TSA Threatens To Sue Guy For Not Agreeing To Having His Groin Touched By TSA Agents

from the that'll-go-over-well dept

There's been a lot of talk lately about the new backscatter scanners at airports that take a "naked" image of the passenger, and how airports have now instituted newer and more invasive patdowns for those who refuse to go through the scans. Many feel that both of these practices goes way too far. A whole bunch of folks have now been submitting the story of one guy who refused to go through the backscatter scanner, and then told the TSA (in a slightly crude manner) that he would not consent to having his groin groped. Specifically, he warned the officer, "if you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested." This, of course, led to supervisors and supervisors and various reports being written up before he was escorted out of the screening area and told he would not be able to fly.

Of course, we've seen similar stories before. But where this one got even odder is that after he went to the ticket counter and was able to get his ticket refunded (even though it was a non-refundable ticket), he was approached by a man in a suit and two of the people who had both detained him in the security area and escorted him out of it -- and told that he could not leave the airport until he submitted to the invasive screening. If he tried to leave, he was told he would be sued and could face fines of $10,000:

At this point, I thought it was all over. I began to make my way to the stairs to exit the airport, when I was approached by another man in slacks and a sport coat. He was accompanied by the officer that had escorted me to the ticketing area and Mr. Silva. He informed me that I could not leave the airport. He said that once I start the screening in the secure area, I could not leave until it was completed. Having left the area, he stated, I would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine. I asked him if he was also going to fine the 6 TSA agents and the local police officer who escorted me from the secure area. After all, I did exactly what I was told. He said that they didn't know the rules, and that he would deal with them later. They would not be subject to civil penalties. I then pointed to Mr. Silva and asked if he would be subject to any penalties. He is the agents' supervisor, and he directed them to escort me out. The man informed me that Mr. Silva was new and he would not be subject to penalties, either. He again asserted the necessity that I return to the screening area. When I asked why, he explained that I may have an incendiary device and whether or not that was true needed to be determined. I told him that I would submit to a walk through the metal detector, but that was it; I would not be groped.

With groups like EPIC and the ACLU fighting these machines, I'm guessing the guy has already been contacted by them and other such groups. The idea that buying a ticket and entering the screening area means you've agreed, no matter what -- even if you decide not to fly -- to go through an invasive screening process, seems like a pretty radical reading of the 4th Amendment that I'm sure some civil liberties groups would happily challenge.

You can listen to the audio of most of the encounter at the link above (there's video too, but it's mostly of the ceiling). Some have questioned why he was filming, and if he had set this up with a plan to get into a confrontation all along. You can see his explanation here which makes sense. He claims that he had checked online prior to flying and the TSA's website had said that San Diego Airport did not have the backscatter scanners, which is why he agreed to fly through there. Then, when he got to the security area, he chose a line that was a traditional metal scanner, rather than the backscatter lines. The person in front of him was told to go to the backscatter scanner, and after refusing he realized they might ask him to go instead, so he then turned on his camera, since he'd heard of numerous other incidents, and wanted a recording just in case. Throughout the experience he points out that 80% of the passengers are just going through the traditional metal detector, and he'd be fine if he could just use that same process, but they won't allow it.

It seems pretty clear that these new invasive scans and pat downs are going to end up in the courts. From my perspective, they certainly seem to go way beyond the "reasonable" standard, but who knows what the courts will say. That said, in this case, the security officials went way beyond even that level, by threatening to sue the guy for not consenting to go through with it, even after he had said he would no longer be flying.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, airports, privacy, searches, threats, tsa

Pilot Not Allowed Through Security After He Refuses 'Naked' Backscatter Scan

from the security-theater dept

There's been a lot of talk lately about the new body scanners at airports, which create a "virtually naked" image of you -- bringing up all sorts of privacy concerns, especially as reports are coming out about how the machines can record images. Many people, concerned about how these machines operate, have asked not to use them, and there are usually other options. Boing Boing points us to the story of a working, uniformed pilot (working for ExpressJet) who refused to go through the backscatter scanner. After being directed to a normal metal detector, and declared an "opt-out," he was told he needed to be patted down by security. He refused, noting that it was intrusive and that he had made it through the normal metal detector without a problem (the same security review he'd been given for many years as a pilot -- even in that same airport).

