...when their job applications were rejected.

Even a 15-day program would be laughable and even more of a waste of resources. Getting lucky a single time after harassing a couple hundred or thousand "innocent" persons -- as is rather routine with such efforts -- is a laughable attempt to justify any such voodoo "security" practice for commercial passenger travel.

There is nothing reasonably decent about profiling individuals for criminal activity when a crime has not yet been committed by the hassled individuals, as pretending that mind-reading is a science is indecent to the core and used repeatedly as a cover for all sorts of indecent nonsense.

As opposed to people wear Blue Shirts and lie to themselves that touching strangers genitals for money is a good and honorable profession.

Not much call for skill sets which include putting lipstick on pigs and picking up turds by the clean end...

Actually, it is a good and honorable profession. Just not the way TSA does it.

"Where have you been?"
In town.

"Do you have a business card"
Yes.

"What were you doing here?"
Confidential company business.

"Sir, if you don't answer, you won't fly today. What were you doing here?"
If I tell you, it may violate SEC laws & regulations and will violate company confidentiality. Are you willing to sign a non-disclosure agreement and be investigated and prosecuted if you disclose insider information?

"Uh..."

"Do you have a business card".
Yes.

"May I see it?"
No, because of what I told you before.

"Where are you going?"
To my congressman's office promptly upon arrival.

"SECONDARY ON LINE 1"


................

This is going to be hell for folks that travel on confidential company business (such as investments, M&A, major sales calls) where disclosing your name & company and/or reasons for travel may cause SEC disclosure issues.

...and for people who work in classified environments and cannot disclose their travel details or even their employer. Having been in those types of jobs, I can say that all of these folks are so well-versed in tradecraft skills that they would have the SPOTNik for lunch.

My standard line these days is, "I don't discuss my travel."

I wasn't even going to mention that. However, since you brought it up, there are some folks that are asked - as part of their jobs - to travel under assumed names with the restrictions you note. That will be very interesting....

Okay another funny thought. How is TSA going to judge if the program test is successful? TSA has never caught a terrorist, and they probably will not with the test at BOS. I guess they will have to judge it based on the number of dumb azz criminals that show up. Can not wait to the see "Good catches".

Also this program is a test, I wonder what would happen if one declines to participate?

If one declines to participate, then the TSA gets to test their escalation procedures. :D

But, but, but - how can one travel under as assumed name when one's ID must match the boarding pass and one must say one's name to the ID checker? ;)

Same here.

Bruce

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8830/4.5.0.138 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/105)

I happen to have worked with and for the current DNI. He has no reservations about hopping down to Pentagon City on the Metro and ripping Pistole a new one.

If it will help, I'll pay his taxi fare so he can get down ther faster. Hell, I'll drive him there, for that matter.

I remember when they tried this before ;)

Did you accept anything from anyone before boarding your flight?
Did you pack your bags yourself?
Did your bags ever leave your sight or supervision before they were checked in?

And what's funny is that all the 9/11 terrorists could have probably answered those questions honestly and it wouldn't have made a single bit of difference.

My best guess is that the same thing is going to happen with the TSA interrogation gauntlet. I wonder how many failures TSA will be willing to report for people who slip by their behavioral science gurus. (Each missed criminal in this dragnet, after all, represents a failure for them and further shows how little Mr. Pistole really knows about security or good management.)

I'll carry him on my back, for crying out loud. It would be nothing less than marvelous if someone who really cares about national security informed Pistole that he and his joke of an agency contribute nothing to it. If anything, they detract from and hinder the efforts of others.

Bruce

I'll kick in my share, someone needs to stiff arm Pistole and get his fricken attention.

Can we send him to the gulag?

If Pistole really wanted to find out for himself what the TSA experience is like, he would fit himself with a 3/4 full ostomy bag (bag attached to his body, real contents) and spend a few days going through checkpoints at airports of all sizes. He should make it a particular point to go through DTW.

He should carry one of the TSA 'I have a medical problem' cards that I think came out after he met with Sawyer.

He should add in a couple days travelling with an ostomy bag while in a wheelchair.

He should also make a couple runs after someone rubs the wheelchair with glycerin lotion and fertilizer. Put a container of nitro pills in his bag along with some >3.4 oz sterile medical LGAs.

This the only way this guy would begin to 'get it'.

But it still wouldn't make any difference.

Why bother? The checkpoints would all receive phone calls telling them that der Führer der Heimatsicherheitministerium was on his way.

He'd come through the experience saying "I had nothing but pleasant interactions with the TSA employees who screened me," and might not even have any idea that they were forewarned.

