GAO Says TSA Has No Idea If Its Screeners Are Up To Date On Their Training

from the front-line-defense-composed-entirely-of-benchwarmer-grade-personnel dept

Here comes more evidence explaining why the TSA sucks at prevention and blows at cures. Presented to voters as a proactive defense against sophisticated terrorism threats, the TSA has become an agency that belatedly reacts to each observed threats -- threats normally defused by passengers who don't work for the government and haven't received extensive training on anti-terrorism protocols.

Passengers can't screen other passengers, but they've proven pretty adept at defusing airborne threats. The TSA has the power to do both, but usually does neither, spending its time dumping breast milk into trash cans, fondling toddlers and people with rare diseases, and proudly displaying every inert grenade it seizes as evidence of its travel safety prowess.

When it comes to prevention, the TSA can't even meet the low bar of recognizing and seizing the items they're specifically trained to recognize and seize. And the longer the TSA exists, the worse it seems to be getting at providing transportation safety. Maybe it's because agents are spending more time searching for cash than explosives. Or maybe it's because the TSA believes its own "behavioral detection" snake oil. Or maybe it's because the TSA is a large bureaucracy more interested in its continued existence than delivering results.

The Government Accountability Office's latest report [PDF] says the TSA isn't doing much to ensure its personnel are hip to the latest threats and knowledgeable about current protocols. Training is mandatory… or so the TSA says. But it has no paper trail that might indicate it's actually providing necessary training or improving the skills of its screeners.

TSA screens millions of airline passengers and their bags each day at commercial airports. To do so effectively, it requires its screener workforce to complete trainings on screening procedures and technologies. TSA has updated these trainings in recent years to keep up with emerging threats.

However, we found that TSA has not documented its process for monitoring whether its screeners are taking these required trainings. The agency also hasn’t looked at its training data across years to identify trends that may require action.

The TSA Modernization Act of 2018 has not made the TSA any more modern, apparently. It gave the TSA a new set of check boxes to check off. The TSA has put checks in the required boxes, but it seems to feel the job is done when those boxes are checked. The goal of the 2018 act was to push the TSA to ensure it provided the most safety for travelers. Instead, all it did was get a few pencils pushed at the administrative level with no measurable effect on the rank-and-file.

TSA relies on an online database to monitor screener compliance in completing required training at the nation’s commercial airports. However, TSA has not documented its process for monitoring screener training compliance, including for analyzing compliance data and reporting and addressing instances of noncompliance at airports. Moreover, while TSA monitors airport compliance rates in a given year, it does not analyze the data across fiscal years for potential trends in noncompliance by individual airports that may warrant corrective action at the headquarters level.

What the TSA doesn't know can't hurt it. It may hurt some travelers but they're not on the screener matrix so no one cares. If the TSA did even the slightest bit of analysis, it would have realized it still had several severe problems to solve. Instead, an outside agency is pointing out what the TSA should have already known.

GAO found that in fiscal years 2016 and 2017, screeners at 435 commercial airports met TSA’s 90 percent target compliance rate, while in 2018, five airports had compliance rates well below this target, dropping 15 to 26 percentage points from the prior year. TSA officials stated they were unaware of this development.

The thing that still isn't being done is the same thing the GAO recommended in 2018, when it previously took a look at the TSA's under-performing personnel and its similarly weak training programs. Two years later, the GAO remains unimpressed. And the TSA remains unchanged. This is unacceptable for an agency our politicians have agreed to pretend provides a valuable service. We're all being forced to play along. The least the TSA could do is provide better lip service. You can't head off emerging threats if you're not even willing to stay current on the existing ones.

Filed Under: gao, security theater, training, tsa

DEA, TSA Sued For Stealing 79-Year-Old Man's Life Savings From His Daughter At An Airport

from the take-what-thou-wilt-that-is-the-whole-of-the-law-i-guess dept

The DEA doesn't really want to stop the flow of drugs into the country. Let's not kid ourselves. Better yet, let's not allow the DEA to kid us it's in the drug enforcement business. It's in the cash business. It wants to seize cash. It is so cash-focused it hires TSA agents to alert the DEA whenever they see cash in people's luggage. It also regularly peruses airplane and railway passenger manifests to find targets it feels might be carrying cash.

Forfeiture laws make this easy. They make seizing cash so easy hundreds of law enforcement agencies engage in the same fishing trips for cash, ignoring drugs and seizing money from drivers traveling out of the states they're supposed to be defending against incoming drugs.

It's not illegal to travel while carrying large amounts of cash. But it may as well be. The Institute for Justice is representing a 79-year-old man who had his life savings seized by the DEA at an airport -- a seizure that has not been followed up with any official accusations (charges, indictments) of wrongdoing.

Terry [Rolin], 79, is a retired railroad engineer born and raised in Pittsburgh. For many years, he followed his parents’ habit of hiding money in the basement of their home. When Terry moved out of his family home and into a smaller apartment, he became uncomfortable with keeping a large amount of cash. Last summer, when his daughter Rebecca was home for a family event, Terry asked her to take the money and open a new joint bank account that he could use to pay for dental work and to fix his truck, among other needs.

