Bruce Schneier Wipes The Airport Floor With Kip Hawley
Schneier and Hawley debated on airport security at The Economist. First, Schneier:
There are two categories of terrorists. The first, and most common, is the amateurs, like the guy who crashed his plane into the Internal Revenue Service building in Austin. They are likely to be sloppy and stupid, and even pre-9/11 airplane security is going to catch them. The second is the well-briefed, well-financed and much rarer plotters. Do you really expect TSA screeners, who are busy confiscating water bottles and making people remove their belts and shoes, to stop the latter sort?Of course not. Because the TSA's policies are based on looking backwards at previously tried tactics, it fails against professionals. Consider this century's history of aircraft terrorism. We screened for guns and bombs, so the terrorists used box cutters. We confiscated box cutters and corkscrews, so they put explosives in their sneakers. We screened footwear, so they tried to use liquids. We confiscated liquids, so they put PETN bombs in their underwear. We rolled out full-body scanners, even though they would not have caught the Underwear Bomber, so they put a bomb in a printer cartridge. We banned printer cartridges over 16 ounces--the level of magical thinking here is amazing--and surely in the future they will do something else.
This is a stupid game, and we should stop playing it. Overly specific security measures work only if we happen to guess both the target and the plot correctly. If we get either wrong--if the terrorists attack something other than aircraft, or use a tactic we have not thought of yet--we have wasted our money and uselessly annoyed millions of travellers.
Airport security is the last line of defence, and it is not a very good one. If there were only a dozen potential terrorist tactics and a hundred possible targets, then protecting against particular plots might make us safer. But there are hundreds of possible tactics and millions of possible targets. Spending billions to force the terrorists to alter their plans in one particular way does not make us safer. It is far more cost-effective to concentrate our defences in ways that work regardless of tactic and target: intelligence, investigation and emergency response.
That being said, aircraft require a special level of security for several reasons: they are a favoured terrorist target; their failure characteristics mean more deaths than a comparable bomb on a bus or train; they tend to be national symbols; and they often fly to foreign countries where terrorists can operate with more impunity.
But all that can be handled with pre-9/11 security. Exactly two things have made air travel safer since 9/11: reinforcing the cockpit door, and convincing passengers that they need to fight back. Everything else has been a waste of money. Add screening of checked bags and airport workers and we are done. All the rest is security theatre. If we truly want to be safer, we should return airport security to pre-9/11 levels and spend the savings on intelligence, investigation and emergency response.
Hawley:
"Never again" has become reality, but as new terror threats emerge, security officials have to adjust defensive measures to stay ahead of looming attacks.
Defensive measures are employees, hired off pizza boxes (who might otherwise been manning the fry vat at Mickey D's), groping countless balls and vaginas at the airport? See Schneier, above.
A steady stream of al-Qaeda threats came in during 2006, 2007 and 2008 using "clean" operatives and involving novel explosives, including powerful liquids that were not detectable by scanners. On an average day during this period, I, as TSA administrator, had threat discussions about half a dozen to a dozen specific, separate, serious plots with intelligence analysts to consider security operations that would counter threats targeting transport. A shoe-bomb incident in 2001, a liquid bomb in 2006 and an underwear bomb in 2009 do not give the public a sense of the deadly daily flow of al-Qaeda and other plotting. Whatever perceived buffoonery takes place at checkpoints does not mitigate the cold reality that there are real attack plots and that TSA people all over the world, in concert with partners in industry and other government agencies, take action to prevent them. Sometimes these actions are undecipherable and awkward, but they have worked.
Bullshit. They'd be crowing all the way into three years from now if they'd caught a single terrorist. What they've captured is a whole lot of veterans' penknives and a bunch of weed.
Oh, and note that they didn't catch the shoe bomber or the panty bomber -- or a single terrorist, and they've had $60 billion of our money to grope our balls and violate our rights trying.
Better intelligence shared across agencies and countries, improved technology like advanced checkpoint scanning, upgraded training and tools like behaviour detection, all play a part in lowering the risk of new and future threats. Getting rid of outdated security measures, however, is difficult. In 2005, I tried to remove scissors and small tools from the prohibited-items list in order to focus TSA officers on hidden explosives; there was an outcry that predicted "blood running in the aisles" if these potential weapons were allowed on planes. We went ahead with the changes, but, in many cases, the old measures just stayed on the books.
