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Damian Dovarganes / AP
Transportation Security Administration screener Marlon Tejada, left, watches as Randy Parsons, the TSA's acting federal security director goes through a full-body X-ray scan today at Los Angeles International Airport.
Doing highly publicized, invasive screening on a random basis will probably never catch a terrorist … but that’s not the point, experts say.
The nationwide phase-in of full-body airport scanners that work like Superman's X-ray vision, along with pat-downs that include checking your private parts, are the latest moves in an arms race between would-be attackers and the authorities. This time around, the escalation is a delayed response to the "underwear bomber" airliner attack that was attempted last Christmas -- but which failed because the bomber couldn't detonate his explosives-laden briefs.
Unfortunately, it's an arms race that has caught the traveling public in the crossfire. The pat-downs and body scans have sparked a wave of outrage that could break with full force on Wednesday, when fliers are being asked to "opt out" of the body scans and undergo the intrusive pat-downs instead. The result could be a massive jam-up of airport security on the year's busiest travel day.
Responding to the outcry, John Pistole, the head of the embattled Transportation Security Administration, told NBC's TODAY show that only "a very small percent" of air travelers have had pat-downs. Which raises a statistical question: If only a small percent of passengers are being checked, doesn't that mean there's a large chance that a terrorist would slip through?
The TSA doesn't talk about the details of its security policies, which is arguably behind some of the agency's public-perception problems. But in a paper that was published in the online journal First Monday back in 2003, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology said the typical airport puts 2 to 8 percent of its passengers through extra screening. Today, NBC News' Tom Costello quoted the TSA as saying that less than 3 percent of passengers are being selected for pat-downs:
Those figures might seem to imply that a terrorist would have more than a 90 percent chance of getting through security undetected, if he or she were using a method of attack that could not be detected through normal screening.
So why bother? Well, those calculations don't consider the deterrent effect of random screening.
Brian Michael Jenkins, a senior adviser at the RAND Corp. and a former member of the White House Commission on Aviation Safety and Security, noted that the rate of attempted terrorist hijackings and sabotage has declined dramatically since the 1970s, even through the post-9/11 era. "We can claim, No. 1, that the security measures do represent a deterrent," he told me. "And we can also claim that the security measures have increased the operational difficulties for our adversaries, to the point that their devices are increasingly unreliable." Underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as well as the shoe bomber Richard Reid have demonstrated that last point.
At the same time, Jenkins acknowledged that the escalation of the arms race was reaching the point at which bombs could conceivably be undetectable except through the most intrusive types of searches -- which is where we're heading today.
"We have to accept the possibility that sometimes our adversaries may succeed," Jenkins said. "That dynamic notion of security is hard for people to accept. We are in the risk business, not the prevention business."
How intrusive should searches be?
The past few days have brought a succession of horror stories ... about a breast-cancer patient who was forced to show her prosthetic breast, for example, or a traveler whose urine collection bag spilled during a search. But when properly done, the searches should be no more intrusive that "what one would get from an airport in Germany or France," Jenkins said.
Douglas R. Laird, a former security director for Northwest Airlines who now has his own Nevada-based consulting firm, echoed Jenkins' view that some of the controversy over "touching your junk" was unjustified: "If you're going to do a physical pat-down, then you should do it correctly, and the only way to do it correctly is to be invasive," he told me. "If you can't touch the privates, that's where the terrorists are going to put the stuff."
So what's next? Body-cavity searches?
Actually, Jenkins, Laird and many other experts on aviation security favor switching over to an entirely different approach. "We cannot have our security system rely exclusively on a search for objects," Jenkins said. "We are going to have to move toward a more discerning system that also measures risks according to the person."
Aviation authorities have already been experimenting with programs for registered travelers -- in which frequent fliers give up some information about themselves and, in return, are allowed to take a fast track through the airport security lines. "There won't be an absence of security for such people, but we'll move toward a pre-9/11 screening regime, or a somewhat lighter version," Jenkins said.
On the other side of the spectrum, some fliers might be singled out for more intensive screening -- based on the behavioral cues they're sending out (for example, sweating or looking around while being questioned) or on their flight history (for example, showing up on the records as having taken a trip to Yemen). "I'm not against profiling, but it has to be done using the right parameters," Laird said. "I'm against doing it for the wrong reasons. It shouldn't be based on race or ethnic origin."
