Entries Tagged "TSA"
Page 19 of 31
More War on the Unexpected
LAX evacuated for two hours because of a “suspicious comment.”
I’m really curious what he said.
Liquid Bomb
I’d love to get details on this:
A television documentary team said it had made a bomb by mixing a series of odourless and colourless chemicals that could be brought into an aircraft by passengers.
The liquids that were mixed to make the explosive cocktail were all contained in bottles of less than 100ml, which is the limit enforced at most airports around the world at present and was introduced shortly after British authorities thwarted an alleged attempt to blow up transatlantic aircraft in August 2006.
[…]
It blew a gaping hole in a decommissioned aircraft, snapping the ribs of the fuselage.
EDITED TO ADD (3/8): More info.
EDITED TO ADD (3/13): Here’s the Channel 4 documentary. And this is well worth reading.
Sonic Weapon
Story of a sonic blaster:
Here’s how it works: Inferno uses four frequencies spread out over 2 to 5 kHz. The idea behind it is that unlike a regular siren, these particular frequencies have a uniquely disturbing effect on people (and presumably cats, dogs and any other living thing). At 123 dB, it’s loud, but not significantly louder than any other alarm system. The advantage, according to Dr. Goldman, is the combination of frequencies. The human ear just doesn’t like it. I agree, I really didn’t like it.
Note to the TSA: Dr. Goldman has had no problems bringing this thing onto airplanes.
U.S. Customs Seizing Laptops
I’ve heard many anecdotal stories about U.S. Customs and Border Protection seizing, copying data from, or otherwise accessing laptops of people entering the country. But this is very mainstream:
Today, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Asian Law Caucus, two civil liberties groups in San Francisco, plan to file a lawsuit to force the government to disclose its policies on border searches, including which rules govern the seizing and copying of the contents of electronic devices. They also want to know the boundaries for asking travelers about their political views, religious practices and other activities potentially protected by the First Amendment. The question of whether border agents have a right to search electronic devices at all without suspicion of a crime is already under review in the federal courts.
The lawsuit was inspired by two dozen cases, 15 of which involved searches of cellphones, laptops, MP3 players and other electronics. Almost all involved travelers of Muslim, Middle Eastern or South Asian background, many of whom, including Mango and the tech engineer, said they are concerned they were singled out because of racial or religious profiling.
Some of this seems pretty severe:
“I was assured that my laptop would be given back to me in 10 or 15 days,” said [Maria] Udy, who continues to fly into and out of the United States. She said the federal agent copied her log-on and password, and asked her to show him a recent document and how she gains access to Microsoft Word. She was asked to pull up her e-mail but could not because of lack of Internet access. With ACTE’s help, she pressed for relief. More than a year later, Udy has received neither her laptop nor an explanation.
[…]
Kamran Habib, a software engineer with Cisco Systems, has had his laptop and cellphone searched three times in the past year. Once, in San Francisco, an officer “went through every number and text message on my cellphone and took out my SIM card in the back,” said Habib, a permanent U.S. resident. “So now, every time I travel, I basically clean out my phone. It’s better for me to keep my colleagues and friends safe than to get them on the list as well.”
Privacy? There’s no need to worry:
Hollinger said customs officers “are trained to protect confidential information.”
I know I feel better.
I strongly recommend the two-tier encryption strategy I described here. And I even more strongly recommend cleaning out your laptop and BlackBerry regularly; if you don’t have it on your computer, no one else can get his hands on it. This defense not only works against U.S. customs, but against the much more likely threat of you losing the damn thing.
And the TSA wants you to know that it’s not them.
TSA Misses the Point, Again
They’re checking IDs more carefully, looking for forgeries:
Black lights will help screeners inspect the ID cards by illuminating holograms, typically of government seals, that are found in licenses and passports. Screeners also are getting magnifying glasses that highlight tiny inscriptions found in borders of passports and other IDs. About 2,100 of each are going to the nation’s 800 airport checkpoints.
The closer scrutiny of passenger IDs is the latest Transportation Security Administration effort to check passengers more thoroughly than simply having them walk through metal detectors.
[…]
More than 40 passengers have been arrested since June in cases when TSA screeners spotted altered passports, fraudulent visas and resident ID cards, and forged driver’s licenses. Many of them were arrested on immigration charges.
ID checks have nothing to do with airport security. And even if they did, anyone can fly on a fake ID. And enforcing immigration laws is not what the TSA does.
In related news, look at this page from the TSA’s website:
We screen every passenger; we screen every bag so that your memories are from where you went, not how you got there. We’re here to help your travel plans be smooth and stress free. Please take a moment to become familiar with some of our security measures. Doing so now will help save you time once you arrive at the airport.
I know they don’t mean it that way, but doesn’t it sound like it’s saying “We know it doesn’t help, but it might make you feel better”?
And why is this even news?
So Jason—looking every bit the middle-aged man on an uneventful trip to anywhere—shows a boarding pass and an ID to a TSA document checker, and he is directed to a checkpoint where, unbeknown to the security officer on site, the real test begins.