Rolin gave his lifetime savings of $82,373 to his daughter. She checked to see if it was illegal to travel with this large amount of cash. She discovered it wasn't and packed it in her luggage. But a TSA agent spotted the cash and detained her for questioning by Pennsylvania State Troopers. Eventually, she was allowed to leave. But she was stopped by DEA agents when she attempted to board her plane.

Here's what happened then, taken from Rolin and West's proposed class action lawsuit [PDF] against the TSA and DEA:

Despite Rebecca’s explanation, and without probable cause, the DEA agent seized Terry’s life savings because it was greater than $5,000 and was thus considered a “suspicious” amount under DEA’s policy or practice regarding the seizure of cash from travelers at airports.

DEA has continued to hold Terry’s life savings since August 26, 2019, and has taken actions to permanently keep the money using civil forfeiture.

Neither Terry nor Rebecca has been arrested for or charged with any crime.

The initial and continued seizure of Terry’s life savings since August 26, 2019, has prevented him from replacing his teeth and repairing his truck, among other expenses.

According to the TSA's own policies, it should not be scanning people's luggage for "suspicious" amounts of cash. It is only supposed to be concerned with items that threaten airline security, like explosives and weapons. The suit says TSA agents routinely seize cash in contravention of these policies and do so even when it's been determined the traveler and their belongings pose no security threat.

Instead agents flag any "large" amount of currency, which appears to be in the area of $10,000 or more. This is likely due to multiple law enforcement agencies falsely claiming large amounts of currency are suspicious, if not illegal. The DEA leans heavily on the TSA to perform this extraneous screening for it.

The DEA's standards for "suspicion" are even laxer than those unofficially followed by the TSA. According to the lawsuit, the DEA will seize any amount over $5,000 whether or not probable cause exists to perform the seizure. Once the DEA has the money, it will eventually begin forfeiture proceedings. Time is of the essence for those fighting to get their money back, but the DEA is never in any hurry because it's not its money and it has no immediate need for funds.

We already know the DEA is lousy and focused on easy wins, preferably those that involve forfeited funds. But the TSA is part of the problem. It focuses on cash despite it having no statutory authority to seize people simply because they're carrying cash. The TSA does not prohibit people from carrying cash and has produced no evidence to back up its apparent belief these people are more dangerous or likely to be engaged in illegal activities as other passengers not carrying cash.

The lawsuit seeks a declaration finding the TSA and DEA's actions unconstitutional and an injunction forbidding either agency from seizing individuals or their belongings solely on the basis of them carrying cash -- something that is not actually illegal. If it is granted class status, this will make it much easier -- and much less expensive -- for others who have been abused by these federal agencies to demand their money back.

Filed Under: asset forfeiture, civil asset forfeiture, dea, legalized theft, terry rolin, tsa

Whistleblower Accidentally Demonstrates How Much Of The TSA's Security Efforts Is Pure Theater

from the Best-Actor-In-An-Inadvertently-Comedic-Disclosure dept

There's a whistleblower talking about TSA stuff, but it's not the sort of whistleblowing you're probably accustomed to. Frustrated by the internal routing of his complaints, the TSA's highest-ranking official in [checks notes] Kansas has brought his complaints to CNN.

We all know the TSA has done almost nothing to make traveling safer over the course of its existence, but what the TSA's Jay Brainard has observed shows the actors in our nationwide security theater are tiring of their roles.

A whistleblower with the Transportation Security Administration is sounding the alarm about loosened security at US airports, charging that top TSA officials have prioritized speed over security by reducing the sensitivity of metal detectors, disabling technology on some X-ray machines, issuing orders to keep the baggage conveyor belts moving in certain circumstances and ordering policy changes that result in fewer pat-downs.

It's true the TSA is somewhat concerned about long lines. This concern doesn't seem to be enough to rid the agency of extraneous steps or equipment that make traveling a hassle without providing a security boost in exchange for longer waits at checkpoints. Every so often the TSA will do weird things like waving no-Precheck passengers into Precheck lanes to speed up processing. This temporarily alleviates the problem while also providing a clear demonstration of just how theatrical the TSA's security theater actually is.

Jay Brainard, has a long list of complaints. Among them are accusations that walkthrough detectors have had their sensitivity lowered, X-ray belts aren't being stopped to examine questionable items in bags, and passengers with medical devices being allowed to self-frisk if they've tripped an alarm.

None of this is particularly surprising. This new laxness appears to date back to at least 2015 and may have something to do with TSA screeners repeatedly (and spectacularly) failing explosive device audits by government oversight agencies.

Here's what's motivating Brainard's disclosures:

"In the last two years, the focus of sacrificing security over wait times has increased tremendously," Brainard said. "That's the reason I have come forward. It is happening so fast that it's difficult to keep up with the notes."

But is the TSA really "sacrificing security?" Or is it just streamlining processes that have done more to increase the length of screening than generate any additional security?

Brainerd's right to complain the TSA isn't doing its job properly. But claiming these efforts have resulted in less travel security simply doesn't make sense. If this was resulting in less security, you'd think we'd be hearing more about attempted hijackings, explosives/weapons being discovered on board, or would-be terrorists successfully boarding planes. We've heard nothing like this over the past couple of years. Whatever the TSA is sacrificing for efficiency doesn't seem to be making fliers any less safe.

