Okay...
First, I don't dismiss "every actual security expert". I dismiss one. For me to listen to Bruce would be akin to him listening to me ponder cryptography. It's just not all that logical. Again, I dismiss one. That's about it.
Also, focusing on weapons and explosives (knives and ammo, for example) is what airport security is about... I thought you knew that. I'll give you one little bone - it was a bit over the top to take away their safety pins, but then again, what can you do. I had a boss too.

Second, military training blanks are very often made from black or red plastic. There's gunpowder and a wad of paper or thin wood to hold the gunpower in, and the top is crimped shut. They are by no stretch "safe", and will cause fire, injuries or even explosions if handled improperly. So no, I'm not changing my statement. You can read this if you'd like to know what a "blank cartridge" is.

Third, if you know so much about the subject, then you'd also know that it doesn't take more than the gunpowder to make a pretty big bang, and some nasty injuries. Also, that carry-on has metal tubes forming parts of the handle, more often than not. I'm just saying.

Fourth, before you accuse someone of being a thief, you should probably check your own definitions. You write; "for the personal gain of the taker". Where in my tiny account of something that is actually a plus for the ongoing campaign against the TSA's methods did you read that stuff was taken from a passenger for my (or another screener's) personal gain? Not making sense, "my friend". That was not by any stretch a "reasonable inference", especially since I at no point described the procedure, and the whole thing was meant to illustrate, and built on the premise that one does not need TSA-style methods.

And I'll put whatever I want in quotation marks.

-SB-

I think the majority of FTers would support pre-9/11 security, and a significant number, including myself would support sniffer dogs, if used intelligently and if consideration were given to allergy sufferers. If a new kind of rapid GC/MS machine were deployed at airports to replace the unreliable puffer machines I don't see many of us objecting to that either. I think there's not really much more you can really do. That's about as far as you can go for security without becoming a police state.

I think asking for "alternatives" to genital patdowns and pornscanners is beside the point though. You are doing what is known as "begging the question". You haven't yet proven the premise that anything more than pre 9/11 security is even needed.

People here like Bruce Schneier because he writes very eloquently on TSA issues, despite not being an expert on the topic. I'm not sure why you seem to have a problem with him.

I think you're probably right - pre 9/11 would suffice, perhaps with the additions you mention. I don't know whether or not there is a need for anything more - I don't think I've said that. What I am wondering, however, is if there isn't a better way to do the whole ordeal, rethinking it all, and creating a trusting relationship between the traveling public and security instead of the us-vs-them situation that exists today, and to some extent existed pre 9/11 also.

When it comes to Bruce Schneier, I dismiss him because most of what he's written are things that were known long before he even thought of it, he rarely has anything new, but claims what he writes as his own theories. He does "tests" and find "loopholes" that others have discovered before him, and claims those as his own. He manages to do that because he's actually very good at PR and self-promotion, which is good for him, of course.

I just prefer to give credit to those who "did it first", so to speak, not those who manages to raise the more hype, and takes credit. Bruce is very eloquent, that's true, and I'll give him credit for actually making much of what he writes very accessible and easy to understand. But that's as far as I go.

I also prefer it that if someone gets to call themselves an "expert" or a "guru", they have some sort of certification or education or experience in the field they claim expertise in...

-SB-

Because it has been proven time and time again that when you put people into jobs with unlimited power over other people with no check and balances in place to keep the public from being abused by those people where secrecy is involved bad things happen. Particularly when the people are told that the procedures are secret. The TSA does not want to change that policy of keeping things from the public. They keep saying it is for security to keep the terrorist guessing. But the terrorist are a step ahead of the TSA and if they don't believe that then Pistole and Napalitano are both stupid.

Trust won't be reclamed if the following things keep happen. There is the TSA Agent who was caught and charged for having child porn. There are other TSA Agents just like that one who are patting down children. They just haven't been caught doing the criminal activity yet.

There is the TSA Agent charged with kidnapping a female co-worker from the airport and taking her back to his house and raping her. At some point and time I see that happening to a passenger who is taken for a private screening in a back room if there are no security cameras to monitor who is going and coming and to be certain a passenger isn't just taken out of the airport.

There is the TSA Agents who steal things out of the passengers luggage. If things can be stolen out of the luggage by TSA Agents. Then things can be put into the luggage by the TSA Agents.

Then there is this one. The mother with the breast milk who was held and threatened she would be arrested because she pointed out that TSA Agents weren't following the rules when it came to screening breast milk.

