Security Theater: A New Show Opens In Detroit
Bruce Schneier, my favorite writer on matters of anti-terrorist security, responds to the latest fizzled airline bombing and the government's regulatory reaction:
what sort of magical thinking is behind the rumored TSA rule about keeping passengers seated during the last hour of flight? Do we really think the terrorist won't think of blowing up their improvised explosive devices during the first hour of flight?
For years I've been saying this:
Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers.
This week, the second one worked over Detroit. Security succeeded.
Jim Harper, Roderick Long, and Randy Barnett have reactions worth reading as well.
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Leave it to the Gub'ment to do the stupid thing when it comes time to make the hard decision.
Problem: banks made bad loans to risky clients
Solution: give them lots more money so they can continue making bad loans to risky clients
Problem: too many poor people don't have health insurance
Solution: force them to buy it
Problem: potential terrorists might have explosive materials with them in their seat
Solution: prevent them from leaving their seat
And there's a problem... where, Brandybuck? All of those things are sensible, government-mandated solutions - as all such solutions inevitably are.
There's no need to pretend to be Tony now that we have Morris.
I'm right! I'm right! Admit I'm right!
Full of shit! Full of shit!
One of us! One of us!
Sort of gives some credence to the Archie Bunker theory of highjack prevention: "Arm the passengers".
Seriously though, TSA is fighting a losing battle. No matter what they do, wannabe terrorists will find a way to negate. avoid or bypass it. The passengers really are the main line of defense.
Sort of gives some credence? The only way to make it better is to make it voluntary.
TSA is fighting a losing battle.
Not if you define their battle as suppressing our liberties.
Remember, My people... the real terrorist threat comes from those misguided souls who voted for Ron Paul, any Constitution Party member, or - let's just cut to the chase - everyone who failed to vote for Me, as they should have done to prove their worthiness to My Holy Name.
So, next time you see one of these "individuals", do your duty and report them. My lackeys have a... special place reserved for their... re-enlightenment. If you get my drift.
There are so many suicide bombers out there. Look at the success rate: two failures in ten years. Yet they succeeded in curtailing airtravel comfort for bazillions of airtravelers.
Terrorists have translated two into two bazillion. Congrats TSA. Mission Accomplished. Nice assist! Fuckin' Douchebags.
The guy got badly burned in his belated attempt, it may be a deterrent for future airplane terrorists.
Yes, and you can bet he'll get better health care than an uninsured 9/11 rescue worker.
...but they'd better not try to inspect ME. I'm an important Hollywood documentarian, and thus better than just about anyone.
Where's my between-snack meal? I'm famished.
Mr Moore - we have an entire bakery in the cargo hold. Go down and start grazing.
They are sending him to Cuba?
You Hollywood types keep getting the best news before the rest of us.
Actually the facts on the ground is that the weapon failed. The terrorist ignited the device but instead of a bang it whimpered and started a fire in his lap.
Kudos to the passengers that then subdued him but this wouldn't have been an option if the weapon hadn't failed.
"The facts on the ground" is perhaps NOT the best way to describe an incident on an airliner in the air.
"Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers."
Except this guy didn't try to get into the cockpit or hijack the plane.
Oh, you were sooooo close to getting the point.
Don't let the rube in on it, asshole!
So what? Do you think it is a bad idea to reinforce cockpit doors or have passengers go after these assholes? I sure don't. Yeah, he didn't try to hijack the plane because he knew he couldn't do that like he used to. Instead, he had to build a bomb on board and it failed. I would say that those two improvements may have saved us because if we hadn't done that, he wouldn't have bothered with a bomb, he would have just used a box cutter to hijack the plane.
The point i was trying to make was that even with these two changes flying isn't really any "safer". Hijacking has become harder but bombs, guns, incendiary devices and sharp objects can still be smuggled onto planes and used. Plus if you can smuggle a small explosive device on board you can just blow open the cockpit door. Remember the terrorists can fail a 1,000 times, the security can't fail once.