At some point, a report by the US Office of Special Counsel will release its report on Brainerd's accusations. Don't bother flagging the CNN article for future reference. The OSC has repeatedly delayed its release of this report. It's currently 500 days overdue.

But the lack of corroborating evidence in the "less secure" column makes Brainard's dire warnings seem a whole lot less dire.

He believes airports are less safe than they were five years ago due to the "diluted" security procedures -- a trend that he says has accelerated in the last two years.

Maybe some terrorist will be emboldened by the public release of the TSA's dwindling attentiveness. But that seems unlikely. The TSA has admitted terrorists aren't nearly as interested in planes as they used to be. Most terrorism carried out today involves vehicles not subject to a gauntlet of screening devices. And with cockpits being pretty much inaccessible, hijackings are all but impossible. Someone could still blow up a plane, but there have been no recent attempts made by passengers to take a plane down -- at least nothing during this time period of escalating laxness.

The whistleblowing is still valid. Americans should know when the agencies they fund are underperforming. But claiming the skies are less safe is a bit much. If Brainard's going to suffer any retaliation, it won't be because he exposed the TSA's adjustments to screening procedures. It will be because he exposed just how many of these screening procedures are absolutely useless.

Filed Under: jay brainard, security theater, tsa, whistleblower

DHS Wanted To Add US Citizens To The Long List Of People Subjected To Mandatory Face Scans At Airports... But Has Backed Down For Now

from the smile-like-you-want-to-travel,-citizen dept

We knew the DHS would get to this point eventually. Since the beginning of its biometric scanning program rollout, the DHS has planned on adding US citizens to the list of people forced to trade their faces for air travel privileges. So far, the program has been limited to suspicious foreigners (which is all of them, including those here on visas), but a recent filing -- caught by Zack Whittaker at TechCrunch -- says flying in the United States would soon require adding yourself to the government's facial recognition databases.

Homeland Security wants to expand facial recognition checks for travelers arriving to and departing from the U.S. to also include citizens, which had previously been exempt from the mandatory checks.

In a filing, the department has proposed that all travelers, and not just foreign nationals or visitors, will have to complete a facial recognition check before they are allowed to enter the U.S., but also to leave the country.

The Department of Homeland Security's excuse for subjecting US citizens to mandatory face scans is the homeland's security. Here's the DHS in its own words:

To facilitate the implementation of a seamless biometric entry-exit system that uses facial recognition and to help prevent persons attempting to fraudulently use U.S. travel documents and identify criminals and known or suspected terrorists, DHS is proposing to amend the regulations to provide that all travelers, including U.S. citizens, may be required to be photographed upon entry and/or departure.

"May be required" should actually read "will be required." The DHS's privacy assessment of its biometric scanning efforts noted that opting out of biometric scanning means never leaving the country:

[T]he only way for an individual to ensure he or she is not subject to collection of biometric information when traveling internationally is to refrain from traveling…

The government would like to get to know its legal residents better, it would appear. It hopes to be able to put faces to names with an acceptable degree of accuracy. What's acceptable to the DHS probably won't be acceptable to travelers, but travelers aren't making the rules. Travelers are only subjected to them.

The only thing preventing this program from becoming China is the DHS's inefficiency -- or a massive public outcry. After this story started making news this week, DHS suddenly decided to put it on pause for the time being. Of course, it still has until next year to roll out biometric scanning to the 20 largest airports in the country. It's been working on this for a few years now and has yet to roll this out completely to its test markets. Whatever gains are made in facial recognition accuracy will hopefully arrive in time to keep the lowest bidders from endangering the freedoms of travelers just looking to exit or enter their home country. Even if DHS is backing down on scanning Americans, it's not clear it's backing down on its overall commitment to facial scanning technology.

The weak promise the DHS gave months ago about keeping Americans out of this was quickly broken to better facilitate the treatment of citizens and visa holders as terrorists every time they board a flight that crosses US borders -- so I wouldn't put much faith in its latest promise not to go there any more. The DHS and its large adult son, the TSA, have done very little to make traveling more secure. But when there's billions of budgetary dollars at stake, you can't be too careful. The money must be spent and those who firmly believe something must be done to secure the nation will see some things being done. Whatever collateral damage this does to Americans and their trust in the federal government is apparently acceptable.

Filed Under: biometrics, cbp, dhs, facial recognition, facial scanning, tsa

GAO Report: TSA Has No Idea How Effective Its Suspicionless Surveillance Program Is

from the results-to-be-reported-the-moment-there-are-actually-any-results dept

The TSA's "Quiet Skies" program continues and it doesn't appear to be making flying any safer. The program first exposed last year by the Boston Globe involved the surveillance of travelers for doing things like looking in shop windows or changing direction while walking through airports.

None of the people surveilled were on any terrorist watchlists. According to the TSA, it was hoping to find "unknown terrorists" by using a broad list of "suspicious" behavior to subject a greater number of travelers to additional screening and the apparent company of a flying air marshal (FAM).

