Entries Tagged "homeland security"

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Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 3)

This is Part 3 of a five-part series. Link to whole thing.

BS: Let’s talk about ID checks. I’ve called the no-fly list a list of people so dangerous they cannot be allowed to fly under any circumstance, yet so innocent we can’t arrest them even under the Patriot Act. Except that’s not even true; anyone, no matter how dangerous they are, can fly without an ID ­or by using someone else’s boarding pass. And the list itself is filled with people who shouldn’t be on it—dead people, people in jail, and so on—and primarily catches innocents with similar names. Why are you bothering?

KH: Because it works. We just completed a scrub of every name on the no-fly list and cut it in half—essentially cleaning out people who were no longer an active terror threat. We do not publicize how often the no-fly system stops people you would not want on your flight. Several times a week would low-ball it.

Your point about the no-ID and false boarding pass people is a great one. We are moving people who have tools and training to get at that problem. The bigger issue is that TSA is moving in the direction of security that picks up on behavior versus just keying on what we see in your bag. It really would be security theater if all we did was try to find possible weapons in that crunched fifteen seconds and fifteen feet after you anonymously walk through the magnetometer. We do a better job, with less aggravation of ordinary passengers, if we put people-based layers further ahead in the process—behavior observation based on involuntary, observable muscle behavior, canine teams, document verification, etc.

BS: We’ll talk about behavioral profiling later; no fair defending one security measure by pointing to another, completely separate, one. How can you claim ID cards work? Like the liquid ban, all it does is annoy innocent travelers without doing more than inconveniencing any future terrorists. Is it really good enough for you to defend me from terrorists too dumb to Google “print your own boarding pass”?

KH: We are getting at the fake boarding pass and ID issues with our proposal to Congress that would allow us to replace existing document checkers with more highly trained people with tools that would close those gaps. Without effective identity verification, watch lists don’t do much, so this is a top priority.

Having highly trained TSOs performing the document checking function closes a security gap, adds another security layer, and pushes TSA’s security program out in front of the checkpoint.

BS: Let’s move on. Air travelers think you’re capricious. Remember in April when the story went around about the Princeton professor being on a no-fly list because he spoke out against President Bush? His claims were easily debunked, but the real story is that so many people believed it. People believe political activity puts them on the list. People are afraid to complain about being mistreated at checkpoints because they’re afraid it puts them on a list. Is there anything you can do to make this process more transparent?

KH: We need some help on this one. This is the biggest public pain point, dwarfing shoes and baggies.

First off, TSA does not add people to the watch-lists, no matter how cranky you are at a checkpoint. Second, political views have nothing to do with no-flys or selectees. These myths have taken on urban legend status. There are very strict criteria and they are reviewed by lots of separate people in separate agencies: it is for live terror concerns only. The problem comes from random selectees (literally mathematically random) or people who have the same name and birth date as real no-flys. If you can get a boarding pass, you are not on the no-fly list. This problem will go away when Secure Flight starts in 2008, but we can’t seem to shake the false impression that ordinary Americans get put on a “list.” I am open for suggestions on how to make the public “get it.”

BS: It’s hard to believe that there could be hundreds of thousands of people meeting those very strict criteria, and that’s after the list was cut in half! I know the TSA does not control the no-fly and watch lists, but you’re the public face of those lists. You’re the aspect of homeland security that people come into direct contact with. Some people might find out they’re on the list by being arrested, or being shipped off to Syria for torture, but most people find out they’re on the list by being repeatedly searched and questioned for hours at airports.

The main problem with the list is that it’s secret. Who is on the list is secret. Why someone’s on is secret. How someone can get off is secret. There’s no accountability and there’s no transparency. Of course this kind of thing induces paranoia. It’s the sort of thing you read about in history books about East Germany and other police states.

The best thing you can do to improve the problem is redress. People need the ability to see the evidence against them, challenge their accuser, and have a hearing in a neutral court. If they’re guilty of something, arrest them. And if they’re innocent, stop harassing them. It’s basic liberty.

