[mattduke]

"The Case Of The Electromagnetic Brassier"

You honestly don't think there is a single day that goes by without the TSA producing more content for this forum, do you?

link

[mattduke]

Now that the "TSA Thread" has been renamed "TSA Follies", it will be easier for me to stop posting so many toplevel posts.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '�')��What kind of pie is that?” the TSA agent demanded...

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he TSA is tightening its photo ID rules at airport security. Previously, people with expired IDs or who claimed to have lost their IDs were subjected to secondary screening. Then the Transportation Security Administration realized that meant someone on the government's no-fly list -- the list that is supposed to keep our planes safe from terrorists -- could just fly with no ID.

Now, people without ID must also answer personal questions from their credit history to ascertain their identity. The TSA will keep records of who those ID-less people are, too, in case they're trying to probe the system.

This may seem like an improvement, except that the photo ID requirement is a joke. Anyone on the no-fly list can easily fly whenever he wants. Even worse, the whole concept of matching passenger names against a list of bad guys has negligible security value.

How to fly, even if you are on the no-fly list: Buy a ticket in some innocent person's name. At home, before your flight, check in online and print out your boarding pass. Then, save that web page as a PDF and use Adobe Acrobat to change the name on the boarding pass to your own. Print it again. At the airport, use the fake boarding pass and your valid ID to get through security. At the gate, use the real boarding pass in the fake name to board your flight.

The problem is that it is unverified passenger names that get checked against the no-fly list. At security checkpoints, the TSA just matches IDs to whatever is printed on the boarding passes. The airline checks boarding passes against tickets when people board the plane. But because no one checks ticketed names against IDs, the security breaks down.

This vulnerability isn't new. It isn't even subtle. I first wrote about it in 2006. I asked Kip Hawley, who runs the TSA, about it in 2007. Today, any terrorist smart enough to Google "print your own boarding pass" can bypass the no-fly list.

This gaping security hole would bother me more if the very idea of a no-fly list weren't so ineffective. The system is based on the faulty notion that the feds have this master list of terrorists, and all we have to do is keep the people on the list off the planes.

That's just not true. The no-fly list -- a list of people so dangerous they are not allowed to fly yet so innocent we can't arrest them -- and the less dangerous "watch list" contain a combined 1 million names representing the identities and aliases of an estimated 400,000 people. There aren't that many terrorists out there; if there were, we would be feeling their effects.

Almost all of the people stopped by the no-fly list are false positives. It catches innocents such as Ted Kennedy, whose name is similar to someone's on the list, and Islam Yusuf (formerly Cat Stevens), who was on the list but no one knew why.

The no-fly list is a Kafkaesque nightmare for the thousands of innocent Americans who are harassed and detained every time they fly. Put on the list by unidentified government officials, they can't get off. They can't challenge the TSA about their status or prove their innocence. (The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals decided this month that no-fly passengers can sue the FBI, but that strategy hasn't been tried yet.)

But even if these lists were complete and accurate, they wouldn't work. Timothy McVeigh, the Unabomber, the D.C. snipers, the London subway bombers and most of the 9/11 terrorists weren't on any list before they committed their terrorist acts. And if a terrorist wants to know if he's on a list, the TSA has approved a convenient, $100 service that allows him to figure it out: the Clear program, which issues IDs to "trusted travelers" to speed them through security lines. Just apply for a Clear card; if you get one, you're not on the list.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has named John Della Jacono as the federal security director for Kansas City International Airport, effective Sept. 1, 2008.

Della Jacono served in a variety of command and staff assignments during a 30-year career with the U.S. Army, rising to the rank of colonel. He commanded from the company to brigade levels, was the deputy director for Security Matters for the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany; provost marshal, Third United States Army; and chief of staff for the Third Army/Army Forces Central Command/Coalition Force Land Component Command at Fort McPherson, Ga./Kuwait. He deployed and served in a variety of assignments during Operation Just Cause (Panama); Operation Desert Shield/Storm (Liberation of Kuwait); Operation Joint Endeavor (Bosnia-Herzegovina), Operation Enduring Freedom (Afghanistan), and Operation Iraqi Freedom.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A') Quebec businessman whose name erroneously ended up on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's flight passenger "watch list" has masterminded a way to get off the harassment list. But it didn't take a barrel of cash, repeated body cavity searches, lawsuits, or even powerful magnets, he simply changed his name. And while not an overly sophisticated approach, it was apparently enough to fool DHS computer systems.

[mklkatreeandleaf]

The problem with Homlnd insicurity, is that they hire the geeks that used to be thrown into the lockers at recess and they want revenge.

[jbrovont]

I thought it was the Homeland Security Department.

[mmasters]

[mattduke]

Of course even the hardest of drugs should perfectly legal.

link

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')TSA officials announced that longtime mass transit and public safety veteran Mike Scott will become the new director of federal security at LaGuardia.

[mattduke]

http://evan-roth.com/photos/tsa_communication

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')ransportation Security Administration Chief Kip Hawley announced last week an eventual reduction of restrictions on liquids carried aboard airliners may become a reality about a year from now.

"I think realistically in one year we, the TSA and foreign colleagues, will be in a position to relax liquids restrictions. We are within a year of having the ability to differentiate threat liquids through the screening process," Hawley (right) said.

[MD]

You are right. There was absolutely nothing of interest to see there.

[mattduke]

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', 'Y')ou are right. There was absolutely nothing of interest to see there.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')ythias started small, stealing cameras, laptop computers, gaming consoles and eventually moved on to the good stuff including a video camera belonging to CNN, and a $47,900 camera stored inside the bag of an HBO employee.
The items were sold on Ebay, and as you can see from his feedback listing, these were not cheap items. His greed eventually came back to haunt him, when CNN found one of their cameras listed on Ebay. With a little help from the local police department and the USPS, Brown was apprehended.
When agents entered his house, they found 66 cameras, 31 laptop computers, jewelry, lenses, GPS devices and more.

[mattduke]

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'R')euters reported that Israel’s Airports Authority had installed step-on scanners that allow travelers to keep their shoes on through security screening.

The machine, called “MagShoe” is now in use at Ben-Gurion Airport. It can’t yet detect explosives, but it “announces within two seconds whether the footwear of the passenger standing on it contains unusual metal that might be a knife for a hijacking or a bomb detonator part.”

[Ferretlover]

This nonsense is going to get worse and worse; the only way to stop it is to stop flying to upset the airlines. Never mind. That won't work either.
Any day now we will have roadblocks to check the identity papers of the drivers and passengers of busses and private cars.

[mattduke]

Air marshals using government positions to commit crimes.

usatoday