Loss of Privacy

Among the things Hawley says need to be changed is the removal of banned items.

1. No more banned items: Aside from obvious weapons capable of fast, multiple killings—such as guns, toxins and explosive devices—it is time to end the TSA’s use of well-trained security officers as kindergarten teachers to millions of passengers a day. The list of banned items has created an “Easter-egg hunt” mentality at the TSA. Worse, banning certain items gives terrorists a complete list of what not to use in their next attack. Lighters are banned? The next attack will use an electric trigger.

2. Allow all liquids: Simple checkpoint signage, a small software update and some traffic management are all that stand between you and bringing all your liquids on every U.S. flight. Really.

3. Give TSA officers more flexibility and rewards for initiative, and hold them accountable: No security agency on earth has the experience and pattern-recognition skills of TSA officers. We need to leverage that ability. TSA officers should have more discretion to interact with passengers and to work in looser teams throughout airports. And TSA’s leaders must be prepared to support initiative even when officers make mistakes. Currently, independence on the ground is more likely to lead to discipline than reward.

4. Eliminate baggage fees: Much of the pain at TSA checkpoints these days can be attributed to passengers overstuffing their carry-on luggage to avoid baggage fees. The airlines had their reasons for implementing these fees, but the result has been a checkpoint nightmare. Airlines might increase ticket prices slightly to compensate for the lost revenue, but the main impact would be that checkpoint screening for everybody will be faster and safer.

5. Randomize security: Predictability is deadly. Banned-item lists, rigid protocols—if terrorists know what to expect at the airport, they have a greater chance of evading our system.

In America, any successful attack—no matter how small—is likely to lead to a series of public recriminations and witch hunts. But security is a series of trade-offs. We’ve made it through the 10 years after 9/11 without another attack, something that was not a given. But no security system can be maintained over the long term without public support and cooperation. If Americans are ready to embrace risk, it is time to strike a new balance.

Yes, Americans have wanted to embrace the risk for years. It’s those in charge who don’t want them to have the ability to take those risks. It comes back, once again, to the government attempting to tell its citizens what’s best for them instead of the citizens being allowed to make those decisions on their own.

Though the Wall Street Journal article is a long read, it’s worth it to understand that even those who are/were in charge think the TSA is a joke. The system is broken indeed.

From the Boston Herald:

Cops snared 55 Massachusetts men in a sweeping, multi-agency child pornography crackdown — including a Transportation Security Administration officer assigned to Logan International Airport who is just the latest embarrassment for the troubled federal agency.

TSA agent Jose E. Salgado, 59, of Chelsea was suspended from his job after his employers learned that local law enforcement agencies are pursuing criminal charges against him for the possession and sharing of pornographic images of children.

Periodic arrests of TSA agents on sex charges across the nation have fueled criticism of the agency’s screening of its own employees, tasked with patting down the traveling public and keeping the airways safe. At least two other TSA officers assigned to Logan have faced sex charges in the past two years. Sex charges against others have been reported in Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Georgia and other states.

The TSA has become a magnet for child pornographers, sex offenders, and thieves. It’s gotten so bad that there’s a master list that’s frequently updated.

Created by: OnlineCriminalJusticeDegree.com

Last month, John Corbett posted a video showing how to get past the backscatter/x-ray and millimeter wave scanners. Now, he’s back with an interview from a TSA agent who says the scanners are worthless.

Transcript:

In the video I released last month, I showed the world that it’s trivial to beat the TSA’s nude body scanners; all it takes is simply strapping a metal object to your side. I referred to the program as a “giant fraud,” and I chose those words carefully: it was not an oversight, but rather the TSA knowingly imposed these virtual strip searches on us despite the fact that they don’t work.

Now how can I be so sure that the TSA knew that the scanners were broken? Well, in the first video I referred to other countries who take aviation security more seriously than we do had rejected the scanners years ago. Over the last year, we’ve also seen almost the entirety of Europe has backtracked on the body scanners. And there have been dozens of research studies that have shown vulnerabilities in the technology, of which the TSA must surely be aware.

But most importantly, I know because TSA employees have told me so. In the last year and a half since I filed my lawsuit against the scanners and the groping, I’ve received hundreds of e-mails and thousands of comments on my blog, and some from actual TSA employees who have seen the scanners fail first-hand. One of them was nice enough to sit down for an interview with me last week. “Jennifer” has been working with the Transportation Security Administration for the last 4 years as a screener, and had this to tell me:

[Video Interview Segment]

Jon: Were there specific times where this machine didn’t work, for either someone testing it, or a passenger went through and it was determined that they went through with…
Jennifer: Absolutely. Yes, absolutely.

Jon: Metal objects?
Jennifer: Metal, non-metal.

Jon: Big, small?
Jennifer: Both.

Jon: Things like wallets I think you mentioned to me?
Jennifer: Wallets.

Jon: So you’d send someone through the scanner and you’d see a bulge in their pocket, but the scanner would show nothing?
Jennifer: Mmhmm.

