
Why Airport Security Is Broken—And How to Fix It (former head TSA) - jedwhite
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303815404577335783535660546.html?mod=WSJ_hps_editorsPicks_1
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munin
"No security agency on earth has the experience and pattern-recognition skills
of TSA officers"

really? having watched three TSA officers debate for five minutes over whether
or not peanut butter was a liquid and concluding that "well, peanut butter
goes on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and we don't allow petroleum jelly
through, so we don't allow peanut butter through either", I really am
skeptical of this claim...

~~~
patio11
Allow the guy to be gentlemanly regarding the skill and dedication of his
former employees, many of whom happen to be ex-military.

~~~
pbiggar
> many of whom happen to be ex-military.

This seems somewhat irrelevant? I know we're always supposed to be "supporting
the troops", but I think you're suggesting we should be supporting professions
that they may later go into?

~~~
Drbble
It is just good sense to speak politely about a crew of thousands of people
who have been specifically trained to kill without remorse.

~~~
alan_cx
Wow, are US vets that tweaked? I mean, just say a bad thing about them and
they will kill you, with out remorse? Blimey, sounds a bit worrying to me. You
make them sound like a bunch of well armed psychos living on a hair trigger.
Such people roam free in the US? Sounds terrifying.

Or are you doing them a bit of a disservice there?

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jrockway
What exactly is stopping someone from sitting on their house near the airport
and taking potshots at landing planes with a homebuilt rocket launcher?
Nothing. And yet it never happens.

We all need to calm down and accept the fact that, once in a while, a plane
will blow up and 300 people will die. 9/11 is a rounding error compared to
deaths from heart disease or car crashes, but we don't seem to be doing much
about those.

~~~
Zakharov
There's many things stopping someone from creating and using a rocket launcher
capable of taking down aircraft without being caught. Mostly the technical
difficulty, but the FBI's tactics for finding bomb-makers would probably find
a rocket-launcher-maker.

~~~
jisaacstone
The FBI's tactics for finding bomb-makers would presumably find a bomb-laden
passenger as well then?

~~~
pbiggar
Which is indeed how most bomb plots are foiled.

~~~
Drbble
Most bomb plots are mentally ill or disabled people enticed, set up, and
entrapped by the FBI.

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mokus
That's an extraordinary claim, and if untrue, libelous as well. Have you any
evidence to present?

~~~
rubyrescue
In numerous cases the FBI has been accused of entrapment...
[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/29/fbi-
entrapment-r...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/sep/29/fbi-entrapment-
rezwan-ferdaus)

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gee_totes
What's with all these references to al Qaeda?

 _No realistic amount of prescreening can alleviate this threat when al Qaeda
is working to recruit "clean" agents_

 _al Qaeda's advancing skill with hydrogen-peroxide-based bombs..._

etc, etc.

After 10+ years of war, the al Qaeda of 9/11 is pretty much finished. The
organization can barely survive in Afghanistan and are being picked off by
drones in Yemen.

Realistically, al Qaeda is a defunct organization, and this article repeadly
mentions al Qaeda like it's some eternal bogeyman. This distraction tactic is
to drive attention away from the fact the methods for "How To Fix The TSA"
merely reinforce the status quo.

None of the former head of the TSA's 5 suggestions reduce wait times or make
the experience of flying more pleasant. You _still_ have to take off your
shoes and get scanned or patted down. There's _still_ going to be that person
at the head of the line who scribbles on your boarding pass after checking
your ID.

I would like to see a radical rethink of airport security, something that
would put a smile on the face of the passengers and the security officers.

~~~
javert
Given what the TSA has become, I can't believe people are willing to take
seriously an article written by a former TSA head.

These people are not our friends.

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iandanforth
The last line of the article is the most important: "If Americans are ready to
embrace risk, it is time to strike a new balance."

If we could stop being cowards and accept that we might die, or our families
might die, then we might fight these invasive policies. I'd love it if
efficacy, privacy, and freedom were once again as given the same weight as
security.

I don't hear many calls for courage, so I applaud even this veiled statement.

*edit - spelling.

~~~
taligent
Problem is most normal people wouldn't agree with that choice.

30 seconds of inconvenience OR a more secure airplane.

I guarantee 99% of people choose the second option.

