Air Travel

Quotas for traffic tickets, long denied by police but generally accepted as fact by drivers, are pretty bad.  Speed limits are a revenue measure more than anything else.  But the same principle, applied to air marshals and the terrorist watch list, is much much worse. 

The simple truth is that there aren't enough terrorists for thousands of air marshals to identify one "suspicious act" a month, even if the only thing the terrorists were trying to do was fly around the US to scout out our air security.  Most likely the terrorists aren't even bothering; they are looking for other methods of attack while we focus on costly security theater. 

The only reason for this kind of quota is a beaurocratic exercise in justification.  You see, if the terrorists aren't probing the airlines, we might decide to shift resources elsewhere and use less costly methods (like, say, armed pilots) to defend air travel.

Imagine if the world's most notorious fugitive, Osama bin Laden, attempted to board an airliner in the United States. Suppose he were clean-shaven, sporting short hair, wearing a pinstriped business suit and looked like so many other travelers that no suspicions were raised. How far might he get? If he used aliases such as names of family members, he would be nabbed instantly and whisked away for questioning. That's because many of his relatives are on the FBI's secret "no-fly list," according to intelligence sources.

But suppose he boldly decided to use his own name. Would he be cleared to fly? Insight recently learned that scenario was tested at a U.S. airport in the South during January. The result was troubling: America's most-wanted fugitive is cleared to fly. According to airline-security documents obtained by this magazine, the name Osama bin Laden was punched into the computer by an airline official and, remarkably, that name was cleared at the security checkpoint all passengers must pass through before being issued a boarding pass.

The realization that Osama bin Laden made the cut sent shivers down the spines of airline-security officials who discovered the system gap.

After spending years and billions, the TSA seems to have given us a system that could be defeated by a child. Consider this simple tactic: enter the airport with your team of terrorists and collect your boarding passes. Then, all the terrorists meet in the bathroom and give their weapons to anyone among them who didn't have a big, red S stamped on his boarding pass.

Of course, they hardly need to go to such trouble. Enterprising people have managed to smuggle guns, knives, box cutters, even fake plastic explosive on to airplanes simply by walking through security.

Remember, too, that even though these airline security watchlists have yet to catch a single terrorist, they have already harassed and humiliated hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people whose opinions are critical of the Bush Administration. The Nazi's used gold stars; we use a red S. The effect, at the moment, seems to be similar.

The Bush administration pledged Tuesday to move more aggressively against potential threats in the wake of an incident in which federal authorities said a young man boasted about successfully compromising airline security.

From now on, a Transportation Security Administration official said, the agency will automatically single out for response any threatening communication and will seek to better train its employees on how to recognize such messages.

Yeah, they'll crack down on all the hardened terrorists who inform them by email before attacking. That'll work.

Needing information on airline passengers for a test of the government's new computerized screening system, the Transportation Security Administration, rebuffed by JetBlue Airways, is looking for a substitute that can provide it, the agency's administrator said today.

But the official, Adm. James M. Loy, said that because no one airline wanted to single itself out as the provider, he hoped to get the data from the industry as a whole. And if he cannot get the airlines' cooperation, he said, he will simply order them to turn over the information.

"Simply order them"? On what grounds? Clearly this man has no concept of the constitutional restraints on our government.

It's still possible for someone to sneak a blade onto a commercial plane, the head of the Transportation Security Administration acknowledged Friday.

But the problem isn't related to airport screeners. It's the technology that's lacking, said James Loy, who nonetheless has trimmed the agency's research budget.

"I don't dispute the fact that you can get a blade of a boxcutter set on edge through the system," Loy said during a briefing with reporters. "That is a technology issue more than it's a screener performance issue."

What he won't tell you is that it will always be possible to get a weapon onto a plane. All that is required is to somehow -- infiltration, bribery, carelessness, stealth -- subvert enough people to get through the system. No security can ever be perfect, and that applies triply to security dependent upon people to enforce it. Basing our national security upon a single line of defense (preventing weapons on airplanes) is a great feel-good measure in the immediate aftermath of something like 9-11, because it makes it obvious that politicians are Doing Something, but it does nothing to address the actual security issues.