The TSA thought it was great. The air marshals tasked with surveilling random people thought it was a waste of time and resources, if not an unconstitutional use of their powers. Backlash from the public and the air marshals themselves led the TSA to curtail the program. It promised not to surveill people for engaging in normal behavior the TSA had unilaterally deemed suspicious. There was also evidence the program was completely useless, as none of the 5,000 people targeted by "Quiet Skies" over a 6-month period in 2018 had gone on to do anything that air marshals deemed suspicious or worthy of further scrutiny.

The program lives on, unfortunately. The TSA may have scaled back its long list of "suspicious" behaviors, but it's still subjecting an unknown number of travelers to additional screening and surveillance, even if they're not tied to known terrorists or anyone on the government's multiple terrorist databases.

And it still doesn't work. It's still operational, I suppose, but the Government Accountability Office says the TSA doesn't know whether the program is effective. The program -- which has been running for nearly a decade now -- still hasn't been examined by the TSA to see whether it's actually doing anything to improve air security. From the report [PDF]:

We found that TSA coordinates reviews of Silent Partner and Quiet Skies through quarterly meetings and notifies an expanded set of DHS and TSA stakeholders—including DHS Traveler Redress Inquiry Program and the Federal Air Marshal Service—of rule changes as required under the Act. We also found that TSA has not identified a means to comprehensively measure rule effectiveness.

The TSA's reason for not following up on the program's effectiveness? It's just too much work.

TSA officials explained that they had not yet fully assessed the rules’ effectiveness because it was difficult to measure.

Difficult? Maybe. Impossible? No, says the GAO.

TSA has access to data—such as the outcomes of enhanced screening of Silent Partner and Quiet Skies passengers at airport checkpoints—that could be explored to better assess rule effectiveness. Exploring additional data sources could help TSA refine and supplement the agency’s existing efforts to measure program effectiveness.

The TSA may move forward with the GAO's recommendation it start actually measuring effectiveness. Then again, it's spent nine years not measuring it, so any progress will be on the same timescale.

TSA is currently reviewing the draft report and is scheduled to provide any comments by early November 2019.

At which point the TSA is free to reject the GAO's suggestion and continue to perform presumably useless screening and surveillance for the rest of forever.

That's not the only thing the TSA isn't following up on. The agency likes spending tax dollars on new security gear, whether it's needed or not.

Our review of TSA acquisition documents found that TSA considers risk at the beginning of the screening technologies acquisition process. However, TSA officials could not provide an example of when risk information for specific airports had directly influenced decisions about where and in what order to deploy screening technologies to airports in the recent past.

Then the agency deploys the tech and promptly forgets about it.

We also found that TSA does not ensure that screening technologies continue to meet detection requirements after they have been deployed to airports, when performance can degrade over time.

The TSA's process involves certifying the equipment prior to deployment and periodic calibration to ensure the tech is in "minimally operational." The GAO says this misses the point: the tech should be tested more frequently and, more importantly, assessed periodically to see if the deployed equipment still addresses the perceived risks present at that location as those may also change over time.

The TSA is mostly a reactive agency, one that responds to each attempted attack it's failed to thwart by subjecting travelers to another layer of screening annoyance. Its proactive efforts -- "Quiet Skies" and behavioral detection teams -- are somehow even worse. The TSA doesn't know what it's looking for because it hasn't prevented a terrorist attack yet. Its shotgun approach to screening and surveillance isn't likely to head off future attacks but the TSA seems content to settle for collateral damage.

Filed Under: airport security, gao, quiet skies, surveillance, tsa

Third Circuit Says TSA Officers Can Be Sued Directly For Abuses And Rights Violations

from the trimming-the-edges-of-sovereign-immunity dept

Good news has arrived for the long, long, oh so very long list of travelers who've had their rights abused by TSA agents. Reversing its own decision, the full panel of Third Circuit Appeals Court judges has removed TSA agents from "can't be sued" list.

Originally, the court had held that Transportation Security Officers (TSOs) were immune from civil lawsuits under the Federal Tort Claims Act. For the most part, federal government employees can't be sued directly. Previously, this covered TSA employees, whom the Third Circuit claimed were not "investigative or law enforcement officers" -- one of the few exemptions from this blanket immunity.

That ended Nadine Pellegrino's lawsuit against the TSA agents who behaved abusively during her "extended screening." Here's a description of those events from the Third Circuit's reversal:

As Pellegrino passed through the security checkpoint, she was randomly selected for additional screening. A TSO began examining her bags, but she stopped him and requested a more discreet screening. In a private room, several TSOs combed through Pellegrino’s luggage, papers, and other effects. One allegedly counted her coins and currency, examined her cell phone data, read the front and back of her membership and credit cards, and opened and smelled her cosmetics, mints, and hand sanitizer. Per Pellegrino, the TSO also spilled the contents of several containers and was so rough with her belongings that her jewelry and eyeglasses were damaged. Frustrated, she told the TSOs that she would report their conduct to a supervisor.

