FBI Special Agent and Counterterrorism Expert Criticizes the TSA
Good essay. Nothing I haven’t said before, but it’s good to hear it from someone with a widely different set of credentials than I have.
Entries Tagged "security theater"
Page 5 of 21
Possibly the Most Incompetent TSA Story Yet
The storyline:
- TSA screener finds two pipes in passenger’s bags.
- Screener determines that they’re not a threat.
- Screener confiscates them anyway, because of their “material and appearance.”
- Because they’re not actually a threat, screener leaves them at the checkpoint.
- Everyone forgets about them.
- Six hours later, the next shift of TSA screeners notices the pipes and—not being able to explain how they got there and, presumably, because of their “material and appearance”—calls the police bomb squad to remove the pipes.
- TSA does not evacuate the airport, or even close the checkpoint, because—well, we don’t know why.
I don’t even know where to begin.
TSA Cupcake Update
The TSA claims that the cupcake they confiscated was in a jar. So this is a less obviously stupid story than I previously thought.
EDITED TO ADD (1/13): The cupcake lady says the TSA is lying.
EDITED TO ADD (1/17): A bakery creates a TSA-compliant cupcake.
The TSA Proves its Own Irrelevance
Have you wondered what $1.2 billion in airport security gets you? The TSA has compiled its own “Top 10 Good Catches of 2011“:
10) Snakes, turtles, and birds were found at Miami (MIA) and Los Angeles (LAX). I’m just happy there weren’t any lions, tigers, and bears…
[…]
3) Over 1,200 firearms were discovered at TSA checkpoints across the nation in 2011. Many guns are found loaded with rounds in the chamber. Most passengers simply state they forgot they had a gun in their bag.
2) A loaded .380 pistol was found strapped to passenger’s ankle with the body scanner at Detroit (DTW). You guessed it, he forgot it was there…
1) Small chunks of C4 explosives were found in passenger’s checked luggage in Yuma (YUM). Believe it or not, he was brining it home to show his family.
That’s right; not a single terrorist on the list. Mostly forgetful, and entirely innocent, people. Note that they fail to point out that the firearms and knives would have been just as easily caught by pre-9/11 screening procedures. And that the C4—their #1 “good catch”—was on the return flight; they missed it the first time. So only 1 for 2 on that one.
And the TSA decided not to mention its stupidest confiscations:
TSA confiscates a butter knife from an airline pilot. TSA confiscates a teenage girl’s purse with an embroidered handgun design. TSA confiscates a 4-inch plastic rifle from a GI Joe action doll on the grounds that it’s a “replica weapon.” TSA confiscates a liquid-filled baby rattle from airline pilot’s infant daughter. TSA confiscates a plastic “Star Wars” lightsaber from a toddler.
In related news, here’s a rebuttal of the the Vanity Fair article about the TSA and airline security that featured me. I agree with the two points at the end of the post; I just don’t think it changes any of my analysis.
Merry Christmas from the TSA
Cupcakes deemed security threat:
Rebecca Hains says she was going through security at the airport in Las Vegas when a TSA agent pulled her aside and said the cupcake frosting was “gel-like” enough to constitute a security risk.
The TSA has officially jumped the shark.
EDITED TO ADD (1/12): The TSA claims that the cupcake they confiscated was in a jar. So this is a less obviously stupid story than I previously thought.
EDITED TO ADD (1/13): The cupcake lady says that the TSA is lying.
Me on Airport Security
Charles Mann made me the central focus of his article on airport security for Vanity Fair. (Mann also wrote about me in 2002 for The Atlantic.) The article was supposed to have been in the tenth-anniversary-of-9/11 issue, but got delayed.
Feeling vs. Reality of Security in Sparrows
Sparrows have fewer surviving offspring if they feel insecure, regardless of whether they actually are insecure. Liana Y. Zanette, Aija F. White, Marek C. Allen, and Michael Clinchy, “Perceived Predation Risk Reduces the Number of Offspring Songbirds Produce per Year,” Science, 9 Dec 2011:
Abstract: Predator effects on prey demography have traditionally been ascribed solely to direct killing in studies of population ecology and wildlife management. Predators also affect the prey’s perception of predation risk, but this has not been thought to meaningfully affect prey demography. We isolated the effects of perceived predation risk in a free-living population of song sparrows by actively eliminating direct predation and used playbacks of predator calls and sounds to manipulate perceived risk. We found that the perception of predation risk alone reduced the number of offspring produced per year by 40%. Our results suggest that the perception of predation risk is itself powerful enough to affect wildlife population dynamics, and should thus be given greater consideration in vertebrate conservation and management.
Seems as if the sparrows could use a little security theater.
First-Person Account of a TSA Airport Screener
This is a few years old, but I seem not to have blogged it before.
Walls as Security Theater
Interesting essay on walls and their effects:
Walls, then, are built not for security, but for a sense of security. The distinction is important, as those who commission them know very well. What a wall satisfies is not so much a material need as a mental one. Walls protect people not from barbarians, but from anxieties and fears, which can often be more terrible than the worst vandals. In this way, they are built not for those who live outside them, threatening as they may be, but for those who dwell within. In a certain sense, then, what is built is not a wall, but a state of mind.
The essay goes on to talk about the value of walls as security theater.
Isaac Asimov on Security Theater
A great find:
In his 1956 short story, “Let’s Get Together,” Isaac Asimov describes security measures proposed to counter a terrorist threat:
“Consider further that this news will leak out as more and more people become involved in our countermeasures and more and more people begin to guess what we’re doing. Then what? The panic might do us more harm than any one TC bomb.”
The Presidential Assistant said irritably, “In Heaven’s name, man, what do you suggest we do, then?”
“Nothing,” said Lynn. “Call their bluff. Live as we have lived and gamble that They won’t dare break the stalemate for the sake of a one-bomb head start.”
“Impossible!” said Jeffreys. “Completely impossible. The welfare of all of Us is very largely in my hands, and doing nothing is the one thing I cannot do. I agree with you, perhaps, that X-ray machines at sports arenas are a kind of skin-deep measure that won’t be effective, but it has to be done so that people, in the aftermath, do not come to the bitter conclusion that we tossed our country away for the sake of a subtle line of reasoning that encouraged donothingism.”
This Jeffreys guy sounds as if he works for the TSA.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.