TSA Decides Sorority Souvenir Book Carried By Dozens Of Travelers Probably A Bomb
from the some-sort-of-terrorist-convention...-even-the-letters-aren't-English dept
Hundreds of travelers attempting to fly out of Houston's Hobby Airport were delayed for hours as TSA agents confronted the massive security threat posed by a book. Actually, several books. Several identical books. Carried by several fliers leaving the same event. (via Lowering the Bar)
"We had a large group with a large number of bags to be checked and because of a certain item in those bags there was additional screening necessary," said Bill Begley with Hobby Airport.Nice use of the word "forced." Even if the book appeared suspicious at first, perhaps the inference could have been drawn that other passengers wearing the sorority insignia on their almost-universally red clothing were carrying the same non-threatening book. Or does "Behavioral Detection" -- the TSA's mind-reading initiative that watches for suspicious patterns -- only detect suspicion, not the lack thereof?
A spokesman for the airport says the sorority members were apparently given thick booklets at the convention that could be mistaken for explosives when packed into checked bags. The booklets forced TSA officials to hand check most of the luggage.
Here's the "bomb," as displayed by one passenger during KHOU's televised report:
Better safe than sorry -- the TSA's strangulated way of thinking -- kept this from being pursued logically, as Kevin Underhill points out.
Of course, I suppose it's not impossible that ISIS coordinated an attack plan with the annual Delta Sigma Theta convention. But the chances of that are sufficiently close to zero that I'd feel safe waving these ladies through.Maybe it wasn't ISIS. Maybe it was hundreds of "lone wolves," all wearing red and white clothing and all carrying the same bomb/book!
Instead of seeing this common element as something non-suspicious after the first thorough search, the TSA apparently treated every repeat "incident" as its own particularized threat. Flights were delayed, but not a single one was made any safer by these extra inspection efforts.
So far, the TSA has yet to comment on its actions, leaving that unenviable task to airport officials. Meanwhile, travelers continue to give the TSA more credit than it deserves.
"I'm sure they were doing their best that they could, but it just wasn't enough it wasn't enough," [sorority alumus Cassandra] Tomes said.Their "best" is routinely terrible. And for all the talk about becoming a smarter, more responsive security agency, the TSA continues to brute force its way through the day-to-day business of keeping up appearances.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: book, delta sigma theta, hobby airport, houston, security, security theater, sorority, tsa
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Probability Math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Probability Math
Probabilities can be tricky, ya know. Be glad the TSA didn't fall for them and is ensuring that many things that are not bombs do not end up on planes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Probability Math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Probability Math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Probability Math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Probability Math
That the first and second books are books and not bombs is 25%.
Third,2nd and 1rst, 12.5%....
After checking 10 bags/books the chance that all those books are actual books is close to 0%! So in their mind it's close to 100% certain that the next book will be a bomb.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Probability Math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Probability Math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Probability Math
But that assumed there was a bomb
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Probability Math
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
But then maybe TSA employees can't read.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
That was my first suspicion on seeing this. TSA: "What's a book?"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
That's exactly what a bomb would say.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
That's exactly what a bomb would say.
"This is not a this-is-not-a-bomb bomb."
There, fixed it for you.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
I thought a lot of blacks worked for TSA. It's a shitty job that doesn't pay very well. I'd expect poor blacks to gravitate towards it, as they'd have fewer whites to compete against for the job.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Does TSA require a ...
It's definitely looking like they do.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Creeps
After they got to rifle through a bunch of sorority girl's luggage, did they also make them go through the naked scanners?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Creeps
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Creeps
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Must be something more...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Must be something more...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I agree, they were doing the best they could...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I agree, they were doing the best they could...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Remember that time a TSA agent told a passenger their drivers license was no good because it was foreign? It was issued by Washington DC which this TSA agent claimed was not part of the USA.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I would like to make an announcement
Thank you."
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I suppose that this isn't unique to sorority books.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: I suppose that this isn't unique to sorority books.
(That "could" be a bomb to the TSA)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
How does a book look like a bomb?
What is wrong with their detection equipment that a book looks like a bomb?
How many college students will have to go through this if -- god forbid -- they dare to take a textbook on a flight?
Or maybe that's the whole plan, to keep people dumb by forbidding books....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: How does a book look like a bomb?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: How does a book look like a bomb?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: How does a book look like a bomb?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This is CHECKED luggage
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: This is CHECKED luggage
Some airports have x-ray machines in the lobby that you have to run your suitcase through before turning it over to the airline. Perhaps that was the case here? But again, a general announcement about removing the book would work for that.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: This is CHECKED luggage
Yes, after the first couple dozen hits turn out to be the same book, they're probably expecting to find a book. But they still have to open every bag, because the scan matches the explosives image they're trained for.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
They could have gathered all the sorority luggage together...
...If the TSA actually has any qualified detection dogs.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: They could have gathered all the sorority luggage together...
Naah. These were black women. TSA thought they were inundated with a hoard of drug mules. They'd need to use a "War On Drugs" detection dog.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: They could have gathered all the sorority luggage together...