The screening ended, but the TSOs’ alleged torment did not. Pellegrino was left to clean up the mess created by the search, a task that took several trips to and from the screening room. As she was repacking her first bag, one of the TSOs claimed that Pellegrino struck her with it. On a trip to retrieve another bag, another TSO allegedly blocked Pellegrino’s access to it, forcing her to crawl under a table to reach it. When she did so, the table tipped over, and the TSO claimed Pellegrino struck her in the leg while she was collecting the bag. Pellegrino denies striking either TSO and alleges she heard both say to one another, “[Y]ou saw her hit me, didn’t you?”

It got worse from there. The TSOs decided to respond with a complaint of their own. They took a bunch of bullshit allegations to local prosecutors, which resulted in Pellegrino being charged with ten (!) criminal acts, including assault, making terroristic threats (!!), and "possession of an instrument of crime" (her luggage) (!!!).

All of those charges eventually vanished when the TSA failed to produce a recording of the extending screening and a TSO gave contradictory testimony in court.

This decision [PDF] revives Pellegrino's lawsuit. The court says TSOs are authorized to search people and their belongings. This moves them into "investigative/law enforcement" territory and out from underneath the immunity blanket.

The court finds that TSOs meet every requirement needed to become the sort of federal employee that can be sued directly. No more sovereign immunity for these agents, who are officers "empowered by law to execute searches."

To repeat, the complete proviso definition for an “investigative or law enforcement officer” is “any officer of the United States who is empowered by law to execute searches, to seize evidence, or to make arrests for violations of Federal law.” 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h). By its plain terms, the phrase “empowered by law” narrows the scope of “officer[s]” covered from the set of all “officer[s] of the United States” to the subset of those with the authority to, among other things, “execute searches.”

Turning, then, to the statutory authority of TSOs, they are empowered by law to conduct “the screening of all passengers and property.” 49 U.S.C. § 44901(a). Screening, in turn, is defined in part as a “physical examination,” including a “physical search.” Id. § 44901(g)(4) (regarding screening of luggage). Hence TSOs are “empowered by law” within the meaning of the proviso.

As to the "searches" part of the provision:

TSO screenings are “searches” (i) as a matter of ordinary meaning, (ii) under the Fourth Amendment, and (iii) under the definition provided in Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968). Attempts to distinguish (iv) between administrative and criminal “searches” are divorced from the plain text, and any distinction, if one must be made, should account for (v) the fact that TSA searches extend to the general public and involve examinations of an individual’s physical person and her property.

The government tried to argue that passengers cannot sue over alleged Fourth Amendment violations because they trade their rights for the privilege of boarding airplanes. The court says this isn't correct and it certainly isn't a voluntary exchange.

The Government does not dispute that holding. Instead, it contends that consent by passengers cancels the Fourth Amendment’s effect. But the presence or absence of consent does not determine whether a search has occurred for purposes of the Fourth Amendment. [...] In any event, TSO screenings are not consensual. As noted, per TSA regulations any individual who does not consent to a “search or inspection” may not board a flight.

The government also tried to save TSOs from lawsuits by claiming these highly-intrusive airport searches were merely "administrative," the groin-grabbing equivalent of grabbing regulatory files from a local business. The court not only disagrees, but dunks on the government's terrible argument.

To begin, TSO screenings often involve invasive examinations of the physical person. As even the panel majority in this case acknowledged, TSA searches are “rigorous and intimate for individuals.” Pellegrino, 896 F.3d at 230. This sets them apart from other administrative searches that involve only inspections of property or the environment.

[...]

Next, the risk of abuse is greater for TSO screenings than for most other administrative searches. Because TSA searches affect the public directly, the potential for widespread harm is elevated. This potential for abuse in borne out by Pellegrino’s own experience. There is a reason that FDA meat inspectors do not generate headlines about sexual assault and other intimate violations.

The final word on TSOs and their immunity? They no longer have any.

Words matter. This core tenet of statutory interpretation channels our conclusion today: TSOs are “investigative or law enforcement officers” as defined in the Tort Claims Act at 28 U.S.C. § 2680(h). They are “officer[s] of the United States” by dint of their title, badge, and authority. They are “empowered by law to execute searches” because, by statutory command and implementing regulation, they may physically examine passengers and the property they bring with them to airports. And the TSOs’ searches are “for violations of Federal law” given that their inspections are for items that federal law bans on aircraft (often with criminal consequences).

If security officers violate rights (they do) and damage people's property (they do), then they should be held accountable for their actions. The TSA certainly doesn't seem interested in doing this, so it's left up to the courts to handle it. In this circuit, TSOs can be sued, but this doesn't change anything for those residing outside of this jurisdiction. If the government decides to challenge this decision, it may open itself up to a Supreme Court declaration that gives the entire nation the ability to directly sue TSA security officers. It will be interesting to see what it chooses to do, given the potential downside for its employees.

Filed Under: 3rd circuit, abuse, federal tort claims act, nadine pellegrino, screening, searches, security theater, standing, tsa, tso

TSA's Expensive Scanners Can't Figure Out Afros Or Turbans, So Guess Who's Getting Searched More Often

from the can't-solve-any-real-problems-so-let's-just-focus-on-making-people-angry dept

The TSA accidentally admitted years ago that its (annoying) presence at airports was extraneous. Summoned into existence by the 9/11 attacks, the TSA was nothing more than an obsolete government fixture a few years later. With terrorism being pretty much ground-based at this point in time, we're left to wonder why we still need to jump through all the TSA's hoops just to board a plane agents haven't made any safer with their elaborate security pantomime.