He gets through, which in real life would mean a terrorist was headed toward a plane with a bomb.
To be clear, the TSA allowed CNN to see and record this test, and the agency is not concerned with CNN showing it. The TSA says techniques such as the one used in Tampa are known to terrorists and openly discussed on known terror Web sites.
Also relevant: “Confessions of a TSA Agent“:
The traveling public has no idea that the changes the TSA makes come as orders sent down directly from Washington D.C. Those orders may have reasons, but we little screeners at a screening checkpoint will never be told what the background might be. We get told to do something, and just as in the military, we are expected to make it happen—no ifs, ands or buts about it. Perhaps the changes are as a result of some event occurring in the nation or the world, perhaps it’s based on some newly received information or interrogation. What the traveling public needs to understand the necessity for flexibility. If a passenger asks us why we’re doing something, in all likelihood we couldn’t tell them even if we really did know the answer. This is a business of sensitive information that is used to make choices that can have life changing effects if the information is divulged to the wrong person(s). Just trust that we must know something that prompts us to be doing something.
I have no idea why Kip Hawley is surprised that the TSA is as unpopular with Americans as the IRS.
EDITED TO ADD (1/30): The TSA has a blog, and Kip Hawley wrote the first post. This could be interesting….
EDITED TO ADD (1/31): There is some speculation that the “Confessions of a TSA Agent” is a hoax. I don’t know.
Gun Slips Through TSA Airport Checkpoint
And when the owner reports his mistake, he’s arrested.
What is this supposed to teach?
Patrick Smith on Aviation Security
Excellent essay from The New York Times:
In the end, I’m not sure which is more troubling, the inanity of the existing regulations, or the average American’s acceptance of them and willingness to be humiliated. These wasteful and tedious protocols have solidified into what appears to be indefinite policy, with little or no opposition. There ought to be a tide of protest rising up against this mania. Where is it? At its loudest, the voice of the traveling public is one of grumbled resignation. The op-ed pages are silent, the pundits have nothing meaningful to say.
The airlines, for their part, are in something of a bind. The willingness of our carriers to allow flying to become an increasingly unpleasant experience suggests a business sense of masochistic capitulation. On the other hand, imagine the outrage among security zealots should airlines be caught lobbying for what is perceived to be a dangerous abrogation of security and responsibility—even if it’s not. Carriers caught plenty of flack, almost all of it unfair, in the aftermath of September 11th. Understandably, they no longer want that liability.
As for Americans themselves, I suppose that it’s less than realistic to expect street protests or airport sit-ins from citizen fliers, and maybe we shouldn’t expect too much from a press and media that have had no trouble letting countless other injustices slip to the wayside. And rather than rethink our policies, the best we’ve come up with is a way to skirt them—for a fee, naturally—via schemes like Registered Traveler. Americans can now pay to have their personal information put on file just to avoid the hassle of airport security. As cynical as George Orwell ever was, I doubt he imagined the idea of citizens offering up money for their own subjugation.
How we got to this point is an interesting study in reactionary politics, fear-mongering and a disconcerting willingness of the American public to accept almost anything in the name of “security.” Conned and frightened, our nation demands not actual security, but security spectacle. And although a reasonable percentage of passengers, along with most security experts, would concur such theater serves no useful purpose, there has been surprisingly little outrage. In that regard, maybe we’ve gotten exactly the system we deserve.
Consumer Reports on Aviation Security and the TSA
It’s not on their website yet, and you’d have to pay to read it in any case, but the February 2008 issue of Consumer Reports has an article on aviation security. Much of it you’ve all heard before, but there are some new bits:
Larry Tortorich, a TSA training officer and former representative to the Joint Terrorism Task Force who retired in 2006, also says he saw problems from the inside. “There was a facade of security. There were numerous security flaws and vulnerabilities I identified. The response was, it wasn’t apparent to the public, so there would not be any corrective action.”
I’ve regularly pointed to reinforcing the cockpit doors as something that was a good idea, and should have been done years earlier.
Critics, however, say a stronger door is only half of the solution. “People have this illusion that hardened cockpit doors work, and they don’t,” Dzakovic says. “If you want to have a secure door, you need to have a double hulled door.”
Consumer Reports searched NAS, the Aviation Safety Reporting System, and found 51 incidents since April 2002 in which flight crews reported problems with the hardened doors.
Most of them weren’t really security issues: locking mechanisms failing, doors popping open in flight, and so on. But this was more interesting:
A 2006 study of aviation security by DFI International, a Washington, D.C. security consultancy, found that a drunken passenger kicked a hole in a door panel and that aircraft cleaners “broke a fortified door off its hinges by running a heavy snack cart into it on a bet.”
El Al, of course, has double doors. But since the cost is between $5K and $10K per aircraft, the airline industry has fought the measure in the U.S.
The article also talks about how poor the screeners actually are, but I’ve covered all that already.
Sidebar photo of Bruce Schneier by Joe MacInnis.