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DHS Plans Changes in Air Passenger Screening
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Aug 11, 2007 01:28 PM
from the oh-you-mean-we-get-to-fly-now dept.
from the oh-you-mean-we-get-to-fly-now dept.
narramissic writes "The Department of Homeland Security on Thursday announced plans to revamp its Secure Flight program, with the agency no longer assigning risk scores to passengers or using predictive behavior technology. In addition, the Transportation Security Administration, part of DHS, will have direct control of checking domestic passenger lists against terrorist watch lists, instead of the airlines, said DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. Just the same Marc Rotenberg, executive director of privacy advocacy group the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), notes, air passengers still can't see the reasons why they're targeted for extensive searches or kept off flights, nor can they correct bad information on the terrorist watch lists. 'The problems with the watch list are still valid and are not going away,' said Rotenberg."
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twitter wrote to mention that the TSA (Transport Security Administration) has released a new set of proposed rules that is raising quite a stir among groups ranging from the ACLU to the American Society of Travel Agents. Under the new rules airlines would be required to submit a passenger manifest (including full name, sex, date of birth, and redress number) for all flights departing, arriving, or flying over the United States at least 72 hours prior to departure. Boarding passes will only be issued to those passengers that have been cleared. "Hasbrouck submitted that requiring clearance in order to travel violates the US First Amendment right of assembly, the central claim in John Gilmore's case against the US government over the requirement to show photo ID for domestic travel. [...] ACLU's Barry Steinhardt quoted press reports of 500,000 to 750,000 people on the watch list (of which the no-fly list is a subset). 'If there are that many terrorists in the US, we'd all be dead.' TSA representative Kip Hawley noted that the list has been carefully investigated and halved over the last year. 'Half of grossly bloated is still bloated,' Steinhardt replied."
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I'm still not understanding that. (Score:5, Insightful)
You're too dangerous to be allowed to fly
So wouldn't any real terrorist just try to get on a plane to see if the government knows about him? If he gets on with no problem, he knows they don't suspect him. If he's turned away, he knows to drop communications with the other terrorists.
This is just stupid. No matter how you phrase it.
Re:I'm still not understanding that. (Score:5, Insightful)
You misunderstand the purpose of the lists. It is not to "protect" anyone from "terrorists". It is to instill a climate of fear and paranoia on a daily basis, in an effort to "justify" the creep of fascism to the sheeple.
Random searches and detentions where the victim had no way to confront the charges were one of the key hallmarks of the Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union both.
Parent
Re:I'm still not understanding that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, with the ridiculous passenger screening... taking shoes off, limiting liquids because of some bullshit half-imagined liquid bomb plot. Its all to scare the passengers, or perhaps to make them FEEL like someone is doing something.
Meanwhile, none of these measures would find a glass or obsidian (sharper than a razor) knife strapped to your leg. Which is just one thing I thought of off hand. I sure hope all terrorists are idiots. I just don't think they are.
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Re:I'm still not understanding that. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I'm still not understanding that. (Score:5, Insightful)
I worry that the next generation (maybe even the current high school kids, now) won't even KNOW what they're missing in terms of basic american freedoms
all govs, everywhere, rejoice when they get more control and keep their citizens in check and in fear. once started, they all jump on the bandwagon. I see it over in europe and even australia. lots of restrictions and oppression from the gov to the citizens. if all the govs are doing it, you can't GO anywhere to find a breath of fresh air anymore.
I remember the 60's and the revolution that was going on, then. now we have a different revolution, but its being held BY the governments and its to keep its people in fear. greatest control stems from fear. (see Religion for more on this subject.)
really - I worry that over the next 20 yrs, people will have forgotton what going on an airplane and NOT having to take shoes off was like. ahhh, the good old days when your own foot odor was your own business
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Re:I'm still not understanding that. (Score:5, Insightful)
Human life and memory seem so short -- the generations turn too quickly. Now I understand how vitally important it is to teach history.
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Sick? Vote for Ron Paul (Score:4, Informative)
Check out Ron Paul's voting record if you haven't already. He is the most popular canididate on the Net.
Parent
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Because the mainstream has moved so far away from the ideals that this country was founded on, and so far away from the Constitution, and so far away from liberty, that to speak the words the Founding Fathers of the US once did, sounds a bit nuts these days.