Jenkins acknowledged that the idea of separating fliers into different categories would probably rub lots of passengers the wrong way ... just as some passengers are saying today that they're being rubbed in the wrong way.
"To me, the issue is not this fake controversy that's going on now," he said. "That is a distraction from a more fundamental question -- which is, given increasing passenger loads and increased security requirements, and a determined and creative foe, how do we best manage this risk and not cause the system to break down?"
Here's how risk-communication consultant David Ropeik, author of the book "How Risky Is It, Really?" (and a former msnbc.com contributor), put it today in a posting on the Psychology Today blog:
"Most risks involve tradeoffs of some sort. In this case it's a risk-risk tradeoff, between getting blown up on the one hand and feeling coerced into having your privacy invaded while being exposed to minute doses of radiation on the other. If Risk 1 -- getting blown up -- doesn't feel like a real possibility, you're less willing to live with Risk 2. If the negative qualities of Risk 2 -- radiation, coercion, invasion of privacy -- feel bigger, Risk 2 will matter more than Risk 1.
"It all adds up to a kind of a silly way to think about how to protect ourselves from the constant and real threat of bad guys and bombs on planes. But then, risk perception isn't just about thinking. It's about feeling too. And in this case, what feels right ... resisting a procedure that could keep us safer ... may actually make things worse."
I realize this perspective may be completely different from what you've been hearing over the past few days. I'd love to hear your perspective as well. Please feel free to sound off in the comment section below.
More about the airport security controversy:
- Tell the TSA 'Don't touch my junk' -- here's how
- TSA has met the enemy -- and they are us
- New U.S. security rules not common elsewhere
- TSA workers face verbal abuse from travelers
- More news from msnbc.com's Travel team
For more about Jenkins' perspective on aviation security, check out this article on Scientific American's website.
Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Which is to say, if you don't mind having your nipple ring pulled out, being occasionally thrown to the floor, wetting your pants or even having the odd prosthetic limb held up for inspection this upcoming holidays look to be a humiliating delight. But then again, if anyone were going to blow anyone up, wouldn't it just b easier to do it in some shopping mall- assuming they don't mind the less dramatic visage of frantic shoppers clambering for dear life.
http://scallywagandvagabond.com/2010/11/the-delicious-drama-of-the-transportation-securities-administration-tsa-has-finally-arrived-onto-your-knickers/
Why don't we just suspend any airport security until another terrorist brings down another large building with an airliner...
Not going to happen. Cockpits are sealed and reinforced now. Pilots can and probably are, armed. Flights have random armed Air Marshalls on them. The chance of hijacking similar to 911 is almost nil.
This new security is looking for bombs that can easily be hidden where this scanner and pat-down cant look, inside the body. So its pretty much useless for that.
Now sniffer dogs, that's a different story. They have a decent chance of smelling explosives even inside the body. No need for x-rays or feel ups.
They are using this "scare" as an excuse to do warrant-less skin searches of passengers, looking for contraband. Period. They know darn well this will only catch the stupidest of terrorists, especially because they all know now, so they will easily avoid detection by hiding stuff where the scanner cant look. And they aren't doing cavity searches yet... Or maybe that's next too.
I know this, I wont fly again. And I really hope enough other people don't as well.
No...
Considering that THOUSANDS of flights have occurred without incident, both before and pre-scanner after 9/11, I have no problem losing TSA altogether. Useless, often unqualified people, doing a useless, ineffective job. F4E is right about the dogs. Bring them out and let them do the task, effectively and efficiently. That and a metal detector walk through, and you can nail anyone, including the drug smugglers.
What would be nice would be to come up with a device that detonates any hidden explosives. The dog picks them out, they go through a metal detector, then to a secure, explosive proof room where their "junk" gets detonated. BOOM! You're done!
If everyone were to boycott flying for just one week, the airports and airlines would be hurting so-o-o much, they would unload TSA in a New York minute!
