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.

Arizona: Getting serious about illegal immigration

So the Arizona legislature has passed a law designed to help address illegal immigration. Briefly the law does two things. First, it requires that immigrants carry their alien registration documents at all times. Second, it requires police to question people if there's reason to suspect that there are illegal immigrants. Third, it imposes penalties on those who hire illegal immigrants or knowingly transport them.

This law has caused something of a furor to say the least.

President Obama has indicated that the Justice Department would investigate civil rights violations that might arise from a new law. That said, he also observed that "Our failure to act responsibly at the federal level will only open the door to irresponsibility by others. And that includes, for example, the recent efforts in Arizona, which threatened to undermine basic notions of fairness that we cherish as Americans." Clearly Mr. Obama doesn't much care for the law. He is, of course, entitled to his opinion and he is entitled to use the Federal Government to monitor the law, or even challenge the law in federal court. It is, however, telling that even the President notes that the Federal Government has, in fact, failed to actually effectively enforce existing immigration laws. Indeed, the Federal Government has on several occasions acted to prohibit local and state governments from enforcing existing Federal immigration laws!

Understandably, Arizona and several other states are concerned by the continuing flood, I'm tempted to call it invasion, of illegal immigrants. Since the Federal Government has not enforced existing laws, Arizona, I'm tempted to say quite sensibly, decided to give police the power to take a very modest action - ask for proof of immigration status IF there is reasonable cause. On its face that seems an entirely common sense step.

It is, of course, as many have pointed out subject to abuse. That's a legitimate concern, particularly when law enforcement has a history of being abusive (one need only remember a woman traveling with her infirmed mother who was stopped by the Federal TSA over some baby food in a cooler for her mother then charged with assault over snatching her cooler out of the hands of a TSA agent after the offending baby food was already thrown away, arrested, strip searched, jailed, and subject to prosecution, but hey that's the TSA). While misuse is certainly an entirely sensible concern I'd note the following common sense observations. First, when I get a job, I need to provide proof of citizenship today. That's required under existing Federal law. Second, absent anything remotely like effective immigration enforcement, serious crime in border states has, in fact, increased. We might not like it, but as CNN is fond of point out, facts are neither red or blue.

Now some say what we need is comprehensive immigration reform including a path to citizenship for those currently in the country illegally. But wait, we've done that at least three times that I can remember in the last 50 years. Common sense suggest that we already have more than enough immigration laws. When we don't enforce them though, all we do is invite illegal immigration. Worse, we actively participate in creation of an underclass of workers that are far to often misused by employers as was the case recently in New England at a factory that, wait for it, made US military equipment. In my common sense view, it's not simply wrong to take advantage of illegal immigrants, it's immoral and certainly not Americana.

The Arizona law has a long overdue provision to punish those who employ illegal immigrants. That entirely common sense provision and enforcement of existing provisions is long overdue. Illegal immigrants come to the United States in large part for a combination of economic, read jobs, and civil, read a working society, reasons. Removing the economic incentive will certainly reduce the reasons to illegal enter the United States and thus the number of illegal immigrants. Additionally it will punish those who prey on illegal immigrants.

Finally, the Arizona law has a provision that sensibly punishes those who knowingly transport illegal immigrants. I have on any number of occasions seen illegal immigrants clustered at day labor sites waiting for someone to come along and offer them a below minimum wage cash job. It is simply wrong to allow this to continue.

So what does common sense suggest about the Arizona law. Is it a good law? Well, that depends on how/if it is enforced. Is it subject to abuse? Absolutely, but it hasn't been abused yet and there are provisions to address abuse if/when it occurs. Does illegal immigration need to be controlled? Absolutely, we are being invaded. If you don't think so just checkout the six illegal Hispanics that were working for cash for a contractor to the cable company in Charlotte that I ran into in my parents back yard. Is the Federal Government, they after all are responsible for immigration, enforcing existing immigration laws? No, not even close. Should they? Yes.