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If by mainstream you mean Republican neocons, that would make your statement right, but they are not mainstream.
rd
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Not quite, you have been subject to Terry stops [wikipedia.org] since 1968. Clearly that was all part of Dubya's master plan.
On the past, before Bush Neo-Con dictatorship, they used to get upset but answer on an educated and respectful tone. Now, they will usually say: "step out of the car, sir", and try to humiliate me, as they a
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You'd need to make sure that it was a knife suitable for eating food with, since that would be what the vast majority of passengers would want one for.
You could also have NRA Airlines, if you don't have your own gun, the (well armed) flight attendents will issue you with one for the flight.
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Even if you come up with a screening method to detect this you are still playing the "movie plot" game. Once screening methods are known, people are likely to come up with ways to render them ineffective. (Though smuggling is a more likely motivation than terrorism.)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
The womenfolk in my family feel safer at the airport when a
Then I ask them about Jeam Charles De Menezes [wikipedia.org], and then what they think would happen if a suicide bomber were to run past a queue of passengers. What would happen to the bullets that miss the guy?
Re:I'm still not understanding that. (Score:5, Interesting)
OTOH, one of the ways drugs were smuggled was inside a bag, inside a liquid. It makes it harder for the drug dogs to smell it, as the scent is masked by the liquid. This is why you are limited to 100ml, in a clear plastic bag.
The more you know.
Parent
Re:I'm still not understanding that. (Score:4, Interesting)
True story: My grandfather used to take a walk every morning down to his local shooting range. He'd pick up trash, and sometimes brass for loading his own cartridges. On this particular morning, he happened to find a
An old man managed to beat airport security without even trying in the days immediately following 9/11. It has never entered my head that terrorists couldn't do the same.
Parent
Re:I'm still not understanding that. (Score:4, Insightful)
As good or better than a gun when you are talking about taking over a plane. Don't forget that the 9/11 hijacking were done with knives. You can incite much more terror and pain with some well placed cuts than with a gun. The only way that a handful of people ever take over a plane filled with over a hundred passengers is through psychological control. If they really internalised that the only way they would live would be to overcome the hijacker, then they would overcome the hijacker by sheer numbers, even if it meant attacking until the ammo ran out. But that will almost never be the case, just given the faintest promise of being let go if they coopperate will subdue most people, even making some passengers stop any attempt to over power the hijackers. As most authority today is ultimately achieved through threats and force, people are well conditioned to submit when confronted with a non-choice like "Open the cockpit door or I will have to cut this young lady. Don't make me have to cut her." From and outside objective view we can say that it doesn't matter if they are all going to die anyhow, and the only one making the hijacker hurt the young lady is the hijacker. But the people actually inside the plane are going to turn to appeasing the violent forces in hopes of survival. If offered something that looks like a choice, people will try to appease violence rather than combat it, it's been demonstrated thousands of times through out human history.
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Basically, congress (and through it's actions, TSA and DHS) need to look like theyre being strong and "doing something" about a threat amped up by the 24/7 media's need to have high impact news to generate revenue. People are -already- so paranoid and scared becaus
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Bruce Schneier had an interesting piece on this a while back on this sort of Cover-Your-Ass security [schneier.com].
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The TSA wants to be sure that if there's another airplane terrorist attack, it's not held responsible for letting it slip through. I believe they're forever looking backwards, but the reasoning isn't as much to prevent themselves from being held responsible as it as to comply with direct, specific requests from Congress in combination with the facts that
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I'm not suggesting that we give in to the dark side.
However, I don't see any point punishing the 19 suicide terrorists that flew the planes into things.
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Actually a truely random method of selecting people for additional searches is likely to be more effective than any kind of list/profiling. Any terrorist group with a braincell between them can quickly find out which of their operatives is allowed to board with the minimum of searches if there is any non random element involved.
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Psychological discomfort (Score:2)
Wait, something's not right. These false dilemmas seem not to work very well.
The problems you're grappling with are an unstated assumption of a right to air travel and the expectation that a person's status is either clearly "good citizen" or "criminal scum". While we would like that to be the case, with a presumption that a person is a "good citizen" un
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An interesting question to ask would be if people who have been responsible for "air rage" get added to such lists. If such people don't automatically get listed then it rather indicates that safety of flights isn't the aim.
no longer no longer assigning risk scores (Score:3, Funny)
Does that mean they are doing it again?
