I agree (and said before) that things that determine credit score are unlikely to be useful. But that leaves a lot of information that is, specifically the extent of the data: how much information is there about this person. It's logical to conclude that the more data that exists, the less likely that person is to be a threat. But I'm not sure I understand your reference to a "peer reviewed study". Could you describe how such a study could be constructed? I don't see it.

As I know you're aware, virtually all famous American spies did what they did for greed and not ideology (even Jonathan Pollard). There have been just a couple of exceptions (Ana Montes being one) who sold out their country for ideological reasons. Given the hundreds of clerks (out of who-knows-how-many who have not been caught) who have been arrested for simple theft (greed) and the senior clerk in Buffalo who was arrested for helping druggies circumvent checkpoints (greed), many of them in a similar financial situation (heavy debt, living above their means, keeping a mistress on the side, etc) would be easy targets for a foreign intelligence service.

Pitching takes a lot of time and tradecraft. I'm not sure the type of tradecraft geared towards exploiting greed is in AQ's skill set. Certainly, they have cornered the market on pitching on ideology grounds. Paying a screening clerk a few thousand dollars to get someone in the back door of an airport is child's play when the target has bills to pay or a lifestyle to maintain.

I think the question that divides us is at what cost do we pay for security?

Do we end personal freedom and liberty? Or do we accept that to have a free nation some risk is inevitable and the chance of a terrorist attack is the cost of personal freedom?

My opinion is that DHS has crossed the line and is abusing freedom.

but that only means what it says to them, not to anyone else or their friends - in other words if that meant something to anyone then it may mean something to others, or not - Oh look! Shiny things....

I do agree that you and I have personal beliefs that divide us.

However, I do not think we have ended personal freedom and liberty. I believe they can co-exist with security. And if you notice what I have been arguing, I have made my point clear that we can never provide security at 100%, and that risk is a part of security.

I agree with you completely that TSA cannot provide 100% security. TSA can't because they do not screen everyone equally who enters the sterile areas of airports.

Secondly the impact on personal freedoms is substantial!

An invasive screening of any form without due cause violates the very basic tenets of the United States Constitution.

You've highlighted a very simple point I overlooked - the ease at which someone will eventually be paid off to look the other way at the airport. It happens all the time at the border, and there is no reason to think it won't happen at the airport at some point.

Isn't that essentially what happened in Buffalo? The TSO was paid to look the other way so drugs could be smuggled.

Of course, the bad guys could convince someone it is "only" drugs, when in fact it is something else.

Maybe, maybe not. Paying somebody money on a regular basis is something that's potentially visible to intelligence and law enforcement. KGB has the capabilities and tradecraft to make those hard to see. AQ doesn't.

Actually, that was my point. I don't think that AQ has the ability to conduct this type of operation. They are very good at recruiting young males to become jihadists and martyrs. KGB and Mossad strategy starts with building personal friendships with targets in a non-threatening manner. Even the dumbest and most vulnerable clerk would be a very hard, if not impossible, sell. The KGB would start out with "We want peace and disarmament just as much as you. We really need to cooperate to make sure this happens..." There's nothing about AQ that ISN'T killing people or blowing up things. It's not like there's a "Civil Division" of AQ that goes around building schools or hospitals.

There's very little opportunity for a clerk to approach AQ volunteering to help in exchange for money. Many of the worst U.S. spies simply walked up to a Russian embassy or consulate somewhere and offered their help. Last I checked, there wasn't an AQ Economic Mission on K Street.

I realize this latest discussion is a long way off from the subject of iris scanners. But, I think we've hit on the notion that there are an awful lot of clerks out there who are vulnerable toexploitation; and, that we're lucky that AQ apparently does not yet understand how to exploit that vulnerability.

Well, they did spend many months training the personnel who successfully boarded and commandeered four aircraft and flew three of them into buildings. I'm not so sure they wouldn't be able to train and cultivate educated potential martyrs to the extent needed to become trusted travelers.

In the end, whether they spend the time necessary to qualify for relaxed screening, or bribe their way past it, the TSA plan remains flawed.

And we came very close to detecting them because of it. Although interagency cooperation is likely nowhere near what it should be, I'm pretty sure that we would have certainly detected that operation today.

I would envision a study comparing FICO scores to work history or involvement in crime. The results would then be scrutinized by others in the field before publication. (I am not a statistician nor a scientist, so I am not sure this could be possible.)

If the claim is that people who have bad credit are at a great risk to be involved with terrorism against the airline industry, there has to be some basis for that claim.

We can't even get a firm study that shows that a bad credit score means the person will be a poor or less ideal employee.

In fact, I will let a rep from Trans Union speak to the issue:

If the claim is going to be made that there is a correlation between aviation terrorism and credit, there needs to be some foundation on which to base that need.

Why focus only on AQ? There are plenty of other "evil doers" out there, who also do outreach and try to help (certain) people. For example: Hezbollah Social Services.

Wirelessly posted (Treo: Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; U; Android 2.2.1; en-us; Nexus One Build/FRG83D) AppleWebKit/533.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile Safari/533.1)

TSA maintains that it has the right to touch my 4 year old daughter's genitals as a condition of seeing her (Peruvian) grandmother. How can that possibly be reconciled with the idea of a free society?