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"Airline Security Theater"
That's what Bruce Schneier calls showing some plastic-badged dodo your photo ID and boarding pass before you're allowed through the airport metal detectors. As somebody who worked at a photostat place during college, and first made a fake driver's license at 15 with a little soft pencil, some hairspray, and some concealer, I know how easy it is to fake identification and a boarding pass, especially these days, when we print our own boarding passes at home. Here's a guy who was successful, and here's a very interesting Wired article on it, in the form of a blog item, by Bruce Schneier. An excerpt about what the security really is:

Interestingly enough, while the photo ID requirement is presented as an antiterrorism security measure, it is really an airline-business security measure. It was first implemented after the explosion of TWA Flight 800 over the Atlantic in 1996. The government originally thought a terrorist bomb was responsible, but the explosion was later shown to be an accident.

Unlike every other airplane security measure -- including reinforcing cockpit doors, which could have prevented 9/11 -- the airlines didn't resist this one, because it solved a business problem: the resale of non-refundable tickets. Before the photo ID requirement, these tickets were regularly advertised in classified pages: "Round trip, New York to Los Angeles, 11/21-30, male, $100." Since the airlines never checked IDs, anyone of the correct gender could use the ticket. Airlines hated that, and tried repeatedly to shut that market down. In 1996, the airlines were finally able to solve that problem and blame it on the FAA and terrorism.

So business is why we have the photo ID requirement in the first place, and business is why it's so easy to circumvent it. Instead of going after someone who demonstrates an obvious flaw that is already public, let's focus on the organizations that are actually responsible for this security failure and have failed to do anything about it for all these years. Where's the TSA's response to all this?

The problem is real, and the Department of Homeland Security and TSA should either fix the security or scrap the system. What we've got now is the worst security system of all: one that annoys everyone who is innocent while failing to catch the guilty.

via Wendy McElroy

Posted by aalkon at November 21, 2006 12:58 PM

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Comments

I feel so much safer using airlines now that I know the grandmother sitting next to me has been subjected to a cavity search by some Gestapo looking pervert.

Posted by: Roger at November 21, 2006 8:59 AM

And don't you feel all squishy inside knowing nobody got a Craig's List bargain on their ticket?

Posted by: Amy Alkon at November 21, 2006 9:08 AM

Schneier's security blog is always hilarious. Or disturbing, if you're not a fatalist.

Posted by: Paul Hrissikopoulos at November 21, 2006 1:06 PM

Have you ever noticed that when the "Peter Principle" kicks in and people are tasked with a project beyond their competence, there is a lot of blame-throwing and worse than useless make work ? Time for housecleaning.

Posted by: opit at November 22, 2006 5:30 AM

Have you ever noticed that when the "Peter Principle" kicks in and people are tasked with a project beyond their competence, there is a lot of blame-throwing and worse than useless make work ? Time for housecleaning.

Posted by: opit at November 22, 2006 5:32 AM

Weird. I had been blaming Opera on double posting to your column and that Server Error 400 feedback happened on Firefox 2.0

Posted by: opit at November 22, 2006 5:36 AM

Just a literary quibble: Cassandra's warnings were unheeded, but true.

Posted by: Marie at November 23, 2006 12:34 AM

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