The TSA's Lawlessness
Robert L. Crandall, former chairman and CEO of AMR and American Airlines, and the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Marc Scribner write for McClatchy about the TSA's disgusting use of full-body scanners in 190 airports nationwide:
While the agency keeps installing these devices - which most people agree intrude on our privacy - there are real doubts whether these are actually making anybody safer. Yet because TSA failed to solicit public comments about the scanners - in violation of federal law - the agency is flying blind.In 2010, the Electronic Privacy Information Center sued the Department of Homeland Security, TSA's parent department, to compel TSA to solicit public and expert input. In July 2011, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered TSA to "promptly" begin a rulemaking to allow for legally required public comments.
A year later, TSA, has not even begun the process. The law empowers courts to compel agency action when it is "unreasonably delayed." TSA says it does not have the resources to begin this public comment process. But it has a discretionary budget larger than that of the entire federal judiciary and a staff larger than those of the Departments of State, Labor, Energy, Education, and Housing and Urban Development combined. This supposed lack of capacity has not prevented TSA from opening new proceedings on far less important matters, adding many more body scanners at airports nationwide, and launching the new PreCheck program for frequent fliers during the last year.
On July 17, EPIC petitioned the court to enforce its mandate. Two days later, the Competitive Enterprise Institute filed an amicus brief supporting EPIC's petition, along with the National Association of Airline Passengers, Electronic Frontier Foundation and six other organizations.
This rulemaking is the only way to determine whether TSA's air travel security regime is worth its huge costs and adverse effects on the public's well-being. Several independent analyses have found that TSA's use of these machines would be economically wasteful even if they worked as well as TSA claims, but may actually make us less safe.
Ohio State University professor John Mueller has done a thorough analysis of U.S. air travel security. He found that even assuming the scanners are capable of detecting body-borne explosives, the likelihood of a terrorist carrying out such an attack is so low that the massive annual cost of deploying and using these machines outweighs any security benefit and could be much better allocated elsewhere.
Scribner posted at OpenMarket:
This Wednesday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ordered TSA to respond to the Electronic Privacy Information Center's petition for writ of mandamus. The Court also ordered that an amicus brief submitted by CEI be accepted.
Please still sign the petition here to require the TSA to follow the law, and share this petition with everyone you know with a working computer and an email address. 6,000 more signatures are needed by August 9.
And then the author goes and spoils it with this bit.
Medical experts have raised genuine concerns about repeatedly exposing frequent flyers to potentially harmful radiation.
"Raised", "concerns", "potentially". Wow. Everything else may be true, but when the one bit I vaguely know something about is crap - tends to colour my opinion.
Flying in the damn plane exposes them to way more radiation than they can possibly get from these machines. Malfunctioning or not.
Ltw at August 5, 2012 6:47 AM
A WhiteHouse.gov account is required to sign the petition. Gee, to what use would that information be put, I wonder?
No, sorry.
mARKd at August 5, 2012 7:17 AM
Ltw,
Yes, in the editing process, certain details were omitted. Folks within DHS accept that about 1 in 30 million will develop deadly cancer some point in their life due to the AIT scanners (they can also damage/miscalibrate certain medial devices, which is why many doctors recommend people with some types of pacemakers and insulin pumps opt for the pat-down instead). Not a major risk considering this works out to about the same risk of being killed by an airliner terrorist, but one that deserves more scrutiny in a formal notice-and-comment rulemaking.
But the bigger omission by editor is what the Cornell study found. Due to TSA-caused mode-shifting, the authors estimated that about 500 people are killed annually on the roads when they otherwise would have chosen to take short-haul flights. So unless TSA can argue that enhanced screening (excluding previous screening techniques and heightened passenger threat awareness) following 9/11 is saving more people than a full 747 annually, they're killing people.
Thanks for reading and please sign the petition linked to by Amy.
--Marc
Marc Scribner at August 5, 2012 7:22 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/08/05/the_tsas_lawles.html#comment-3295908">comment from Marc ScribnerThank you so much, Marc, for your comment/clarifications.
I've posted before on the traffic deaths.
And regarding the email address for the permit, the White House (and I) can find all sorts of stuff out about anyone by simply by Googling. Make a fake email address if you must -- but sign the petition. It's our civil liberties that are at stake.
Amy Alkon
at August 5, 2012 8:27 AM
Miss Alkon, first let me say that I agree with your stance.
But petitions that are circulated by hand get little attention.
Petitions online get less than none because they are so easy to fake. A simple name generator can put millions of names if necessary. Even ignoring that, because there is a low level of commitment to signing such a petition, few treat the pressence of large numbers of names with any gravity, because they know few of those are willing to take action, or will even contradict themselves at the polls.
If anything, it might actually be HARMFUL to your cause, because people who sign a petition will so frequently say, "Meh, I've done my part." and then not show up at a rally or march because of that mindset.
If you are truly serious about a change, you need an organized physical pressence of bodies that SHUT DOWN TSA offices. Don't let them go to work, don't let them do their jobs, you needn't be violent to accomplish this, simply do not tolerate even one step forward for those who make violating civil liberties the means by which they are paid.
You want change, that is how you get it.
Robert at August 5, 2012 8:52 PM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2012/08/05/the_tsas_lawles.html#comment-3296558">comment from RobertThis petition at The White House requires registration with an email address and is thus harder to fake than others.
This one also has a definitive positive end if the signature amount is received.
This is why I encourage everyone to sign and to share.
I have protested and encouraged others to do so -- live and in person -- and hope to bring about a protest I'd planned to do at LAX before the end of August.
But, some people can simply sign something -- everyone can. Please do.
Amy Alkon
at August 5, 2012 9:19 PM
Thank you Marc for your courteous response to my grumpy comment, and for the additional information. The medical issue was peripheral to your main point anyway, which I generally agree with.
I live in Australia so my signature or lack thereof isn't much good to you either way I'm afraid! Good luck.
Ltw at August 5, 2012 9:52 PM
More thanks to Scribner
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at August 6, 2012 10:14 AM
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