Just like government -- ineffective at pretty much everything but perpetuating itself.
The TSA losers' failure rate (at catching weapons).
UPDATE: Schneier posts Doctorow's sum-up at BoingBoing:
All of Hawley's best arguments sum up to "Someone somewhere did something bad, and if he'd tried it on us, we would have caught him." His closing clincher? They heard a bad guy was getting on a plane somewhere. The figured out which plane, stopped it from taking off and "resolved" the situation. Seeing as there were no recent reports of foiled terrorist plots, I'm guessing the "resolution" was "it turned out we made a mistake." But Hawley's takeaway is: "look at how fast our mistake was!"
Hawley:
All taken down by the passengers. And he forgot to mention that 1 hour and 6 seconds after Tower II was struck United Flight 93 had an inadvertent impact with ground outside of Shanksville, PA.
When you tell me how the TSA stopped the shoe bomber, the liquid bomber, and the panty bomber I'll take the rest into consideration.
Right now 49 of the 50 states have some form of Concealed Carry. As a matter of fact, in Arizona you don't need a license. How many people have died from legal carry owners?
Then you have the Trayvon Martin case. That is still under investigation and by no means settled either way. That is one of how many thousands? Meanwhile in there has been no outrage over the 49 gun deaths in Chicago, Illinois during the St. Patrick's Day Weekend. Note that Illinois has no CCW permit system.
Are you the director of the fucking TSA? Why do the old measures just stay on the books?
Why the fuck was I patted down to have less then 10 ml of clearly labeled, medical liquids passed through without being passed through an X-Ray?
1 -- tammybruce.com/2010/07/arizona-constitutional-carry-law-takes-effect.html
Jim P. at March 30, 2012 1:53 AM
Whatever else you may think of our little adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have certainly resulted in a lot less incoming fire.
An escape from a dreary reality for adventure and glory appeals to the youth. Ignominious defeat and near certain death makes herding the goats preferrable to playing hide-and-seek with Hellfire missiles.
OBL as fish food, or a specimen in some lab in DC, is not exactly the best recruiting poster they ever had either. Strong horse, dead horse.
MarkD at March 30, 2012 4:33 AM
"His closing clincher? They heard a bad guy was getting on a plane somewhere. The figured out which plane, stopped it from taking off and "resolved" the situation." -Doctorow
So they guy managed to get PAST the TSA checkpoint onto the plane? Doesn't that make the TSA checkpoints all suspect? Have any of the other threats been effected by TSA checkpoints? Have any of the threats happened within the US? Hawley conveniently sidesteps all that.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like it needs a nail. Treating every person that flies as a potential evildoer is wrong and it violates the constitution. The blood in the aisles argument is stupid on it's face, because you are acting as if OTHER passengers won't act. Those days are over. As we saw with a pilot having a psychotic episode regular passengers can and will take action.
Instead of perfecting devices that actually CAN snif chemical residues that indicate bombs... they want you to go through a machine that CAN'T do that. The manufacturer of which has plenty of government ties.
Follow the money and ask yourself if this makes you safe.
The sad truth is that most people simply don't wish to be bothered thinking about this, and those are the very same people who don't want to get involved if something happens on a flight or if they see a mugging in the street.
You can't do anything about them, except ignore them when they say "well it'd be much easier if everyone flew naked, because then you can't conceal anything" While baggage handlers come and go with impunity and little in the way of background check.
The times Square guy was an airport shuttle driver... he could have done massive damage if he hadn't be aiming so high... and how you gonna prevent that? Not by making everyone walk to the airport.
SwissArmyD at March 30, 2012 11:49 AM
Hey Jim P: I did see your comment to me on a previous TSA-related blog, but didn't get the chance to respond. Thanks, and I always make an effort to credit my sources.
Meloni at March 30, 2012 12:42 PM
This is a funny story about a past director of the TSA. Clearly, it is a political position. If our betters thought the TSA was valuable, they would head it with a technical person.
The Brains of the TSA 12/21/08 - Econlog.Econlib.org by David Henderson
== ==
When Charley and I tell a story of poor thinking, we almost never name the person, but here I'll make an exception. This high-level manager was Kip Hawley, head of the Transportation Security Administration.
== ==
To see why, search for "I volunteered" at the link. Hawley did not efficiently run a picnic grill.
