Apparently You Cannot Change Lanes
Dec 13, 2010 | 8:36 pm
#31
Join Date: Dec 2010
Location: South Hill, Washington
Programs: AA 1M mile Gold, AS, BA, WN, SPG Gold
Posts: 174
Random selection is the opposite of thinking. It can be done in a couple of lines of programming in any modern language. You want 3% of all passengers to receive a random patdown? Generate a random number, x, between 1 and 100. If x is less than or equal to 3, blink the yellow light.
I've been through customs in Mexico, and everyone has to push a button. If you get a green light, you go through, a red light gets additional hand-searching. I've seen a thirty-year old man with a 70-lb suitcase patiently holding the hand of a 3-year old as her tiny backpack is searched. Totally random, and it may not make sense from a 'logical target' perspective, but if you wanted to sneak in something illegal, why not put it in the 3-year old's bag?
I've been through customs in Mexico, and everyone has to push a button. If you get a green light, you go through, a red light gets additional hand-searching. I've seen a thirty-year old man with a 70-lb suitcase patiently holding the hand of a 3-year old as her tiny backpack is searched. Totally random, and it may not make sense from a 'logical target' perspective, but if you wanted to sneak in something illegal, why not put it in the 3-year old's bag?
+1 - As long as there truly is a randomizer and not an excuse for a non-random selection by a TSO.
If 3% of passengers need to be hand-searched to generate uncertainty, (arguable, I know) I would rather have 3 randomly chosen, rather than 3 chosen by a TSO. The TSO might profile by choosing only dark-skinned young men. (Whether or not this is acceptable/desirable is up to your personal ethics.) Or they might choose targets that are unlikely to protest, like young mothers with children or elderly people. Or the TSO might randomly choose "cuties" and "hotties". I've heard reports of all three.
If 3% of passengers need to be hand-searched to generate uncertainty, (arguable, I know) I would rather have 3 randomly chosen, rather than 3 chosen by a TSO. The TSO might profile by choosing only dark-skinned young men. (Whether or not this is acceptable/desirable is up to your personal ethics.) Or they might choose targets that are unlikely to protest, like young mothers with children or elderly people. Or the TSO might randomly choose "cuties" and "hotties". I've heard reports of all three.
Also, if you've ever been patted down in Mexico, and I have, you know they use the back of the hand from your chest to your crotch and pat lightly, but with enough gusto to hit a foreign object if it were concealed. No freak-on-display action. India was the same way. Swift, polite, rational. In India, it was gender-segregated, which was the only difference.
While I'm sure there are many TSA agents who are swift, polite, and rational, and heck, there are a couple of them on FT, I think we can all agree that they're the exception and not the rule. That's the biggest problem: the culture of the TSA that has gotten us here and the people who enable whatever the TSA wants.
Last edited by Chellian; Dec 13, 2010 at 8:37 pm Reason: Made last sentence clearer.
Dec 14, 2010 | 5:59 am
#32
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,972
I don't agree with that. Like any workforce, I believe most TSOs do their job properly and my experience at checkpoints is consistent with that. Unfortunately, in a workforce as large as that of the TSA, even a minority acting improperly is enough to cause a very large problem.
Dec 14, 2010 | 6:27 am
#33
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 516
I don't agree with that. Like any workforce, I believe most TSOs do their job properly and my experience at checkpoints is consistent with that. Unfortunately, in a workforce as large as that of the TSA, even a minority acting improperly is enough to cause a very large problem.
What do we measure against -- Is "properly" related to the SOP that we are not allowed to see or know anything about, or is it related to our own comfort zone, or something else?
If "properly" is related to the SOP, we might gain insight by looking into OIG or GAO reports of the TSO's SOP implementation -- but no such audits are available to us.
All we have are anecdotes. From those anecdotes, I submit that it's simply not possible to say whether the majority or minority of TSOs are acting improperly.
So, we know from anecdotes that experiences vastly differ. That adds a great deal of uncertainty into any encounter with the TSA.
If we have a bad encounter, we know that we have no effective recourse -- no amount of complaining to TSA or anyone else will provide any level of justice. The cards are stacked against us.
All we can do is (1) work to change the rules, (2) seek to game any encounter with the TSA and (3) avoid TSA all we can.
In the above environment (high degree of uncertainty plus no recourse), we certainly can't trust the TSA.
Dec 14, 2010 | 9:15 pm
#34
Original Poster
Join Date: Mar 2008
Location: somewhere in F, hopefully
Posts: 670
She "randomly" selected me because she saw me change lanes to avoid the NOS.
Dec 15, 2010 | 4:41 am
#35
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 1,972
And it's quite possible to tell if something's being done right without knowing SOP. A few weeks ago, my gate at DFW was directly opposite a checkpoint. I watched two standard pat-downs done (they appeared to be WTMD alarms). I don't know the SOP, but it was 100% clear to me that they were done properly. Why? Firstly, because I saw two TSOs do exactly the same thing. And secondly because it made sense: the goal of the pat-down was to search for objects hidden under the clothing and what was done was consistent with that goal.
Dec 15, 2010 | 5:51 am
#36
Join Date: Oct 2010
Posts: 516
I disagree. If all we have are anecdotes then, given the huge amount of travelers and anecdotes at many order of magnitude lower rate, I think that shows the majority are doing things right.
