TSA Security Breach

[considerations]

I'm really feeling safe now!  Angry

Thursday, 9 December 2009 00:00

(ABC News) — In a massive security breach, the Transportation Security Administration inadvertently posted online its airport screening procedures manual, including some of the most closely guarded secrets regarding special rules for diplomats and CIA and law enforcement officers.

The most sensitive parts of the 93-page Standard Operating Procedures manual were apparently redacted in a way that computer savvy individuals easily overcame.  The document shows sample CIA, congressional and law enforcement credentials which experts say would make it easy for terrorists to duplicate.  The improperly redacted areas indicate that only 20 percent of checked bags are to be hand searched for explosives and reveal in detail the limitations of x-ray screening machines.

"This is an appalling and astounding breach of security that terrorists could easily exploit," said Clark Kent Ervin, the former inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security. "The TSA should immediately convene an internal investigation and discipline those responsible."

"This shocking breach undercuts the public's confidence in the security procedures at our airports," said Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and ranking Republican member of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. "On the day before the Senate Homeland Security Committee's hearing on terrorist travel, it is alarming to learn that the Transportation Security Administration inadvertently posted its own security manual on the Internet."

"This manual provides a road map to those who would do us harm," said Collins. "The detailed information could help terrorists evade airport security measures."  Collins said she intended to ask the Department of Homeland Security how the breach happened, and "how it will remedy the damage that has already been done."

[peternap]

I downloaded the manual and looked it over. Yep...major FU on their part...but who cares.

All this "We's on high alert"BS doesn't amount to anything other than cutting little chips from the constitution.

[IronRanger]

Yep...major FU on their part...but who cares.

All this "We's on high alert"BS doesn't amount to anything other than cutting little chips from the constitution.

Yup, it wouldn't surprise me if they "leaked" it intentionally...I'm not saying they did, but it wouldn't surprise me. 

I don't know about "little chips", they've eye-gouged Lady Liberty via "the 'patriot' act".

[glenn kangiser]

I am particularly worried about this...

be careful if this leaks out and be sure to watch out for chips as well as streaks.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P-PeM0N-OgM

[considerations]

egads Glenn, is that for real?      

[IronRanger]

egads Glenn, is that for real?

  I don't care who ya are, that's funny, right there.

  I'm wondering the same thing. 

[glenn kangiser]

I am not sure but I am not about to go to the TSA booth sniffing around for the answer... 

[IronRanger]

"It's time for more security theater!"

Taking off your shoes at the airport. Bloated no-fly lists. Random screenings and searches. Little plastic bags full of 3-ounce liquid containers. All of these measures were reactionary responses to terrorism on airlines. None of it works.

All of this, however, is the definition of security theater:

    Security theater consists of security countermeasures intended to provide the feeling of improved security while doing little or nothing to actually improve security. The term was coined by Bruce Schneier for his book Beyond Fear, but has gained currency in security circles, particularly for describing airport security measures. It is also used by some experts such as Edward Felten to describe the airport security repercussions due to the September 11 attacks. Security theater gains importance both by satisfying and exploiting the gap between perceived risk and actual risk.

Taking off your shoes at the airport does nothing to prevent terrorist attacks on airlines. The shoe-bomber plot was foiled, and that particular technique is unlikely to be tried again. Instead, we'll get new methods, like the most recent over Christmas in Detroit, with condoms full of explosives taped to legs.

What's next in this game of whack-a-mole? We're already hearing of new restrictions aimed at thwarting this latest incident, which is unlikely to be repeated:

    According to a statement posted Saturday morning on Air Canada's Web site, the Transportation Security Administration will severely limit the behavior of both passengers and crew during flights in United States airspace — restricting movement in the final hour of flight. Late Saturday morning, the T.S.A. had not yet included this new information on its own Web site.

    "Among other things," the statement in Air Canada's Web site read, "during the final hour of flight customers must remain seated, will not be allowed to access carry-on baggage, or have personal belongings or other items on their laps."

What's next, flying without pants? How about the logical extreme, flying naked?

Republicans (and Joe Lieberman) are already up in arms about how the "system" didn't work and how we've got to launch another invasion. Of course the system didn't work! It's not designed to work. The airline security system is designed to give scared Americans a feeling of security, right down to National Guard troops in airports with huge machine guns that contain no bullets. Meanwhile, as Schneier and others point out, security theater has real costs. The screening technology at airports cost money. The embarrassing screening procedures take time. Garbage-in, garbage-out no-fly lists erode our civil liberties and privacy. And, as Laura Clawson points out, none of this has done anything to reduce terrorism on airlines:

    In the wake of 9/11, Malcolm Gladwell wrote a New Yorker article on the history of hijackings (PDF), concluding:

        Can we close the loopholes that led to the September 11th attack? Logistically, an all-encompassing security system is probably impossible. A new safety protocol that adds thirty seconds to the check-in time of every passenger would add more than three hours to the preparation time for a 747, assuming that there are no additional checkpoints. Reforms that further encumber the country's already overstressed air-traffic system are hardly reforms; they are self-inflicted wounds.