De Ja Vu (Score:5, Funny)
This can only mean they changed something in the Matrix
It's really this simple (Score:4, Interesting)
Your American airlines are losing my potential travel dollars because of your stupid government.
I hope the industry tanks.
Don't Tell Us (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't tell us. Write a letter to the airlines. Write a letter to the US board of tourism (or whatever it's called). If enough people do that it might start the pendulum swinging back towards sanity.
Carnival Booth Attach (Score:5, Informative)
Air travel security is worthless (Score:5, Interesting)
*The security line ID checker occasionally checking people's IDs, then turning around to talk to his co-worker and letting people pass, then randomly checking IDs.
*A second TSA staff member knocking on the glass trying to get the attention of a friend of hers, then making faces like you'd see kids do in high school
*A sporadic "take out all of your electronics" followed by "only laptops" followed by "only electronics bigger than your hand need to be removed from your bag."
Anyone who travels on a regular basis (I fly about 100,000 miles a year) knows that behavior like this is unsurprising, but I'm just getting to the point where I've had enough. If we're going to enforce security, how about actual enforcing effective security protocols rather than making sure that my shaving creams fits in a ziploc bag?
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Yes, it's unprofessional, and that's a point well taken. But it's one of the few instances I've heard of where TSA employees actually demonstrate that they might be, you know, human. It's a tough job, having to enforce stupid rules and pretending that you have any effe
Re:Air travel security is worthless (Score:4, Informative)
A few days ago I was flying out of Tel Aviv on El Al. Yeah, that's right, the airline that cares more about *real* security and is a far more tempting target than any of these US airlines. And I didn't have to present my plastic bag, or remove my shoes or belt! (of course they do scan the baggage, and question each passenger a bit more thoroughly than they ever do in the US, but it was still a far more pleasant experience than checking back in with Continental in Newark on my way back.)
The TSA is all about making it look like they're doing something, instead of actually doing something. I once heard it said that you simply cannot apply logic to security policy, since then it will never make sense to you. I'm curious what the next hairbrained terrorist scheme will be, and what sort of totally senseless travel restrictions will be added as a result. Any ideas?
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The ID checker is not employed by the TSA and ID checking is not considered a responsibility of the TSA. The ID checker is either employed by the airlines or the local airport authority or some combination thereof (you can verify this by the fact that they wear a different uniform from TSA agents. I left from San Antonio airport a few days back an
So? (Score:2, Funny)
Wait, what was I talking about? Who are you? Where are my pants?!
Great (Score:2)
Fun with watchlists (Score:2)
Just this past month, My grandfather passed away, and we (My wife, My 20 month old son, and I) flew to Florida for the funeral. Of course, being that we couldn't really plan this trip ahead, we flew with tickets that we had purchased the day before. We get to the airport, only to be told that we would have to go through extra security because my wife is on the "Watch List"
Here's the kicker, Both my wife and I hold valid Maine State CHRC Cer
Again, meh (Score:5, Interesting)
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See, they're smarter than you think! They knew you were going to post this awful opinion of them on Slashdot today, so they put you on that list years ago.
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I've never been told exactly why I can't get on a plane, but it can't be my appearance, I'm 6'4" with blue eyes and blonde hair. I look as Aryan as anyone can.
So what?
Good for you that you're white.
What makes you think only non-white people are on the terrorist watch list?
Did you buy the party line that terrorists = brown people
I feel like you fundamentally misunderstand the point of a terrorist watch list.
The goal is to keep terrorists out.
Not just to keep out Islamic extremists.
Unfortunate choice (Score:2)
Couple this with (in the media's view) a clear choice: either "do something" or take the risk that there will be another aircraft involved in everyone on board dying intentionally. And maybe a bunch of people on the ground as well. It simply isn't s
Just because they say they won't... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a friend who had his house raided many years ago because of the chemicals he was keeping for making fireworks (not you're crappy little fireworks, but cluster shells and the whole shebang). Due to his age, if he didn't reoffend (which he did, but never got caught or charged) it was to be permanently wiped from his record once he turned 18.
He is now in his 20s (and has a second job in the pyrotechnics industry), yet every time he steps on a plane he gets the full bomb treatment, they even do mouth swabs.
So as I said, just because they say they won't doesn't mean it. And this is in Australia.
Lessons from the anti-virus world (Score:3, Insightful)