Cookie cutter airport security
Noah Shachtman has it right on the use of the full body scanners. But the larger question is whether the TSA's tech-centric approach to security makes any sense at all. Even the most modest of us would probably agree to a brief flash of quasi-nudity if it would really ensure a safe flight. That's not the deal the TSA is offering. Instead, the agency is asking for Rolando Negrin-style revelations in exchange for incremental, uncertain security improvements against particular kinds of concealed weapons.Folks, in case you haven't read my previous posts on this topic, the sort of security provided by a full body scanner that looks at randomly selected people is mindless. The terrorists are thinking. Why aren't we and why aren't the other good guys thinking? If the Israelis ever got these machines (we won't because we understand that the terrorists can beat them, and if they can't, they will find a way to beat them), you can bet that the people being sent into them would not be randomly selected. But in Israel, they'd just be a redundant layer in an efficient security operation.
It's the same kind of trade-off TSA implicitly provided when it ordered us to take off our sneakers (to stop shoe bombs) and to chuck our water bottles (to prevent liquid explosives). Security guru Bruce Schneier, a plaintiff in the scanner suit, calls this "magical thinking . . . Descend on what the terrorists happened to do last time, and we'll all be safe. As if they won't think of something else." Which, of course, they invariably do. Attackers are already starting to smuggle weapons in body cavities, going where even the most adroit body scanners do not tread. No wonder that the Israelis, known for the world's most stringent airport security, have so far passed on the scanners.
Unfortunately, TSA chief John Pistole (someone please tell me that he didn't get this position by being a bundler for Obama) doesn't get it.
There may be an important policy shift in the works. TSA has long hewed to an unthinking, unbending approach to security that brought the agency a level of admiration ordinarily reserved for health insurers. But in his first five months running the agency, TSA chief John Pistole has sent some encouraging signs that he's absorbed the arguments of TSA's critics. "We can't just look for prohibited items on a list. We've got to provide the best security while giving greater scrutiny to those who need greater scrutiny, and not using a cookie cutter approach for everybody," he says.The first paragraph is correct, but the second paragraph means he's taking a cookie cutter approach. The full body scanners are an expensive toy that do nothing to enhance airport security.
But Mr. Pistole holds to his view about body scanners' "important role in the future of aviation security," adding that the TSA is looking into new privacy enhancements. Unfortunately for Rolando—and the rest of us—the scanners appear to be here to stay.
One more thing: Today I saw yet another survey that said four fifths of Americans approve of the full body scanners. Are you guys out of your minds? Do you go around exposing yourselves in the streets? Do you parade around bus and train stations in the nude? Have you lost all sense of modesty and decency?
Labels: full body scanner, John Pistole
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 5:10 PM
2 Comments:
For the "privilege of living with Muslims" Americans are willing to pay for expensive scanners which create a immodest peepshow for the [often highly unqualified or highly non-responsible to be in a position of authority] airport security personnel. -- It is time that Muslims pay for the privilege of living with us [not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost every single terrorist is a Muslim; lets not play a coy game of PC, lets keep people safe and alive]! If Muslims do not like this; A, they don't need to fly; B, they should start forcing their community to adopt strict non-violence and start policing their own people instead of pushing it off on the Western world and crying foul when we take measures to protect ourselves.
For the "privilege of living with Muslims" Americans are willing to pay for expensive scanners which create a immodest peepshow for the [often highly unqualified or highly non-responsible to be in a position of authority] airport security personnel. -- It is time that Muslims pay for the privilege of living with us [not all Muslims are terrorists, but almost every single terrorist is a Muslim; lets not play a coy game of PC, lets keep people safe and alive]! If Muslims do not like this; A, they don't need to fly; B, they should start forcing their community to adopt strict non-violence and start policing their own people instead of pushing it off on the Western world and crying foul when we take measures to protect ourselves.
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