I fear that it is more than the last hour of a flight. I flew out of DC on 12/21 on a Delta/NWA flight and the pilot announced that we were not allowed to get our of our seats for the first hour after takeoff...when I asked a flight attendant when that rule came into effect she looked at me like I wasnt speaking english...I asked if I could access the overhead bins and was told to wait until the hour had passed.
I fly fairly regularly and this is the first time I have experienced this restriction in years and even when I did it was for 30 min only and not 60...
That restriction has been in effect on DC-bound flights since 9/11. Although when it started, it was 30 minutes, not 1 hour.
Go Team TSA!
I am familiar with that but it hasnt been announced or enforced in well over 4 years. I live there.
Given the garbage that he and Congress have been inflicting on the country, perhaps Obama and his crew have become more concerned with domestic terrorism than foreign.
Things I'd like to see someone in congress do:
Hide an ammendment in a big bill somewhere to transfer the TSA's budget from the Department of Homeland Security to the National Endowment for the Arts. If we're going to pay for security theater, we can at least stick it in the right part of the beuracracy.
Yeah, at least then there'd be nudity!
Oh there's gonna be nudity. After Richard Reid, they made everyone take off their shoes; this guy had his bomb in his underwear.
As highlighted by the fact that Except this guy didn't try to get into the cockpit or hijack the plane.
pointing out the obvious
I was hoping they'd get it wrong better this time, maybe start a policy of fisting trust-fund kids at the gates and confining them to freight. Oh well. There's always next Christmas.
The guy got badly burned in his belated attempt, it may be a deterrent for future airplane terrorists.
"Your cock will be restored in Heaven" has to be one of the first things a jihadi learns.
Admit it, you enjoy being restrained.
It'll only take a few septuagenarians shitting their pants and half a dozen toddlers screaming at the tops of their lungs while pissing themselves to modify any silly restraint rules that come along. The people won't stand for it, especially as they've finally made some progress to prevent being held on a plane to nowhere for hours on end. See what happens when an old lady is arrested for interfering with a flight crew, just because she had to take a leak.
We don't even get worked up about people serving out life sentences when we know that they're innocent (c.f. anything by Radley Balko). People soiling themselves is just going to give the get-tough-on-terrorism crowd a raging hard-on. Shows we don't mess around.
The people won't stand for it
Really? Because all it would take for the fucking "take off your shoes" rule to go away would be for one person to say "fuck no, I won't", and refuse to get out of line, and make the TSA make an example of him or her -- and then to have even half the people in the line follow that lead, put their fucking shoes back on, and dare the TSA to enforce a rule that half the people in line refuse to abide by.
That would get reported in the papers, and the revolt against the TSA's tyranny would be ON.
Taking off your shoes is too easy and not that much of an inconvenience. A hundred people with full bladders and colons could raise a real stink.
What will the TSA do if you show up at the airport wearing a shirt with this on it?
I wonder how aggressively that guy defends his copyright.
Look, the TSA, like most big government agencies, strikes me as riddled with inefficiencies and many regulations that are equal parts absurdly ineffective and heavy handed intrustions into people's lives and routines.
Having said that, one of the common memes on this weekend's threads on this subject, the "look this shows that the TSA does no good, but civilians resisting does good" seems questionable to me. At the point civilians can stop a terrorist (on the plane as he enacts his plan) that shit is going to make the news and we will all hear about it. But every terrorist that gets turned away at the security check-point is not going to make the news, so we are less likely to hear about their successes.
Ah yes, the old "We have to sacrifice virgins to the volcano to keep the evil spirits away." argument.
Is it that argument? Hmm, I thought I was just stating that since TSA successes would occur with less visibility than their failures it would be rash to conclude they don't have any, or many, successes.
It isn't news when a plane doesn't crash.
TSA is successful in taking away millions of bottles of water and scissors each day and slowing down the aviation industry in the process.
My flight yesterday was delayed 3 hrs and nearly everyone lost their connections at a time of year when rebooking will be a nightmare.
Hardly success to me.