And it's quite possible to tell if something's being done right without knowing SOP. A few weeks ago, my gate at DFW was directly opposite a checkpoint. I watched two standard pat-downs done (they appeared to be WTMD alarms). I don't know the SOP, but it was 100% clear to me that they were done properly. Why? Firstly, because I saw two TSOs do exactly the same thing. And secondly because it made sense: the goal of the pat-down was to search for objects hidden under the clothing and what was done was consistent with that goal.
And it's quite possible to tell if something's being done right without knowing SOP. A few weeks ago, my gate at DFW was directly opposite a checkpoint. I watched two standard pat-downs done (they appeared to be WTMD alarms). I don't know the SOP, but it was 100% clear to me that they were done properly. Why? Firstly, because I saw two TSOs do exactly the same thing. And secondly because it made sense: the goal of the pat-down was to search for objects hidden under the clothing and what was done was consistent with that goal.
Next, your thinking that the pat down was done properly only demonstrates that your are assessing it against your own internal ideas of right and wrong (e.g. "made sense"), rather than any written SOP. In other words, the second of the two alternatives I offered. I submit that any objective work done by an auditor to assess "right" or "wrong" would use the SOP, and not someone's internal ideas.
Finally, the fact that two of 43,000 screeners do the pat down the same way proves nothing about "right" or "wrong"; it only demonstrates consistency for that small percentage of screeners at that given time.
Dec 15, 2010 | 6:02 am
#37
Join Date: Nov 2010
Posts: 43
Has anyone seen any objects unearthed from these procedures?
Dec 15, 2010 | 6:03 am
#38
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Nashville, TN
Programs: WN Nothing and spending the half million points from too many flights, Hilton Diamond
Posts: 8,043
I disagree. If all we have are anecdotes then, given the huge amount of travelers and anecdotes at many order of magnitude lower rate, I think that shows the majority are doing things right.
And it's quite possible to tell if something's being done right without knowing SOP. A few weeks ago, my gate at DFW was directly opposite a checkpoint. I watched two standard pat-downs done (they appeared to be WTMD alarms). I don't know the SOP, but it was 100% clear to me that they were done properly. Why? Firstly, because I saw two TSOs do exactly the same thing. And secondly because it made sense: the goal of the pat-down was to search for objects hidden under the clothing and what was done was consistent with that goal.
And it's quite possible to tell if something's being done right without knowing SOP. A few weeks ago, my gate at DFW was directly opposite a checkpoint. I watched two standard pat-downs done (they appeared to be WTMD alarms). I don't know the SOP, but it was 100% clear to me that they were done properly. Why? Firstly, because I saw two TSOs do exactly the same thing. And secondly because it made sense: the goal of the pat-down was to search for objects hidden under the clothing and what was done was consistent with that goal.
Dec 15, 2010 | 6:20 am
#39
Join Date: Apr 2003
Location: IAD
Programs: *wood Gold
Posts: 1,780
Unless you're counting genitalia due to inappropriate and offensive "screening" from the uniformed perverts, I'd probably say no. It's not like these encounters are making the flying public even one iota safer. But then that's not the goal, is it?
This is what we get when a corrupt LEO who was in on the take is put in charge of a fake police organization.
This is what we get when a corrupt LEO who was in on the take is put in charge of a fake police organization.
Jun 10, 2013 | 9:13 pm
#40
Join Date: Jun 2013
Posts: 11
Random selection is the opposite of thinking. It can be done in a couple of lines of programming in any modern language. You want 3% of all passengers to receive a random patdown? Generate a random number, x, between 1 and 100. If x is less than or equal to 3, blink the yellow light.
I've been through customs in Mexico, and everyone has to push a button. If you get a green light, you go through, a red light gets additional hand-searching. I've seen a thirty-year old man with a 70-lb suitcase patiently holding the hand of a 3-year old as her tiny backpack is searched. Totally random, and it may not make sense from a 'logical target' perspective, but if you wanted to sneak in something illegal, why not put it in the 3-year old's bag?
+1 - As long as there truly is a randomizer and not an excuse for a non-random selection by a TSO.
If 3% of passengers need to be hand-searched to generate uncertainty, (arguable, I know) I would rather have 3 randomly chosen, rather than 3 chosen by a TSO. The TSO might profile by choosing only dark-skinned young men. (Whether or not this is acceptable/desirable is up to your personal ethics.) Or they might choose targets that are unlikely to protest, like young mothers with children or elderly people. Or the TSO might randomly choose "cuties" and "hotties". I've heard reports of all three.
I've been through customs in Mexico, and everyone has to push a button. If you get a green light, you go through, a red light gets additional hand-searching. I've seen a thirty-year old man with a 70-lb suitcase patiently holding the hand of a 3-year old as her tiny backpack is searched. Totally random, and it may not make sense from a 'logical target' perspective, but if you wanted to sneak in something illegal, why not put it in the 3-year old's bag?
+1 - As long as there truly is a randomizer and not an excuse for a non-random selection by a TSO.
If 3% of passengers need to be hand-searched to generate uncertainty, (arguable, I know) I would rather have 3 randomly chosen, rather than 3 chosen by a TSO. The TSO might profile by choosing only dark-skinned young men. (Whether or not this is acceptable/desirable is up to your personal ethics.) Or they might choose targets that are unlikely to protest, like young mothers with children or elderly people. Or the TSO might randomly choose "cuties" and "hotties". I've heard reports of all three.
Would you feel "safer" because of security theater?
Jun 11, 2013 | 1:00 pm
#41
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: NYC
Programs: DL PM, Marriott Gold, Hertz PC, National Exec
Posts: 6,736
To make this argument, you would have to know what % of people are being randomly selected. Since you don't know that, you can't make this claim.