Schneier on Security

Airport Observer • November 30, 2007 4:15 AM

This has become a virus in the air travel business. At root it is a political power statement which started off small and then due to the vote-getter of providing jobs in the form of a new Government Agency, became what it is today, a denial of freedom in America and a contradiction of the Constitution. Letters to Law Professors, Senators, Congressmen, Airport Managers, and requests for a formal grievance brought no response and not even any assurance that the next Presidential election would alleviate the problem. The key is that it forces an unprofessional appearance on people in public, whereas the term used by the Judges “administrative search” is of overly broad scope and obviously is in conflict with the Constitution, inasmuch as it allows the government agency workers to go through people’s pockets without the “reasonable suspicion” well-known in law to be required for an arrest. The airport, is it a “public building”, that is in the sense of a government building, museum, city hall, municipal center, court, sports stadium, theater, etc.?
The answers to my letters seem to state that they, meaning the Government, can impose these “administrative searches” wherever “deemed necessary”. The paranoia has, to some extent, proliferated into private buildings, the Capital Hill buildings, museums and elsewhere. It’s a police-state type psychology something like a cultural mental illness. The airport security has been proven to be ineffective against carried-on items as demonstrated recently on TV by CBS undercover people. How can powder or solid or liquid devices of advanced technical design be detected by the X-ray machines? Who can believe that the X-ray shoe scan works either before or after the embarassed passenger is ordered to carry-out the unprofessional disrobement? Who can believe that every baggage item can be
checked in the non-carry-on luggage?
The illegal procedures are not professional security methods, but in reality are proceeding from financial systems related to government budgets.
There are “shoe check” machines in use in some foreign airports which circumvent the act of indecent exposure being forced on people in the airports, but again, you can’t tell what kind of powder or other explosive or whatever they’ll come up with, which would get through such machines, in any case.
The main point is, the enforcers have their salaries based on keeping the airport checkers and scanning machine people, and everyone else, including the
Government, Congress and Supreme Court on line with a mistaken notion.
It is extremely expensive, not just monetarily but also for reason of lost time, prestige, and anxiety on the part of the passengers, who have their rights as fare-payers, not withstanding insurance issues, in any case. So, if you were worried at all or signifigantly, wouldn’t it make sense to ignore the scare-publicity to turn to insurance? We all know the Airlines and the Government who are responsible for the paranoid reaction are completely insured, but we are not. Moreover, it has been fueled by the oil crisis and foreign politics to such an extent that security is not the real issue, but only the continuence of financial support for the subversive system it has unwittingly become.