At that point, the TSA got upset, and a bunch of other folks got involved, including the airport police. He was detained, asked all sorts of questions (some he refused to answer), and not allowed to leave when he asked. At one point he was told he was free to leave, but then was stopped again and told he was not allowed to go until he spoke to one more person. The pilot, Michael Roberts, noted during his explanation of what happened that he's actually taught the TSA-mandated security training program at ExpressJet. The whole story is yet another example of security theater in action -- people just doing things because it's on the checklist, not because it makes anyone more secure.

"What do you mean I 'should know better'? Are you scolding me? Have I done something wrong?"

"I'm not saying you've done something wrong. But you have to go through security screening if you want to enter the facility."

"Understood. I've been going through security screening right here in this line for five years and never blown up an airplane, broken any laws, made any threats, or had a government agent call my boss in Houston. And you guys have never tried to touch me or see me naked that whole time. But, if that's what it's come to now, I don't want to enter the facility that badly."

Filed Under: airports, backscatter, civil rights, pilots, scanners, security, security theater

Time For 'Israelification' Of U.S. Airports?

from the security-or-security-theater dept

theodp writes "A few days ago, the Toronto Star reported that security experts point to 'Israelification' as a possible cure for what ails North America's security-paralyzed airports. That is, how can we make our airports more like Israel's, which deal with far greater terror threat with far less inconvenience. 'It is mindboggling for us Israelis to look at what happens in North America, because we went through this 50 years ago,' said Rafi Sela, president of a transportation security consultancy. Unless a more sensible approach to security is adopted, Sela warned that North American airports could be crippled by needless airport evacuations. As if to prove his point, Newark Liberty International Airport -- which is planning to unleash $160,000 high-tech full-body scanners on travelers to improve security -- had to be evacuated Sunday night and flights were grounded after a man walked the wrong way through a screening checkpoint exit to enter the secured side of a terminal. Looks like we may owe Mr. Sela an I-told-you-so on this one."

I had seen the Toronto Star article when it came out, and it's definitely worth reading. It does appear that the Israelis are a lot more focused on security that works, rather than security theater -- though I don't think any security system is foolproof. I do think that there's a lot to what Sela says at the end of the article as to why the TSA hasn't followed Israel's lead:

"We have a saying in Hebrew that it's much easier to look for a lost key under the light, than to look for the key where you actually lost it, because it's dark over there. That's exactly how (North American airport security officials) act," Sela said. "You can easily do what we do. You don't have to replace anything. You have to add just a little bit -- technology, training. But you have to completely change the way you go about doing airport security. And that is something that the bureaucrats have a problem with. They are very well enclosed in their own concept."

As for the question on "full body scans," while not mentioned in the article, it's worth noting that Israeli airport security apparently doesn't use such machines either. I saw an interview recently with an Israeli security expert, who said that using such machines (the ones that allow screeners to effectively see travelers naked) would create a much bigger mess, as traditional and religious men would become incredibly offended at screeners seeing their wives naked.

The key difference in the two systems is that the US (and most others) seem intent on scanning what you're bringing on the plane. The Israelis are a lot more interested in who you are and how you act.

Filed Under: airport security, airports, israel, security theater

Next Stage Of Security Theater: Homeland Security Wants More Info To Let You Board A Plane

from the feel-safer? dept

Apparently, the Department of Homeland Security would like to add another layer of security theater to the airplane boarding process. Homeland Security is now taking over the process of matching your identity to government watch lists at airports (away from the airlines), and they're going to start demanding more info. You will not be allowed to fly if you don't provide your first and last names, birth date and gender. This is positioned as a way to avoid the various "false positives" we've heard so much about with fliers who have similar names to those on the no-fly list. While it's good that they want to cut down on those false positives, it's not as if this makes you any safer. It just requires giving up more privacy to fly.

Also worth noting is that this is the first time that the government has actually admitted how many people are on the no fly list (about 2,500) as well as the "selectee" list for extra careful searches (another 16,000). They also noted that it's quite rare for anyone on the no-fly list to actually try to fly (about once a month -- and it's almost always initiating in a foreign country). Of course, if you were actually a terrorist, would you fly under your real identity?