As for a sex crimes being committed only against a girl and not a woman, a man, a boy. That was not what I meant. I only used a girl as an example. But you wanted to bring up this about the strong emphasis on sex around here. Well I just want to know something. When did sexual abuse and rape become about sex? That is not sex! That is about power and control and making the victim submit to being humiliated and feeling worthless.

Alot of people feel that way on here because they have been touched against there will. You want to fly on the plane to get to a parent or a child who is about to die and the plane is the only way to get there fast. Then you have to submit to that up close and really personal touch feely search and because of that they feel like they are being forced to submit to something that is to them sexually abusive and humiliating to get on a plane.

You could not go into a bar, a movie theater or a shopping center and touch someone the way the TSA Agents are allowed to touch passengers to get on a plane. If you did you would get arrested and be charged with sexual assault. The TSA Agents seem to be protected from being charged even if they do something inappropriate to the passanger.

When it comes to real law enforcement. They aren't suppose to do those types of patdowns without some reasonable probable cause as to there actually being a real threat on the person and usually the suspect is being arrested and taken into custody when that search is done.

The only cause for that search at the airport is simply you bought a airplane ticket. When did buying a airplane ticket become proof that everyone who wants to fly on the plane is suddenly a threat and has dangerous weapons concealed on them which makes them require a prison type search before they can get on the plane? If there is actual evidence that the person is going to commit a crime. I say then yes a search is warranted for that passenger. But treating everyone like a criminal and keeping the search procedure secret is not going to get the co-operation from the passengers that the TSA wants and it makes the passengers not trust the TSA at all.

The TSA likes having the power over the people and I just don't see them changing that. If you listen to Pistole and Napalitano talk in interviews that would be clear. Especially when they make comments that are basically telling the passengers that we have the power to do what we want to do to you and if you don't like it then don't fly.

What is the actual threat? Guns and bombs?

Guns - metal detectors for everyone - swabbing for gun powder and bomb residue for a selected sample
Bombs - bomb (and ONLY bomb) sniffing dogs and swabbing.

Also, we will never eliminate 100% of the risk in anything in life so realize that you are at risk whether you are driving in your car, walking down the street or sitting in your house.

Start getting rid of the “let’s just hire more (unqualified) people to staff this; more personnel = better security” mentality, and start installing machines to get rid of inefficiencies that really doesn’t add to better security.

A. Get rid of the TSO who does nothing but stand there all day yelling out the same thing over and over again. A big LCD TV with video on autoloop or a speaker system with audio on auto-repeat does the same thing than hiring that person $20,000 per year per every security checkpoint. That alone will save millions every year in wasted taxes.

B. Why is it that the US security checkpoints rely on the inefficiency of hiring one extra person whose sole job is to manually drag the tray cart back over to the other side? Every country I’ve visited does a better job at making this more efficient by a) widening the security island (Canada) so the security personnel can stay within that island rather than bugging other customers as they hoard their lard a$$ through the security, b) add an angled railing so tray slide back over to the other side (Italy), c) conveyor belts/rollers going the other way which automatically bring back the trays to the other side (UK, Europe, Japan, etc…)

C. Better yet, just get rid of the TSA for all domestic travel and just focus them to international travel only. A terrorist ain’t gonna go for the regional jet, you’re going for the ones that carry the most passengers which can cause the most amount of damage; large wide-bodies. Sure there are wide-body aircraft for long haul domestic flights, but those can be handled with FAMs or pilots with a sidearm. This would probably require a reshuffle of the entire US airport terminals to be separated for domestic flights and international flights but consolidation is the first step to organizing something that is chaotic and a mess. Better to spend money consolidating a single time than continuing to spend billions year after year for something that doesn’t work and adds to more confusion and chaos. Focusing on international flights only would also drastically cut down costs to fire every inept TSO out there and actually hire real professionals who show face to the international traveler what America really stands for instead of Gestapo run by people who barely got through their GEDs.

D. With C above, consolidate the international traffic to major hubs only rather than a loose definition that any airport in the US can become an international airport if need be. International flights should only be restricted to the following airports: ANC, HNL, SEA, PDX, SFO, LAX, LAS, SLC, DEN, PHX, MSP, ORD, STL, DTW, DFW, IAH, MIA, ATL, IAD, PHL, EWR, JFK, BOS along with airports under US jurisdiction like GUM, SPN, SJU and the USVI. Focus security to where it counts instead of having it spreadout to hundreds of podunk regional airports across the US. Face it, there's never going to be a BOI-LHR, ABQ-CDG, or JAX-NRT flight even though they may have the "International" name in their official airport name.

