Originally Posted by
halls120
Well, they did spend many months training the personnel who successfully boarded and commandeered four aircraft and flew three of them into buildings. I'm not so sure they wouldn't be able to train and cultivate educated potential martyrs to the extent needed to become trusted travelers.
In the end, whether they spend the time necessary to qualify for relaxed screening, or bribe their way past it, the TSA plan remains flawed.
I think (interesting dialogue, BTW) that, in the purest sense, there wasn't a lot of deception that went into the pilot training. The deception they used was generally short-term and designed to keep them under the radar. Key to their success was the structured and disciplined compartmented security approach they used, and, as far as we could tell, still use effectively.
Sneaking someone into a trusted traveler program would take a sophisticated intelligence service capable of creating an identity. It would be much easier to pitch someone
already in the trusted traveler program, which generally is how potential spies are pitched.