    The history Gladwell had detailed is one in which, repeatedly, security procedures on air travel had addressed the most recent crime or attempted crime, always looking backward and always being evaded by the next round of hijackers.

        And, despite all the improvements in airport security, the percentage of terrorist hijackings foiled by airport security in the years between 1987 and 1996 was at its lowest point in thirty years. Airport-security measures have simply chased out the amateurs and left the clever and the audacious. "A look at the history of attacks on commercial aviation reveals that new terrorist methods of attack have virtually never been foreseen by security authorities," the Israeli terrorism expert Ariel Merari writes, in the recent book "Aviation Terrorism and Security."

So what can be done to actually make us safe, as opposed to waste our money and our time and make us feel safe? Well, we can start looking at the hard questions. Why do people who live across the world want to kill innocent Americans? What makes these people so violent? What policies have we pursued across the world to get so many people so angry with us?

There will always be crazy people, and the world will never be perfectly safe. But we get more terrorism when we do things as a nation and as a society that cause these crazy people to organize with each other, and give them the climate to work with the moneyed backers and political leaders who would never give them the time of day otherwise. The term is blowback, and it's well-defined and real.

If we can take away the causes that create sympathy for terrorism and turn terrorists into martyrs around the world, then we will cut actual terrorist incidents to almost nothing. But if we don't, all we'll have to rely on is security theater.

http://seminal.firedoglake.com/diary/21254?

[glenn kangiser]

Can we close the loopholes that led to the September 11th attack?

Getting rid of our politicians with oil,  big industry, and war machine ties would eliminate their being complicit in another 911 style attack as they were in '01, but don't look for it to happen soon by man's hand.

[IronRanger]

Getting rid of our politicians with oil,  big industry, and war machine ties...

We'd be starting from scratch then.  Heh. 

It's too bad neither party represents the "little guy" anymore.

But, yea, security theater...it's what's for dinner.   Change of perception equals change in reality.

[glenn kangiser]

Wouldn't it be nice though...

[peternap]

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3h2rSaGsIo&NR=1

[IronRanger]

I read an article (that I can't find now) that more's been done by

1.) reinforcing cockpit doors

2.) passenger awareness and willingness to fight

than all the theatrics outside the plane.

[Virginia Gent]

Ive worked at quite a few airports in my day, from small ones like Dane County Regional to large ones like Miami International, and one thing they all have in common is quality of the TSA employees. Occasionally you get a shift that knows what they are doing ... occasionally. We have a joke in the Line Service business, "What does TSA stand for? ... Thousands Standing Around"

[dug]

All this "We's on high alert"BS doesn't amount to anything other than cutting little chips from the constitution.

Amen to that!  It is amazing how most folks can't see that.

[considerations]

Just restrict the passengers to politicians only.....if there was a problem.....

[StinkerBell]

El Al

[RainDog]

Not that TSA was to blame for it, but that knuckle-head underpants bomber wouldn't have had a chance getting on an El Al flight.

They profile?

[StinkerBell]

El AL is very aggressive with all its security. They profile and they are consistent with everyone. They are highly trained individuals and the same person who is checking you in is generally the security person too. Not like how our government does it. Spending billions of dollars on upper and middle managment that are not even located at the airport, write a lot of laws, inconsistent,  then spend 8 bucks an hour on a security agent loacted at the airport who may check your person and make you go through a metal detector, who may or may not randomly frisk you and ask a few question that are not designed to offend you while you are holding your shoes.

[glenn kangiser]

Our government probably covertly assisted him as we (our administration)  have been looking for approval of the people to go bomb the hell out of Yemen too.  We have been pulling covert ops there for quite a while from what I read.

[IronRanger]

Our government probably covertly assisted him as we (our administration)  have been looking for approval of the people to go bomb the hell out of Yemen too.  We have been pulling covert ops there for quite a while from what I read.

A video and article:

"Ron Paul suggests 'agenda' to expand terror war, attack American liberty"

http://rawstory.com/2009/12/ron-paul-suggests-agenda-expand-terror-war-attack-american-liberty/

[RainDog]

Aviation Security and the Israeli Model

http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/aviation-security-and-the-israeli-model/

[glenn kangiser]

I came upon my opinion independently of Ron Paul, but he is onto their methods and  motivations also.

The Israeli model likely would not work here.  From what I have seen we have no intelligent TSA agents... part of the price for a brainwashed dumbed down America.

[glenn kangiser]

The Fake Terror Agenda

http://www.rense.com/general89/fake.htm

Michael Chertoff represents the Rapiscan Company and orders were already placed before they set up the underwear bomber.

http://www.nowpublic.com/world/full-body-scanner-lobby-michael-chertoff-rapiscan-2552674.html

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2010/01/02/group_slams_chertoff_on_scanner_promotion/