The TSA wants to make a lot more use of commercial database (mis)information and use that to determine which currently non-PreCheck-enrolled individuals should be given the LLL treatment going forward even if not enrolling in PreCheck. This will be in some ways a return to the stupid CAPPS(II) system ways that the TSA wants.

This pursued change is a tell that the TSA isn't satisfied with just (In)SecureFlight and being limited to using just primarily government-created-and-administered blacklists. Rather, the TSA wants its own enlarged fiefdom and expanded powers.

The system the TSA wants will indeed have a racial bias to it. The commercial databases mess up individuals who are ethnic minorities far more frequently than it messes up individuals who are part of the ethnic majority. Then there are those in the TSA who are bigoted, and that will also further the racial bias under any new system relying upon "questioning" of passengers.

True, but it can be thoroughly entertaining if you've got the time to mess with their minds. :D

In order to be scientific it will need to be a double blind study. By which I mean a third airport will need to be used where the TSA agents and dogs are all blind. And then we check after ~6 months to see which one catches the most terrorists. LAX should fit the bill - all the TSA agents there are clearly blind already. Now we just need 50+ blind, explosives-sniffing trained dogs: how hard could that be?

I love science. :)

Don't forget Facebook. We've already seen a couple of well-publicized incidents where someone in the media shot his mouth based on the wrong Facebook profile (someone with the same/similar name).

TSA (all of DHS) starts from the viewpoint that all pax are guilty, until conditionally proven 'OK' for one checkpoint passage only. That kind of thinking prevents them from admitting that perhaps, just maybe, they've got a mismatch between information and the individual in front of them.

When you refer to those that are bigoted in the TSA, are you talking about racial bigotry? Who are you imagining as those that are bigoted? What if a TSA officer is black? In such a work environment is there some sort of progression somehow given the circumstances that lead them to adopt the same racial biases as white TSA agents? What about Arab TSA agents? Do they exist? So many questions. I'm sorry to get off track; these thoughts crossed my mind.

Answers in order of your questions above:

1. Bigotry covers racial bigotry -- set includes subset.
2. It has nothing to do with imagining who is bigoted, as the TSA has a history of employing some bigots.
3.Ethnic minorities in the employ of the TSA can be bigoted too.
4. There is, but not always and everywhere.
5. There is, but not always and everywhere.
6. They exist.

Well, first of all when you say Arab you need to be specific. That's like calling everyone from the pacific rim "oriental" or "asian." I have met Lebanese TSA agents, Kuwaitii's, and even one Sikh originally from the UAE who wore his turban at work. That being said, they never seem to last very long. When I've spoken to them, they like to see themselves as a buffer to their colleagues. They see cultural understanding as an asset.

That being said, I don't think the racial and ethnic biases of the TSA are systemic. They seem to be more localized. As one of their policy wonks in DC who I met at a mixer told me, "smart people in the TSA rise very fast after a year in service, the ones that make a career at the gates, they aren't too bright." So I think we are dealing with individual biases, and being the forward facing part of the TSA, it's easy to see them as the whole.

The biases I see as "scattered but pervasive." Of course, you have the Sikh's who created the TSA complaint application, because the TSA agents don't understand they aren't Muslims and in most cases aren't even from any part of the globe that's considered Arabia (UAE being the exception). You also had a supervisor at Logan who was targeting blacks simply because he thought them more likely to be carrying drugs, who he could turn over to local police to score quid pro quo points. Of course, that backfired when the local police turned back on the TSA and told them that they were wasting time and personnel from more pressing criminal matters to chase after worthless leads. I've witnessed multiple times TSA agents doing random checks only on passengers who were only guilty of "flying while brown." If there are a hundred people at a gate, and you only stop to random check people who aren't white, the bias is pretty apparent.

By Arab I mean Arab in ethnicity. Just like Asians or blacks (who one could argue could or should be distinguished into multiple groups) are ethnicities-- not religions.

I bolded your insightful commentary.^

Thanks, I only point that out as I like to do because I used to work with many Lebanese, and I remember they used to get really annoyed at being called "arabic." It's just like the conflicts you can easily fall into if you aren't careful around Chinese to not distinguish Taiwan as separate country, and around Taiwanese to make sure you distinguish them as being separate from China.