But "successes" that just result in redirecting efforts to less protected targets aren't really successes. That's why any security for airplanes should be aimed at the specific weaknesses and objectives of airplanes, i.e., taking them over, and not on generically shooting a bunch of people, which can happen anywhere. Security that just redirects attacks to shopping malls or train stations or sporting events isn't really a "success."
+1
+1
I agree. Remember before the hijackings to Cuba, when you could board an airliner without any security check? Seems to me that now that access to the cockpit is denied, they could do away with all the other security measures, and air travel would still be safer than pre-1965.
So someone can smuggle in a bomb. How's that any more dangerous than car bombs in crowded neighborhoods with moving traffic, or a bomb on a bus? Especially if the good guys have concealed weapons too?
So someone can smuggle in a bomb. How's that any more dangerous than car bombs in crowded neighborhoods with moving traffic, or a bomb on a bus?
If it is on a plane in flight over a large city, it could be much more disasterous.
Not more so than other vehicles in heavy traffic.
Using the standard that because many planes aren't blown up and hijacked the TSA must be successful, then the TSA was successful before it was even created.
I believe the rebuttal argument is that "these silly, asinine rules obviously don't improve air traffic safety"
The point is NOT that there are no effective security measures that can be taken, but rather that a government agency (rather than private security agencies) isn't the best way to optimize both air safety and customer satisfaction at not being subjected to unnecessary tyranny.
Those are fucking expensive airplanes -- if the responsibility for safety was taken away from the TSA and given back to the airlines, they would come up with effective anti-terrorism measures that didn't piss off their customers so much.
I disagree. A weapon or explosive substance would still be quite *easy* to get through for someone really wanting to get it through.
The difficult task for a terrorist cell is finding the person willing to risk his life or liberty to perpetrate something sociopathic. These recruits are not surprisingly visibly deranged.
The TSA takes a War-on-Terror approach similar to the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, broad and expensive and extremely inefficient.
It is worth noting that the 911 bombers, Richard Reid and now this guy Umar had all raised security concerns but were allowed to commit their acts through institutional government failure.
Even England, rather than celebrate the effectiveness of its police state in discovering the liquid bombing plot, took it and used it to create hardship on the travelling public.
A would-be terrorist turned away at an airport screening would simply go to plan B. We're talking professional terrorist right?
And every person who dies because the useless security theater diverted money, time, and effort from millions of Americans away from more useful endeavors doesn't make the news either.
Second-hand comment from an El Al pilot -- "you Americans are stupid; you waste your time and energy looking for weapons; we look for terrorists."
Huh- Joe Lieberman is on my teevee right now, attempting to instill terror in the citizenry.
Arrest that man!
FUCK YOU, JOE LIEBERMAN!
KHAN!!!
We are too fucking PC to admit the truth, which is that radical Muslims want to kill us. No, radical Muslims are wonderful people who have never bothered anyone. They just want us to leave their lands.
Since we can't admit the truth and profile and actually do something to stop the people who are trying to kill us, we enact security theater to take away everyone't rights and generally make life miserable.
And even if we wanted to profile, we are still too fucking incompetent to do that properly. This guy did everything but right Obama telling him he was going to blow up a plane. Yet, he still got a Visa and still boarded the plane. This is no different than the asshole at Fort Hood. How many times do these assholes have to scream and jump up and down that they are going to kill us before we pay attention? There is no hope for the government or our society at large.
Does anyone say radical Muslims are not a problem? Sometimes I hear people say that not all Muslims wish us harm (i.e., iirc this guy's Nigerian father alerted us about his son's radicalization). The challenge is, how do we identify and prevent from boarding our planes just the radical Muslims without making the Muslims who do not wish us harm feel like second hand citizens (so to speak)?
'how do we identify and prevent from boarding our planes just the radical Muslims'
You interview the passengers. I think it's done at TLV.
Talk about delays!
yes, serious delay for a would-be terrorist. The interview is a way of profiling someone based on behavior not on race. It doesn't take very long at all for most people. Less time than the added screening time.
Pre-911 screening was fine. Hey, they found Barry Switzers gun.
But... but... profiling Muslims IS racist!!!
