How The US Response Turns 'Failed' Terrorist Attacks Into Successes

from the playing-the-game-they-want dept

Terrorism is a serious issue. No one's trying to downplay the fact that some very angry individuals are trying to kill an awful lot of Americans (and others as well). However, what's amazing is how incredibly bad the US appears to be at this particular game of chess. Robert Wright recently had a bit of an eye-opening discussion of how the US appears to have played into Al Qaeda's plan at almost every turn. It's another case of the US simply not understanding how to respond to a distributed threat, rather than a centralized one. The whole business is based on getting the US to overreact and overspend and get it caught in a quagmire that causes additional problems. And, increasingly, it looks like that's exactly what's happened.

Along those lines, Bruce Schneier highlights how the US response fits right into Al Qaeda's plans, since our response is quite costly, while the attacks are really, really cheap. He points to an article in Foreign Policy that explains how the TSA's security policies are exactly what Al Qaeda wants. It's not about killing Americans or even "terrorizing" them. It's about trying to get the country spending more and more to try to stop the impossible -- leading to a bankrupting of the overall economy. Now, I will say that this goal is probably a lot more difficult to reach than Al Qaeda probably thinks, but it's no excuse for the US government following through and helping Al Qaeda.

But the really striking thing about all of this is that you realize how the US has turned each failed attack into a success for Al Qaeda. A clueless guy can't light his underwear on fire to take down an airplane? We spend billions in totally ineffective and intrusive TSA security procedures and machines that wouldn't have even caught that guy.

What we're doing is creating a circular situation where all we're doing is encouraging more ridiculous attacks by Al Qaeda. Even when they don't succeed, the fact that we're costing the country so much in silly security theater encourages Al Qaeda to do more -- and (perhaps) to get more ridiculous each time, knowing that we'll continue to overreact and spend ourselves silly to try to prevent another guy from trying to light his underwear on fire on a plane. Outspending (massively) an enemy worked when that enemy was the Soviet Union -- a centralized bureaucracy that simply couldn't keep up. But this is a very different beast, and responding using the same basic thought process isn't helping. It's making matters worse. As Wright notes in that first article: "We’re creating them faster than we’re killing them." And spending orders of magnitude to do so. Forget the fact that this isn't sustainable. It's just downright stupid from a strategic standpoint.

Filed Under: response, security, terrorism, tsa

Molecular Biologist Highlights Serious Safety Concerns Over TSA Scanners

from the more-data-needed dept

I really haven't talked much (at all) about the "safety" concerns over the TSA's X-ray scanner devices, because a lot of it did seem like overreactions from people who didn't really know what they were talking about. However, there does appear to be increasingly credible claims from scientists that, at the very least, what the government is saying about these machines is not at all accurate. Keith Dawson points us to a blog post by Molecular Biologist Jason Bell, reviewing the literature on these devices and comparing it to questions sent by a group of scientists at UCSF, and suggesting (at best) that the government is being misleading in its claims about the safety of the devices. Here's just a snippet:

With respect to errors in the safety reports and/or misleading information about them, the statement that one scan is equivalent to 2-3 minutes of your flight is VERY misleading. Most cosmic radiation is composed of high energy particles that passes right through our body and the plane itself without being absorbed. The spectrum that is dangerous is known as ionizing radiation and most of that is absorbed by the hull of the airplane. So relating non-absorbing cosmic radiation to tissue absorbing man-made radiation is simply misleading and wrong. Of course these are related and there is over-lap, but we have to compare apples to apples.

Furthermore, when making this comparison, the TSA and FDA are calculating that the dose is absorbed throughout the body. According the simulations performed by NIST, the relative absorption of the radiation is ~20-35-fold higher in the skin, breast, testes and thymus than the brain, or 7-12-fold higher than bone marrow. So a total body dose is misleading, because there is differential absorption in some tissues. Of particular concern is radiation exposure to the testes, which could result in infertility or birth defects, and breasts for women who might carry a BRCA1 or BRCA2 mutation.

The report also notes that while the UCSF team was made up of well-known and well-respected scientists, the TSA's response included no author credits, and there's no indication that it was written by any actual doctors or scientists. I'm still not convinced the medical concerns are that big of a deal (well, perhaps for TSA agents stationed near the devices...), but it is a bit troubling that the TSA isn't being particularly forthcoming on this stuff.