This is true in many situations if you assume someone's country from their accent (quickly comes to mind ... Scot/Brit/Irish/Welsh, Australian/New Zealander, Canadian/American). It is safer to ask "where are you from?" rather than making the statement "Oh, you're Australian" .

Interesting. There are lots of Lebanese where I am and I was not aware.. I do know that Iranians are Persian, not Arab. Many Persians don't like this common misunderstanding, understandably.

Most Lebanese are Arabs, probably including those working for the TSA.

There are Iranians who are Arab. Not all Iranians are Persians. There are non-Persian ethnic minorities who are Iranians, including ethnic Azeris, Baluchis and Arabs. A lot of the minority Arab Lebanese employees of the TSA probably don't know that.

My letter will be in tomorrow's NYTimes.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/op...screening.html

Props :)

Congratulations - short and to the point!

Don't you mean "oriental"? I thought occidental referred to the Western Hemisphere, while Oriental referred to the Eastern?

Word switch, it was late. Thanks.

Do you write LSATs?

While I have taken LSATs, I don't write LSATs for others.

I did stick to writing facts in the post of mine which you quoted. Most Lebanese are Arabs even as some Lebanese are not Arabs.

http://www2.tbo.com/news/travel/2013...-mi-ar-625804/

Whaddaya know? Managed Inclusion was a rousing success at Tampa and will now be expanded nationwide.

TSA mind-readers and dogs successfully identified passengers who were not hiding bombs in their shoes.

Who would have seen that coming?

The TSA layers of security are the gold standard for security world wide and the enemy of terrorists. They are building a security force of extraordinary magnitude. They forge their tradition in the spirit of the first responders of 9/11. They have our gratitude.

Sarcasm? I sure hope so!

Great. Just what PreCheck needs, longer lines.

"Managed inclusion" comes with US airline majors making a TSA surrender monkey act so as to do things that the TSA cannot do, like trying to force FFP account name info to align with all ID name info used by passengers (even when different ID are not an "exact" "match" with other ID where all the ID is legally valid)?

Boo hoo, the <1% of passengers who use PreCheck lines now will just have to share them with the unwashed masses.

Cry me a river.

The PreCheck experience (minus the liquid restrictions) should be the default for all passengers.

Longer lines are the least of your worries. Sooner or later the standard scope and grope will be the pre-check screening.

I don't think PreCheck needs longer lines, rather I think PreCheck lines need to be eliminated. I do think that the type of screening that comes with PreCheck LLL outcomes indeed ought to be the default practice for passengers.

[Same goes for Global Entry, enrollment and use of which also ought to be a free right to all US citizens with a valid US passport.]

I've been pretty consistent in criticizing this DHS "all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than other animals" practice that DHS has been using against ordinary US passengers at airports (sometimes even at airports outside of the US).

^

/yawn

So what. My belt is already in my rollaboard before I get to the Trained Document Checker, my laptop is in a butterfly sleeve, and TSA employees have stopped caring if I don't bother to take out my Kippie bag a long time ago.

So the only upside to submitting to a Behavior Detection voodoo practitioner's interrogation is I get to leave my shoes on as I walk through the metal detector? Well, only if I'm not randomly de-selected because the moon is in the wrong phase, or it's the second Wednesday of the month, or...

Sorry, TSA, I think I'll just opt out of your Nude-O-Scopes every chance I get so my fellow travelers can watch your employees put their hands down the inside of my pants. Too bad if I'm using up your resources. http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...m/2ee3b212.jpg


Wrong. Everyone, including airline and TSA employees, should go through the same screening to enter the sterile area. X-ray of belongings, walk-through / hand-held metal detector, and explosive trace detection / explosive trace portal. Nothing more, nothing less.


Great, the TPA FSD thinks I'm an EvilDoer that should receive shoddy treatment by the employees under his control. :rolleyes:


Well, I guess Langley and Jimmy were landside watering a fire hydrant because they were nowhere in sight when I was in TPA the other day.


Wow, Gary Milnao is not only the FSD in TPA, he also has the credentials to supersede the National Academy of Sciences. Must have a heckuva resume. :rolleyes:



Well said, Comrade. Please report to the People's Ministry of Feeling Safe for your Freedom Badge. :p

It's also worth pointing out -- and of course no reporter mentioned it because their direct feed from the TSA's mouth to their "news" piece didn't include it -- is that with neither PreCheck or Managed Inclusion (what an awful name) can you show up later to the airport. You still have to show up early enough to account for being unlucky that day.