Addressing those issues for real requires acknowledging their imperfection and instituting a defense-in-depth, so that any single failure does not automatically bypass other protections. In this context, that means in addition to airport security screeners, we must also arm pilots (in case a weapon is successfully smuggled on board), barricade cockpit doors (to slow down attackers so the plane can land), encourage passengers to defend the plane themselves if need be, and -- as a last resort -- be ready to scramble interceptors.

I can make it easy for them. "Totally ineffective." There, that wasn't so hard.

"This time, it sounds like [the list] really worked," said Brian Jenkins, a terrorism expert and senior adviser to the Rand Corp. in Santa Monica, Calif. "Hopefully, that makes up for the times that people were irritated. . . .

"Of course, you wonder about these guys," Jenkins said. "They're not particularly clever, coming to the airport to buy one-way tickets and to pay cash."

Hmm. Same place, different airlines. Maybe Al-Qaeda was running a security probe to see if they would get stopped?

The Transportation Security Administration is conducting a "witch hunt" to ferret out and discipline employees in the federal air marshal program who have talked to the media, several sources within the program told MSNBC.com. Some air marshals are even being threatened with having the USA Patriot Act, a law enacted to help fight terrorism, used against them. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the TSA, denies that any such investigation is taking place.

The federal agency responsible for airport security is overwhelmed with passenger complaints about baggage, seven months after it began inspecting all checked bags for explosives. The Transportation Security Administration says it's trying to handle complaints better, but as summer travel nears its peak, travelers and some industry officials say improvement can't come fast enough. The TSA says it has received nearly 11,000 claims about damaged bags or lost property since January, when it began screening all checked baggage. Less than 4% -- 385 -- have been settled and for an average of $90 a claim. About 350 more are ready to be settled.

As we all know, the Transportation Security Administration, TSA, fired its universally loved Training Academy chiefýWilli Ellison. His crime: doing a good job. (As we have said, the TSA wants this program to fail). He set up a good training program within the TSAýs lousy policies. Willi, who often said, ýI like my job, but I love my staffý (and they feel the same about him), assembled a top-notch training staff and was responsible for the good aspects of the Federal Flight Deck Officer (FFDO) training. To give you an idea of the depth of the juvenile behavior of TSA Washington bureaucrats, Willi was chastised for hosting a barbecue reception for the first class of FFDOs. We have been informed that TSA instructors were told not to fraternize with the pilots. Usually you have to be a middle school student to be around such petty, malicious, vindictive behavior. The TSA has announced they are moving FFDO training to another training site that is a four hour drive from anywhere and thousands of miles from the current site, thus uprooting instructors if they choose to move and needing to hire others if they do not. They are also behindýagainýin selecting and procuring equipment for a scheduled July class. Here we are nearly two years after 9/11, and the TSA has only armed forty four pilots nationwide. If that doesnýt anger you, better check your pulse.

The federal Transportation Security Administration has concluded there was no wrongdoing when airport screeners were given almost all the questions in advance to an exam certifying them to operate bomb-detection machines last year. The TSA launched an internal investigation as a result of Newsday stories saying screeners were read questions and answers before taking an exam to show they knew how to operate machines that detect bombs in luggage. Screeners around the country said they were read questions, often verbatim, and told answers at the end of a week of classroom training in December.

The wonderful folks at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) ? an agency created in the wake of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, who are just now preparing to implement the already discredited Computer-Assisted Passenger Pre-screening System ("CAPPS II") ? have finally discovered what most government bureaucracies learn in their first days. They have discovered taxpayer-citizens are but wallets to be opened and fleeced at will.

A set of TSA Guidelines issued recently set forth what fines its employees are to charge, and what circumstances will cause those fines to be increased, decreased or perhaps not levied at all. A great deal of confusion has already resulted.

A fine of up to $1,500 can be levied (after the fact, of course) against an air traveler for something called "nonphysical interference with screening." What is that? Looking at the screener the wrong way? Failing to jump high enough when told to jump? Or maybe, just maybe, "nonphysical interference with screening" consists of a bad "attitude"; perhaps failing to greet a screener with appropriate deference or subservience as she arbitrarily forces you to disrobe publicly or submit to an additional, "random" inspection?

