A quandary

I read with interest a lot of the posts here. It has made a difference in how I do my job and interact with passengers. It has made me more sensative. however after reading the post about the MIT study, I conclude that TSA should be sending more people down the lane for random secondary or continuous screening. How do you feel about this aspect of the MIT study?
I dont relish sending passengers down to secondary especially now that the grope rule is in effect. Did I miss something or what?

Which MIT study are you talking about? Surely not the Carnival Booth paper, I hope. That would be a misunderstanding.

The MIT study in question is a binary comparison of CRAPPS-harassment vs. random harassment. Neither is acceptable.

It's like asking someone whether they would rather be hit over the head with a lead pipe or poked in the eye with a sharp stick.

I agree, I don't like either but, to me, the message of the paper is that a pure profiling system with no random elements is exactly the same having no security if an adversary takes the time the probe the system. Considering that an incremental increase in random screening brings such poor results (shown in the paper's simulations) I'd be more inclined to move toward better automated screening.

convenience... paramount.

When you do the risk assessment, yes. The idea that aviation security should require more attention than auto safety? Well, the numbers just don't hold up. It's pretty ridiculous.

In a climate of hysteria the causes that reaction, yes, give me convenience instead.

Have you factored in the national economic impact of a terrorist act involving aircraft?

Shouldn't we then also factor in the national economic impact of a terrorist act involving WMD in a downtown area? I think that is more likely to happen than another aircraft act.

Eyecue,

You make an interesting point. I'd say that the real solution is to subject every single person to whatever screening is necessary to determine whether he or she has a weapon. It makes no sense to super-screen only a small percentage of people, because whether you choose them randomly or by profiling, you're still letting 95% of the people go through without doing whatever search is really necessary.

To have the super-screen lane is to admit that the regular screening lane is missing a lot of contraband. What's the point? Screen everybody, or screen nobody, but the half-assed, well, we'll screen two percent or eight percent of the people is embarrassing.


(I have an ulterior motive, obviously. I"m convinced that if they treated every woman in the disgusting manner they've treated me at a checkpoint, the TSA would be toast by morning.)

On some posts the flyers are using the MIT carnival booth paper as fodder to show that the SSSS line is a joke and yet when faced with the papers recommendations, they dont like the papers outcome either

You're right, it could be very severe, but there is an interesting paradox concerning that. If the perception is that we are being as diligent about airport security as we can, and we are spending billions on it, if an attack comes, I suspect that the nation will be *very* depressed economically because the sense will be that we can't solve the problem. On the other hand, if security looks lax and there are obvious things that we can do to tighten it up, then another attack would really do no more than oust the current security leadership and force more apparent diligence. So, it appears that shooting for more appearance of security now is not without its price.

I think that the TSA should examine a study by the US Customs Service. I don't have time at the moment, but I need to look on LexisNexis. This was before 9/11, so things may have changed.

Customs found that inspecting bags at random was not effective. They discontinued random baggage searches and focused their efforts merely on those bags that aroused suspicion.

I also tend to observe the principles of screening used in the detection of diseases. Epidemiological principles argue that a screening technique can be rendered useless if it is used TOO MUCH. Why? Too many false positives divert attention away from the actual threat of disease.

Furthermore, the current "all-or-nothing" secondary screening makes little sense to me. If a passenger is wearing "suspicious shoes," why not just look at the shoes? What's the point of a pat down, inspecting his or her baggage, rifling through his wallet, and so on? It seems that the screener is so busy following too many steps dictated in the secondary screening; his or her attention is then pulled away from the item of interest.

This all seems like common sense to me, but the TSA is not a common-sense, scientific organization

Agree. IMHO, in a strange way, American society has become somewhat desensitized to the prospect of turning commercial aircraft into cruise missiles or simply blowing them up because both have happened already. Since 9/11, the business world has adjusted to less travel and more use of VTC, NetMeeting/WebEx, etc. A WMD event or something different would be a "new" event and, I suspect, cause the same 9/11-type paranoia on Wall Street.

Being the capitalists that we are, a portion of our recovery has been in the new industries and products that have cropped up to mitigate the effects of the TSA: no-metal shoes & other TSA-proof clothing, "TSA-approved" luggage locks, "mail back your prohibited item" kiosks, reinforced cockpit door manufacturers, etc. And, because there's one born every minute, we have run out in droves and bought all this stuff. There has been lots of airport construction that has created business for construction companies.

OMG!!! Is that profiling? What was the criteria ICE uses to look at bags? Do they only look at green and purple bags? If so then I am safe.

Suspicious bags = those with Grateful Dead stickers and/or NORML stickers on them.