Who said the terrorist was muslim? Singling out muslims would be ineffective because that presupposes that you know what a muslim looks like. There is no muslim look. It is a religion. Most muslims wear Western clothes (no, I don't mean cowboy hat and jeans and belt buckle).
Does anyone say radical Muslims are not a problem?
Besides the MSM when they fail to rip into the TSA for subjecting placid elderly non-Muslim grandmothers to the sort of screening that ought to be confined to angry-looking young Muslim males?
I does seem absurd that the PATRIOT act was deemed necessary to stop people like these and yet it fails. I said 'it seems absurd.' I am actually not surprised.
I like the idea of just letting the passengers have weapons. The problem with that plan is that the some dumb ass Imam would get on a plane and start praying or doing something else to fuck with the passengers and get his head blown off. And then there would be no amount of crying and whining over that.
Or some dumb ass Imam would get on the plane with his gun and start shooting people. How many people do you think he would get before the armed citizenry gets him?
I mean, if passengers can be armed then what would have prevented some guy like this from coming onto the plane armed?
It's a mighty stupid idea.
You miss the point entirely. If all you want to do is shoot a bunch of people, there will always be places on the ground where you could do that. Are you asking for huge security at all sporting events, malls, train stations, and every place multiple people might gather?
The only thing special about the plane is the ability to force it to go anywhere, to force it to crash, or to use it as a giant bomb. The important thing about all of that is preventing taking over the plane, and armed passengers would do that.
It makes no rational sense whatsoever to spend tons of money on preventing just plain shootings onboard that kill a number of passengers, when someone could achieve that same level of death and carnage on the ground. People who just want to "start shooting people" will then just avoid airplanes and do it then. You don't think that would make the news?
That's a good point. I think though that a shoot-em up on a plane presents big problems: people are packed in like sardines.
We do have big time airport type security for things like major sporting events, trains, etc., where people are similarly packed.
"That's a good point. I think though that a shoot-em up on a plane presents big problems: people are packed in like sardines."
Actually, it's the opposite.
Very tightly crowded, densely populated, irregularly shaped (or obstacled) areas are notoriously difficult to navigate for a shooter.
No matter where you are, there's always somebody behind you (unless you back yourself into a corner, which leaves you stranded), and there are plenty of arms, elbows within range to grab you, grab your gun, push you down, cause you to misfire, and so on. Plus plenty of obstacles for people to hide behind, to jump out at you from, and so on.
A guy with a gun vs. a guy with a knife at arms' length - often, the guy with the knife will win, because it's a more effective weapon at that range. Start at thirty paces, and the guy with the gun has an almost insurmountable advantage (particularly if there are no obstacles to hide behind).
Also, with people at that close range - no chance to reload. You empty your first clip (if you even last that long), and then the remaining passengers stomp a mudhole in your ass.
Of course I'd be remiss in failing to point out the airplane gumnan's "ace in the hole," namely the fact that the TSA has disarmed all your victims of edged tools, incapacitating sprays, club-like devices and so on, which does make it slightly more difficult for them to stop you.
Deploying chemical weapons into a closed, pressurized cabin is about the worst idea I could possibly think of. Unless you're the only one with a full-face gas mask.
You can spray hairspray in the bad guy's eyes without harming the other passengers.
Except if the objective is just to shoot a bunch of people, some dumb ass could do that anywhere, outside an airport.
The only thing special about an airplane is the ability to take over the plane and then crash it into a building or something. Therefore, the special security for an airport should concentrate on preventing that.
Yes, the dumb ass might be able to kill a number of people, but he wouldn't be able to take over the plane.
Wait, why does "arming passengers" have to be with guns?
Why couldn't it be with knives, or baseball bats?
Sure, you could do a lot of damage to one or two people, but not before you got the crap beaten out of you by ~200 other passengers.
So give everyone on board a ball-peen hammer.
Fuckin' right. Oldboy for the win!
How many people do you think he would get before the armed citizenry gets him?
Considerably less than 3,000?
Sounds like a feature, not a bug.
