I think he nailed it right here:<p><i>In my boyhood, there were signs on English buses that declared, in bold letters, "No Spitting." At a tender age, I was able to work out that most people don't need to be told this, while those who do feel a desire to expectorate on public transport will require more discouragement than a mere sign. But I'd be wasting my time pointing this out to our majestic and sleepless protectors, who now boldly propose to prevent airline passengers from getting out of their seats for the last hour of any flight. Abdulmutallab made his bid in the last hour of his flight, after all. Yes, that ought to do it.</i>
I feel like the way the TSA is responding to all of this should be familiar to anybody that has ever worked in IT.<p>It's a lot like the people who refuse to use OSS software (with some exceptions like redhat) because it doesn't come with a service contract; when something goes wrong, there is nothing to point at and go "See! We did everything we should have to prevent this!"<p>The TSA doesn't want to look like a bunch of idiots if something like this happens again because they did nothing to prevent it.<p>With this, they're doing <i>something</i> and people, on some level, like it or are at least comforted by it.
The sooner people realize that there is no such thing* as extremist terrorism, the better. (* statistically speaking) The only success of modern terrorism has been the media terrorizing us into spending money on expensive, needless security equipment, government programs (TSA, DHS), and baseless wars abroad. Obviously the reward structure is complicated as the media does not make these devices, run these programs, or wage these wars, but none of these expenses would be plausible without the constant yelling that emanates from every media device I encounter.<p>I mean, think about this: the poor terrorists-that-we-call-terrorists <i>blow themselves up</i> ... and we don't even listen to their message. (Which is usually "hey, leave us alone pls, kthnxboom") Then some yokel gets his 15 minutes to tell us how we need to spend billions on something he's getting kickbacks for. Who here is using terror more effectively?<p>Once the public has realized that there is (statistically) no root-cause terrorism, we can have appropriately relaxed security once again. And more money.
I think people are rightly responding more to the stupidity of the new security measures than their ineffectiveness. Those are slightly different.<p>We can debate the usefulness of a security measure, but the real problem is that the TSA is acting as if this was some kind of unknown attack vector. What have we learned that we didn't know before? Did we not know that people could hide explosives in their underwear, or in their body, or, to take just one more example, in prosthetic limbs? Is this news to anyone? So why the new rules?<p>Since these are all long-known methods of attacking an airplane, it makes no sense for the TSA to wait until an actual attack to implement "preventative" measures. Either implement the measures long beforehand or decide they're not useful and never implement them. What they're doing is like waiting for your hard drive to crash before you make backups.
I was nodding my head throughout most of this article until I got to this:<p><i>"the pledged supporters of a wicked theocratic ideology. These people will kill themselves to attack hotels, weddings, buses, subways, cinemas, and trains. They consider Jews, Christians, Hindus, women, homosexuals, and dissident Muslims (to give only the main instances) to be divinely mandated slaughter victims."</i><p>This kind of insane toeing of the official line of good vs. evil is exactly the counter-productive foolishness that allows the security services to carry on with their ridiculous "responses" to these events.<p>Putting our heads into the sand about the actions WE have taken and supported in the past 100 years that have motivated these attacks does no one more disservice than ourselves. Just a few weeks back there was an extremely revealing article with statistics on the number of Muslim civilians directly killed by American forces in the past 30 years and vice versa.<p>Even when these attackers ARE explicitly motivated by religion, it is on the basis of worldwide injustices of our government that that religious motivation is invoked. It is never a question of killing because that is all Americans are good for, as is often implied in pieces like this.
Interesting interview with Bruce Schneier here: <a href="http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/bruce_schneier_on_the.php" rel="nofollow">http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/12/bruc...</a><p>FTA: "A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy our country's way of life; it's only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage."