The TSA may not be able to find any bombs headed for planes, but it will leave no baby stroller/terminal disease sufferer unturned in its quest to justify its continued existence. It may not be able to stop terrorists, but it will not let an inert souvenir go uncrowed about on its blog or social media accounts.

Instead of doing anything useful, the TSA busies itself with the busywork of looking busy. To ensure maximum harassment of travelers, it's adding things like this to its list of annoying traits:

The futuristic full-body scanners that have become standard at airports across the United States are prone to false alarms for hairstyles popular among women of color.

[...]

Two officers interviewed by ProPublica said the machines’ alarms are frequently triggered by certain hairstyles.

“With black females, the scanner alarms more because they have thicker hair; many times they have braids or dreadlocks,” said a TSA officer who works at an airport in Texas and asked not to be named. “Maybe, down the line, they will be redesigning the technology, so it can tell apart what’s a real threat and what is not. But, for now, we officers have to do what the machine can’t.”

A government report in 2014 found that the machines also “had a higher false alarm rate when passengers wore turbans and wigs.”

We're spending an awful lot of money to increase the perception of racial bias by the TSA. Turbans, wigs, and "black hair:" that's 2/3rds of a Stormfront post being funded by tax dollars and inflicted on people whose heads have been deemed more "suspicious" by machines that answer to no one.

The more you read of this ProPublica report (written by Brenda Median and Thomas Frank), the more ridiculous it gets. The TSA's attempt to talk its way out of this mess is cringe-worthy and inadvertently hilarious. I don't know what this is, but it's one of the least credible things an anonymous official has ever said:

A senior TSA official said in an interview that hair pat-downs are not discriminatory and are done when a body scanner indicates that a passenger has an object in his or her hair. “I get a hair pat-down every time I travel. I’m a white woman,” said the official, who agreed to be interviewed on the condition that she not be named.

Do tell. Fill me in with the details while I notify @_DHOTYA. As a "senior TSA official," I doubt she's getting patted down on a regular basis, much less her hair... much less getting patted down AT ALL, really.

The TSA also believes its covered because it once said something about this on a website few travelers read.

The TSA advises passengers to remove all items from their hair before going through airport security and warns on its website that “wearing a hairpiece, extensions or a wig as well as a ponytail, a hair bun or braids” may trigger an alarm.

Dear TSA,

Just because you've posted your stupid warning about hair bombs to your website doesn't make this particular search any less stupid. How do I know? Well, I picked it up from something you said.

The TSA would not say if it had ever found a weapon in a passenger’s hair.

Yeah, that's a "no" in any other language. Trust me, if the TSA had ever found a weapon or bomb precursor or child porn or a bag of drugs in anyone's hair, it would have been covered by all major new outlets and we would all -- not just those of us with turbans or non-straight hair -- be subjected to the sort of head prodding we haven't seen since the heyday of phrenology.

So, for $150k/per, we're getting "state of the art" scanners that can't detect metal like our older, dumber metal detectors or spot actually suspicious objects encased in human hair. Whatever bias the expensive scanners can't provide, agents can create for themselves. As the TSA points out, hair searches are at agents' discretion. Hair styles and types agents find more suspicious than others can result in head patdowns, so long as they clear this ultra-low discretion bar:

...if “an individual’s hair looks like it could contain a prohibited item or is styled in a way an officer cannot visually clear it.

We're paying billions a year for this it's-funny-because-it's-oh-so-very-unfortunately-true comedy. We all need to line up for a refund.

Filed Under: discrimination, scanners, tsa

Appeals Court Says Gov't Will Be Paying Even More Legal Fees For Its Extended Loss In TSA No Fly List Lawsuit

from the quit-while-you're-behind-DOJbags dept

Fourteen years after an FBI agent mistakenly dumped Dr. Rahinah Ibrahim on the TSA's "No Fly" list, the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court is calling out the government for its horrendous behavior during the case, as well as ordering it to cough up more in legal fees.

The government's concession in this lawsuit was full and complete. It admitted Ibrahim posed no threat to national security, had never posed a threat to national security, and never should have been placed on the list, which stranded her in Malaysia back in 2005. En route to her victory, the government engaged in all sorts of malicious behavior, including arguing her No Fly status couldn't be discussed in open court, placing one of her witnesses on the No Fly list, and doing everything in its power to drag out the litigation. Stripped of all the legalese, the government basically spent most of decade arguing that an FBI agent's mistake fully justified Ibrahim being treated like a national security threat.