No kidding. The TSA is asserting the right and the power to fine you, a law-abiding American citizen or lawful visitor to this great land, simply because its employees don't like your "attitude." One of eight "aggravating factors" listed in the new Guidelines is the "attitude of violator." Of course, you may not know until long after you've departed the airport, landed and gone on home, that your "attitude" sufficiently rankled some TSA employee after they found an item of contraband mistakenly left in your carry-on, such as to warrant a hefty fine.

I recently conducted a detailed investigation of security at our nation's airports, and was shocked by the magnitude of deficiencies ripe for terrorist exploitation that I found after visiting various sites and interviewing assorted industry employees from four major airlines. I was disturbed to learn of several easy ways to get any handheld weapon onboard or to place a bomb on almost any domestic flight. Looks like Osama is still in business ? U.S. flights are his for the taking.

It seems that most of the post-Sept. 11 security upgrades have been primarily focused on things travelers can see, specifically on increased screening of passengers before they board the plane ? including integrated intelligence programs to check passenger lists against databases of possible terror suspects, updated X-Ray and metal-detector equipment at gates, more qualified officials at security posts, and more frequent body searches of passengers before they enter the gates.

But behind the scenes, it's been business as usual. In most airports, aside from more thorough background checks, there have been little or no security measures added to the routines of the tens of thousands of aircraft cargo workers. At many airports, and at most airlines at Miami International, where my research focused, these employees still don't go through metal detectors or X-ray machines, have little direct onsite supervision or outdoor surveillance and, incredibly, in many cases they have separate, unsecured access to passenger gates.

Over at Common Dreams there's another story about the TSA's watch list.  It's written by an author and former diplomat who represented the United States to the UN, Vietnam, and so forth.  Not a bad resume, although it's clear from the titles of his books and his choice of publisher that he's a leftist.  He's claiming that he's on the watch list because of his politics, and that he can't seem to get off of it, or even get a solid answer as to why he's on it.

He says he "can't ignore this administration's efforts to purge and punish dissenters and opponents."  I hadn't noticed any particular purging or punishing, so...

I did a little digging.  He's also a leadership figure for the Giraffe Heroes Project, a play on words related to the title of his book (Stick your neck out: A Street-smart Guide to Creating Change in Your Community and Beyond). 

The top three "Giraffe Heroes" on the project's website are Azim Khamisa, Plez Felix, and "Broad Meadows School Activists for Iqbal".  He admits to having "met with Cambodians, Sudanese, Palestinians...", saying that you can't convince people to move toward peaceful solutions unless you understand who they are.

Granted, although some people just don't seem to be interested in moving towards peaceful solutions at all. 

And he hasn't been an official diplomat for 25 years, which would mean he was serving in the Carter administration and left the year that Reagen was elected.  Although I wasn't following politics at the time, I'm familiar with the events of the Carter Presidency, and characterizing them as a disaster with regard to terrorism would not be overstating the case.  He did not stop his "peacemaking" even after leaving government service, meaning he continued to have unofficial contacts with "both sides".

All of a sudden, I find it completely plausible that this fellow is one or two degrees from a "person of interest".  And that puts a slightly different spin on the fact that he's on the watch list. 

Sure, he has the right to due process, and he's moving through that process.  But I'm not prepared to automatically assume he's listed by mistake, or that the appropriate due process should result in his being removed from the "check very carefully" list under present circumstances. 

Lesson?  It pays to know who you're listening to.  Sometimes, it makes a difference.  It may not change the conclusion that the TSA is an often-incompetent, always-intrusive agency which considers the privacy rights of ordinary Americans a bug in the system to be eliminated as soon as reasonably possible.  But even a stopped clock is right twice a day, and it's good to keep that in mind when considering whether to be outraged over a particular incident.

In case you haven't heard, two airplanes recently crashed in Russia. While there hasn't exactly been a news blackout, the volume of reporting has been relatively low. I'd like to extend my sympathy to the Russian people concerning this event.

Russian emergency workers are continuing to sift through twisted metal for clues about why two airliners crashed within minutes of each other, killing all 89 people aboard.

Officials said one of the jets had sent a hijack distress signal after taking off from Moscow's Domodedovo Airport on Tuesday night, raising fears terrorists had struck.