I don’t actually expect you to fix this; the problem is larger than the TSA. But can you tell us something about redress? It’s been promised to us for years now.

KH: Redress issues are divided into two categories: people on the no-fly list and people who have names similar to them.

In our experience, the first group is not a heavy user of the redress process. They typically don’t want anything to do with the U.S. government. Still, if someone is either wrongly put on or kept on, the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) removes him or her immediately. In fact, TSA worked with the TSC to review every name, and that review cut the no-fly list in half. Having said that, once someone is really on the no-fly list, I totally agree with what you said about appeal rights. This is true across the board, not just with no-flys. DHS has recently consolidated redress for all DHS activities into one process called DHS TRIP. If you are mistaken for a real no-fly, you can let TSA know and we provide your information to the airlines, who right now are responsible for identifying no-flys trying to fly. Each airline uses its own system, so some can get you cleared to use kiosks, while others still require a visit to the ticket agent. When Secure Flight is operating, we’ll take that in-house at TSA and the problem should go away.

BS: I still don’t see how that will work, as long as the TSA doesn’t have control over who gets on or off the list.

Part 4: Registered Traveler and behavioral profiling

Posted on August 1, 2007 at 6:12 AM • View Comments

Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of a five-part series. Link to whole thing.

BS: I hope you’re telling the truth; screening is a difficult problem, and it’s hard to discount all of those published tests and reports. But a lot of the security around these checkpoints is about perception—we want potential terrorists to think there’s a significant chance they won’t get through the checkpoints—so you’re better off maintaining that the screeners are better than reports indicate, even if they’re not.

Backscatter X-ray is another technology that is causing privacy concerns, since it basically allows you to see people naked. Can you explain the benefits of the technology, and what you are doing to protect privacy? Although the machines can distort the images, we know that they can store raw, unfiltered images; the manufacturer Rapiscan is quite proud of the fact. Are the machines you’re using routinely storing images? Can they store images at the screener’s discretion, or is that capability turned off at installation?

KH: We’re still evaluating backscatter and are in the process of running millimeter wave portals right alongside backscatter to compare their effectiveness and the privacy issues. We do not now store images for the test phase (function disabled), and although we haven’t officially resolved the issue, I fully understand the privacy argument and don’t assume that we will store them if and when they’re widely deployed.

BS: When can we keep our shoes on?

KH: Any time after you clear security. Sorry, Bruce, I don’t like it either, but this is not just something leftover from 2002. It is a real, current concern. We’re looking at shoe scanners and ways of using millimeter wave and/or backscatter to get there, but until the technology catches up to the risk, the shoes have to go in the bin.

BS: This feels so much like “cover your ass” security: you’re screening our shoes because everyone knows Richard Reid hid explosives in them, and you’ll be raked over the coals if that particular plot ever happens again. But there are literally thousands of possible plots.

So when does it end? The terrorists invented a particular tactic, and you’re defending against it. But you’re playing a game you can’t win. You ban guns and bombs, so the terrorists use box cutters. You ban small blades and knitting needles, and they hide explosives in their shoes. You screen shoes, so they invent a liquid explosive. You restrict liquids, and they’re going to do something else. The terrorists are going to look at what you’re confiscating, and they’re going to design a plot to bypass your security.

That’s the real lesson of the liquid bombers. Assuming you’re right and the explosive was real, it was an explosive that none of the security measures at the time would have detected. So why play this slow game of whittling down what people can bring onto airplanes? When do you say: “Enough. It’s not about the details of the tactic; it’s about the broad threat”?