Let's back up and figure out what the goal of the status quo is and what the goal of an alternative should be. Is our intent to reduce the risk of being harmed in as a result of an act of terrorism on an airplane from roughly the same as the risk of being hit by lightening to roughly the same as being hit by lightening twice? If the goal is simply to improve transportation safety, then air travel is clearly the wrong place to attempt to make improvements.

Do we really need something to replace it? Why? What if we just went back to pre-TSA policies?

And for the sake of discussion, what would happen if TSA just disappeared one day? If their airport barricades were suddenly left un-staffed, what would happen? Do you believe that there would be a rash of airplane bombings by people who are intent on committing mass-murder or who simply want to terrorize Americans, but who are not out detonating their bombs in restaurants, at concerts, at sporting events, on busy street corners, or in the queue of passengers just outside of TSA airport checkpoints right now? I don't believe that any significant number of such people exist.

Others have already cited plenty of constructive criticism. I'll quote a portion of The Identity Project's November 17, 2010, blog post, "What is to be done about TSA?":

I think any alternative should satisfy those criteria.

On one hand you have a point, but then again those names highlight what people don't like about them, and why folks feel that they are an invasion of privacy. Is "naked scanner" better, as it's certainly more descriptive of what the scanner does than "body scanner", and not as inflammatory as some terms you posted? Interestingly enough, the images produced by the scanners are considered child porn in UK, so depending on jurisdiction, they literally are "kiddiepornmachines".

That attitude is natural and common, because these new measures are easily perceived in sexualized terms - because most people in our society connect viewing of naked bodies and touching genitals with sex, and when done improperly, with sexual abuse.

This is actually at the core of the outcry, more so than academic debates about violations of any 'rights'. We've come to expect some level of intimidation and bullying from airport security. Most of us have adapted to it, and simply roll our eyes as we shuffle through checkpoints - mostly because we know that humiliations suffered by ourselves and our loved ones are minor and fairly trivial, for the most part. Then suddenly, everything acquires a sexualized component overnight and things don't look nearly as harmless. Not only is the general humiliation that can be visited on people has suddenly shot up into the stratosphere, but now there is a very real possibility of sexual exploitation of some sort.

So yes, there is a huge sexual component to the whole thing, and it's not going away until the procedures and technology are changed.

Besides, if you walk through an airport with an attractive woman you'll notice how much extra attention she gets. Most of it is harmless and commonplace, but in light of the sexual component I was talking about, it starts feeling pretty sinister.

You are completely correct that child abusers are usually known by their victims, but that's not a reason why parents should be comfortable about strangers touching their kids either. LEOs aren't allowed to touch people's children in that manner without probable cause, which is a very important protection.

There is also a power issue here - when a stranger is touching a child, especially in that manner, his parent has full legal power to stop what's happening, or at least try to. In case of medical personnel, the parent probably chose them - and that's really about the extent of "strangers" that are allowed near kid's private areas, my aunt certainly has no reasons to be there.

At the moment, parents are uncomfortable with the fact that they have to be forced to stand aside and let strangers touch their children, not only in highly invasive and personal ways, but also without any known boundaries - and they are pressured to comply regardless of what may take place or what discomfort may befall their kids. They don't know when a TSO is deviating from SOP and is being exploitive, and speaking up or trying to stop what's happening means risking arrest, civil fines, and a missed flight that most people simply can't afford. For most people, the prospect of having to stand by and do nothing is pretty scary.

This is definitely a huge issue, but the policies themselves are very open to abuse.

Naked scanner is the common term in Germany, including in the mainstream media. See discussion about terminology on this thread http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...about-nos.html

The first is more the slang or common term, the second the more official term. But the as to the term Nacktscanner many major news sources such as Der Spiegel, Taggesschau as two examples use it.

Der Ganzk�rperscanner Rapiscan Secure 1000 is essentially the Whole Body Scanner Rapiscan Secure 1000 which is the WBI in shortform in English.

I am also un uproar over the pornoscanners. I can't believe they installed them at Oakland Airport, my favorite to fly out of, and San Francisco, the other airport that is within an hour of my house. Looks like I'll be taking all my flights out of San Jose