Piss on Pistole. Shut down the TSA and Fatherland "security", Fire Pistole, give the prison guard wannabes guns and move to the Southern border. Ah-h-h! Who said they had to lose a good paying job? We just need to put them where we REALLY need them!!!
Patting down 3-year-old girls, half-naked boys, an elderly man's colostomy bag, and an elderly woman's prosthetic breast will not now or ever protect us from terrorism.
Safety begins and ends with quality intelligence gathering and sharing among agencies. Secondarily, profiling is a must. Thirdly, employ Israeli-style questioning of possible suspects.
Nearly 10 years after 9/11, Homeland Security agencies should be working together quickly and effectively, both stateside and overseas. This isn't occurring.
Underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab nearly succeeded because the U.S. government failed on all the above tactics.
Abdulmutallab's father made a report to two CIA officers at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, on November 19, 2009 regarding his son's "extreme religious views", and told the embassy that Abdulmutallab might be in Yemen. Acting on the report, the suspect's name was added in November 2009 to the U.S..'s 550,000-name Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, a database of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center. It was not added, however, to the FBI's 400,000-name Terrorist Screening Database, the terror watch list that feeds both the 14,000-name Secondary Screening Selectee list and the U.S.'s 4,000-name No Fly List, nor was his U.S. visa revoked.
U.S. State Department officials said in Congressional testimony that the State Department had wanted to revoke Abdulmutallab's visa, but U.S. intelligence officials requested that his visa not be revoked. The intelligence officials' stated reason was that revoking Abdulmutallab's visa could have foiled a larger investigation into al-Qaida.
Abdulmutallab's name had come to the attention of intelligence officials many months before that, but no "derogatory information" was recorded about him. A Congressional official said that Abdulmutallab's name appeared in U.S. reports reflecting that he had connections to both al-Qaeda and Yemen. The NCTC did not check to see whether Abdulmutallab's American visa was valid, or whether he had a British visa that was valid; therefore, they did not learn that the British had rejected Abdulmutallab's visa application earlier in 2009. The British did not inform the Americans because the visa application was denied to prevent immigration fraud and not for a national security purpose.
Are the pat searches to catch a terrorist at the airport, or to prevent them from trying in the first place?
The government is using the FUD factor (Fear/Uncertainty/Doubt) to get the sheeple to comply with Big Brudda's wishes for internal air travel. The key word is "internal". Personally, I have no problem screening foreigners coming in from "non-friendly" countries. Even if someone did come in from a non-friendly via a friendly, the friendly's have their own screening in place that has show to work just as well and, is usually, much less invasive. This is how many of the alleged suspects have been apprehended.
So, does it really make sense to have our own non-threatening citizenry strip searched? (rhetorical) Sieg heil, mein fuhrer! The end result of TSA and Fatherland (In)Security is to get the people of America to be good little servants (slaves/"human resources") for their Big Brudda master. This is what has a growing number of people concerned about a REPUBLIC that is allegedly "of the People, by the People and for the People"...
One guy smuggles explosives onboard in his shoes resulting in passengers having to remove their shoes for scanning. The next guy has explosives sewn into his underwear resulting in passengers now having their genitals fondled.
What’s next when they find someone smuggled explosives onboard by concealing them in a body cavity?
I continue to ask about the risk from which we're being protected.
The 9/11 hijackers should have been caught using only the old-fashioned magnetometers. And weren't detected due to human error.
The shoe and underwear "bombers" came in on international flights, originating in foreign airports.
And a "reasonable response" to terrorists spending a few dollars worth of bombs that don't work is to force Americans into a few billions of dollars worth of pornographic X-ray screenings? Oh pluheeeze. Ask when was the last time an American hijacked a commercial airliner? When was the last time a passenger-carried explosive brought down an airliner? So where's the risk that forces this level of search for Americans on domestic flights? One man's opinion, there is little if any risk, here in the USA. Scan the foreign nationals if you will, but leave the rest of us alone.
Based on risk analysis, there is really nothing to worry about airline security. The probability of death during a flight is probably lower than being struck by lightning. It is safe to assume that our cosmic blogger will more likely be killed during an automobile accident rather than during an airline flight. His chances of death during a space shuttle flight is one in fifty.
