read more: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/front_page/20101107_Another_polarized__wave__election.html#ixzz14bpTe0cX
Watch sports videos you won't find anywhere else

Common sense says amen.  Occasionally the news manages to come near getting to the truth.  This article (worth reading) argues that the political middle is fed up with both the left and right given election results over the last couple of decades.  Common sense suggest that that's right.  Neither the radical right nor the liberal left represent the majority of American voters.  Ditto the Republican and Democratic parties. 

The recent election results are not an endorsement or mandate of the Republicans, rather they are a rejection of the politics of gridlock, of obstructionist Republicans and hyper liberal Democrats. 

Common sense suggests that we need real solutions to real problems.  That cutting taxes and spending is not THE solution to all problems.  That less government is not a solution to unbridled big business.  That more regulation doesn't create economic growth.  Common sense suggests that different problems have different solutions.  That some of these solutions involve less government intervention.  That others require more government intervention.  That neither the Republicans and the Democrats  represent what is best for America.  That it is time, long past time, for a third centrist political party that can govern in the interest of the majority political middle.

Tollerance, Tea Party, or None Of The Above

This video has been making the rounds and is interesting on several levels.  I put it on my Facebook page and got several comments.

First, I'll have to admit, there's a fair bit of common sense truth in the video and is funny!  But, that said, when I thought about it a bit I found troubling.  It's not that the arguments it makes about the issues aren't reasonable, they are, but rather that in the end it turns to ridicule.  Now, it is certainly true that much of what the radical right says is ridiculous and easily subject to ridicule.  But does that make everything they say ridiculous?  I don't think it does.

Consider the "tax and spend" notion.  My marginal tax rate when I add up all the taxes I pay is slightly more than 50%.  No kidding!  Don't think so?  Just add up your state, federal, property, sales, and excise taxes and see where you land.  History teaches that when marginal taxes exceed somewhere between 30%  and 40% of income societies become unstable and ultimately fail.  Don't think it's happening here?  Go back and look at the video, consider the 215,000 people that showed up for the "Sanity" rally, or those that showed up for the "Tea Party."  Common sense wonders if that reflects stability?

So perhaps the radical right has is reasonable in some of their issues.  Common sense suggest that the cause of a civil society can best be advanced by being civil even when engaged in humorous ridicule.  Just a POV.

Voting, campaign finance, and none

Voting would mean a lot more if one didn't have to hold your nose and could vote for someone actually qualified for office.  It would also make a good deal of common sense if campaigns were not financed by entities that can not vote in the election.  Want to change politics, change campaign financing.  I'm also a fan of the notion that "none of the above" should be a choice is all elections.  If "none" wins then we get a "do over" with new candidates.  Want to change politics, allow voters to just say no and require a new slate of candidates.  Just a common sense POV.

Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear

Stewart, Colbert preside over lighthearted, star-studded rally

By the CNN Wire Staff

October 30, 2010 6:38 p.m. EDT

He was speaking of what he called "the country's 24-hour politico pundit perpetual panic conflictinator." It did not cause the nation's problems, Stewart said, "but its existence makes solving them that much harder ... If we amplify everything, we hear nothing."

"There are terrorists and racists and Stalinists and theocrats, but those are titles that must be earned," Stewart said. "You must have the resume. Not being able to distinguish between real racists and tea partiers, or real bigots and Juan Williams or Rick Sanchez is an insult, not only to those people, but to the racists themselves, who have put in the exhausting effort it takes to hate -- just as the inability to distinguish terrorists from Muslims makes us less safe, not more."
Most Americans, he said, don't live their lives solely as Republicans or Democrats, but as "people who are just a little bit late for something they have to do, often something they do not want to do. But they do it."

Some may paint the nation as fragile and torn by hate, he said, "but the truth is ... we work together to get things done every damn day."

Common sense says AMEN.  We should work together to get things done.  Some 215,000 or so Americans of a variety of persuasions showed up for a "non-political" gathering.  While common sense might despair that our elected congress might be influenced by 215,000 voters on their doorstep as opposed to campaign contributions from vested interest, we can all hope that at some point after tomorrow, common sense working together for the interest of the American people might come first, not last.

Common sense says that it doesn't really matter if you are Republican, Democrat, or Unaffiliated.  If you want to change things the sign says it all.