KH: In late 2005, I made a big deal about focusing on Improvised Explosives Devices (IEDs) and not chasing all the things that could be used as weapons. Until the liquids plot this summer, we were defending our decision to let scissors and small tools back on planes and trying to add layers like behavior detection and document checking, so it is ironic that you ask this question—I am in vehement agreement with your premise. We’d rather focus on things that can do catastrophic harm (bombs!) and add layers to get people with hostile intent to highlight themselves. We have a responsibility, though, to address known continued active attack methods like shoes and liquids and, unfortunately, have to use our somewhat clunky process for now.

BS: You don’t have a responsibility to screen shoes; you have one to protect air travel from terrorism to the best of your ability. You’re picking and choosing. We know the Chechnyan terrorists who downed two Russian planes in 2004 got through security partly because different people carried the explosive and the detonator. Why doesn’t this count as a continued, active attack method?

I don’t want to even think about how much C4 I can strap to my legs and walk through your magnetometers. Or search the Internet for “BeerBelly.” It’s a device you can strap to your chest to smuggle beer into stadiums, but you can also use it smuggle 40 ounces of dangerous liquid explosive onto planes. The magnetometer won’t detect it. Your secondary screening wandings won’t detect it. Why aren’t you making us all take our shirts off? Will you have to find a printout of the webpage in some terrorist safe house? Or will someone actually have to try it? If that doesn’t bother you, search the Internet for “cell phone gun.”

It’s “cover your ass” security. If someone tries to blow up a plane with a shoe or a liquid, you’ll take a lot of blame for not catching it. But if someone uses any of these other, equally known, attack methods, you’ll be blamed less because they’re less public.

KH: Dead wrong! Our security strategy assumes an adaptive terrorist, and that looking backwards is not a reliable predictor of the next type of attack. Yes, we screen for shoe bombs and liquids, because it would be stupid not to directly address attack methods that we believe to be active. Overall, we are getting away from trying to predict what the object looks like and looking more for the other markers of a terrorist. (Don’t forget, we see two million people a day, so we know what normal looks like.) What he/she does; the way they behave. That way we don’t put all our eggs in the basket of catching them in the act. We can’t give them free rein to surveil or do dry-runs; we need to put up obstacles for them at every turn. Working backwards, what do you need to do to be successful in an attack? Find the decision points that show the difference between normal action and action needed for an attack. Our odds are better with this approach than by trying to take away methods, annoying object by annoying object. Bruce, as for blame, that’s nothing compared to what all of us would carry inside if we failed to prevent an attack.

Part 3: The no-fly list

Posted on July 31, 2007 at 6:12 AM • View Comments

Conversation with Kip Hawley, TSA Administrator (Part 1)

This is Part 1 of a five-part series. Link to whole thing.

In April, Kip Hawley, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), invited me to Washington for a meeting. Despite some serious trepidation, I accepted. And it was a good meeting. Most of it was off the record, but he asked me how the TSA could overcome its negative image. I told him to be more transparent, and stop ducking the hard questions. He said that he wanted to do that. He did enjoy writing a guest blog post for Aviation Daily, but having a blog himself didn’t work within the bureaucracy. What else could he do?

This interview, conducted in May and June via e-mail, was one of my suggestions.

Bruce Schneier: By today’s rules, I can carry on liquids in quantities of three ounces or less, unless they’re in larger bottles. But I can carry on multiple three-ounce bottles. Or a single larger bottle with a non-prescription medicine label, like contact lens fluid. It all has to fit inside a one-quart plastic bag, except for that large bottle of contact lens fluid. And if you confiscate my liquids, you’re going to toss them into a large pile right next to the screening station—which you would never do if anyone thought they were actually dangerous.

Can you please convince me there’s not an Office for Annoying Air Travelers making this sort of stuff up?

Kip Hawley: Screening ideas are indeed thought up by the Office for Annoying Air Travelers and vetted through the Directorate for Confusion and Complexity, and then we review them to insure that there are sufficient unintended irritating consequences so that the blogosphere is constantly fueled. Imagine for a moment that TSA people are somewhat bright, and motivated to protect the public with the least intrusion into their lives, not to mention travel themselves. How might you engineer backwards from that premise to get to three ounces and a baggie?