The objection of the San Diego passenger was overblown and the incident handled poorly by TSA. So is the idea of virtual stripping. Any determined terrorist can kill Americans by simply blowing him- or herself in a crowded area. That is one of the risks of living a free society. And Brian Jenkins will confirm that terrorists want to kill large numbers of Americans, while watching the event on television.
It is clear that we need better human intelligence. We need to recruit spies who look like terrorists and speak the language of terrorists. We also should not politicize national and airline security. TSA and the traveling public must communicate more.
We need to take a deep breath and use common sense. There is no need for a father to remove the shirt of his son before a a pat down at the airport. And it is obvious that the Israeli system involves profiling, and it may be necessary to train TSA personnel following what is done at Israeli airports.
Americans are not suicidal. Even the Oklahoma bomber did not wait around in a van loaded with ammonium nitrate. And it is instructive that the Times Square wanted to continue to enjoy the good life, searching a virgins on earth or somewhere in space.
You can exhale now.
Any so-called father who would remove his son's shirt at a frickin airport should be charged with child abuse.
WTF are we coming to???
Isn't that like accusing a drowning man of being wet?
Personally, the terrorists have done a fabulous job. We have given up so many of our rights to be safe. But actually, we're not one bit safer. Terrorists have made flying untennable in my opinion.
The terrists are pretty pleased with themselves these days. Just look at us! We're allowing ourselves to be strip-searched just so we can fly on these airlines, which treat us terrible anyway. We live with the fact that our government is spying on Americans communications day and night. Warrentless searches are commonplace now.
This is not good.
Ironic that the TSA is designed to protect against terrorism, yet they have made themselves the terrorists. They do not have rights to my body. Period.
When it comes to security, let's see... I make the score out to be Terrorists 100 US 2. "We", passengers on a plane stopped the "shoe bomber" and the "underwear bomber". Well passengers and some really dumb terrorists.
Estimate directly from Al Qaida is that it cost them ~$4,200 to place the printer cartridge bombs on those flights. Let's see, how much is "Homeland Security" and TSA, two of the BIGGEST OXYMORONS I've encountered in my lifetime, spent lately on security measures as a result? Think the financial advantage goes to the terrorists.
Hate to tell you folks, but I doubt anyone is about to try to get on a plane with a printer cartridge stuck up their (_*_)!!! Sure as hell know I won't!!!
Anyone want to invest in "Naked as a Jay Bird Airlines"? Classes of travel will be: REALLY HOT, Moderately Hot, Average and Butt Ugly. 18 and above ONLY.
It would have been far less if they hadn't paid inflated prices for those printers! One of the $29 ones would have worked just as well.
I'm more and more reminded of the old Pogo cartoon, "We have met the enemy and they are us". Bin laden killed less than 3000 people 10 years ago and we have destroyed our society as a result, 10,000 points - Bin Laden, United States - zero.
Of course, so-called profiling is the answer.
When that mealy-mouthed bureaucrat in the article kept on calling these terrorists our adversaries instead of our enemies, he slotted pretty much where he is coming from.
Why don't those opposing profiling realize that it's their own bodies and those of their friends and families their objections to profiling place in jeopardy?
These jerks say we must do something even if the something is non-productive, insulting and illegal. Profiling is the answer. Israel has made it work.
I really don't have any comments about most of your post but I find your anger at the use of a SYNONYM very entertaining. Maybe he should have said "nemesis". Would that have made you more comfortable?
i say we vote for ron paul in 2012 since he is the only one that seems to care that they are violating our constitutional rights...you think THEN they would get the message or would they continue to force pelosi and reed in our faces and down our throats?
Ron Paul is a confused eye doctor with a big mouth. Hope you like the taste of Reed down your throat for two years jerk.
I'm sorry but I have to laugh at all this drama because common sense tells me terrorists aren't out to get americans, our government and or our constitution is the target. With all the supposed terrorists they claim are running around here and there and all over the U.S. why aren't they just killing Americans left and right? they've had more than enough opportunity so what's the hold up? I for one don't believe in the big bad wolf story. I am aware of how the fish in fish stories just get bigger and bigger, though.
Let's just do nothing and pretend that the terrorists don't exist and bring all of our troops home, is that it Rumblenut? Yer an ostrich. Get yer head out of the sand.
