Well, I'll give you one thing - you're the first TSA kool-aid drinker who has been honest about this. Thanks for your honesty. So let's see if we can advance to the next step. If it wasn't lax gate security that caused 9/11, why all of the new Kabuki theater in response? If it was just a policy failure, why all the new TSA procedures? Why did we need 45,000 new federal employees? Aren't we fixing a problem that didn't exist?

Let me see if I can make this clear, because you apparently don't get it.

As you have now conceded, the 9/11 hijackers could have been successful using common implements that were perfectly acceptable to be carried on the aircraft. We are safer today not because of TSA's Kabuki theater, but because of the measures airlines have taken to prevent a repeat of 9/11 - strengthening the cockpit door, armed pilots, and refusing to willingly give up control of the aircraft.

All TSA has done is create the illusion of improved security, while ignoring the real threats to aviation safety.

How about actually catching someone who was attempting a terrorist act? Found anyone like that?

Oh, and how about stop using BDO's to conduct unconstitutional administrative searches?

So post some of this so-called documentation.

Unlike you, Ron, I've seen some of TSA's attempts to justify their measures, and they simply don't pass the straight face test. I work much closer to TSA and DHS management than you or Bart or any of the other TSA apologists on FT. And as I've posted before, I have in my possession a study which concludes that the most serious threat to aviation security is not above the wing or in the passenger terminal. That study was rejected by TSA management, in part because it didn't reach the outcome that TSA management wanted, and because it would have exposed the futility of your Kabuki theater and 45,000 new federal positions.

Call BS all you want. I've never challenged the costs of the 9/11 attacks, just the response we've taken following the attacks.

Where do you come up these "facts"? I've looked at over a year's worth of data that the TSA has posted every week and not one week reached 40, much less averaging 40.

And how many of these were terrorists intent on taking over a plane? I will give you a hint: the answer is less than one.

Actually Ron the proof is the high failure rate the TSA has with Red Team test and the GAO report. If the TSA is getting failed reports by their internal testing team and the external GAO reports that is a real problem. 40 handguns in one week with 14 million passengers flying during that time is not a sign of how effective screeners are.

Sorry, Ron.

We're going to have to agree to disagree.

You and much of your organization are marching towards the holy grail of a zero risk game. Identify a risk, put together another team, and mitigate it. Cost, effectiveness and effects on personal liberty has little balance in your equation.

Many in this flying population, and much of the rest of the world, are willing to accept some level of risk to maintain reasonable levels of privacy and freedom to travel without undue hassle by our government. Yes, there will be incidents from time to time, and they will be sad and tragic, but they are minuscule as compared to the other risks we tolerate every day.

I (and many others) feel that there is no end to the expansion of the TSA and DHS. The attempts of your organizations to enforce silly cr@p as of late onto small, private aircraft and airports is another perfect example. Subways, rail, sporting events -- we don't know when it will stop. How about the parking lot at the grocery store or shopping mall?

I now need government permission to travel TO Mexico in my small plane, which by the way weighs less than your car and carries far less, yet I can drive and walk in a southerly direction across that same border with impunity. Up until now, the "permission to exit" tactic has been reserved for a very small number of countries like North Korea and Cuba.

We had 50,000 traffic fatalities last year, Ron. How many terrorist attacks would we have had with reasonable security, limited to secured cockpit door access and more traveler friendly bag and personal inspections? Looking for items that were a real danger to the aircraft, not corkscrews, bottles of water, slices of cheesecake, and cashboxes?

See this picture below, Ron??



This is a photo of a gate outside the passenger terminal, aircraft side, at an unnamed California airport. This gate is 3 1/2 feet high. How many people do you think were involved in procuring and installing this silly excuse of a gate? Do you want to know how many people reach over the gate every day, and open it from the unlocked handle on the back side? It is another example of money spent ineffectively, but there is now TSA compliant controlled access on paper.


Keep it simple, keep it subtle, keep it effective, and stop treating me like a criminal. We are willing to accept a level of risk to keep you and your organization in a less intrusive and more accountable position.

Ron

your numbers dont jive with TSAs "The sky is falling" numbers posted every week. you got third party verifiable proof of this, cause i smell a sticky pile of bull cookies on that statement.

Then simply based off Alvin crabtree never being charged for willfully bringing a firearm through the CP, no one should ever be charged.

Thousends of knives again thats really hard to believe; got proof! Then again even a blind squirrel finds a nut occasionally. Then in the same breath number of items i carry that TSOs have said where dangerous have caused me to laugh so hard its not funny. Then again a knife is not a credable threat as for the most part a knife is a everyday tool most people carry. TSA in there stupid wisdom have said my benchmade elishewitz stryker 915 tanto drop blade is dangerous and verboten. Yet doesnt have a problem the Trauma shears I carry that can cut quarters and human bones, nor the fiskar scissors that are sharp enough to be used as a scapel. Stupid logic along with a few hundred other stupid ideas and policys are why i give mall security more respect then TSA, especially after my last trip and what i saw and experinced.

And that's the problem if you or the TSA can't prove that the BDO program is valid. Why then should we have to take the statements made by you or the TSA at face value. "Trust us it works" is not a valid answer.

This isn't about personal prejudices towards the TSA, this is about an agency that has reactive and ineffective solutions to real threats. Worse yet the TSA claims that everything they do is effective and then classify SOP's and other documents as SSI. Leaving the people who pay taxes and security fees no way to back stop these claims.