I'm as libertarian as the next guy, but the idea of allowing projectile weapons onto planes with pressurized cabins seems like a bad one.
Yeah, that was my reaction to the idea that we should give pilots guns too.
Batons and knives seem like a much better choice. Maybe even tazers...
it's less of an issue than you'd think. too many people get their notions from movies...
So you're libertarian, but haven't read The Probability Broach?
Oh and this asshole is the privilege son of some big time banker. He went to all the top schools in Britain and lived a life of privilege. He has apparently been preaching the jihad since high school. So much for the "poverty and oppression create radical views". No assholes create their own radical views. And the quicker we put a bullet in the head of anyone who buys into that bullshit, the safer we will all be.
Apparently studies suggest that studying engineering is associated with radical views.
OK John, you win. Please go ahead and eliminate everyone who's going to be a terrorist. But remember, you can't kill anyone who won't be. So just be clairvoyant and it'll all work out, OK?
Can we start with the literature majors?
"And the quicker we put a bullet in the head of anyone who buys into that bullshit, the safer we will all be."
I'm sorry John, were you quoting Al Qiaeda there or your own view? Sometimes the line between them can get blurry...
I do legitimately have a kidney problem which requires me to drink far more water than a normal person my size. I wonder what criminal charges will be levied against the first non-octogenarian adult who wets her pants during the last hour of a flight? If this rule is still in place the next time I visit my mother-in-law, I suspect I'll find out.
You'll have to go NASA on your flights. Then you can drink all the Tang you want.
Screw that. I'll just wear tacky pants from the dollar bin at the Goodwill, and toss 'em at the end of the flight.
Incidentally: back in college, during my "youthful experimentation with intoxicants other than alcohol" phase, I accidentally discovered that eating an entire box of Froot Loops in a single sitting will cause you next morning to poop a shade of green not found in nature. I mention this for the benefit of anybody who wants to add a splash of color to any acts of civil disobedience.
Does it taste good too?
"I accidentally discovered that eating an entire box of Froot Loops in a single sitting will cause you next morning to poop a shade of green not found in nature."
I can verify these findings via my own personal replication of the relevant conditions. Fruit Loop blue shade poo is also an empirically established outcome...
That is so sexy!
My flight yesterday was delayed 3 hrs and nearly everyone lost their connections at a time of year when rebooking will be a nightmare.
Some day the TSA will save your life by keeping you from making a plane which blows up. So thank your lucky stars for these hardworking servants of the public welfare.
I am sure TSA already has saved my life. When does the TSA Memorial go up on the Mall?
"Some day the TSA will save your life by keeping you from making a plane which blows up"
Yeah, just like they prevented this guy from getting on the plane, or Richard "Shoe Bomber" Reid before him.
Why would anyone make a plane which blows up?
Though that would be a good way to transport Nancy Pelosi...
The TSA will accomplish nothing. Ever.
What kind of a lame-ass "engineering school" can't even teach a kid how to build an effective bomb?
Haven't seen any news reports that said he graduated. He was probably just a dumb ass.
That's the problem with the idea that "everybody should have a college education"....some people are just dumb.
Probably a civil engineer.
When does the TSA Memorial go up on the Mall?
We need an NEA grant to hold a competition for a statue of three guys picking their noses as a morbidly obese woman reads Cosmopolitan behind the X-ray machine.
InStyle. Cosmo is way too intellectual.
Say what you want to about the TSA, but it single handedly saved the hair extension and nail salon industry after 9/11.
Or maybe they caused inflation in the hair extension and fake nail industries, so that now only overpaid union members can afford hair extensions and fake nails?
Not to mention the gigantic booty polyester uniform pants industry.
O'Hare TSA make "Reno 911" look like "The Untouchables."
Note to wanna-be terrorists:
Never mind that pretentious "exploooosive deviiiiice" crap.
When somebody asks what you have, just say, "I have a BOMB."
I'm pretty sure they'll be impressed.
What if I only have a BONG?
Pass it around man!
Oh wow, now this looks like a lot of fun dude!
Jess
http://www.online-invisibility.net.tc
Oh wow this looks like fun.