The TSA leadership consists of bright, passionate, dedicated individuals. I doubt any of us, given the information and resources at their command, could make significantly better decisions than they have.<p>I read Bruce Schneir's interview with Kip Hawley back in 2007, and came away with the belief that we have a team in place that has some significant knowledge of managing aviation security:<p><a href="http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.schneier.com/interview-hawley.html</a><p>As for what happened on Christmas, Bruce concisely describes a fairly common mantra about aviation security:<p>"Basically, there are three broad ways of defending airplanes: preventing bad people from getting on them (ID checks), preventing bad objects from getting on them (passenger screening, baggage screening), and preventing bad things from happening on them (reinforcing the cockpit door, sky marshals)."<p>And, with the exception of not getting millimeter-wave/back-scatter technology in place for full body scanning (which would have trivially caught the Christmas underwear bomber - and the lack of this technology at security checkpoints is perhaps the one real-failure of the TSA), I think the TSA has done an admirable job.<p>Note - one thing most people don't understand, is that by creating a rule which states "You must sit down in the last hour of flight" - the goal isn't to prevent mad-bombers from standing up, it's to make it very clear which ones the mad bombers are for the Sky Marshals and Airline crew - it's for a week, and the rule (hopefully) is given a pass for those who clearly need to go to the washroom, need a blanket, etc...
Reality: With a few hot water bottles strapped around me, I could get staggering amounts of liquid onto a plane. I would theorize that VERY few people have both the skills and the desire to actually suicide bomb (or even hijack) a plane... Otherwise, why isn't it happening more often?<p>Planes running into buildings are pretty spectacular, but even if we removed ALL security measures, airport security would be WAY down on the list of things that result in needless death.<p>There are infinite cheap/free ways to terrorize people if you're willing to die. There is no way to be secure from it short of spending gazillions on preventative measures.<p>Being terrorized by lunatics will always be a cost of being hated. We should stop spending significant money on it, consider it a painful cost of being free/prosperous, and focus on not being so worthy of hate.
I'm getting really sick of these articles about how stupid airline security is. This type of complaining is in the same vein as end-users bitching about how the IT department locks down their computers and forces them to change their passwords. We're not the experts here, and more importantly, <i>we're not the one who have to clean up the mess after a terrorist attack.</i><p>The fact is that we have had a history of ignoring early warning signs, and that when we have taken action, we have been succesful. Terrorists make mistakes, and when we ignore them (like the Bojinka plot), it has directly led to disaster (9/11). On the other hand, since lugagge scanning has improved, we rarely see bombings like Lockerby or Air India any longer.<p>I think the end-user vs. IT department analogy is one anyone who agreed with this article should ponder on. When a low-level employee causes a security breach, he's not the one who has to deal with the effects. The experts have to come in and fix the problem, andm management has to bear the responsibility.<p>Similarly, in the event of an airline catasrophe, it's the emergency services who have to pick through the wreckage andook for bodies; the airlines and their employees who suffer financially. Pilots and flight attendants who know they are at highest risk, due to the ime the spend in the air. And leaders of countries, who can have their entire presidency redefined in a single day.<p>I'd rather hear their opinions than those of a professional troll lime Hitchens.
I thought that the following comment (second from the top) on the story was interesting and bared partially repeating below. I'm not saying that the TSA should be issued automatic rifles, just that it's thought provoking:<p><i>After that, it was a third metal detector (not x-ray this time) and finally a full on frisk by another representative of the national military. Let me tell you, this was not a friendly pat, pat like what TSA gives you. This was a full on search like I was an enemy prisoner that they were concerned had a knife hidden somewhere on me.<p>After all of that, they stuck me in a windowless room with all of the other passengers until our flight was ready to board (About 1/2 an hour). There were no shops, no bathrooms, and only one room with men and women with automatic rifles posted at the exits.<p>What it gave me the impression of was people who had had issues with hijacking and terrorism before and REALLY didn't want it to happen again. People who didn't give a shit if I was inconvenienced or annoyed because they knew that it would be far more of an inconvenience for me if some asshole blew the plane up over the ocean somewhere.</i>
<i>For many years after the explosion of the TWA plane over Long Island (a disaster that was later found to have nothing at all to do with international religious nihilism), you could not board an aircraft without being asked whether you had packed your own bags and had them under your control at all times.</i><p>Is this true? TWA Flight 800 crashed in 1996. Weren't screeners asking passengers if they packed their own luggage before this?<p>I believe Hitchens is also wrong on the second point here:<p><i>These two questions are the very ones to which a would-be hijacker or bomber would honestly and logically have to answer "yes." But answering "yes" to both was a condition of being allowed on the plane! Eventually, that heroic piece of stupidity was dropped as well.</i><p>My understanding was always that this question was designed to weed out any cases where a second party might have covertly sneaked explosives into your luggage without your knowledge.