You nailed it rumble, the Powers That Be want to make some changes to the constitution in a back-handed manner. I'm suspicious of who was behind 911 at this point. I wasn't until this crap came up. Its just been a steady progression against constitutional rights and freedoms since then. And the threats have been pitiful since 911. They still are pitiful.
People should be really concerned about whats going on. These are not just minimal rights that are being tossed here, they go to the core of many of your basic freedoms. BE AFRAID, BE VERY AFRAID. I'm really shocked there isn't more legal noise happening over this. Where are all the civil rights people and lawyers, is it maybe because the media isn't reporting on that fight? Something is really bloody fishy here, and it ain't the tuna salad.
The "powers that be???" So ominous sounding, that. Who are "they," these powers that want to change the Constitution? Name some names.
My mother-in-law survived WWII in Europe. Her husband was held in a Nazi death camp. Luckily he was one of the few to survive. They legally immigrated here in the 50's. This woman watched Hitler come to power and watched the changes in Germany, first hand. In her exact words... "They always claimed it was for the safety of the people, and that is why everyone went along with it." When seatbelt laws first started being enacted "for our safety", that was when I first heard her talk of what she witnessed.
RumbleNut, you and I are in the same court. Simple physics had me knowing 911 was a lie from early on. And unless anyone can tell me why building 3 (which suffered only minor damage) came down in "perfect demolition manner", that opinion isn't going to change.
Power is a drug and there are those that want more, no matter how much they may already have.
"They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin
Profiling need not be for Muslims... it just needs to be behavioral.
The TSA and courts justify these violations of the 4th amendment by arguing that TSA checkpoints are "extra-constitutional".
Well... if the TSA checkpoints are extra-constitutional, why can't they use profiling?
Technology isn't a substitute for intelligence. The TSA is building our version of the Maginot line, which was a failure defensively because it was a strategy for the previous war. The TSA strategizes for the last terrorist (and unimaginatively).
It's security theater... and while we only vet a few percent of the cargo these planes carry, we can't expect to actually be safe.
And why do we never see scent dogs?
Mark, careful that is logic and DC hates logic. That is why we have Beavis and Butthhead,aka, Napolitano and Pistole in charge of this debacle.
Will they catch a terrorist?
Did Barney Fife ever get to put that one bullet in his gun?
Uh....I think the argument is going to be that some people are allergic to dogs. Hey, it makes as much sense as what they're doing now! I wonder when they're going to ban sublingual nitro for chest pain from flights?
It IS nitroglycerin, you know!
"So why bother? Well, those calculations don't consider the deterrent effect of random screening."
"We can claim, No. 1, that the security measures do represent a deterrent," he told me. "And we can also claim that the security measures have increased the operational difficulties for our adversaries, to the point that their devices are increasingly unreliable."
I don't think that I have ever read two more nonsensical comments. These screenings are supposed to deter people who are willing to blow themselves up because they might be caught in the airport? Some one is definitely smoking something.
And if caught they could always set the bomb off in the airport killing the large number of people in those security lines.
I guess the deterrent is the risk of getting caught. Actually, there was one case where a search caught a terrorist ... Ahmed Ressam and the Millennium Plot of 1999, right up here in my neck of the woods. The difference was that this was a border-crossing search, not an airport search. But it's interesting to note that the authorities were tipped off when Ressam tried to run away ... in the middle of a pat-down.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/ops/millenium-plot.htm
Probably because he wasn't imminently prepared to blow himself up. Rasminasaud is right, this 'deterrent' argument is BS. If it were true, the 'deterrent' of their bombs failing (ala the underwear and Times Square bombers) would be enough. In reality, I suspect someone willing to kill themselves to hurt us is willing to go to our prisons for trying.
In the last 10 years I can count three suicide bomber attempts, the shoe, liquid, and underwear. There is no way to cover all the bases. Target the people entering this country, which should mean border checks equal to or greater than what is happening at the airports.
And all three of those terrorists boarded those flights from outside of the USA. Therefore, the TSA could not have prevented them from being on those flights. The TSA has not found one bomb trying to go through USA security since 9/11.
