If SSSS is printed on a boarding pass, what's to stop someone getting white out--something like that--copying the "sanitized" boarding pass, then just sailing through security?

There's (at least) one problem (at some places) with that "method", if done in isolation. At the gate, when the gate agent scans whatever your are submitting to be scanned to board, they may get notified that you were selected for haraSSSSment and are to check the boarding document to see if the TSA has marked it (and you) as being checked per haraSSSSment requirements. Of course that "mark" is not too hard to "doctor" either.

However easy or difficult to circumvent, this haraSSSSment at airports should end.

Presumably, many airlines' BP readers might choke on the BP, indicating it was SSSS and asking the GA to verify it was marked by the TSA as being checked. Of course, how often this actually is done and how effective it is is open for speculation and likely not that great, IMHO.

I see. I didn't realize that they put some kind of a mark on the document.

Remember back in the days of people being randomly pulled from the line--the ultimate in asinine security measures--it was quite easy to get the mark of the boarding card back then. I was hoping that SSSS was something similar!

I think if I every get SSSS'd, I will take the boarding pass to the Presidents Club and photocopy it. I want to make sure I recognize that mark in the future.

SSI? Is that the same as Sensitive but Unclassified? I'm confused. Never heard that Acronym before....

Agreed they don't deserve special rights (like allowing prohibitted items), but for airports creating frequent traveler expresslanes shouldn't OPM ease the burden of conducting reinvestigations on those who already underwent a more extensive background check within the last 7 years?

Also, we have heard stories providing at least anecdotal evidence of people being constantly SSSSed because of their name, regardless of ticket buying patterns, etc. I'm not saying they should drop the SSSSes triggered by suspicious buying patterns, but they should at least be able to remove that person's name flag if they possess a clearance (again, this is not possible due to inefficiencies in the system).

I agree with everything said here, but I don't think is has to do with the TSA's mission of safe air travel. I have enough faith in the system that if someone is involved in a violent anti-american group, they will not be issued a TS clearance.

Side note: interesting career jump from counterintelligence agent to TSA screener....

Then I withdraw my application for employment there.

It's TSA's acronym for Sensitive Security Information. AKA on FT as Super Secret Information. As Bart has confirmed, it's nothing more than an unclassified document that would be considered FOUO (For Official Use Only).

It would be below confidential in the classified pyramid.

And we really must acknowledge that anything given or told to 45,000 screeners with huge annual turnover can hardly be considered secret. I can't imagine that any classified document gets such wide distribution. It's nothing short of amazing when the occasional screener says, "How do you know our policies? Those are secret." Yeah, sure they are!

Bruce

Thanks. Looking it up on the DSS website, FOUO, SBU and SSI all appear to have similar handling requirements (slight variation in destruction and transmittal requirements), just different agency endorsements (Defense, State and TSA, respectively). They are all unclassified, but have restricted dissemination, and have an exception to the FOIA.

One one hand, it would make sense for the security clearance investigative organizations who certify eligibility for clearances or those agencies who actually grant clearances to share this data base with the TSA and to have toe TSA create a "no-SSSS" list or something like that. If nothing else, it would remove hundreds of thousands of low-risk people (without regard to any profiling characteristic, by the way) from various lists and reduce the size of the haystack in which the TSA is supposedly trying to find a needle.

On the other hand, this would create huge issues. First, the TSA can't properly handle or administer the lists it has right now, and has demonstrated no desire to do so. Second, the TSA lists are lists of names and the roster of security clearances are lists of actual living, breathing people, so the two types of lists are not compatible. Thirdly, does anyone with a clearance really want their personal information (really personal information) in the hands of yet another government agency, especially one that has demonstrated no ability or desire to comply with laws governing collection and protection of personal information???

Finally, absolutely nobody earning a TSA paycheck from Hawley on down needs to know what clearance I have, why I have it, who granted it, or why I am traveling.

I was just talking with a friend yesterday who's a contractor for DHS. He said just last week he was in a spat with his "government boss" over the Privacy Act of 1974. When I commented to him that I wasn't surprised they had issues with it, he said "Super, I thought DoD was bad about noncompliance, but a lot of their issues were just laziness. DHS really takes the cake with its willful ignorance of the law."

Pretty much what it came down to is DHS asked him to violate the Privacy Act and he told them to go fly a kite. While it caused a stir for him, it worked out, and he's still sticking to his guns. ^

DoD just told our company security folks to return all the SF86's (and electronic versions that supplanted them) to the people who submitted them, and for the company to no longer hold onto them at all due to Privacy Act concerns.

DHS probably told its contractors to send them all to them for "safekeeping."

Concur- When/if asked, I will show TO's but nothing else. THey sure as hell don't have a need to know on anything else!!!!!

Interesting. Wonder if they told my company that.

They probably made the offer to DoD, DoE, etc to "help" them out too.