They crashed within minutes of each other, and took off from the same airport. One of them changed its transponder to the "hijack" code after taking off. All of these things are suggestive. The closeness of time and the fact that the planes took off from the same airport suggests a connection between the events; plane crashes are extremely rare and it's very unlikely that two would occur in such a similar manner without a connection.

That connection could be something wrong with the airport's maintenance procedures, or weather conditions in the region, or any number of other possibilities. But the most likely possibility is the one that first comes to mind: terrorism. Authorities in Russia are saying that their initial examination of the crash site found no evidence of terrorism, but then, frankly, I wouldn't expect it to. The flight data recorders are where that evidence would be found.

A spokesman for the Federal Security Service said Wednesday that while a preliminary investigation of the crash sites had not revealed evidence of a terrorist act, terrorism was still on the table as a possible cause.

Russian officials have rushed the flight data recorders from the two airliners back to Moscow, where they will be decoded for clues to explain the crashes.

There are a lot of people who will be waiting for reports from those recorders with baited breath. But working on the assumption that this is, in fact, terrorism... it has some interesting consequences.

Russia has not exactly been gung-ho about the war on terror. They have their own problems, and in Iraq, probably their own dirty laundry. They've been sympathetic and have helped out the way your neighbor helps out when a drunk driver wrecks your parked car. But now the terrorists are targeting the Russians. And that's a whole different story.

So, if this brings the Russians into the war on terror, we have a new ally with fresh determination. But there's a flipside. As Steven Den Beste describes it, the purpose of [classical] terrorism is to provoke reprisals. The US doesn't exactly have a spotless civil rights record, but the Russian record (under Communism) is a fair bit worse.

While the US is still disturbed by reports of its soldiers abusing prisoners, and still works itself up into a lather about the potential use of torture in interrogations, the Russian security forces are likely to have fewer compunctions than ours. I don't speak from any kind of direct knowledge here, but I think the historical facts behind this opinion speak for themselves. In some ways this may make them more effective, but it also has costs; and playing into the hands of the terrorists is one of them.

So the terrorists may be attempting to provoke Russian abuses as part of their strategy, perhaps after realizing that the US troops are winning the public relations battle. It could be effective as a way to reignite support for the Chechen conflict that had been dying down, if the Russians allow themselves to be goaded.

Luckily, the attacks seem to have failed. At least, failed by measurement to the standards of 9-11; downing two aircraft would be considered a success just a few years ago. As a result, this is unlikely to be a transformative event for the Russians as 9-11 was for the US. That should encourage clear strategic thinking from the Russian leaders.

And there's a bonus. Failure has the same consequences for terrorists as it does for governments fighting terrorists: when you fail, you look weak, and people are reluctant to support you. Botching this operation is probably more damaging to the terrorist's goals than not trying at all.

UPDATE: Explosives have been found in the wreckage.

Go read the link. Really. Read it all the way through; remind yourself that it's been 3 years and several new government security agencies since 9-11, and then ask yourself these questions:

1. Why were these men allowed on the plane?
2. Why were these men not arrested when they got off the plane?
3. Why isn't the media reporting this incident heavily?
4. If there were air marshals on the plane, were they "made" by the terrorists as a reason to scrub the op?
5. If there were air marshals on the plane, and the terrorists had decided not to scrub the op... how effective would 2 men be against 14 widely-separated terrorists?
6. Where was the government that claims to protect us?

Although people rarely talk about it, a gun is not a panacea for self-defense, especially against multiple attackers in a confined space willing to sacrifice their lives to achieve their objective. If the terrorists had not scrubbed the operation, they would have control of the plane. The other passengers might have been able to organize an effective defense, but I do not think the air marshals could have done a damn thing.

One luggage screener said he bought nearly $700 in gasoline with a credit card taken from a passenger's bag. Another said he paid off his cell phone bill with cash he took from a suitcase.

Their conversations were recorded, and on Tuesday, four Transportation Security Administration screeners at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport were charged with stealing valuables from luggage and profiting from the pilfered goods, investigators said.

This angers me, but it doesn't surprise me. The fact is, the very-visible antics of the Transportation Security Administration (on which we have spent billions) are a sham; a distraction. They are nothing more than very expensive public relations. In return for these very expensive public relations efforts, conducted by who seem to measure success by the degree of absurdity they can inflict upon perfectly innocent people, we gain absolutely nothing in terms of real security.