We faced a different kind of liquid explosive, one that was engineered to evade then-existing technology and process. Not the old Bojinka formula or other well-understood ones—TSA already trains and tests on those. After August 10, we began testing different variants with the national labs, among others, and engaged with other countries that have sophisticated explosives capabilities to find out what is necessary to reliably bring down a plane.

We started with the premise that we should prohibit only what’s needed from a security perspective. Otherwise, we would have stuck with a total liquid ban. But we learned through testing that that no matter what someone brought on, if it was in a small enough container, it wasn’t a serious threat. So what would the justification be for prohibiting lip gloss, nasal spray, etc? There was none, other than for our own convenience and the sake of a simple explanation.

Based on the scientific findings and a don’t-intrude-unless-needed-for-security philosophy, we came up with a container size that eliminates an assembled bomb (without having to determine what exactly is inside the bottle labeled “shampoo”), limits the total liquid any one person can bring (without requiring Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) to count individual bottles), and allows for additional security measures relating to multiple people mixing a bomb post-checkpoint. Three ounces and a baggie in the bin gives us a way for people to safely bring on limited quantities of liquids, aerosols and gels.

BS: How will this foil a plot, given that there are no consequences to trying? Airplane contraband falls into two broad categories: stuff you get in trouble for trying to smuggle onboard, and stuff that just gets taken away from you. If I’m caught at a security checkpoint with a gun or a bomb, you’re going to call the police and really ruin my day. But if I have a large bottle of that liquid explosive, you confiscate it with a smile and let me though. So unless you’re 100% perfect in catching this stuff—which you’re not—I can just try again and again until I get it through.

This isn’t like contaminants in food, where if you remove 90% of the particles, you’re 90% safer. None of those false alarms—none of those innocuous liquids taken away from innocent travelers—improve security. We’re only safer if you catch the one explosive liquid amongst the millions of containers of water, shampoo, and toothpaste. I have described two ways to get large amounts of liquids onto airplanes—large bottles labeled “saline solution” and trying until the screeners miss the liquid—not to mention combining multiple little bottles of liquid into one big bottle after the security checkpoint.

I want to assume the TSA is both intelligent and motivated to protect us. I’m taking your word for it that there is an actual threat—lots of chemists disagree—but your liquid ban isn’t mitigating it. Instead, I have the sinking feeling that you’re defending us against a terrorist smart enough to develop his own liquid explosive, yet too stupid to read the rules on TSA’s own website.

KH: I think your premise is wrong. There are consequences to coming to an airport with a bomb and having some of the materials taken away at the checkpoint. Putting aside our layers of security for the moment, there are things you can do to get a TSO’s attention at the checkpoint. If a TSO finds you or the contents of your bag suspicious, you might get interviewed and/or have your bags more closely examined. If the TSO throws your liquids in the trash, they don’t find you a threat.

I often read blog posts about how someone could just take all their three-ounce bottles—or take bottles from others on the plane—and combine them into a larger container to make a bomb. I can’t get into the specifics, but our explosives research shows this is not a viable option.

The current system is not the best we’ll ever come up with. In the near future, we’ll come up with an automated system to take care of liquids, and everyone will be happier.

In the meantime, we have begun using hand-held devices that can recognize threat liquids through factory-sealed containers (we will increase their number through the rest of the year) and we have different test strips that are effective when a bottle is opened. Right now, we’re using them on exempt items like medicines, as well as undeclared liquids TSOs find in bags. This will help close the vulnerability and strengthen the deterrent.

BS: People regularly point to security checkpoints missing a knife in their handbag as evidence that security screening isn’t working. But that’s wrong. Complete effectiveness is not the goal; the checkpoints just have to be effective enough so that the terrorists are worried their plan will be uncovered. But in Denver earlier this year, testers sneaked 90% of weapons through. And other tests aren’t much better. Why are these numbers so poor, and why didn’t they get better when the TSA took over airport security?