Bill Forster provided an interesting look at what the TSA considers appropriate "testing" and "inspections" in his HomelandSecurityTheatre comic commentary.

Cha-CHING! (cash register sound) :D




Make your own business cards. The possibilities are endless! :D

I've noticed a small but real trend when I travel - non-business business cards.

Sitting at lounge at ATL on a long layover, got talking a lovely couple from upper NY state. When we parted, we're doing the usual "hey, if you're ever in my neck of the woods...' bit. I'm taking out a notepad to write my name/email when the wife handed me a non-business business card. Had their names, photos, email, telephone number.

I've also been given non-business cards by folks from Australia, several places in southeast Asia, and the UK.

Basically personal calling cards. Very popular (even socially required) in Victorian times. Sooner or later everything comes back in fashion.

It is amusing, though, that as we've reached unprecedented levels of electronic automation that we'd introduce new paper-based methods of contact... kinda like how America spend a century paving 4M miles of roads and now people want SUVs so they can drive on dirt. Humans are weird. :D

@:-) Forgot all about the personal calling cards. Yes, that's exactly what I'm seeing again.

Retro chic :p

If I answer their questions, will they send me to the molestation line anyway?

They could. That's the fine print about these new trusted traveler and BDO programs - they're supposed to speed up your screening, but it does not mean you're exempt.

People are getting excited about Trusted Traveler but it does not guarantee you will never be groped or NoS'd.

If you are at an NoS-only checkpoint, you will get groped if your NoS scan shows 'anomalies' (which might just mean the voyeur in the booth was picking his/her nose or having a side conversation and didn't look at your scan), you will get groped if you are 'randomly' selected, you will get groped if you 'opt out' and you will get groped if you are medically unable to assume and hold the position in the NoS (John Mccain can't).

If you answer the questions and WTMD or NoS are available, you are willing and able-bodied to use whichever is assigned to you, you do not alarm and you are not randomly selected, you may not get groped.

I wonder if I could get away with a business card that advertised me as a traveling salesman for the "Al Kaida Trading Company". :D

My name on the card could be "Terrance Rist", and I could mention that everybody just calls me "Terry". :D

You have to wonder if those subtle little jokes would be lost on the pizza box brethren.

+1. I work in Rosslyn so it would be an easy trip.

And I'll buy him lunch after.

A cricket bat to his "resistance" would be a more effective attention-getter.

If we send him to the Russians, maybe they can do to him what they did to Lakita.

Do you perhaps mean Laika? Because I'm all for giving the entire agency that particular treatment. We need a space program again...

What a great opening line for a campaign speech that could make- "Not so very long ago our government reached for the heavens, but now our government has been reduced to grasping for the most private areas of it's own citizens".

I can't believe no one has tried to make a Uranus joke yet. :D

Did this actually happen? Which airport?

Do you get a Privacy Statement before you hand over a business card to the snoop?

It was a hypothetical. However, it's not much of a stretch from what's happened in the past at BWI or IAD ("sir, it is the LAW that you must answer whatever questions I axk you" by the document checker at IAD)

Reruns of 'Groove Tube' tonight...:p

Not only are there no guarantees, I haven't seen mention of anything besides (maybe) shoes on and LGAs in the bag (unless, of course, they decide to 'educate' trusted travellers by calling for a bag check every time someone does leave LGAs in their bag).

'Trusted traveller' absolutely doesn't mean no grope. If a 'trusted traveller' is medically unable to assume and hold the position in the NoS (John Mccain, wheelchair pax, balance issues, etc), he/she will still receive a full grope every time he/she flies.

Now, it would seem reasonable to say even a 'trusted traveller' may occasionally be selected for a 'random' secondary. It is. Works the same way with GE or NEXUS.

However, AFAIK, CBP at a particular airport doesn't routinely decide to shut down GE processing or to send all GE folks to secondary at the whim of a single agent.

An FSD (or even an individual TSO) will still be able to handle 'trusted travellers' any way they want.

Unrelated to SPOT, but relevant to this discussion, I recently had a STSO demand my BP and DL for "a report." I asked for the Privacy Statement mentioned in federal law for providing my personally identifying information.

His response? "That's probably available on the website, but I don't have it here."

So I said, "I hear often that your website is out of date. I also know that the website, as I have been told before, doesn't apply at this checkpoint. Why would this documentation be any different?"

And that's when he called the police.

There's no way I would have been able to stop laughing. Seriously. I'd be in the secondary line with the TSO's hand down my pants and I'd still be laughing.

Mike

What happened when the police showed up? Hopefully they realized the farce and laughed at the paranoia patrol, but nowadays I'd be pretty shocked if they didn't hassle you even further. Things are WAY out of control.