Category: Travel Security / TSA

The answer, to my mind, is "No." But that comes with an observation and an alternative.

The article states:

'Fearmongers might howl, but abolishing the agency wouldn’t make air travel less secure. Given the TSA’s 95 percent failure rate, it would likely make it more secure. The airlines themselves should bear the chief responsibility for protecting planes and passengers at airports. After all, they have powerful financial incentives to ensure that flights are free of danger, while at the same time minimizing the indignities to which customers are subjected. Their bottom line would be at stake. The TSA feels no such spur.'

Ah, yes, the "for-profit is smarter and more effective than public leeches" argument.

But privatized, airport-based security is what we had pre-9/11, and my memory is not so short as to remember what a shambles that was, with minimal standards enforced willy-nilly by cheapest-bidder rent-a-cops. Those "powerful incentives" existed then and, frankly, the airlines and airports were much more responsive to not inconveniencing paying customers.

Hijackings, terrorist attacks, those are all one-off and rare events that no sane business plan spends more than the minimal amount of money on. Turning the security of airplanes back over to folk who are more interested in this quarter's earnings (and consumer ratings) is not a good idea.

Especially if those firms are required to enforce the same security regulations and requirements that the TSA does. Because that's where the real problem lies: what we are currently doing for airport security is not just annoying, but of dubious effectiveness. While the lack of a major terrorist attack on commercial airliners since 9/11 might imply that the TSA is doing something right, tests of how poorly they are behaving demonstrate that the threat out there must not actually be all that high. If Evil Terrorists were out to blow up or take over planes, the craptastic detection numbers at the security checkpoints demonstrate that's not how they are trying to do it.

So let's go on lopping off heads at the top, where the buck stops, but let's also re-evaluate what we're actually doing at those airport check points. Yeah, it's embarrassing to go back and say, "Maybe we don't need to put everyone through those disintegration chambers we spent gazillions of dollars on, so let's take them out," but that conversation needs to take place no matter who's paying the paychecks of the folk manning the checkpoints.

Figuring out a more effective, and sustainable, passenger security check regimen should be step 1. Replacing the TSA has little to do with that, and arguably will be a hindrance since for-profit privatizing of that security process will be motivated by primarily by something other than security. Reform what we are asking the TSA to do first, before discussing who best can do it.

Time to close the TSA – The Boston Globe

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That said, a couple of thoughts:

1. If we deem weapon detection (to choose a metric) to be vital, then what is the magic target that we want airport security (of whatever sort) to find? 10%? 25%? 50%? 95%? 100% ?

What level of intrusiveness and delay are we willing to take in order to reach that metric (esp. since one method of detection being successful will spawn alternatives to penetrate it)? Are there in fact more effective ways than what are being used?

What level of detection is sufficient to deter hypothetical terrorists?

2. The TSA gets a lot of grief over this, and rightfully so. But it's often done with an eye toward "if only we had competent airport security people taking care of this," which is a different matter. Recall that craptastic security pre-9/11 was one of the things that led to that event. Airports bought the cheapest rent-a-cops they could, with minimal training, to brush the donut crumbs off their bulging uniform shirts while squinting at the bag x-rays.

TSA may not being performing well, but the idea that they are easily replaceable with others who can (especially depending on the metrics we are looking for) is not well-founded.

3. Is a better metric "how many planes have been hijacked since 9/11"? Because, in that case, the TSA is doing fantastically. Maybe they are just lucky. Maybe they are more effective behind the scenes than any single layer of security indicates. Maybe there is something to the security theater. Maybe there just aren't that many suicidal / terroristic hijackers out there to be afraid of.

If that is the metric, then, again, what is the expected level of performance?

I don't have any easy answers to this. We know there are (or have been) people willing to hijack planes and drive them into buildings, or blow them up, or other anti-social acts — but also there aren't very many of them. Assuming we want to stop them, or some substantial part of them, what are we asking airport security to do, and what are we willing to put up with to do it?

The current arrangement doesn't seem successful, except in the metric of lives lost from hijackings / airplane bombings since 9/11. Is that sufficient? If not, aside from sniping at the apparent incompetence of the TSA (a sport I enjoy as much as the next air traveler), what is proposed instead?

TSA airport screeners’ ability to detect weapons declared “pitiful”
Security measures under “full system review.” Agency considering using dogs.

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Clearing your throat? Looking nervous? Recently shaved your beard? Wearing inappropriate clothing to the airport?

Just step over this way, sir.

On the one hand, looking for people displaying "suspicious behavior" seems common sense. On the other hand …

… a lot of the behaviors are pretty common at an airport, especially with people who don't like to fly, who find the TSA checkpoints intimidating or irksome or frightening, who are late for their flight, or who are just having a bad day.

… there's no evidence that the SPOT program, or others like it, actually spot actually dangerous people. Because the numbers of actually dangerous people are so freaking small.

This explanation for the program seems much more plausible:

'One former Behavior Detection Officer manager, who asked not to be identified, said that SPOT indicators are used by law enforcement to justify pulling aside anyone officers find suspicious, rather than acting as an actual checklist for specific indicators. “The SPOT sheet was designed in such a way that virtually every passenger will exhibit multiple ‘behaviors’ that can be assigned a SPOT sheet value,” the former manager said.'

In other words, it's the "loitering" or "being rude to a police officer" or "you were weaving a bit" or "your tail light is out" justification for either a gut hunch that someone's a suspicious individual, or else to apply more subjective and less justifiable reasons for further investigation or harassment (e.g., swarthy skin).

(h/t +Steve S)

Exclusive: TSA’s Secret Behavior Checklist to Spot Terrorists – The Intercept
Fidgeting, whistling, sweaty palms. These are just a few of the suspicious signs that the Transportation Security Administration directs its officers to look out for in airport travelers, according to a confidential document obtained exclusively by The Intercept.

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