KH: Your first point is dead on and is the key to how we look at security. The stories about 90% failures are wrong or extremely misleading. We do many kinds of effectiveness tests at checkpoints daily. We use them to guide training and decisions on technology and operating procedures. We also do extensive and very sophisticated Red Team testing, and one of their jobs is to observe checkpoints and go back and figure out—based on inside knowledge of what we do—ways to beat the system. They isolate one particular thing: for example, a particular explosive, made and placed in a way that exploits a particular weakness in technology; our procedures; or the way TSOs do things in practice. Then they will test that particular thing over and over until they identify what corrective action is needed. We then change technology or procedure, or plain old focus on execution. And we repeat the process—forever.

So without getting into specifics on the test results, of course there are times that our evaluations can generate high failure rate numbers on specific scenarios. Overall, though, our ability to detect bomb components is vastly improved and it will keep getting better. (Older scores you may have seen may be “feel good” numbers based on old, easy tests. Don’t go for the sound-bite; today’s TSOs are light-years ahead of even where they were two years ago.)

Part 2: When can we keep our shoes on?

Posted on July 30, 2007 at 6:12 AM • View Comments

TSA Warns of Terrorist Dry Runs

A leaked TSA memo warns screeners to be on the lookout for terrorists staging dry runs through airport security. (The TSA issued a short statement following the leak, and here’s an AP story on the memo.)

Honestly, the four incidents described, with photos, sure sound suspicious to me:

  • (U//FOUO) San Diego, July 7. A U.S. person—either a citizen or a foreigner legally here—checked baggage containing two ice packs covered in duct tape. The ice packs had clay inside them rather than the normal blue gel.
  • (U//FOUO) Milwaukee, June 4. A U.S. person’s carryon baggage contained wire coil wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three tubes and two blocks of cheese. The bulletin said block cheese has a consistency similar to some explosives.
  • (U//FOUO) Houston, Nov. 8, 2006. A U.S. person’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a 9-volt battery, wires, a block of brown clay-like minerals and pipes.
  • (U//FOUO) Baltimore, Sept. 16, 2006. A couple’s checked baggage contained a plastic bag with a block of processed cheese taped to another plastic bag holding a cellular phone charger.

The cheese and clay are stand-ins for plastic explosive. And honestly, I don’t care if someone is carrying a water bottle, wearing a head scarf, or buying a one-way ticket, but if someone has a block of cheese with wires and a detonator—I want the FBI to be called in.

Note that profiling didn’t seem to help here. Three of the incidents involved U.S. persons, and one is unspecified. Also, according to the report:

Individuals involved in these incidents were of varying gender, and initial investigations do not link them with criminal or terrorist organizations. However, most passengers’ explanations for carrying the suspicious items were questionable, and some investigations are still ongoing.

I wish I had more information on what the “questionable” explanations were.

Flagging suspicious items is what the TSA is supposed to do. Unfortunately, suspicious is a subjective term, and problems arise when screeners aren’t competent enough to distinguish between potentially dangerous and just plain strange. If bulletins like these are accompanied with real training, then we’re getting some actual security out of the TSA.

EDITED TO ADD (7/25): I was quoted in the AP story.

EDITED TO ADD (7/26): At least one of the incidents seems to be bogus.

EDITED TO ADD (7/28): Seems like all four incidents might be bogus:

“That bulletin for law enforcement eyes only told of suspicious items recently found in passenger’s bags at airport checkpoints, warned that they may signify dry runs for terrorist attacks,” CNN’s Brian Todd reported Friday afternoon. “Well it turns out none of that is true.”

[…]

“The FBI now says there were valid explanations for all four incidents in that bulletin, and a US government official says no charges will be brought in any of these cases,” Todd reported.

I’m skeptical. I can’t think of a valid explanation for “wire coil wrapped around a possible initiator, an electrical switch, batteries, three tubes and two blocks of cheese.” I’d like to know what it was.