Jon: Things during training?
Jennifer: Absolutely.

Jon: What would you test it with when you were testing the machines?
Jennifer: There were different props: guns, knives, bags of powder that were supposed to resemble explosive material.

Jon: Sometimes these would just go through completely undetected?
Jennifer: Absolutely.

Now if it wasn’t scary enough that the TSA deployed these machines knowing they could take simulated bombs through them, Jennifer tells me that they were forcing screeners to run these radiation machines who hadn’t, according to the TSA’s own policies, been properly trained:

[Video Interview Segment]

Jon: They tried to send you to the machines, and you said, ‘Hold on, I’m not certified.’
Jennifer: Right.

Jon: And then in December I guess you tried the same thing and they said, ‘Too bad?’
Jennifer: We were forced to work on these machines. So basically, there were so few of us trained to work on the machines, they basically forced us.

Jon: So they didn’t care if you were certified or not?
Jennifer: No, I actually went to my supervisor — or a supervisor — the first day. I and another officer had this concern, that, you know, ‘Look, we’ve never worked on this particular machine, we don’t know what to do’ and his answer was, ‘Sorry, we don’t have enough staffing, you’re going to have to work on it.’

Jon: Certified or not, just get on the machine and make the best of it?
Jennifer: Yep, ‘just have your co-workers help you.’

After Jennifer was repeatedly ignored when she brought these serious issues up with management, she contacted her representatives in Congress for assistance… after which the TSA promptly began the process of firing her! A process, by the way, which took the TSA three months, during which Jennifer was forced to sit around on the taxpayer’s dime and do absolutely nothing. Fortunately, Jennifer turns in her uniform today.

[Video Interview Segment]

Jon: You wrote to Congress about the problems you saw in the TSA.
Jennifer: I did.

Jon: What happened?
Jennifer: I sent my letter on Jan. 1, and I came back from sick leave about a week later, and I was immediately removed from screening duties.

Jon: So you sent a letter to a Congressman — or to several — saying ‘Hey, there’s a problem with the TSA,’ and the TSA’s response was… retaliatory would you say?
Jennifer: Yes.

Jon: Was that the end of your screening duties… have you been back to screening since?
Jennifer: No.

This is why the TSA sucks. Because good employees who point out when the public is being put at risk aren’t listened to, they aren’t promoted – they’re fired! …and what’s left are the pizza-box employees that strip-search grannies, steal from your bags, throw hot coffee on pilots, and shoot up my neighborhood.

And every time another TSA employee is arrested – we’re up to at least 60 in the last 12 months – the TSA spouts off on their blog about the professionalism of their employees, just as when they’re caught on video molesting children at airports, they defend their employees’ fondlings as “by the book” – that book being the “Screening Checkpoint Standard Operating Procedures” or “SOP.” The SOP is the TSA’s secret guide as to how TSA employees are supposed to do screening as airports. The only problem is, TSA employees never actually read that book!

[Video Interview Segment]

Jennifer: Supposedly there is an SOP manual at every checkpoint. I’ve never seen it.
Jon: So you wouldn’t know where to go to find this book?
Jennifer: No, no.
Jon: *laughs*
Jennifer: I know, you can’t make this stuff up, you really can’t.
Jon: Did you read the SOP at any point, during training, or…
Jennifer: You mean initially…
Jon: Did you ever read the SOP from cover-to-cover?
Jennifer: Oh no, no… I’ve never read… no.

Absolutely stunning. I’d like to thank Jennifer for exposing this, and if you’re an attorney that would like to contact Jennifer, send me a message. I’d also like to encourage any of the few good TSA employees left who have seen abuse in the TSA to contact me – see the notes on this video for how to do so, anonymously if you’d prefer.

But there you have it. The TSA was aware of the fatal flaws in the nude body scanner program, yet knowingly defrauded the American taxpayer into buying these machines, as well as travellers from across the globe into posing naked “for their safety.” Well no more, guys — we’re done posing naked for the TSA. It’s time for the nude body scanner program to be immediately ended, for TSA Administrator John Pistole to be fired, and for the TSA to be dismantled as soon as possible. I encourage you to make this an election year issue and demand from your candidates a strong commitment to restoring our civil rights – and our sanity at airports. I also encourage anyone who’s asked to go through a body scanner to simply say, “I opt out,” and refuse to participate in this security theatre.

On the Friday, April 6 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex talks with cryptographer, computer security specialist, and author Bruce Schneier. Mr. Schneier is a vocal critic of “security measures” used by the Transportation Security Administration. He was invited to testify before Congress about TSA abuses but was “formally uninvited” after the TSA complained. He is the author of numerous books, including Liars and Outliers: Enabling the Trust that Society Needs to Thrive, Secrets and Lies: Digital Security in a Networked World, and Beyond Fear: Thinking Sensibly About Security in an Uncertain World.

Yes, Alex Jones falls more into the conspiracy theorist category, but Bruce Schneier was on the show. Watch it and make your own decision as to how informative it is.