Former TSA Administrator Speaks 196
phantomfive writes "Former TSA head Kip Hawley talks about how the agency is broken and how it can be fixed:
'The crux of the problem, as I learned in my years at the helm, is our wrongheaded approach to risk. In attempting to eliminate all risk from flying, we have made air travel an unending nightmare for U.S. passengers and visitors from overseas, while at the same time creating a security system that is brittle where it needs to be supple. ... the TSA's mission is to prevent a catastrophic attack on the transportation system, not to ensure that every single passenger can avoid harm while traveling. Much of the friction in the system today results from rules that are direct responses to how we were attacked on 9/11. But it's simply no longer the case that killing a few people on board a plane could lead to a hijacking. ...The public wants the airport experience to be predictable, hassle-free and airtight and for it to keep us 100% safe. But 100% safety is unattainable. Embracing a bit of risk could reduce the hassle of today's airport experience while making us safer at the same time."
Don't see it happening (Score:5, Interesting)
I really do not know what to think of the article's suggestions on liquids. I've read where various chemistry experts essentially say that terrorists cannot construct liquid bombs that will work at all without having to basically use chemistry equipment, ice baths, lengthy mixing sessions that no one could possibly ignore, etc. Yet here the former TSA head insists that there is a very real risk here. Who is right? Does the former TSA head know something that chemistry experts have somehow missed? Or is the former TSA head working on crap information? I sure don't know but that's one question I'd like resolved.
My experience has been that the people who bitch the most about screening are those who travel the least. I'm not saying that there aren't regular travelers who don't complain. Not at all. But in my circle of acquaintances, the people I know who just completely and utterly cannot talk about this subject without getting completely bent out of shape about it simply do not travel by plane. One of them hasn't been on a plane in more than 5 years. He's likely to travel by plane less than 5 more times in his lifetime. The other guy I know actually gets the most worked up about this. He hasn't been on a plane since before 9/11 and he is extremely unlikely to ever travel by plane again in his life, yet this whole subject of TSA screenings is some kind of hot button issue to him.
Let's give them more money! (Score:5, Interesting)
I say the deserve another billion/yr because, afterall, look at all the terrorism they've stopped just this week! [tsa.gov]
Finding a legally registered, unloaded, gun belonging to a law abiding (if forgetful) citizen does not count as stopping terrorism. Not to mention that all of these objects are things that would easily be caught by standard X-rays. The TSA has NEVER stopped a terrorist. Not one. In the years since 9-11 any terrorist activity was either stopped well before they got to the airport, or they actually got on the plane and the attempt failed. But I guess the TSA needs to brag about something to justify their existence, so they point out all the absent minded people they've detained for forgetting about something dangerous in their bag.
Terrorism is stopped by law enforcement work outside of the airport. If a terrorist plot made it that far without being discovered, you've already failed and you need to move farther up the chain to figure out what went wrong and how it could have been foiled sooner. In terms of value for our dollars, the TSA is a huge waste.
Re:Former ______ head says we fucked up (Score:5, Interesting)
I arrived in 2005 with naive notions of wrangling the organization into shape, only to discover the power of the TSA's bureaucratic momentum and political pressures. By the time of my arrival, the agency was focused almost entirely on finding prohibited items. Constant positive reinforcement on finding items like lighters had turned our checkpoint operations into an Easter-egg hunt. When we ran a test, putting dummy bomb components near lighters in bags at checkpoints, officers caught the lighters, not the bomb parts....I wanted to reduce the amount of time that officers spent searching for low-risk objects, but politics intervened at every turn. Lighters were untouchable, having been banned by an act of Congress.
We did succeed in getting some items (small scissors, ice skates) off the list of prohibited items.
Re:Don't fix it, abolish it. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:and you can go overboard on anti-terrorism (Score:5, Interesting)
When the IRA (HInt: American sponsored) were bombing the UK on a regular basis, we just took it, saying "the risk of dying from eating Scotch eggs beats the risk of an IRA bomb any day!" or, for the oldies "Compared to the Blitz, this is nothing!"
Then the Americans got hit, and it was "OK, lets circle the poodles and waggle our tails".
No one in the UK believes that airline check in procedures are about safety. We all know they are about our politicians pandering to America for reasons we don't understand, but which probably involve bribery and corruption.
Re:Big crowds are targets (Score:4, Interesting)
There is a guy with a metal detector at the airport door, and he gives you an extremely brief patdown. The patdown is similar to "movie-style" patdowns where they just go down your torso on the left and right of your body. It takes about 10 seconds to clear someone. After you are inside, you have to go through the real security which involves cheap metal detectors, profiling, and possibly bomb-sniffing dogs. There is plenty of corruption in the Philippines, but even so, they are probably spending 1/100th of what the US spends on a per person basis.