Perhaps a bit off topic, but I'm curious what others think about the idea of privatizing airport security and getting rid of the TSA.<p>In other words, let each airline compete (and innovate) with it's own security solutions, and spend it's own money to implement them. This would essentially bring the power of the free market to bear on the problem. A terrorist getting onto United (for example) with a bomb would be a huge PR problem and a mark against the <i>airline</i> not the TSA, causing them to lose business and competitors to scramble to learn/capitalize on it.<p>As it stands if you have a complaint against how the TSA is handling things, there isn't much you can do. But if airlines provided their own security, passengers could "vote with their dollars" on who was finding the right mix of effective security vs. inconvenience to honest passengers, and the best solution would be rewarded economically.<p>Btw, I realize this would probably never happen given the political climate, but I also can't think of any reason why it wouldn't work better than the TSA. Thoughts?
The sad reality is that we've more or less given our government emergency powers to issue such ludicrous directives to the airlines and for what? Some semblance of security? I guess Ma and Pa Kettle feel more safe on the airlines on their one round-trip flight they take every two years to see the grand kiddies but for those of us who fly more than that, it's a pain in ass and we're smart enough to realize where the holes are in security. I've heard plenty of instances of people bringing things that they didn't expect they could through security by mistake.<p>Our representatives in government aren't going to revoke these powers any time soon unless we ask them to.
El Al is frequently tossed out as an example of great security, but, really, they aren't that impressive:<p>o They have a grand total of 37 airplanes in their fleet.<p>o They engage in aggressive racial profiling.<p>o Their passenger pattern typically consists of people flying to and from Israel. It's pretty straightforward to identify the aberration in that crowd.<p>o By simply using the filter of "You are likely among the racial/ethnic/cultural target-crowd that is likely to be a terrorist" and then applying selective screening, you pretty much eliminate a fairly major vector for attack.<p>Admittedly, one of the reasons why profiling takes place at El Al, is that is because it works for that particular target. The United States, even if it were willing to engage in profiling, has a much broader set of attackers - you'd end up finding everyone included in your profile.<p>But, because the United States doesn't have the same straightforward problem of identifying who the _attackers_ are, they need to engage in "defense in depth" that El Al has the luxury of not requiring. Ergo - no large volumes of liquids (Note - the bottle size maximum is likely related to the highly oxygen reactive properties of the target liquids - you can't really combine them into one large bomb after the security checkpoint - and the small bottles aren't large enough to do _too_ much damage. A few people might be killed, or seriously injured - but it's unlikely you could bring a plane down within the restrictions of the TSA liquid size)<p>Shoes, likewise, with their metal inserts and large and easily concealed compartments, need to be scanned in the X-Ray machine.<p>Here are some simple steps that would dramatically increase security:<p>o Eliminate Carry On Luggage. This would be an issue on long flights for the work crowd though, as well as people carrying food/supplies for babies, anything valuable that they don't want to check, and people with medical requirements. Some Canadian Ports of entry were effectively doing that this week though.<p>o Full Body Scans with Back-Scatter/Millimeter Wave scans. This is way overdue, and the number one tactical failure of the TSA. Start your stopwatch - within 48 months 100% of inbound international passengers will be subject to some type of Full Body Scan or Pat Down. It will be interesting to see if the same thing will occur domestically.<p>o Full Pat-Down for all passengers - They actually did this at YVR a couple days ago. Slowed things down a little, but that's because they didn't have enough staff to do it quickly. They need to get over their tendency not to search sensitive areas if they want to ensure it's done with 100% effectivness.<p>o Bomb Sniffers/Dogs - I'm surprised nobody has automated this more effectively yet.<p>Note that any _one_ of these last three would have caught the Christmas Underwear Bomber - in fact, would likely have dissuaded him, and a large class of attackers, in the first place.