Posted on July 25, 2007 at 1:55 PM • View Comments

The TSA and the Case of the Strange Battery Charger

A TSA screener doesn’t like the look of a homemade battery charger, and refuses to let it on an airplane. Interesting story, both for the escalation procedure the TSA screener followed, and this final observation:

But these are the times we live in. A handful of people with no knowledge of physics, engineering, or pyrotechnics are responsible for determining what is and what is not safe to bring on a plane. They’re paid minimum wage and told to panic if they see something they don’t recognize. Does this make me feel safer? It doesn’t really matter. Implementing real security would bring the cost of flying up, which would likely cause a collapse of the airborne transportation network this country has worked so hard to build up.

The UK banned laptop computers in carry-on luggage for a few days and quickly reversed the idea. The lack of laptops would make the option unattractive to business professionals. Security would cost more than money and many passengers wouldn’t have accepted it.

So the TSA finally let me onto my flight with the two devices they told me they weren’t going to let me take on my flight. They told me the device looked like an I.E.D., then let me on the plane with it.

Does that mean I can bring them on my flight next week?

And that’s the problem: the TSA is both arbitrary and capricious, and it’s impossible to follow the rules because no one knows how they will be applied.

Posted on July 19, 2007 at 6:53 AM • View Comments

TSA Uses Monte Carlo Simulations to Weigh Airplane Risks

Does this make sense to anyone?

TSA said Boeing would use its Monte Carlo simulation model “to identify U.S. commercial aviation system vulnerabilities against a wide variety of attack scenarios.”

The Monte Carlo method refers to several ways of using randomly generated numbers fed into a computer simulation many times to estimate the likelihood of an event, specialists in the field say.

The Monte Carlo method plays an important role in many statistical techniques used to characterize risks, such as the probabilistic risk analysis approach used to evaluate possible problems at a nuclear power plant and their consequences.

Boeing engineers have pushed the mathematical usefulness of the Monte Carlo method forward largely by applying the technique to evaluating the risks and consequences of aircraft component failures.

A DHS source said the work of the U.S. Commercial Aviation Partnership, a group of government and industry organizations, had made TSA officials aware of the potential applicability of the Monte Carlo method to building an RMAT for the air travel system.

A paper by four Boeing technologists and a TSA official describing the RMAT model appeared recently in Interfaces, a scholarly journal covering operations research.

I can’t imagine how random simulations are going to be all that useful in evaluating airplane threats, as the adversary we’re worried about isn’t particularly random—and, in fact, is motivated to target his attacks directly at the weak points in any security measures.

Maybe “chatter” has tipped the TSA off to a Muta al-Stochastic.

Posted on June 22, 2007 at 12:58 PM • View Comments

Vulnerabilities in the DHS Networks

Wired.com has the story:

Congress asked Homeland Security’s chief information officer, Scott Charbo, who has a Masters in plant science, to account for more than 800 self-reported vulnerabilities over the last two years and for recently uncovered systemic security problems in US-VISIT, the massive computer network intended to screen and collect the fingerprints and photos of visitors to the United States.

Charbo’s main tactic before the House Homeland Security subcommittee Wednesday was to downplay the seriousness of the threats and to characterize the security investigation of US-VISIT as simultaneously old news and news so new he hasn’t had time to meet with the investigators.

“Key systems operated by Customs and Border Patrol were riddled by control weaknesses,” the Government Accountability Office’s director of Information Security issues Gregory Wilshusen told the committee. Poor security practices and a lack of an authoritative internal map of how various systems interconnect increases the risk that contractors, employees or would-be hackers can or have penetrated and disrupted key DHS computer systems, Wilshusen and Keith Rhodes Director, the GAO’s director of the Center for Technology and Engineering told the committee.