Worse, the real security measures (CAPPS-II, "trusted traveler", and so on) won't be any more effective. Airport security is, in fact, good for only two things in this era of modern terrorsm: preventing terrorists from sneaking shoulder-fired surface-to-air missiles close enough to hit airliners, and preventing terrorists from sneaking bombs onto planes. Neither effort requires intrusive searches.

Ever since the terrorists got the idea to use planes as destructive devices, we've tried a variety of ineffective defenses, and ignored the ones that really matter. When the terrorists learned that an airplane could be more useful intact than in a thousand pieces, the nature of the game changed, and so did the nature of the defenses we need to employ.

The passengers on the airplace are the first line of defense. Terrorists on 9-11 hijacked four flights; only three made it to targets. The fourth plane, having learned what had happened already that morning, had it's passengers fight back against the terrorists. Whether they won, it's hard to say, but it's clear that the terrorists did NOT win; the plane crashed, but not into any valuable target. And the infamous shoe bomber, responsible for thousands of passengers these days being asked to take off their shoes at security checkpoints, was overpowered by passengers before he could set off his shoes.

That makes the "passenger" line of defense 2 out of 5. None of the other tactics are even on the scoreboard! Air marshals have scared a few flights by holding drunken idiots at gunpoint, but haven't stopped any real hijackings. The armed pilots program is just getting started, having been hamstrung by government idiocy for years. Passenger searches don't have a single terrorist to show, but thousands of complaints from honest passengers. Baggage searches have discovered no bombs, but the searchers are apparantly finding lots of other things they just can't bear to put back in the suitcase.

So we've got some empirical evidence concerning what works and what doesn't. And it should surprise no one that the consensus is: government solutions don't work.

For Brad Jolson, the allure is not having to repack his carry-on bag because of a random search. For Ken Buchanan, it's the thought of gaining extra time at the gate to make phone calls or check e-mail. For Amy Bouska, it's about not getting slowed by travelers unfamiliar with the security checkpoint routine.

They were among hundreds of frequent business flyers at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport to sign up Monday for a first-of-its-kind program that promises fewer security headaches and shorter wait times for people who pass background checks.

"I'd do anything to save time and hassle going through security -- anything legal that is," said Bouska, a 56-year-old actuarial consultant in the Twin Cities.

Looks like this idiotic program has officially started. This is really little more than an opportunity for the government to reward cooperation with its insane security procedures; it doesn't reduce the insanity at all (in fact, it increases the insanity), but it does help prevent people from complaining about the situation. And to a government beaurocrat, effectiveness doesn't matter -- but complaints do. Not individual complaints, mind you, just the total number of them. He could care less if a pervert in a security guard uniform groped your underage daughter because he didn't get around to doing background checks, so long as you keep quiet about it and the planes run on time.

That's the trusted-traveler program in a nutshell. Get people to volunteer for "extensive screening" ahead of time so that you can process the sheep faster than the humans and keep down the bleating. Never mind that you've just handed the terrorists a new ID to forge that will get them past the security procedures more easily than before. Never mind that you're creating an internal passport as the first step to a police state. Just keep the line moving.

Flight attendants on commercial airlines are still being trained to cooperate with hijackers and be victims rather than fight back, despite the attcks of September 11.

The September 11 panel revealed that hijackers "beat the last line of defense on the four flights, because the professionals had been trained to cooperate with hijackers, not fight them," Miss Friend said.

"Unfortunately, I am here to report to you that nothing has changed since that horrible day. We are no better prepared today to handle a situation like that which occurred on September 11th and our training is still woefully inadequate."

The lawmakers said they were "frustrated" that TSA has not developed guidelines and "strongly urged" the agency to act.

I can't believe this bullshit is still standing. The TSA is clearly a totally incompetent government agency (but I repeat myself). These lunatics are still training to cooperate with people who have every intention of crashing the whole damn plane into the biggest national monument they can reach?

TSA sunsets?

The anti-terrorism agency that Congress rushed into existence just weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks to protect America's planes, trains and trucks is shrinking and could all but fade away.