~~~
epo
Even it was 30 seconds, and it probably more like 2 - 3 minutes, that is for
each passenger. Most normal people don't believe in security theatre and most
normal people wouldn't agree with you.

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dkarl
_I wanted to reduce the amount of time that officers spent searching for low-
risk objects, but politics intervened at every turn.... And despite the
radically reduced risk that knives and box cutters presented in the post-9/11
world, allowing them back on board was considered too emotionally charged for
the American public._

Ugh. Was that true? What if the TSA had announced they had determined that
knives and lighters no longer posed a significant risk? It might have helped
the American psyche a little bit to hear the government reassuring people
instead of stoking their fears. It sucks that all our confidence-building
Bush-giving-us-our-mojo-back demonstrations of "strength" were military
operations in foreign countries thousands of miles away, while at home
citizens were taught to be afraid of pocket knives and nail clippers.

~~~
true_religion
Knives and box cutters never posed a significant risk. You can't take over a
plane with a knife if everyone on board is against you.

I bet you'd have a hard time keeping command with a machine gun if people are
swarmed against you knowing (a) they will die anyways and (b) if they don't
stop you people they love will be killed as well.

~~~
kevinchen
Actually, knives were a "significant risk" before cockpit doors were
reinforced and required to remain locked.

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daeken
No, that may help keep a guy with a gun out, but a guy with a knife is screwed
even if the cockpit doors are wide open. Why? Pre-9/11, the wisdom was to let
hijackers go ahead and take control of the plane -- they just want to detour
it and land it somewhere to get away from the police and whatnot. Post-9/11, a
guy pulling out a knife will end up beaten to death before he makes it half a
dozen rows; when people start crashing hijacked planes into buildings, the
wisdom changed. Cockpit doors have nothing to do with it.

~~~
taligent
That is the stupidest logic I've heard in a while.

Do you really think someone trying to kill the pilot would be waving the knife
around in the air causing a scene ? No. They would do so quietly.

You know. So passengers don't know what they are doing.

~~~
tomjen3
And you win for the most stupid response. Fuckhat.

Do you really think it will make any difference whether the hijacker kills the
pilot or not? He is still going to be beaten to death (and the control tower
os going to tell whomever pilots the plane exactly which knobs to turn to land
the plane, if the autopilot can't.

~~~
christianmann
Play nice.

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waqf
I am intrigued that whole-body scanners were not mentioned once in the
article. I am choosing to assume that Hawley's opinion of them is something he
doesn't feel comfortable publicizing.

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zeteo
There's nothing broken about airport security, it's working perfectly. Its
purpose is to keep you voting for certain politicians who spend your taxes on
expensive, ineffective gadgets made by their cronies. "Fear is the mind
killer", as a great writer once said.

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chrsstrm
"And we had explosives experts retrain the entire work force in terrorist
tradecraft and bomb-making."

So, are we training our underpaid and possibly disgruntled TSA workers to
detect items of suspect or are we training them to become the suspect? I don't
want to generalize, but training everyone in the agency in "terrorist
tradecraft and bomb-making" is about the dumbest thing you could do. On so
many levels.

~~~
Zakharov
They were trained in _how to recognize_ terrorist tradecraft and bomb-making,
not how to make actual bombs.

~~~
thebigshane
How good can someone be at recognizing terrorist tradecraft and bomb-making
while knowing nothing about making actual bombs?

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refurb
Great article!

I think it gives some insight into the challenges that the TSA faces. They
don't have complete autonomy, and like any massive organization, politics
plays a huge role.

I have no doubt there are some really smart and innovative people at the TSA,
but as anyone who worked in a huge bureaucracy knows, you often spent 90% of
your time trying to please everyone and 10% actually doing real work.

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lobster45
"Never again will a terrorist be able to breach the cockpit simply with a box
cutter or a knife. The cockpit doors have been reinforced, and passengers,
flight crews and air marshals would intervene."

Not true. Cockpit door opens when the captain takes a piss. Flight crews are
usually sleeping at the back of the plane or stuck behind those beverage
carts. Very few flights have air marshals and most passangers are tied up in
their chairs with the seatbelt. I agree it is less likely than in the past,
but definitely not impossible.

