Originally Posted by
Bart
Call me skeptical. It's like the old Army Inspector General saying, "we're here to help, this is a courtesy inspection."
I do understand the Red Team logic. Hell, I used to run them all the time against high-profile targets. The cynic in me sees the TSA version as just political tools that don't offer much help to the trainer-on-the-ground or the local FSD, for that matter. However, I also understand that Red Teams will never go away. They're political now. Any Congresscritter who signs off on doing away with them would be portrayed as being soft on security.
I'm just responding to the article that TSA is apparently pondering the statistical significance of its testing program. Well, all I have to say is that TSA headquarters painted itself into this mess.
I'm skeptical of the red teams too -- Using
Jason's metal knee to ensure secondaries is cheating, and pointing out that TSA's procedures don't defend the obvious alternate airport targets, like the checkpoint, ticket, or baggage claim lines, is out of bounds. Even TSA's red teams are security theatre.
I do like the idea that TSA is considering "statistical significance", since I think TSA has set itself an impossible task in trying to reliably detect a 1-in-a-billion terrorist, and actually trying to do the numbers would make the infeasibility apparent.
The corner that TSA has painted itself into is that perhaps TSA could make commercial airlines as safe as it pretends, (the thin blue line between terrorists and planes falling out of the sky, rather than but one leaky layer ), but it would have to kill the industry to do it.