Ah, isn't it loverly to be censored? In a country where you think you have the right of free speech? It ain't so, tell me it ain't so....
im-in, your right to free speech only applies to the government, not to MSNBC. They can censor anything you say on their web site at any time for any reason, without justification or prior notice. It's their website and their service.
The searches probably won't help. Al Qaeda has already found a way to hide an a-bomb in a hemorrhoid.
Gee since 1958 middle eastern islamic males have been the center piece of terrorists activity throughout the middle east, then europe and now the United States.
Olympic Athletes killed in munich by..............middle eastern islamic males.
Navy Diver murdered in Beruit on hijacked airliner by.........middle eastern islamic males.
American murdered on board hijacked cruise ship achille lauro by........middle eastern islamic males.
Airliner blown up over lockerbie scotland by........middle eastern islamic male.
Truck bomb detonated in parking garage of WTC by.........middle eastern islamic males.
Marine Barracks bombed in beruit by........middle eastern islamic males.
US Embassies bombed by............middle eastern islamic males.
9/11 hijackings conducted by..........middle eastern islamic males.
Shoe bomber...........middle eastern islamic male.
underwear bomber...........middle eastern islamic male.....
MAYBE, Just maybe its all in my imagination.....but maybe if ALL middle eastern islamic males where singled out for aggressive pat downs, full body scans and questioning instead of nuns, old women and little kids
TSA might be more effective and supported by the American public. But thats just me.
Your forgetting one (very big) exception to your generalization:
The Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, both white Americans, both terrorists.
You can never be safe. I, for one, advocate the right to bear arms on an airplane-- what's that, Haji-salami? You have a BOX-Cutter? Well... my American made Colt .45 says you're going to put that down nice and slow.
Shoe bomber was white, underwear bomber was black.
Does anybody know what happens to a pressurized cabin of a 747 at 38,000 feet at cruise when one or more cal.45 rounds go though the fuselage?
Myth-Busters had a show segment on exactly that topic and demonstrated that other than a slow air leak, nothing dramatic happened when a bullet was shot through the side of a fully pressurized cabin. Even shooting through the window didn't cause it to blow-out. Explosive decompression caused by a bullet is nothing but a myth.
Worry about something important, like pilot error or mechanical failure, which have cased ALL of the plane crashes since 9/11.
I didn't know, but thanks for sharing that. And I don't worry about it. I haven't flown anywhere in over 20 years, and I'm not about to start anytime soon. Any place I'd want to go and anyone I'd want to see is within 500 miles from here, and I can drive that.
The underwear bomber was a Muslim sub-saharan African male from Nigeria.
The shoe bomber was not white but a Muslim mixed race U.K. male.
The Lockerbie bombing was done by North African Arab Muslim males.
Muslim is the key word in the entire argument. Its a terrible thing to say, not PC, in fact its down right nazi like for me to advocate this but, maybe all muslims should be deported and no longer allowed into the country, hunted down like animals. No its not cool, but its the price of safety right? We become the worlds villian and they hate us and blah blah blah and were monsters, but we are living breathing safe monster who don't have to be molested at the airport. Airport searches like this are just the start anyway, next its all busy and crowded public places. Any extremist group for that matter, then you take care of your white good ol boy christian soldiers who are at best a fringe. There is nothing wrong with racial profiling, it seems to work quite well for the rest of the world. But no its racist to profile a group of people who actually have done something horrible to society as a whole because we dont' want to remember all the @!$%# we did to ethnic groups that largely didn't have it coming, gays, hispanics, blacks. So now we want to be peace loving PC hippies at the cost of our safety. @!$%# the muslims they got it coming
"The Oklahoma City bombing by Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, both white Americans, both terrorists."
Neither one stopped by TSA perverts feeling them up.
They didn't need to go inside any building to do it, either. Therefore, security checks at the building entrance would have made no difference. It could still happen again, since it takes "intelligence" to catch them, not scanners and strip-searches.
 Flying is a privilege not a right. You want to fly then you have to adhere to the rules. You pay to fly for the convenience. If you dont want to be hassled take a train or drive. If you have to the leave the United States then your stuck taking a plane.