The Transportation Security Administration, which hired some 65,000 employees and has spent more than $10 billion over 3 1/2 years, has been beset by complaints about its performance, leaving it vulnerable to congressional Republicans who want to reduce the size of government.

The law creating the Homeland Security Department has a sunset provision for the transportation security office. It says the TSA has only to be maintained as a distinct entity until November 2004.

The Transportation Security Administration has a sunset date? Damn, color me surprised -- and pleased. We may get air travel back to normal after all.

The TSA says it will have a "summer strategy" ready. The centerpiece of its plan: a national education campaign dubbed "Ready, Set, Go!" that encourages passengers to be more careful about what they pack. A surprising number of people still are trying to bring weapons on board. Earlier this year in Las Vegas, gun-show attendees were given goodie bags containing complimentary keychains with real bullets affixed to them, prompting huge backups in security lines. Since the beginning of this year, TSA screeners have confiscated 123 guns and more than 5,000 box cutters from passengers.

The TSA will remind people to remove coins from their pockets -- saving an average of two seconds per passenger -- and take off their belts before reaching the metal detectors.

So, from those 5,000 box cutters and 123 guns... how many people have been charged with conspiracy to hijack an aircraft? It seems to me that once you have a guy from whom you have confiscated a gun while he was trying to board an airplane, you also have probable cause to investigate him a little bit. And you know what? Islamic suicide squads seem, well, fairly easily identified once you start looking at their background closely.

Since the news media have not made a big stink about any such thing, I'm going to guess precisely none. Why, then, are we concerned about people who forget what they have in their carry-on bag? Why do we make ordinary people take off their belts, their boots, and god knows what else? It's not like ordinary people are presenting a threat.

The truth is, airline security is a con job. Fear of terrorists provides job security for the 50,000 "airport screeners". That's why we are constantly asked to submit to the intrusive searches to "protect" us, when in truth, we should be handing every American a handgun as he boards the plane. As the saying goes, "God made man, but Samuel Colt made men equal."

In the current security environment, if the terrorists can get a man with a gun on the airplane, they win; but under my scenario, in order to win, the terrorists must defeat an entire airplane filled with people who desperately want to live, and who have the arms to make that stick. Which environment do you think is more conducive to terror?

American Airlines' announcement Friday that it shared more than a million passenger itineraries with four government contractors reveals that Transportation Security Administration officials have repeatedly issued false statements about the development of the passenger-profiling system known as CAPPS II.

American Airlines joins a growing list of carriers that have come forth in recent months to say that they have shared massive amounts of information about their passengers with the TSA. For the past eight months, TSA officials have repeatedly said they were not collecting this data. But American's disclosure raises questions about why the department has given false information about its data collection.

The TSA also may have withheld information improperly from investigators looking into the agency's practices.

If the TSA can't be trusted to tell the truth to the public, why the hell are we trusting them to keep terrorists off airlines?

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) this week announced that it is seeking proposals from IT vendors for a registered traveler pilot program to help speed and improve the efficiency of security checks for frequent fliers.

IT vendors will have until April 19 to submit proposals to the TSA. The program will start in June at three to five airports and run for approximately 90 days. The TSA said in a statement that it expects between 5,000 and 10,000 travelers to take part.

The TSA plans to use biometric systems, such as fingerprint and iris scanners, as the foundation for registering travelers and conducting expedited security assessments. The agency will conduct the security assessments of those who volunteer for the program and also store and manage all personal biometric data collected from the participants.

Rather than give the pilots the tools to defend their airplane, the TSA would like you to volunteer your handprint, your fingerprints, your retinal scan, and any remaining vestiges of your personal life in return for letting you travel by air, not to mention the privilege of being shot down by the same air force your taxes are paying for in the event a terrorist manages to take control of the plane anyway.

No thanks. I'd rather drive.

A New Jersey gun smuggling ring has its roots in alabama. That's according to the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The bureau says a baggage handler at Newark Liberty International Airport used planes to get guns from Alabama to northern New Jersey where they were quickly sold by street vendors. ATF agents say Antonio Lewis and two other buyers purchased guns at a Selma pawn shop. Then lewis allegedly used his security clearance as a worker for American Airlines to get the guns onto airplanes without being checked.

Gee, the new security measures are so very, very effective, aren't they?