So what's the grand benefit of passing muster of the dog and the mind-reader?

Yep, leaving your shoes on and your laptop in your bag. Whooopeeeeeee!

Notice also how as far as I know, even though it might be practice right now, no one has ever said that PreCheck lines will remain AIT-free.

As I understand it, AIT cannot handle coats/jackets, so if they introduce AIT in Precheck lines they will have to make you remove outerwear, making the whole thing meaningless.

Please correct me if I'm wrong. So the way this goes is that you're standing in line and if the BDO selects you, you get to go to the Pre Check line. So now the BDO is looking for "good" people instead of "bad" people?

If that is correct, what exactly do you have to do in order to get the BDO to select you? Smile and bat your eyes? Hold up some cash?

The article says, "Federal officers testing a program at Tampa International Airport that selects passengers based on their behavior to use a speedier security lane may expand the program..."

Why can't a program like this be implemented with an "innocent until proven guilty" mindset? That is, let everybody use the speedier security lane by default and select only the "suspicious" ones for the full laptops-out, shoes-off, nude-o-scope, and grope procedure. (Not that I approve of the latter!)

Starting with a "guilty until proven innocent" mindset is not sustainable. If a minority of travelers are selected for the speedier screening, and the selection criteria are not evident, TSA is only going to get complaints about injustice (at best) and lawsuits about profiling (at worst). TSA's credibility in the eyes of the majority of innocent travelers will continue to fall.

Here's your sign :p :


http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c2...6d3423-1-1.jpg

You got it! If you pass the dog-sniff test and the BDO doesn't detect any malicious micro-expressions (which may or may not involve a "casual" conversation) and the magic randomizer mat doesn't light up, you win the jackpot.

Of course, as the media reports it: "Expedited screening coming to TPA!"

Because that would be an admission that nearly every checkpoint procedure added over the past decade was all for show. And an admission that 9/11/01 was not really a checkpoint failure. But that's the whole premise on which TSA checkpoints operate -- "we can't revert to 9/11/01 checkpoint, they failed miserably".

And it would be a slap in the face to anyone who paid the $100 for Global Entry and underwent the background check and interview just to use PreCheck.

Once you start a lie, you can't just dismantle it so easily. You need to build and build on top of it.

So, let me see if I have this right: The BDO and interrogation program at Logan and other airports, which was used to harass people and force them through extra screening (and garnered complaints) got a rocky reception. Instead of admitting that the program was a failure and that the BDO process is flawed, the agency has decided to try the "carrot" approach by giving special privileges & reduced screening to folks that are willing to "voluntarily" be interrogated.

I find this laughable: a FSD that can look at anecdotal information and render an opinion that a "scientific basis" exists. I'd sure like to see his credentials to support that opinion, especially when real scientists have debunked the theory.

So what happens if you decline the interrogation after being "chosen"? Do you get a retaliatory SSSS (like Boston), or do you proceed through normal screening? Are you still allowed to "opt out" of the strip-search machine? Will pre-check approved passengers be forced through the interrogations even if they get the magic 3 beeps?

As for lengthening the pre-check lines, in my observations the pre-check screeners are severely underutilized. The passengers would be FAR better served by allowing pre-check for PNRs that have international segments, especially a final domestic connection segment. More misplaced priorities by the TSA.... and more attempts to justify the BDO hokus (after all, the agency will use the deployment of more BDOs for a "carrot" approach to justify to Congress their confidence in the program).

Yes, see Kentucky Fried Movie. :)

Narrator: Brutal! Savage! Beyond Perversion!
Klahn: We are building a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude. We forge our tradition in the spirit of our ancestors. You have our gratitude.

Yah, I think of John Pistole as having a lot in common with Dr. Klahn.

your posted photo leads me to post this quote (which is not really a Godwin's law as it is not referencing National Socialists per se)

He mentioned it after the war at Nuremburg (Nürnberg) and I believe it does ring true in many situations throughout history up to the present day.

Since you asked....

If he disagrees with the National Academies, he will simply sue them.

He couldn't make it as a lawyer (or he couldn't pass the bar) so he joined the TSA.


:p