TSA workers are doing the best they can with the training they have received. You have a problem with what they are doing then go to their management. They deal with thousands of people daily you think they like having to do patdowns? They do it becuase their bosses tell them to do it.
And as for rights lost as a result of the terrorists, we still live better than any other country. We still have more freedoms than any other country. We surely live better than any islamic country. Be thankful for the country we live in and if your not thankful then get the hell out of it.
Who decided that flying is a privilege and not a right? I think the vast majority of Americans will feel that flying is their right. And that being able to fly without first being sexually molested is also a right. I certainly don't think that any government agency has been given the charter to decide what rights the people have. We have a Constitution that lays out what rights we have. One of them is the right not not be subject to unreasonable search & seizure. The threat of terrorism is exceedingly small, and the response by the TSA to that threat is unreasonable, and thus unconstitutional.
So, if a terrorist (or just some random nutjob) decides to bomb a grocery store, will buying groceries become a privilege and not a right? Where do we draw the line? This is a slippery slope, and we're already slipping...
Flying is not a right. You don't have the "right" to drive a car. Neither do you have the "right" to fly on a plane. All you have is the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Not social security, not driving, not health insurance and not flying. If you can get your hands on them by playing the game right, cool. But just by being born in America, you're not granted the right to fly the friendly skies.
Buying groceries is also not a right. You have the right to pursue your happiness, which probably includes not starving. You have the right to try to do something about that. But you don't have a right to buy groceries. You don't have the right to electricity or running water either. You only have the right to try to get your hands on those things, if they're included in your happiness. People think they have the right to everything. And they just don't.
All this said, I think the TSA is a waste of resources on every level and I don't want some icky stranger hands all up in my stuff.
So i guess you are excluding Hawaii, Guam, Porto Rico etc. Just went through the screening and had to be patted down because they said i moved, If they have technology that works then that should work, no need to remove shoes, belts, etc. and then go through extra screening because you just didn't have the right attitude of strict compliance, We are falling for all this and being sold a bunch of bull like weapons of mass distruction that don't exist to get us into war and, the war in Afganistan to exploit their resources, Our constitution and way of life are being slowly stripped away, some body better take notice, we need to start demonstrating and letting the government know we are not happy
I'm not sure which bothers me more -- the slow yet steady erosion of constitutional rights (such as the right against unreasonable search or seizure), or the steady chorus of people saying "XXX is not a right, it's a privilege." Yes, we have constitutional rights that are spelled out. However, the Ninth Amendment says that, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." That means that just because it's not spelled out in the constitution (and, BTW, the phrase "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" is in the Dec. of Independence, NOT the Constitution) doesn't mean it is not a right. Example: the right to privacy is not specific within the Constitution, but the courts have ruled we have a right to it.
Rights are things that are due someone by law, tradition, or nature. You do not have to ask in order to exercise a right. A privilege is something you earn or receive permission to exercise. Driving a car is regulated by state governments thru their issuance of a driver's license. You have to "ask" for or earn a license. Ergo, driving a car is a privilege.
However, I do not have to ask permission to buy a plane ticket. I shell out my money, the airline gives me a ticket. Buying that ticket means I enter into a Contract of Carriage with the airline. I'm over 18, I have the right to enter into a contract. So the way I see it, flying is not a privilege, it is my right.
If I choose not to fly because I don't want to be subjected to the unmitigated (and perhaps unconstitutional) he!! that currently passes for US security screening, that is also my right. And until the gov't figures out how to keep things safe without an intrusive, demeaning, and degrading process that also seems to turn "guilty until proven innocent" on its head, I'm exercising the privilege of my driver's license or my right to other means of transportation.
Legally, the searching of passengers on aircraft is no different than the searching of passengers in a car. If the TSA can search me because I want to fly, they (or another government entity) can search me just because I want a ride in a car. If they can search passengers in a car, why not the driver? Why not the car itself? What about houses? If you want to buy a house, why not say you have to submit to random searches of your house, property, and person? If you don't like it, don't buy a house. It's the same logic, just substitute on thing you don't have an explicit right to for another. If one is illegal and unconstitutional, so are all of them.