Posted on June 22, 2007 at 10:37 AM • View Comments

TSA and the Sippy Cup Incident

This story is pretty disgusting:

“I demanded to speak to a TSA [Transportation Security Administration] supervisor who asked me if the water in the sippy cup was ‘nursery water or other bottled water.’ I explained that the sippy cup water was filtered tap water. The sippy cup was seized as my son was pointing and crying for his cup. I asked if I could drink the water to get the cup back, and was advised that I would have to leave security and come back through with an empty cup in order to retain the cup. As I was escorted out of security by TSA and a police officer, I unscrewed the cup to drink the water, which accidentally spilled because I was so upset with the situation.

“At this point, I was detained against my will by the police officer and threatened to be arrested for endangering other passengers with the spilled 3 to 4 ounces of water. I was ordered to clean the water, so I got on my hands and knees while my son sat in his stroller with no shoes on since they were also screened and I had no time to put them back on his feet. I asked to call back my fiancé, who I could still see from afar, waiting for us to clear security, to watch my son while I was being detained, and the officer threatened to arrest me if I moved. So I yelled past security to get the attention of my fiancé.

“I was ordered to apologize for the spilled water, and again threatened arrest. I was threatened several times with arrest while detained, and while three other police officers were called to the scene of the mother with the 19 month old. A total of four police officers and three TSA officers reported to the scene where I was being held against my will. I was also told that I should not disrespect the officer and could be arrested for this too. I apologized to the officer and she continued to detain me despite me telling her that I would miss my flight. The officer advised me that I should have thought about this before I ‘intentionally spilled the water!'”

This story portrays the TSA as jack-booted thugs. The story hit the Internet last Thursday, and quickly made the rounds. I saw it on BoingBoing. But, as it turns out, it’s not entirely true.

The TSA has a webpage up, with both the incident report and video.

TSO [REDACTED] took the female to the exit lane with the stroller and her bag. When she got past the exit lane podium she opened the child’s drink container and held her arm out and poured the contents (approx. 6 to 8 ounces) on the floor. MWAA Officer [REDACTED] was manning the exit lane at the time and observed the entire scene and approached the female passenger after observing this and stopped her when she tried to re-enter the sterile area after trying to come back through after spilling the fluids on the floor. The female passenger flashed her badge and credentials and told the MWAA officer “Do you know who I am?” An argument then ensued between the officer and the passenger of whether the spilling of the fluid was intentional or accidental. Officer [REDACTED] asked the passenger to clean up the spill and she did.

Watch the second video. TSO [REDACTED] is partially blocking the scene, but at 2:01:00 PM it’s pretty clear that Monica Emmerson—that’s the female passenger—spills the liquid on the floor on purpose, as a deliberate act of defiance. What happens next is more complicated; you can watch it for yourself, or you can read BoingBoing’s somewhat sarcastic summary.

In this instance, the TSA is clearly in the right.

But there’s a larger lesson here. Remember the Princeton professor who was put on the watch list for criticizing Bush? That was also untrue. Why is it that we all—myself included—believe these stories? Why are we so quick to assume that the TSA is a bunch of jack-booted thugs, officious and arbitrary and drunk with power?

It’s because everything seems so arbitrary, because there’s no accountability or transparency in the DHS. Rules and regulations change all the time, without any explanation or justification. Of course this kind of thing induces paranoia. It’s the sort of thing you read about in history books about East Germany and other police states. It’s not what we expect out of 21st century America.

The problem is larger than the TSA, but the TSA is the part of “homeland security” that the public comes into contact with most often—at least the part of the public that writes about these things most. They’re the public face of the problem, so of course they’re going to get the lion’s share of the finger pointing.

It was smart public relations on the TSA’s part to get the video of the incident on the Internet quickly, but it would be even smarter for the government to restore basic constitutional liberties to our nation’s counterterrorism policy. Accountability and transparency are basic building blocks of any democracy; and the more we lose sight of them, the more we lose our way as a nation.

Posted on June 18, 2007 at 6:01 AM • View Comments

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Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.