As for BDOs and all that BS I think its a waste of time and money because the program is so full of holes from the word go. Then the training to make the person a "expert" just like those dumb and misleading annoucements in the terminal about the liquid farce and "expert" xray screening, for which i chuckle at because whats the failure percentage? The training is like a couple of days, give me a break as other government agencys and governments around the world take many magnitude longer if not a lifetime to master that skill set if at all. Then TSAs use of "Just trust us!" on so many things including this means i dont trust you at all, and when you add the transgressions I have witnessed or encountered means yall get treated like you have treated me which is like crap, so if you dont like it then you might want to look at yourself and your co-workers for reasons why.

I have played with BDOs because they are so dang easy to spot its not funny. I had one at JFK hang onto me for which i spent 5 minutes messing with and going round and round this plain clothes BDO and then told him to go pound sand and spot someone else. I wish i had my camera out cause it was a kodak moment and then quickly disappeared into a do that had a DHS seal on it LOL. Then i had a uniformed one at LAX on my way back that tried the same thing that didnt like it when i gave him the cold shoulder and was in no mood to talk as I was tired from traveling for 36+ hours, so when he pressed further I answered his question so the whole terminal could hear it (i wont repeat here cause it might offend you) for which you could have heard a rat sneeze after that. Got a number of smiles and thumbs up from others waiting in line, including the LEO right infront of me. Didnt get bothered going through the WTMD or with my bag. The LAX CP crew was probably afriad it might start a riot if they tried anything.

Any way to get that study out so the citizens can read it?

Surely some reporter would be interested and promise to safeguard the source.

Discovering guns and explosives is one thing. Discovering a person's intent is another thing. Discovering intent is far more difficult than discovering an obvious weapon or explosive, yet the TSA which does a still lousy job of discovering weapons and explosives wants to try to get lucky at discovering intent.

Why would the TSA want to get into the mind-reading game when they have trouble with the weapons and explosives finding game? Only those idiots unaware of their own limits would seize a chance to expand the scope of their incompetence so as to demonstrate to others that very incompetence of which they are ignorant or at least feign ignorance. Then again mind-reading is for charlatans and fools who fall prey to charlatans, so this is no surprise.

TSA behavior detection team = TSA workfare's mind-reading work farce force.

and since it was my thread that ND Sol references here are the numbers via a quick pen and paper addition from the beginning of the thread...

• 68 weeks of data provided by the tsa from their own weekly updates on the tsa website
• 1,456 firearms found at checkpoints
• average is 21.41176470588 guns per week (with the highest number being 35)

so in this case, TSORon, i think your numbers are wrong and (to use your words) the proof is in the pudding provided by your employer (tho to be fair, the tsa could be lying in what they post on their website but the government doesn't lie now do they )

All this article proves is that there is such a thing as bad scholarship.

Example: "In our studies, we recorded interviews set up in such a way that we knew when a person was lying. Afterward, we replayed the videotapes over and over in slow motion to identify the expressions and behaviors that distinguish lying from truth-telling."

This completely invalidates the study. What should have been done was catalog facial tics and THEN see if there is any statistical significance between specific tics and lying.

And where are the peer-reviewed, double-blind studies?

I'll note, too, that the Professor Emeritus misstates the facts regarding the screening of the terrorists on 9/11.

And one more fact: I'm a trained actor. I guarantee you that, if I don't want to, I won't display any facial tics when I'm lying. All a terrorist needs is a copy of Uta Hagen's "Respect for Acting," and a couple of weeks with an acting coach.

What garbage. Ekman is yet another alarmist in the "anything for security" camp. Sure, let's hassle everyone who is having a bad day -- we're certain to stop the terrorists that way.

Too bad the Ekman's studies didn't include an Introduction to the Constitution class.

Well that's easy.

What percentage of people hassled by BDOs posed a threat to aviation? I'll even let you include in that statistic, such dire and heinous threats as possession of pot, unpaid parking tickets, and having $4,783 in your possession.

Is it 10%? 1%? I'm betting it's close to .01% and, if you remove pot smokers, illegal parkers and well-paid young people, that number drops to 0.

This is America, TSORon. The government doesn't get to stop whomever they want, whenever they want, without a reasonable suspicion and/or probable cause, just because it's in the name of security.

You are aware that is a critical difference between U.S. LEOs and, oh say, the East German Stasi, the Soviet Union's KGB and, of our course, our good friends the Nazi's Gestapo. Here, citizens are not required to prove their innocence.

Because I see more data than you do. Thats where. Maybe some day I'll post some of it.

Prove it. Break out your printer and hook it up to your crystal ball and get us a print out. IOW, even you cannot tell us what is in the minds of the individuals who bring these guns and other weapons to the airport. You have closed your mind to the possibility, and therefore cannot see past your own perception. Any number I put out there is just as plausible as yours, because I cant prove it either. I just haven't closed my mind to the possibilities.

Nazi. How .... original.

Again, you can put forth all the different numbers you like, but you cannot prove them one way or the other. And neither can I.

As far as the BDO process, you and halls have belief's. Nothing more. The process has not been challenged in court yet, but I'm sure it will. Hey, if you truly are a lawyer, maybe it will be you. But until that happens, the BDO process serves as reasonable belief for additional administrative screening. You can believe otherwise as much as you like, but you can only prove it in a court. Trying to prove it here is like a pastor preaching to the choir. Not an unbiased mind in the lot.

Again under what science?