Aviation Security Debate: Bruce Schneier V. Kip Hawley (Former TSA Boss) 291
Fluffeh writes "A nice summary at TechDirt brings word that Bruce Schneier has been debating Kip Hawley, former boss of the TSA, over at the Economist. Bruce has been providing facts, analysis and some amazing statistics throughout the debate, and it makes for very educational reading. Because of the format, the former TSA administrator is compelled to respond. Quoting: 'He wants us to trust that a 400-ml bottle of liquid is dangerous, but transferring it to four 100-ml bottles magically makes it safe. He wants us to trust that the butter knives given to first-class passengers are nevertheless too dangerous to be taken through a security checkpoint. He wants us to trust that there's a reason to confiscate a cupcake (Las Vegas), a 3-inch plastic toy gun (London Gatwick), a purse with an embroidered gun on it (Norfolk, VA), a T-shirt with a picture of a gun on it (London Heathrow) and a plastic lightsaber that's really a flashlight with a long cone on top (Dallas/Fort Worth).""
The Winner: (Score:5, Informative)
(from http://www.economist.com/debate/days/view/823)
Adam Barnes
March 30, 2012
Adam Barnes
Our debate has now ended and those supporting the motion—that changes made to airport security since 9/11 have done more harm than good—have won handsomely. ...
Voters have roundly declared that the frustrations, the delays, the loss of liberty and the increase in fear that characterize their interactions with airport-security procedures vastly outweigh the good these procedures achieve. For some, indeed, the benefits are essentially non-existent: any sensible terrorist can find a work-around or choose a different point of attack, as Bruce Schneier explains. And so the widely expressed hope is that changes made to security in the (near) future will make the whole regime less reactive, more rational, more flexible and more intelligence-driven. The results of this debate suggest that these changes should be made with some urgency: passengers are angry.
Marvelously versatile (Score:5, Informative)
Thermite makes a wonderful toothpaste...
Actually, by itself it's a powder mix. It's convenient to add a liquid binder to make a paste for easy application but it can also be pressed with any of several other binders into any number of solid forms. Plaques, for instance, to be awarded at a conference. Carry on 20 kg of award plaques and Security might ask to see them but they won't blink at you carrying them on. The rest is obvious to any sophomore engineering student.
And TSA knows about these [1], but since there's no practical way to screen for them they just hope that the Bad Guys are too stupid to bother with a sure-fire way to remove planes from the sky.
[1] And many, many others. Ask a sophomore engineering class to come up with methods and you can have hundreds. Fortunately, Bad Guys are never geeks.
Re:Marvelously versatile (Score:5, Informative)
Osama Bin Laden had a degree in Civil Engineering[1]. Al-Zawahiri is a surgeon[2]. The guy who tried to drive into Glasgow airport in a flaming Range Rover was a medical doctor. There are plenty of chemists and engineers who pop up all the time from inside the various Islamist terrorist groups.
[1] Reportedly
[2] Ditto
Re:Too Late... well, maybe. (Score:5, Informative)
China, which has a far superior train system, has airport like security at its stations.
For some reason, though, I've found the Chinese security even at airports to be much more reasonable and even helpful compared to the NA variety, e.g.
guard: What's in your pocket?
Me: My hat.
guard (double take): But what's THAT?
Me: A banana.
guard: (laughs and waves me through)
Mind you, it's funnier in Mandarin.
Re:This is why TSA kicked him out of testifying (Score:5, Informative)
No congresscritter or international equivalent wants to be Michael Dukakis and have her or his arse handed to them in the next election when a single Willie Horton (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Horton) makes it onto a plane and does something Bad.
It's politically far safer to support any level of nonsense security theater and be able to say "I supported every effort to prevent this tragedy" after the inevitable next Bad Thing than stand up and actively support even the sanest reductions in security theater because the inevitable next Bad Thing will still happen and your political enemies will have no problem turning it into your fault.
For the non-Americans, Michael Dukakis was a governor of Massachusetts who stuck his neck out and supported a fairly common-sense program for giving prisoners coming up to the end of their sentence short periods of furlough as part of efforts to support reintegration into society. Willie Horton was a prisoner who absconded while on furlough and later raped someone. When Dukakis ran for President in 1988, Republicans ran attack ads against Dukakis featuring Horton and his crimes as a consequence of Dukakis' 'soft on crime' approach.
Re:Leave the TSA alone! (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps I hold a less than optimistic view of the American public, but I doubt readers of the Economist are "average Americans." The Economist is left leaning by U.S. standards and has much higher intellectual standards that most media consumed by the "average American."
Re:One thing to consider (Score:4, Informative)
He wasn't talking about laws. He was talking about the bully mentality of American LEOs and pseudo-LEOs. Having lived in several of the countries you listed I can tell you first hand that the cops and security personnel in those countries are much less likely to have been schoolyard bullies as children. I couldn't believe it at first, but LEOs outside the US are far more likely to be relatively normal people without any chips on their shoulders and without any violent cravings to bash your head in with their night sticks and torture you with their tasers and pepper spray while laughing joyously about it with their buddies. It has something to do with US culture. It encourages certain kinds of people to admire violence and seek jobs where they have opportunities to beat up people who cannot legally defend themselves against them and who are usually grossly outnumbered in any case.
As far as the US being a democracy, we actually aren't one. If we were a true democracy we would be able to abolish the DHS and TSA via direct popular vote. All we get to do is vote for people who then vote for which dictator we get to have. It's really a silly system. I think this is a perfect example of why a (constitutionally limited) true democracy would be preferable. Here's a situation where the majority is against a new kind of tyranny and yet there is nothing that we can do to stop it.
Re:Leave the TSA alone! (Score:4, Informative)
No, no, and no.
Read this for crying out loud. You're in effect minimizing what real rape is by trying to lump this into that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape [wikipedia.org]
If it an excessive use of power? Yes. Is it a violation of my personal space? Yes.
Is the agent groping me with one hand with his other on his erect penis? No. Are they penetrating me for their own sexual gratification? No. Are they enjoying it in a sexual nature? No.
When you call it what it isn't it and exaggerate the nature of what's happening you're causing yourself to lose credibility. If you want to have a reasonable discussion then you've got to bring reason to the table otherwise you're going to be dismissed before you even get to the door.
And like I mentioned before - we probably agree on the overarching problem with what's going on - but there's absolutely no need to associate it with rape when it should be enough to associate it with a significant violation of our essential liberties.