The One Percent Doctrine being applied to transportation security is absurd. There are approx. 25 million flights annually in this country. The number of terrorist incidents is so small as to be less than miniscule. Even if you add in a credible estimate for incidents that don't happen due to these enhanced security measures the percent of incidents would still be less than miniscule. I'd prefer tp take a very small risk that a terrorist will get through a less than ehanced screening, than willingly submit to being, in a very real sense, sexually molested before I am allowed to board an airplane.
From the headline I though this was a poll and I could not find the H*ll No putton I was seeking.
Risk 1 - a possible risk, probably quite small, Risk 2 - losing our 4th amendment rights, being exposed to radiation (TSA won't let an outside company check the radiation so we're taking their word for it that it's safe), being groped by someone who has had 8 hours of training and will not listen to people with disabilities, losing our liberty as Americans (I may have already covered this with our 4th amendment rights, but it bears repeating). Body scans and searches have just given us a false sense of security. Those who think being subjected to these searches are "okay" have been sold a bill of goods. The government cannot protect us from everything. And right now it looks like we need to be protected from the government.
What's more, since Risk 2 won't prevent Risk 1 (there are plenty of means that can get through/around even these scanners and pat-downs, so even deterrent isn't a valid argument), so there's no valid reason to compare them. Instead, they're simply adding Risk 2 to Risk 1.
Was the underwear bomber on a domestic flight? NO his flight was from Amsterdam!
Was the shoe bomber on a domestic flight either? NO his flight originated in Paris!
The liquid soap bomber never had a chance to board a plane but they originated in London!
So, why all the domestic porno scans and pat downs on domestic flights? This makes abolutely NO sense!
It is highly illogical. Obviously foreign security is where the hole is.
IF TSA has **ever** caught a terrorist by their (truly illegal) searches then I have honestly not heard of it. I doubt they are likely to do so. Remember immediately after 9/11 all the "security" measures taken? Remember in particular they would not allow curb side check-in? THAT was certainly effective wasn't it? It probably gave Bin Laden a heart attack laughing! What idiots!
After all of the uproar over the new TSA passenger harassment, I'm fully expecting to see any day a big announcement by the TSA that they caught a "terrorist" with a bomb under their clothes. This person will probably look like a child or senior citizen, which they will use as added justification to continue their abusive security policies on everyone. It would even be less surprising if they announce that they found the bomb hidden in some prosthetic device to cover all of the angles. Don't look for any followup trial, since it will be just another act in the TSA security theater.
I'm certain that the TSA will do everything in their power to justify their jobs and to continue doing what they are to innocent American citizens.
The purpose of these machines is not to catch terrorists. The makers lobbied the administration and congress heavily. The only purpose for the multi-million dollar machines is to line the pockets of executives at taxpayer expense, so they can fund candidates in the next election cycle.
The people running the machines are not security experts....they are machine operators....they know no more about security than the average ATM user knows about macro-economics.
Israel does not use these machines, and they have the safest air system around. They train people in security (not operating machines). They look for terrorists (not underpants).
The government should be able to screen 90%+ of people who fly based on their profiles. The only people who should have to have this level of scrutiny are those that do not pass pre-flight profile checks. Security should start weeks before the flight as soon as the passenger buys a ticket. If you wait until the last minute, it's too late.
Passengers should have another option.......undress completely, or down to underwear, and use airport-issue towel to cover themselves while the clothing being inspected by the TSA.
Imagine Barney Frank or Pelosi, Boehner naked, and carefully reconsider that option.
Neither patdowns nor body scans will detect the suicide bomber with his colon stuffed full of high explosives.
Will the traveling public stand for the "bend over, spread your cheeks, and cough" routine?
Will TSA train 'sniffer' employes to search for those explosives?
Of course "experts" and "consultants" and others in the security industry will tell us we need the TSA, because they have a financial interest in perpetuating the large and continually growing security infrastructure. The TSA budget is reported to be around $7 billion, and with that kind of money at stake there are plenty of people willing to play up the risks in order to keep the funding flowing. It's another variation on the military-industrial complex Eisenhower warned about almost 50 years ago.
My luck, a male TSA patdown artist when I definitely prefer the cute, young girl feel me up when I pass through airport security.
Be happy that TSA employees do anything. Minimum wage, minimum effort.