Filed Under: radiation, scanners, tsa
Companies: tsa

Chris Matthews Says That Pointing Out Chertoff's Conflict Of Interest Over Rapiscan TSA Scanners Is Slander?

from the ah,-the-media dept

Michael Chertoff's conflict of interest over the Rapiscan full body "naked" scanners used by the TSA in airports is old news. It was reported on widely earlier this year, and again in the past few weeks. So it does seem kind of odd (as pointed out via Radley Balko) that MSNBC TV guy Chris Matthews appears to accuse someone of slander for pointing it out. Of course, if you watch the video, what Matthews does is even more insidious -- which is taking what Ginger McCall actually says, and twisting it to pretend she said something different. She points out -- accurately -- the conflict of interest, and he claims she's saying that the only reason we have these devices was because of corruption and "sweetheart deals" back when Chertoff was head of Homeland Security. But McCall was merely pointing out that there's a "revolving door" at these agencies, and machines are pitched by former government folks, with little evidence that they're effective. Matthews totally takes what McCall actually says and pretends (falsely) that she claimed he made a corrupt deal while still in power. This is what passes for journalism these days?

Filed Under: chris matthews, ginger mccall, michael chertoff, tsa
Companies: rapiscan

Why The TSA's Searches Are Unconstitutional

from the hello-4th-amendment dept

Law professor Jeffrey Rosen has an excellent analysis of why the TSA's new searches are unconstitutional. He notes that, even if the majority of people aren't too bothered by the searches, that doesn't change the fact that they appear to be illegal. This is even though the courts have generally been quite deferential to the government when it comes to claims of "national security" in doing things like preventing terrorism. He notes that, while the Supreme Court has not heard such a case, there are various appeals court rulings that set the standards for such searches:

the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled in 2007, that "a particular airport security screening search is constitutionally reasonable provided that it 'is no more extensive nor intensive than necessary, in the light of current technology, to detect the presence of weapons or explosives.' "

In a 2006 opinion for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit, then-Judge Samuel Alito stressed that screening procedures must be both "minimally intrusive" and "effective" - in other words, they must be "well-tailored to protect personal privacy," and they must deliver on their promise of discovering serious threats. Alito upheld the practices at an airport checkpoint where passengers were first screened with walk-through magnetometers and then, if they set off an alarm, with hand-held wands. He wrote that airport searches are reasonable if they escalate "in invasiveness only after a lower level of screening disclose[s] a reason to conduct a more probing search."

Of course, as Rosen notes, the new searches do not pass that test by a long shot. He also points out that an analysis of the machines suggests that -- despite claims to the contrary by the TSA -- new research shows that last year's underwear bomber would not have been caught with these machines, which suggests that such machines are not "effective" under the above basic definition. Perhaps the Supreme Court will finally weigh in on this topic... though, by the time it reaches that level, the TSA will probably have moved on to even more ridiculous security theater practices.

Filed Under: 4th amendment, constitution, searches, tsa
Companies: tsa

Just Because 'National Opt-Out Day' Didn't Do Much, Does It Mean People Don't Care About TSA Searches?

from the say-what-now? dept

Last Wednesday, there was a lot of media attention paid to this concept of "national opt-out day" concerning the TSA's new "naked scan or grope" security options. I didn't cover that story at all. Leading up to it, I don't think I even mentioned the concept of the "national opt-out day" once, because the whole idea seemed pretty silly. In retrospect, it may have been worse than silly. Since there was no corresponding gridlock at airports, it appears that the press has now decided that because "national opt-out day" was a failure, it means people don't really care about the TSA's new policies. In other words, the failure of the protest means this "story" is over, much to the relief of the TSA and the administration, who now thinks it can go on ignoring the very real concerns of passengers.

This is a problem.