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: This is CHECKED luggage
And WTH paper is that? Are these sorority books the only books that use this paper? Or is this paper used in other books and we are ONLY NOW finding out about this issue?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: This is CHECKED luggage
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: This is CHECKED luggage
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: This is CHECKED luggage
I fly about 35 weeks a year and use an HP Elitebook which has a magnesium case. About 1/4 of the time I have my laptop case hand checked because I see my laptop get flagged as a suspicious item. Onscreen a red square appears exactly around the shape of my laptop. I have another laptop in the bag as well and when they do the side profile I can see both laptops independently of each other but again the red square is around the HP laptop but not my other one. Something about the size and density is triggering the machine. Again, I think it is a miscalibration.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
This was likely the fastest way to proceed
If all your tools are hammers, there is no point in not hitting those screws.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If it has to do with college, it's got nothing to do with the TSA.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
DDoS?
If the system isn't working you need to revise the system, not just randomly turn it off when overloaded.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
It's been long established...
...that the TSA is more of a means to make the uninformed American laity feel better, and doesn't actually serve as effective security.
...that the TSA is also a vector by which desirable property can be detected for later seizure by law enforcement via the civil forfeiture programs.
You're not going to be able to reform or revise the system given that much of the TSA budget goes towards ensuring they will be on the budget next year, which includes efforts to attack anyone who might try to reform or revise the system.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Dark Skin?
The absolutely beautiful black skin of the person flipping through the book in the photographs suggests that books were a flimsy coverup for the true motive of this search: lashing out at people whose skin is the wrong color, i.e. dark, and who were getting "uppity", i.e. very nicely dressed in red and white.
TSA, for shame!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
TSA Security Theater 101
Wow, weee.
The keystone security posers at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA)are at it again humiliating, degrading and delaying countless travelers due to TSA's harebrained security schemes.
How many terrorists have the keystone security posers uncovered in the 13 years of TSA's existence and with billions of passengers screened?
None as in zip, zing, nada, zilch, zero.
Do away with the Transportation Security Administration, critics implore. It's all just security theater, useless measures meant to make people feel safe. No terrorist plot has ever been stopped by the TSA, they insist.
TSA Administrator John Pistole has heard all the criticism of his agency — created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and charged with screening more than 630 million fliers per year. Pistole acknowledges TSA has made mistakes, and continues to adjust its policies and techniques to protect U.S. travelers.
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-travel-briefcase-20140804-story.html
In May, the Government Accountability Office released a report noting that SPOT's annual cost is more than $200 million and that as of March 2010 some 3,000 behavior detection officers were deployed at 161 airports but had not apprehended a single terrorist
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2010/11/does_the_tsa_ever_catch_t errorists.html
TSA doesn't have a clue about security but they sure do have humiliating, degrading and delaying travelers down pat.
TSA also apparently knows how to spend our tax money better than we do funding countless boondoggles such as but not limited to:
Screening of Passengers by Observational Techniques (SPOT)
Rapiscan Secure 1000 whole body x-ray scanners
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Mission Creep
Somehow these TSA idiots, who are NOT trained law enforcement officers, have either decided to, or were told to, enforce laws way outside of their core mission.
I don't care that a passenger has some drugs on him/her. I don't care that a passenger is carrying $100K in cash. Nor should the TSA.
I suspect this is the real reason the TSA is still here.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
All it takes is a small brown envelope and you're waved through....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Solution
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Solution
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Repeat Typo
But it was never enough.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
A book can only have 150 pages or less.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
incompitence
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
The Baggage Doesn't Have To Go With The Traveler.
Of course, the TSA would not like this scheme, as it would tend to deprive them of their ability to steal from baggage.
I heard about one model of Russian airliner, which is designed to be 100% carry-on. It's a wide-body type, so the cargo bay is high enough for people to walk around in. Passengers carry their luggage up the first flight of stairs to the cargo bay, put their bags in bins, and proceed up a second flight of stairs to the passenger cabin. Of course, a lot of Russia is like Alaska, with whole cities which have no road access to the outside world. People fly because it's the only way to get there. So Aeroflot needed something not quite as refined as a Boing or an Airbus, a bit more like a Greyhound bus. The Russians also developed the Antonov An-22, which can approximately be described as "the world's only flying dump truck," designed to lift an eighty-ton payload out of a dirt runway somewhere in Siberia, and fly it a couple of hundred miles to some place where there was land or water transport.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
TSA - always striving to make the worst possible choices
He noted that the only youth to receive the full TSA package, also happened to be the only young black man with them.
The young men were actually ribbing him ahead of time that he should expect extra TSA 'treatment'. When it actually happened, that young man was the only one not surprised.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"I'm sure they were doing their best that they could, but it just wasn't enough it wasn't enough," [sorority alumus Cassandra] Tomes said.
Is giving the TSA any credit. It's "they're totally incompetent idiots" said nicely.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
TSA
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Broken record
Talk about a broken record.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]