Filed Under: airports, homeland security, security theater

Security Theater In Action

from the don't-you-feel-safer-now? dept

The Atlantic has an article in which the author, Jeffrey Goldberg, put various Bruce Schneier theories to the test, to see just how ridiculous airport security is these days. As expected, he discovered that Schneier is correct in calling most airport security "security theater." It's designed to make people think they're safer because they see something that looks like security, even if that security does absolutely nothing to stop terrorists. As the article notes, it's not at all difficult for terrorists to bypass the system, so the only thing the system is really good for is to (a) catch really, really dumb terrorists or (b) to make other people think that the security is doing something.

Schneier, of course, has been making this point for years, so it was interesting to see what sort of response Goldberg was then able to get out of the TSA's boss, Kip Hawley. His responses seem to fall into one of two categories. First, he suggests that the TSA is well aware of the potential vulnerability described, but he can't really explain how it's been fixed, or secondly, he insists that any odd behavior will be spotted by trained employees and stopped. Except that Goldberg tested that theory too, attempting to behave quite strangely -- including ripping up a bunch of fake boarding passes in plain view of people... who all ignored him.

Hawley's responses at times border on incomprehensible:

"What do you do about vulnerabilities?" he asked, rhetorically. "All the time you hear reports and people saying, 'There's a vulnerability.' Well, duh. There are vulnerabilities everywhere, in everything. The question is not 'Is there a vulnerability?' It's 'What are you doing about it?'"

Well, what are you doing about it?

"There are vulnerabilities where you have limited ways to address it directly. So you have to put other layers around it, other things that will catch them when that vulnerability is breached. This is a universal problem. Somebody will identify a very small thing and drill down and say, 'I found a vulnerability.'"

Either there's some totally secret system that the TSA is using to actually stop these vulnerabilities, or there isn't a system and Hawley is just being confusing in order to create some doubt. I'm not sure either one makes me feel any safer about flying. While some may claim that we should feel safer because there might be a more secretive plan in place that Hawley won't talk about, consider me a skeptic. Security through obscurity has rarely proven to be as effective as a real and open security plan. I'm not saying that the TSA should reveal everything it does, but given Goldberg's experiences in "probing" the system, it's not clear that any "secret plan," whether real or implied, is working particularly well.

Filed Under: airports, inspections, security, tsa

TSA Inspections Are Still A Farce

from the security-theater dept

If you thought taking your shoes off and putting your liquids in little plastic bags was going to stop terrorists from smuggling bombs onto planes, think again. A new report from the Government Accountability Office finds that investigators were able to smuggle bomb components through TSA checkpoints without being caught. This isn't much of a surprise; a similar test last year found that the TSA caught only 2 out of 22 people who tried to smuggle dummy weapons through checkpoints in a Newark airport. This is not really surprising. The TSA's strategy has been basically reactive: the 9/11 hijackers used box cutters, so those get banned. Somebody tries to smuggle explosives onboard in his shoes, so the TSA makes us all take our shoes off. Somebody tries to smuggle liquid explosives onto a plane, so the TSA bans bottled water. There's no reason to think these rules actually make us safer, but they do allow the TSA to pretend they're "doing something" about terrorism. A TSA spokeswoman insists that this wasn't a fair test because they only got by one of their "19 layers of security." I wouldn't be surprised if the other 18 layers were as ineffectual than the others, but one thing that can be said for them is that they're a lot less annoying for travelers. How about if the TSA stops wasting resources forcing 5-year-old girls to take their shoes off, and shift those resources to the sort of in-depth police work that led to the foiling of last year's liquid explosives plot.

Filed Under: airports, inspections, security, tsa
Companies: tsa

Automatic Airport Check-In Is Patented?

from the but-why? dept

I've been flying a lot over the past few years, and it's become pretty standard for airlines to now have self-serve kiosks where you can check in and print out a boarding pass. If you have a bag to check, you then take it to a "bag drop" station. There are fewer and fewer places where this isn't the norm -- but apparently Alaska Airlines owns a patent on the process. The company says it got the patent to "reward the employees" who came up with the idea, but that doesn't make much sense. As William Stepp points out in the link above, wouldn't Alaska Airlines have been better off not spending all that money filing a patent. In fact, if they wanted to reward the employees who came up with the idea, why not just give the money wasted on the patent filing to the employees?

Filed Under: airports, bag drop, check-in, patents
Companies: alaska airlines