It's no surprise that the media storm over the TSA procedures had an arc. It's how major media stories go. But, it's unfortunate that there was this misguided focus on getting a bunch of people to do stuff on a particular day (and a day when they are probably least interested in actually doing what's asked of them). Because of that, suddenly, to the major media, it feels like this story is "over." But to the people who are still worried about the scans or uncomfortable with being groped by the government without reasonable cause, it's unfortunate that this story will now get less attention. It's not because the issue is any less. And it's not because the TSA has responded to the concerns. It's because of this one silly, poorly thought-out "event," which became a part of the media spectacle and an easy way to end the story with a claim that the whole set of protests has been a failure.

Filed Under: journalism, opt-out day, press, privacy, security, tsa

TSA's Failure Based On The Myth Of Perfect Security

from the it's-not-happening dept

As the complaints against the TSA ratchet up, various people are finally starting to point out why the whole concept of security theater is a farce. The entire setup is based on the idea that you can have "perfect security." But, if you wanted perfect security, the only way to do that is to not let anyone fly, ever. As James Fallows notes it doesn't make much sense to "spend limitlessly toward the impossible end of reducing the risk to zero." As he notes:

Every society accepts some risks as part of its overall social contract. People die when they drive cars, they die when they drink, they die from crime, they die when planes go down, they die on bikes. The only way to eliminate the risks would be to eliminate the activities -- no driving, no drinking, no weapons of any kind, no planes or bikes. While risk/reward tradeoffs vary between, say, Sweden and China, no nation accepts the total social controls that would be necessary to eliminate risk altogether.

Yet when it comes to dealing with terrorism, politicians know that they will not be judged on the basis of an "acceptable level of risk." They know that they can't even use that term when discussing the issue. ("Senator Flaccid thinks it's 'acceptable' for terrorists to blow up planes. On Election Day, show him that politicians who give in to terror are 'unacceptable' to us.") And they know for certain that if -- when -- a plane blows up with Americans aboard, then cable news, their political opponents, Congressional investigators, and everyone else will hunt down any person who ever said that any security measure should be relaxed.

This is the political tragedy of "security theater."

Along those lines, the Unqualified Offerings blog (via Julian Sanchez) does a nice job explaining how the incentives line up to create this ridiculous situation. Basically, he notes that a terrorist attack on an airplane will happen. Some day. No matter what we do to try to prevent it. But once that happens, the response is going to be obvious: those who pushed hard for more ridiculous security theater that wasn't implemented will keep their jobs and retain power. Those who pushed for more reasonable solutions will be vilified.

100% success is usually impossible in the real world. Given that eventually, one way or another, a terrorist will almost certainly take down a plane, the only question that management has to ask itself is what position they want to be in when that happens. And that answer is simple: Safe in their jobs, and poised to inherit a bigger budget.

And that's why we get security theater.

The goal isn't so much actual safety. After all, as Jim Harper notes, if you look at the actual "risk" of a terrorist attack on an airplane today, it's pretty close to zero. But the whole process is built around trying to bring it all the way to zero, which is an impossibility, but leads to ridiculous extremes. And, he notes, this is exactly how the terrorists planned it:

This is apostasy in Washington -- where the political imperative is zero risk. But risk is a reality of life. We take risks when we drive, when we walk across a street and when we go to the fridge for that two-day-old slice of pizza.

This illusory quest for zero risk helps terrorism achieve its goals. As news of "Operation Hemorrhage" -- smaller, low-cost attacks aimed to disrupt commerce and stoke fears -- demonstrates clearly, terrorism works by inducing target states to overreact. That's the only mode terrorists have for affecting major powers like the United States.

We've been nothing if not a patsy to their strategy. The element of surprise, central to terrorism, forces us to defend everything against every mode of attack -- a logic that naturally bleeds us.

Filed Under: incentives, myths, privacy, security, terrorism, tsa
Companies: tsa

TSA 'Demonstration' Of Gropings Backfires In Congress

from the oops dept

Apparently the TSA went to Capitol Hill this week to "demonstrate" the new groping pat downs to prove to folks in Congress that they're really not so bad. The only problem? Those watching the gropings seemed to get exactly the opposite sense:

He said that several House staffers were uncomfortable and averted their eyes when the TSA demonstrated an enhanced pat-down in the room of 200 people.

"The dumbest part: they did two pat-down demonstrations -- male on male, and female on female," the House staffer said. And they used a young female TSA volunteer "and in front of a room of 200 people, they touched her breasts and her buttocks. People were averting their eyes. The TSA was trying to demonstrate 'this is not so bad,' but it made people so uncomfortable to watch, that people were averting their eyes."