Andrew_M_Garland at March 30, 2012 1:51 PM
Umm, I have never seen or read anything urging people to fight back. As near as I can tell, people have used their own common sense to reach that conclusion. Except for the occasional rural sheriff, the only advice I have ever heard from a law enforcement regarding self defense is, essentially, to quietly get on my knees and take a bullet to the back of the head.
Bill O Rights at March 30, 2012 3:39 PM
The large majority of the rank and file of law enforcement encourage self-defense. Those that don't are typical of the Canton, Oh. police officer that jumped on the CCW holder. For years the Brady Campaign held sway in city, county, state's governments. Therefore the senior members of law enforcement had to toe the Brady line.
The steady push-back from the NRA, the state's legislature's with CCW, castle doctrine, 9/11, the economic downturn, SCOTUS rulings, the failure of the Brady stats, etc. are steadily eroding the anti-gun stance. It's just a matter of time until the senior officers come from the current rank and file.
Jim P. at March 30, 2012 8:06 PM
I appreciate the trauma that you incurred at the hands of the TSA, but to be precise: it is highly unlikely that the TSA has ever groped anyone's vagina through clothing.
The vagina is just the "hole" or birth canal. The external female genital (what you can actually see between a naked woman's legs, including the labia) is called the vulva.
It may seem like a small point, but I don't think anyone is well-served by "dumbing down" or improperly avoiding an anatomically correct and explicit description of the TSA's very real sexual intrusion into women's lives and bodies.
Joe Smith at March 31, 2012 5:06 AM
Gee.
"Highly unlikely."
I am so glad that this technical point exists, and that "highly unlikely" is acceptable given the size of the TSA payroll. For a minute, why, I thought that people were being presumed guilty for wanting to travel by air and some were molested by any definition of the term! How silly of me!
As it becomes more obvious that the hiring practice of Thousands Standing Around allows petty people to terrorize the public at will, and single out attractive females for abuse, I suspect that your point will be seen for what it is: pointless.
Because, LOOK: you couldn't say that it never happened. What a wonderful endorsement of our modern Brownshirts.
Radwaste at March 31, 2012 6:56 AM
"On an average day during this period, I, as TSA administrator, had threat discussions about half a dozen to a dozen specific, separate, serious plots with intelligence analysts to consider security operations that would counter threats targeting transport. A shoe-bomb incident in 2001, a liquid bomb in 2006 and an underwear bomb in 2009 do not give the public a sense of the deadly daily flow of al-Qaeda and other plotting."
Guys, there's a "tell" here.
If TSA was properly set up, Hawley couldn't make this statement. The FBI director doesn't work cases. The CEO of Budweiser doesn't make beer. My facility manager doesn't process nuclear waste.
What effective leaders do is set up the process to be effective. Clearly, no one effective is in charge of TSA's process, because the "solution" to terrorism is NOT patting down the American public, period. "Adjust defensive measures"?? Nonsense.
Meanwhile, the second hit on Googling Kip Hawley produced "Kip Hawley is an idiot" and yet another tale of stupidity.
Radwaste at March 31, 2012 7:12 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/03/30/bruce_schneier.html#comment-3112111">comment from Joe SmithI don't think anyone is well-served by "dumbing down" or improperly avoiding an anatomically correct and explicit description of the TSA's very real sexual intrusion into women's lives and bodies.
Sigh...been through this before. Like Elmore Leonard, I use the language people use when they talk. "Vagina" is the word people use to describe girlparts. For example, this book -- 100% Vaginas: Close-Up Photography (GRAPHIC) -- does not involve a camera stuck up anywhere.
Amy Alkon
at March 31, 2012 7:22 AM
Let's see;
First the terrorist used to put bombs in their checked bags and then NOT board the place; so, we started to make sure that only boarding passengers bags went on the plane.
Next, terrorists would try to carry the bombs in their carry-on bags; so we started to screen carry-on bags better.
Next, terrorists would try to carry a bomb on their person, so we now use metal detectors.
Then, bombs were planted in shoes, underwear, etc. So, now we have an "aggressive" pat down.
And now we have the full-body scanner. Does anyone else think that it is just a matter of time before terrorist start having bombs surgically implanted?
Charles at March 31, 2012 8:15 AM
I forgot to ask a pertinent question.
Joe Smith: what part of your body does a TSA agent have to palpate before you object?
Radwaste at April 1, 2012 5:53 PM
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