Jess
http://www.Ultimate-Privacy.net
Denny or Jesse - which are you?
That's the point...(s)he has ULTIMATE PRIVACY!
If I had an airplane company I would call it Holy Koran Air, and cover my airplanes and stewardess costumes with Koran sayings. That way when the bomber sees them at the gate, he'll say, "Holy dung! If I am blow this airplane up I am also blow up Allah holy book!"
Then the bomber will try to make a last minute booking change, but guess what? The only non-Koran covered flight is on my other airplane company, Pigskin Atlantic.
You're welcome.
I would play Hijab pr0n (NSFW) and have the females in see-through gowns.
FWIW, I would happily fly on Pigskin Atlantic...as long as Jamon Iberico was served instead of peanuts.
They would probably just give you the cheap $300/lb crap.
Janet Napolitano was on the teevee earlier this morning.
If I were the White House "Director of Communication" I would forbid her from ever being interviewed again; what a dope.
It was more entertaining than interesting? Color me shocked!
"I wish that, just once, some terrorist would try something that you can only foil by upgrading the passengers to first glass and giving them free drinks."
Or some dumb ass Imam would get on the plane with his gun and start shooting people.
You can do that at Chuck E Cheese; for free.
Marksmanship does not seem to be a strong point of that culture.
I hear they're going to put TSA agents on every plane.
But they have to make a shitload of those seat belt extenders, first.
...and extra meals.
God help us all when the TSA figures out urine contains ammonia, one of two key components needed to make mustard gas.
ammonia is also a key ingredient in most nitrite-based explosives.
But it doesn't contain ammonia - it contains urea which is converted into ammonia by bacteria some time after it has been expelled by the body.
TSA operating procedure:
1. Fail to stop would-be terrorists at the gate with procedures aimed at the previous attack.
2. Force unarmed and inconvenienced passengers to subdue the attackers.
3. Announce new inconveniences for passengers aimed at preventing the previous attack.
I said 8 years ago the best airline security would be to just hand every passenger a wooden club when they board. If only that had been the only measure taken.
How about tasers instead of headphones? Problem is, a lot of yelping babies would get zapped. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Anyway, just as militant lesbians think all men are rapists, I hereby believe that some passengers are terrorists, specifically:
a) Really fat passengers,
b) Old ladies who marinate themselves in vomit-inducing perfumes,
c) The aforementioned yelping babies.
Every one of them will be on my no-fly list, when I own a private airline in a free country, which will be never.
At the point civilians can stop a terrorist (on the plane as he enacts his plan) that shit is going to make the news and we will all hear about it. But every terrorist that gets turned away at the security check-point is not going to make the news, so we are less likely to hear about their successes.
Huh? Is that what the TSA does when they find a terrorist with explosives at a security checkpoint? They quietly turn him away?
"I'm sorry Mr. Abdulmutallab, you are not allowed to take those explosives or that nail clipper on board. You can either leave them here you'll have to leave sir."
MNG, If the TSA actually caught a terrorist before he boarded I'm quite sure it would make the news too.
Yup, gots to have our panties all in a bunch about them Mooslim terrists...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Airlines_Flight_629
Happened when I was a kid. Guy was caught, tried, convicted, executed. In our day and age, the TSA'd forbid checked luggage.
Oh, and BTW nobody said it was Eisenhower's fault.
There was another incident today. Same flight, different Nigerian with bathroom issues. Of course, everyone freaked out. They didn't have much choice, given the circumstances and weird similarities. I wouldn't call it a perfect storm. More like a perfect diarrhea.
Just handcuff every passenger to his seat. To prevent accidents, catheter service will be offered on flights longer than four hours for a reasonable fee.
Beat your meat on the toilet seat, doodah, doodah.
Hands get tired so I'll use my feet, ho dee doodah dey.
-song from Scout Camp
Manicles. Legs and hands. Some people are just too...flexible.
,i>To prevent accidents, catheter service will be offered on flights longer than four hours for a reasonable fee.
Only in first class - in coach one will be offered a diaper.
(damned shift key)