"They shot themselves in the foot," the staffer continued.

Now, will those in Congress actually do anything about all this? It's really amazing how frequently the TSA and its supporters insist that the gropings "aren't so bad." It really suggests a huge disconnect between what they're doing and what people consider "bad" to be.

Filed Under: congress, groping, searches, tsa

Foursquare Offers New Badge Mocking TSA

from the Proud-To-Be-Groped dept

As I've mentioned in the recent past, I think humor is an effective weapon in highlighting wrong doing. There's a long tradition of groups and individuals who have reacted to hardships of various degrees by using humor. Everything from Hitler to the debate on intellectual property has been covered.

So color me amused AND encouraged when I see that Foursquare (those quirky folks that help you "check in" to places) has released a new badge just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday. It's called the Baggage Handler badge. During one of the country's busiest travel seasons, you can now "check in at any airport and include something like "TSA," "grope" or -- my personal favorite -- "Don't touch my junk, bro!" in your shout." You will then receive an unlock text letting you know that "you've had your baggage handled".

It's funny, to be sure, but I wonder if this won't have an even more profound effect. It's long been said that all tyranny needs in order to grow is the indifference of good people. I would imagine that, given the popularity of Foursquare and social media sites, this humorous take on the enhanced screening tactics of the TSA will only spotlight the issues and absurdity even more, perhaps engaging the interest of those otherwise indifferent people.

Filed Under: badges, humor, tsa
Companies: foursquare

TSA Claims You Need To Be Naked Scanned Or Groped After A Flight?

from the say-what?!? dept

The latest bizarre story of TSA scans, submitted by multiple readers here, is the story of blogger Matt Kernan, who recently flew from Paris to Cincinnati, and upon landing, but before being able to claim his bags, was told he had to go through a naked scanner or be groped. He has a detailed account of what happened on his blog, where he actually was able to eventually convince the TSA to let him through without a scan or a grope. Some of the coverage of his story highlights the fact that he was actually able to talk his way out without having to through the backscatter naked scan or the groping. And that is, indeed, an interesting point. He highlights his Constitutional rights, which state that as a US citizen with a valid passport, he should be free to enter the country. After a long while of going back and forth with multiple parties, he is escorted by over a dozen folks out of the security area and to the baggage claim without having to through the scanner or a groping.

But what's a bigger point to me is why did he have to go through such a search after he'd already flown. At first I thought it was to get on a connecting flight, but that's not the case. He just wanted to leave the airport and go home, and eventually he was allowed to do just that. He flew into the Cincinnati airport and lives in Cincinnati -- and was initially told that his only options were to be scanned or groped... or to go back through customs. Kernan recorded (audio) many of the interactions. You can hear them below:





The details are interesting, and all of the interactions he has are quite fascinating. But what is still not explained is why he needs to go through the scanner/groping process after the flight. I just flew back into the US from Europe last week myself (after the "new procedures" were put into practice), and I did not have to go through scanners or a groping to get back into the country. I haven't heard of it elsewhere, either. I'm curious if anyone supporting the TSA position can explain how this makes any sense. This is beyond security theater. This is security farce.

Filed Under: privacy, security, tsa
Companies: tsa

While TSA Looks At You Naked, Child Finds Loaded Gun Magazine Left On Southwest Plane

from the feel-safer? dept

Another day, another series of bizarre TSA-related stories. While the TSA still won't provide any evidence that its efforts have actually made air travel any safer and continues to defend its security efforts as necessary, CNN is reporting that a child on a Southwest flight found a loaded gun magazine in a seatback pocket, which was kicked to the floor as the child climbed over the seats. Apparently, a law enforcement official (not an air marshal) who was allowed to take the clip on the plane, left it in the seat. Obviously, this is not a failure of the TSA, in that the mistake was by the law enforcement agent who left the clip, but the point is that it's impossible to protect against all threats on a plane, and many of the TSA's actions seem to be based on the fiction that it is possible. I have nothing against legitimate security that makes us safer, but there's little indication that that's what we're getting from the TSA.

Filed Under: guns, planes, security, tsa