TSA Screening Barely Working Better Than Chance 337
rwise2112 writes "The General Accounting Office (GAO) has completed a study of the TSAs SPOT (Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques) program and found the program is only slightly better than chance at finding criminals. Given that the TSA has spent almost a billion dollars on the program, that's a pretty poor record. As a result, the GAO is requesting that both Congress and the president withhold funding from the program until the TSA can demonstrate its effectiveness."
This was supposed to make the TSA less intrusive (Score:5, Informative)
The report isn't about the nudie machines or the crotch groping. This was a program designed to spot potential problems based on the way people act. If it worked, they'd ditch the zappers and replace it with eagle-eyed security guards.
But it doesn't work. Presumably, they spent a billion dollars because they really wanted it to work. This is, after all, patterned after the program that they use in Israel, which is very familiar with terrorism, and has been widely touted as better alternative. In Israel, though, it amounts largely to racial profiling, which has its own drawbacks (as the report points out).
This isn't about the effectiveness of the security theater, one way or the other. It's about something that was supposed to make the security less theatrical. Except it doesn't.
i wish the story weren't bs (Score:5, Informative)
I love a good story about government ineffectiveness.
Unfortunately, this particular story is bull. Their conclusions are based on "meta-analysis of 400 studies over 60 years", not an analysis of the TSA's current procedures. They looked at studies on whether college students can tell when reach other are lying.
The TSA has some problems for sure, but this article doesn't address those.
Re:Fuck the TSA (Score:5, Informative)
Fuck 'em. Disband that shit ASAP.
I tend to lean your way on that too. Airlines, buss lines, etc. should be responsible for the security of their own equipment and customers (after said customers are off the street, out of the government airport, and into the airplanes, of course).
In Brendan I. Koerner's The Skies Belong To Us he touched on that trend beginning in 1972, when some airlines were beginning their own security measures. That all went out the window and the feds took over after the threat by hijackers of Southern Airways flight 49 [wikipedia.org] threatened to crash the plane into the reactor building of Oak Ridge National Labs.
Re:Fuck the TSA (Score:5, Informative)
They even figured it out on 9/11. Remember there was a 4th plane.
Re:i wish you could read (Score:5, Informative)
It looked at the meta-analyses to see if there was any support at all to behavioral detection. It looked at the TSA data to see if the TSA could defend its own assertions. The few positive points were basically nullified by poor data collection.
Half of the GAO summary was devoted to the part of the story you ignored, which was the relevant part. It's like you can read, but chose not to for the middle half. The story you will love is that the TSA is inept at capturing relevant data. The GAO is capable of seeing through that.
Don't bother straining yourself, I'll even paste the words here so you can ignore them more easily.
TSA's real purpose... (Score:4, Informative)
The TSA was founded to extend the welfare state. Why else would you create an agency that's sole purpose is to stack grey trays. Remember, the original name for the agency was The Tray Stackers of America. At the last minute, they were forced to change the name, but since their spiffy uniforms and badges were already on order they needed to keep with the "TSA" initials.
After all, if the TSA was really supposed to catch weapons, terrorists, etc. at the airports I believe that even the Feds could have set up a better system.
Re:Time to get rid of it (Score:4, Informative)
3. Not harassing American citizens other than domestic terrorists like the Tea Party.
I don't much care for the Tea Party folks myself, but I wouldn't call them domestic terrorists. When was the last time they blew up a building? Refusing to compromise with the broader populace and causing government gridlock are not illegal terrorist actions.
Re:landing difficult, flying easy until something (Score:4, Informative)
Not true.
I won't go into details about Autoland here, as you can read the Wikipedia link below. The takeaway is that Autoland has triple redundancy through the entire control and sensing systems, and will continue to function even if it has lost 2 out of 3 of any device in the workflow.
"During system design, the predicted reliability numbers for the individual equipment which makes up the entire autoland system (sensors, computers, controls, and so forth) are combined and an overall probability of failure is calculated. As the "threat" exists primarily during the flare through roll-out, this "exposure time" is used and the overall failure probability must be less than one in a million.[5]"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autoland#Autoland_for_civil_aviation [wikipedia.org]
With regards to takeoff, I admit, this is the most vulnerable point of the flight (limited or lost forward thrust, extremely limited altitude). This will still be automated in good time though, as software won't panic. It'll be able to determine just how much the aircraft can still travel with limited or no power, and the safest area to put down.
Re:Fuck the TSA (Score:5, Informative)
I'm fine with armed pilots. They should be given frangible bullets suitable for use on aircraft./p
Frangible bullets suck. Pilots should be armed with jacketed hollow points, the same thing air marshals and every other sort of law enforcement carries.
Frangible bullets are lousy manstoppers. They tend to make wounds that are wide and shallow. Very ugly, but without enough penetration to reach major blood vessels they have no real effect on an attacker who doesn't decide to helpfully fall down and lie still. And yet they still penetrate walls and such much more than we'd like -- and would have absolutely no trouble blowing through the thin aluminum skin of an airplane.
The bottom line with bullets is that if they have enough penetration to be useful at stopping a person, they're going to be able to pass through a few walls.
But, really, it's not a problem. Airplanes aren't airtight to begin with. They leak air all the time when "pressurized", but continue pumping more in to maintain the desired pressure. Punch a few half-inch holes in the skin and the pumps will just compensate by increasing the flow a bit.
The pilots should be armed with standard defensive handguns and ammunition as a last resort in case the hijackers manage to get through the locked door before the passengers beat them to death. It's unlikely they'll need their guns, but it's better to have them and not need them.
Re:Israel's airlines globally recognized as safest (Score:5, Informative)
Why do you think the Israeli method is cheaper? They spend about 10 times as much per passenger as we do:
http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/01/07/would_you_pay_25_for_71_seconds_of_scrutiny_in_an_airport [foreignpolicy.com]
Re:Fuck the TSA (Score:5, Informative)
Since 2001, the bands used by cell phones have changed and the power requirements of the antennae have changed as well. Due to more concurrent users, you need more cell towers to re-use the frequencies, with the added benefit of a shorter transmission distance and less power required on the cell phone itself to do that transmission. In 2001, cell phones still had the analog bands that stretched city-wide.
You are a conspiracy nut.
Re:Fuck the TSA (Score:2, Informative)
well, that's interesting, you see, I have forgotten to turn my cell phone off a few times and received calls in flight. Perhaps you have a crappy cell phone or use a crappy carrier with bad coverage of the areas between major cities?