The GAO regularly audits the TSA by trying to get firearms and other contraband through security. They consistently get a lot through without the TSA noticing:<p><a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-screeners/story?id=12412458" rel="nofollow">http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/loaded-gun-slips-past-tsa-scre...</a>
...But as you can see, Senator, there is also no evidence of the guaranteed absence of terrorist plots either. They are obviously even better hidden than we feared. Increased resources will be required to bring them to light. Our department has drafted a new budget proposal that takes this changed situation into account.
I'm a huge critic of the TSA and would be thrilled to see it dismantled, but I always find these kinds of arguments a little intellectually dishonest. It could be that “terrorist threat groups present in the Homeland are not known to be actively plotting against civil aviation targets or airports” <i>because</i> we have scanners in place that deter that kind of threat.<p>Now, I don't believe this is the case, as plenty of research has shown that the scanners don't increase security, but the "no active threat" argument by itself doesn't get us very far. By that logic, we should remove security at Fort Knox because it never gets robbed.
But couldn't it be argued that the use of body-scanners functions as a form of strong deterrent for potential plots? If a potential terrorist understands that they will eventually be caught or that the stakes to beat the system are too high, they will look at alternative forms of terrorism simply because the investment to beat airport security is too high.
If I were trying to champion a legitimate cause, I would steer way clear of acknowledging Infowars by name or calling them "journalists."<p>You could just say that a third party discovered it or something, but you definitely don't want to imply that they're fighting the good fight alongside you.
Link owner here. I love it when my posts get submitted to HN so fast that I don't even have a chance to share it. ;) Happy to answer any questions.
This post has been moderated down for some reason. Generally, posts on HN appear on the front page based on a calculation of upvotes per unit time. This post has a better ratio than all of the posts above it, yet about 20 minutes ago got bumped down from #1 to #14.<p>Lame.
From my horizon the entire security debacle have never been about actually keeping the populations safe - it's there to keep them worried about "the enemy" and keep them compliant with both funding requests and authorities in general.<p>As of today neither USA or countries in western Europe can be considered police states.<p>But if we keep on travelling in the same direction we are going now, that's where we'll end up.
I know I'm throwing my karma down the toilet here but domestic-sourced airline terrorism <i>has</i> happened before. The TSA (edit: OK, whoever it was that scanned our bags and ran us through the metal detector, if it was not "the TSA") was unaware of 9/11 as well. Argue all you want that we should just tolerate the occasional 9/11-style (edit: or the random pipe bomb blowing out the side of the plane, cockpit doors can't protect against that) event as the price of freedom, but if there were no airline security, you can be sure events <i>will</i> occur.
Perhaps what the actually conclusion one should take from this memo is not that terrorists don't exist, clearly they do, but rather that those terrorists are now focusing on softer targets, because aviation is seen as too difficult. I realize this may be an unpopular opinion, because let's face it the TSA searches are demeaning and some might argue an invasion of privacy. But it seems like a non sequitur to say that because terrorists aren't focusing on aviation that they don't exist. Maybe aviation is hard to hit, and they want to focus on easier targets like shooting up malls.<p>Perhaps what's happenng here is that terrorists would like to target aviation, but TSA is doing just a good enough job to dissuade them. I know, blasphemy. The government can't do anything right.