~~~
js2
When I flew Southwest a couple weeks ago, a flight attendant specifically
stood watch while the captain used the restroom, and had any passengers who
walked up return to their seats.

~~~
jrockway
Is that really going to stop someone intent on murdering a few hundred people?

~~~
js2
I'm not sure how to answer that. The cockpit door was locked except for the
brief moment when the pilot exited and re-entered the cockpit, and during that
time a flight attendant was standing watch. I'm not sure how much more could
be done, but it seemed to me it was a fairly significant obstacle to anyone
hijacking the plane, considering that passengers would also hopefully assist
in preventing a terrorist from succeeding.

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sakai
"Accenture..."

Ah -- great to see another wonderful contribution by management consultants...

~~~
orky56
I have to disagree with your blanket generalization. In most cases,
consultants cause more problems than solutions. However in this case, the
consultants from Accenture made some clever observations and delivered
solutions that were economically effective for the cash-strapped TSA. I would
have to argue that these consultants are actually "hacking" the system to make
it easier for passengers, based on some sound cognitive science and psychology
principles.

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thomasluce
There is an easier way to fix it: Incentivize safety. Get rid of the TSA all-
together, and charge the departing airport for the damages caused by any
attempted or successful attack. The airport will have to balance the risk of
an attack leaving from their location with the risk of losing all their money
from people not flying. It's the same calculation they use (more or less) when
they buy their insurance, so it should be a no-brainer.

On top of that, actually punish people for willful violations of basic
constitutional rights to keep whoever the airports hire from getting too big
for their breeches (unlike the TSA...), and the problem -- if it actually
exist -- should resolve itself.

~~~
Drbble
Who exactly is this "airport" you would hold accountable? Who owns SFO?

Have you tried buying terrorism insurance recently? Guess who the primary
provider of that insurance is.

Would your proposed model have prevented 9/11 somehow?

~~~
taejo
> Who owns SFO?

The San Francisco Airport Commission. Or am I not understanding the question?

------
aneth
While I disagree with a large number of TSA policies, I have found TSA
officers to be thoroughly professional and nearly always courteous. The anti-
TSA bandwagon on HN seems to be the product of people who don't travel much
basing their opinions on a few rants or CNN coverage, or perhaps just general
anti-authority bitterness.

I've flown at least once a month for 10 years, domestically and
internationally, and almost never have a negative experience with TSA
personel. While I hate taking off my shoes, turning off my phone, and find the
liquid rules particularly ridiculous, I have found that TSA agents have more
than met my expectations of professionalism in implementing policies over
which they have no control.

Millions of people travel every day. A few bad encounters can be expected.
Don't be an asshole and tear down the employees of the TSA because of a few
anecdotal occurrences. In doing so, you are just as bad as an ignorant talking
head on Fox News. Think and put yourself in others shoes before you rant.

~~~
javert
I think you're making a straw man. The anti-TSA bandwagon is not due to the
fact that a small but significant number of TSA agents are very rude.

It's more due to the fact that a massive and totally unaccountable police
force has been created that violates people's rights left and right, and has
also been shown to be almost totally ineffective, despite costing billions of
dollars.

Meanwhile, the federal goverment seems to have _everything_ wiretapped. We now
life in a "turnkey totalitarian state." [1]

This seems to bode quite badly for the future of the American experiment in
individual rights.

[1]
[http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/al...](http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/all/1)

~~~
taligent
I love how anti-TSA supporters seem to forget that EVERY country has a
"massive and totally unaccountable police force" that "violates people's
rights left and right".

It's just American's anti-police, anti-government, anti-authority streak that
cause them to rise up against it.

~~~
alan_cx
Er, no, my country does not.

And there is a substantial view round the rest of the planet that America is a
"massive and totally unaccountable police force" that it "violates people's
rights left and right", as discussed here, for one example, when certain web
sites get taken down and people who have never stepped foot in the USA
suddenly have to be sent there to face American "justice", which Americans
them selves seem most uncomfortable with.

Stones, glasshouses and all that.

~~~
waqf
The claim "my country does not" would be more compelling if you named the
country.

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loverobots
The only thing liquids could is if X takes a liquid, say alcohol or other
flammable liquids, spray and light up in a seconds. Not sure how the physics
work with the plane's config but that may be a problem.

As for the rest, he /she will have to deal with dozens or hundreds of
passengers and a knife will just not do.