Ibrahim's case has made a return trip to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals -- this time asking for a second opinion on the district court's legal fee awards. The Appeals Court says the lower court shortchanged Ibrahim's representation (civil rights law firm McManis Faulkner) by failing to consider the government's horrendous behavior in its totality. The court really doesn't like the fact the government chose a mistake by a government agency as the hill it was willing to die for. From the decision [PDF]:

After the government engaged in years of scorched earth litigation, it finally conceded during trial in December 2013 that Dr. Ibrahim is “not a threat to our country. She does not pose (and has not posed) a threat of committing an act of international or domestic terrorism with respect to an aircraft, a threat to airline passenger or civil aviation security, or a threat of domestic terrorism.” But the government knew this in November 2004, when Agent Kelley completed the form; it knew it in January 2005, when the DHS agent told Dr. Ibrahim she was not on the No Fly list; and it was well aware of it two weeks after Dr. Ibrahim filed the underlying action, when a government agent ordered her “Remove[d] from ALL watchlisting supported systems (For terrorist subjects: due to closure of case AND no nexus to terrorism)” and further stated that Dr. Ibrahim was not qualified for placement on either the No Fly or TSA Selectee lists. Yet knowing this, the government essentially doubled-down over the course of the litigation with a no holds-barred defense.

The court then notes the government wasted more time (and racked up more legal fees) by stonewalling discovery efforts, evoking state secrets exceptions to anything it could, and engaging in extensive discussions about the whether the trial should be open to the public when it should have been arguing the merits of its dismissal motions.

The lower court somehow decided this lengthy headache was not the government's fault. It also decided every claim it didn't discuss was a loss for Ibrahim. The final tally was a 90% reduction in awarded fees. Ibrahim sought nearly $4 million in attorneys' fees and expenses. The district court said the extended dicking around by the government was worth less than $500,000. The Appeals Court says this is completely wrong. Ibrahim won decisively.

The achievement of Dr. Ibrahim and her attorneys in successfully challenging her No Fly list placement and forcing the government to fix its error was not just “excellent,” but extraordinary. Hensley, 461 U.S. at 435. Although this is not a class action, and thus we assess Dr. Ibrahim’s individual success, the pathbreaking nature of her lawsuit underscores her achievement. Dr. Ibrahim was the first person ever to force the government to admit a terrorist watchlisting mistake; to obtain significant discovery regarding how the federal watchlisting system works; to proceed to trial regarding a watchlisting mistake; to force the government to trace and correct all erroneous records in its customer watchlists and databases; to require the government to inform a watchlisted individual of her TSDB status; and to admit that it has secret exceptions to the watchlisting reasonable suspicion standard. Dr. Ibrahim, in her first appeal to our court, established that district courts have jurisdiction over challenges to placement on terrorist watchlists, including the No Fly list.

And the government behaved badly throughout the years of litigation, long after it discovered Ibrahim's placement on the No Fly list was a clerical error.

In sum, the district court’s ruling that the government did not act in bad faith was in error because it was incomplete. The district court focused primarily upon Agent Kelley’s “unknowing” placement of Dr. Ibrahim’s name on the No Fly list, which it deemed “the original sin,” rather than considering the “totality” of the government’s conduct, “including conduct ‘prelitigation and during trial.’” [...] And this conduct should have included both an analysis of the government agencies’ and its legal representatives’ conduct. Dr. Ibrahim should not have had to endure over a decade of contentious litigation, two trips to the court of appeals, extensive discovery, over 800 docket entries amounting to many thousands of pages of record, and a weeklong trial the government precluded her (and her U.S.-citizen daughter) from attending, only to come full circle to the government’s concession that she never belonged on the No Fly list at all—that she is not and never was a terrorist or threat to airline passenger or civil aviation security. It should not have taken a court order to require the government to “cleans[e] and/or correct[] . . . the mistaken 2004 derogatory designation” of Dr. Ibrahim, which had spread like an insidious virus through numerous government watchlists.

Ibrahim will still have to spend a bit more time in court before all of this is done. But the Appeals Court's message to the district court is clear: she should be awarded pretty much every penny of the $5 million she's requested.

Filed Under: 9th circuit, attorneys' fees, civil rights, dhs, doj, no fly list, rahinah ibrahim, tsa

TSA Will No Longer Engage In Suspicionless, Cross-Country Surveillance Of Airplane Passengers

from the never-once-stopping-questionable-programs-BEFORE-they-start dept

Earlier this year, news leaked out about an unannounced TSA program. "Quiet Skies" was the TSA's latest boondoggle, one that sent air marshals all over the US, tailing travelers just because. Things as simple as boarding too late/too early or using the restroom at the wrong time were designated suspicious behavior. It's was such a shady program even the air marshals didn't like it. Some felt it was illegal. Others found it ridiculous. But nearly every air marshal who spoke about the program called it as waste of time and money.

Following the Boston Globe's exposure of the program, the TSA was summoned to a Congressional hearing to answer questions about "Quiet Skies." The TSA admitted the program had caught zero terrorists but had managed to surveil nearly 5,000 individuals en route to this failure. The agency claimed the useless program was subject to "robust oversight" -- a claim hilariously delivered to members of Congress who had first heard about the program from the Boston Globe.

The TSA refused to say it would end the program, even as the air marshals union publicly stated it did not support the program's unwarranted surveillance or its waste of limited resources.

The Boston Globe has some good news to report: the TSA is apparently dismantling the program the paper exposed.

The Transportation Security Administration has curtailed its controversial “Quiet Skies” domestic surveillance program, following widespread criticism that federal air marshals were spying on thousands of unwitting fliers who are not suspected of any crime or on any terrorist watch list.

Agency officials told the Globe that air marshals no longer document the minor movements and behavior of these travelers, such as whether they fidget in the airport, go to the bathroom during the flight, or seem, according to the agency’s own checklist, to have a “cold, penetrating stare.”

The agency said it has also stopped following passengers through baggage claim and no longer compiles extensive reports on travelers who failed to rouse suspicions.

“Any routine passenger behaviors on a plane that would be seen as a normal behavior we are no longer capturing that,” said David Kohl, the new director of the Federal Air Marshal Service, in an interview.

"Quiet Skies" still exists, but without most of the stupid/unconstitutional stuff that made "Quiet Skies" shorthand for "Orwellian dystopia." This may end the criticism but it won't stop the bleeding. The Boston Globe reports both the Government Accountability Office and DHS Inspector General are investigating the program. Both entities want to know more about the "robustly overseen" program, especially in terms of cost effectiveness.

Even if the program was cost effective (the air marshals don't believe it is -- and they should know), the tactics deployed would not be any less questionable. The TSA engaged in direct surveillance of passengers with no reasonable, articulable reason for doing so. The program's very existence is lawsuit bait, even if passengers and activists may have trouble showing they have standing to sue.

And the nonexistent "robust oversight" the TSA cited in defense of a program its oversight hadn't heard of now actually exists and will be performing some actual oversight.

“We have conducted a bipartisan investigation over the past three years, and it is now time to convert our oversight findings into concrete reforms to help improve TSA’s ability to carry out its vital security missions,” Representative Elijah Cummings of Maryland, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told the Globe.

Representative Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi, the incoming chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, said oversight hearings next year will aim to “ensure TSA meets all privacy, civil rights, and civil liberties requirements.”

The TSA is definitely still going to surveil some travelers. It just won't be doing at the scale it was with "Quiet Skies." And it will no longer be able to justify this pervasive surveillance with specious criteria like "passenger slept during flight." It will have to show its work. Even better, it will have to show the work it's already done to a number of agencies and government representatives. And it doesn't even have a single win in the "busted terrorist" column to justify its actions.

Filed Under: air marshals, air travel, surveillance, tsa, us marshals

TSA Announces Plans To Subject Domestic Travelers To Biometric Screening

from the to-secure-its-'position-as-a-global-leader-in-aviation-security'-hahahah dept

As promised/threatened, the DHS is moving forward with expanded use of biometric scanning at airports, including facial recognition and fingerprint matches. What was touted as a way to combat international terrorism and illegal immigration will now include those on the home front, as the tech spreads to include US citizens on domestic flights. But the TSA doesn't see this as an unwanted incursion into the lives of innocent citizens. Instead, it pitches it as a useful tool to speed up security screening at TSA checkpoints.

TSA says that by moving toward facial recognition technology in a time where travel volume is rising, it’s hoping to reduce the need for physical documents like passports and paper tickets. Currently, TSA manually compares the passengers in front of them to their ID photos, but it believes an automated process that can match facial images to photos from passports and visa applications will be more accurate and efficient.

The TSA expects paying customers to foot the bill for the expansion -- the same citizens it's been selling civil liberties back to for years. From the TSA's "roadmap" for expanded biometric screening:

Currently, TSA and airline partners verify traveler identity primarily by processing biographic data and inspecting physical identity and travel documents. The use of biometric technology will simplify the passenger experience and increase efficiency and security effectiveness.

The roadmap focuses on four main goals: 1) partnering with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on biometrics for international travelers; 2) using biometrics provided by TSA Pre✓® members to enhance the travel experience; 3) expanding biometrics to additional domestic travelers; and 4) developing the infrastructure for biometric technology. TSA is already carrying out these objectives through smart investments and collaborative partnerships.

Yes, the paying members of the TSA's Pre✓ program will be the first to "enhance" their "travel experience" by feeding their faces into a database the TSA controls, using tech prone to erroneous conclusions. Other travelers won't be able to opt out of biometric screening, however. They'll just be subject to the non-enhanced travel experience where TSA and CBP officers ask a long series of invasive questions and infer suspicious behavior on the part of travelers who bypass the biometric kiosks.

It's true that traveling in the US has always been a "papers, please" experience. But prior to the 9/11 attacks, this simply meant presenting a ticket before boarding. Now, it's everything about everybody, no matter how useless this information is 99.9% of the time. Rather than move towards smarter screening methods, the TSA has decided to subject everyone to the same level of screening with the same arbitrary rules stemming from airborne attacks the TSA failed to prevent.

The TSA pitches this as a paperless airport, but it's really just another way for the government to compile a massive database of identifying info and of citizens' movements. The DHS likes to talk about its 96% accuracy target, but has released no information about actual accuracy in test runs, so concerns about false positives/negatives aren't going away anytime soon.

The government has responded in the worst way to terrorist attacks in the US. It has made freedom of movement a hassle -- one that diminishes Constitutional protections and turns every traveler into a potential suspect.

Filed Under: biometrics, privacy, screening, security theater, tsa