There's no question that the body scanners and the physical pat-downs taking place now are more intrusive, and that is provoking a reaction. The problem over the long term is that terrorists can build and conceal devices on persons in places that will make them undetectable to all but the most intrusive searches. So, it's a more intrusive measure in response to an evolution of terrorist tactics; it is a bit of fabricated theater because the vast majority of the passengers accept the measures, and it is a bit of agenda-serving by passengers' rights groups and posturing politicians that neatly come together.
Is backscatter AIT "nothing more than an electronic strip search," as it has been called by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)?
Put aside the ACLU statement, because I cannot recall in the last 15 years a single security measure at airports that they haven't opposed on grounds of the Fourth Amendment. So that's a hearty perennial. I don't mean to put them down. I honestly do believe that we do have to debate these security issues in our society as a society and decide what impositions we accept in return for what risks we are willing to take. That's a good debate, and it's a tough one.
I'm not a techie, but I have my reservations about the technology. I think that the decision to deploy the body scanners was driven primarily by a need to be seen doing something after the Abdulmutallab attempt. These machines are calibrated, and depending on the degree of calibration it is not certain in my mind that the device would have detected Abdulmutallab's bomb had he walked through a body scanner, given the quantity of the explosives he was carrying and where they were concealed. The likelihood of not detecting such a threat increases when you put measures in place to, understandably, protect personal privacy and modesty by blurring certain areas of the body, including the genitals, where Abdulmutallab was carrying the explosives.
If the TSA's latest technology does not greatly improve security, why are these machines being installed in so many airports?
The deployment of the body scanners represents a symptom of a longer term problem that we have to face. Passenger loads are increasing and so are the number of security procedures, in each case following a particular event. Following Richard Reid, the shoe bomber in 2001, we now take off our shoes. Following the Heathrow plot in 2006 [to carry explosives on board planes going to the U.S. and Canada] we now have restrictions on liquids. Following Abdulmutallab in 2009 we now have body scanners. But continually adding measures to look for objects over the long term may not be sustainable without completely degrading the screening performance. My objection to the body scanners is it was a missed opportunity. It was throwing another machine out into the airports without seizing the moment to do a fundamental review.
What improvements or alternatives are there to the current approach to air travel security?
We really need to fundamentally rethink the strategy of how we do this, and it's not an accumulation of yet another procedure or another piece of machinery. We really have to think about the issue of whether we focus our security efforts 100 percent on looking for objects or whether move toward a more discerning system that also begins to look at categories of travelers.
We board about one billion passengers in the United States per year, but that's not one billion different people. Frequent fliers account for the vast portion of total boardings. Moving some of them into a registered traveler category, where they willingly submit personal information as part of a pre-screening process, would free resources to be applied to other passengers. [The TSA concluded its two-year Registered Traveler test program at 19 airports in July 2008 but decided not to implement the program. Instead, the TSA has encouraged private sector vendors including Vigilant Solutions and FLO Corp. to provide pre-registration service in conjunction with airports and airlines. The TSA does have a prescreening program called Secure Flight that attempts to match passenger records with records of people on terrorist watch lists at the time domestic airplane tickets are purchased. Prior to Secure Flight, airlines conducted passenger watch list checking.]
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13 Comments
Add CommentAl-Qaeda says boo, and we jump. TSA is essentially part of the stimulus package. It also costs our country a solid chunk of change each year in travel inefficiency. I realize it is not politically correct to advance this opinion; but the TSA, by seeing us as the suspect every day, weakens us as a nation both monetarily and in terms of national moral. I do not feel safer, because there's always another way to make us feel unsafe (e.g. the recent mail attempt) and react in fearful fashion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe irony is that, as we tout our freedom in the face of our assailants (who rightly should be fought virulently), we become incrementally and almost imperceptibly less free and more controlled all the time. It's important to keep in mind the cost of this "security". We think we are safer with all the scanners, so we are lulled to forget about the real dangers that life poses by its mere existence; dangers that we send our youth to face head on while we stand docile in line.
I'm interested in civil discourse on this matter. All shrill and histrionic comments will be ignored.
Cheers.
I am a 68 year old handicapped frequent flyer with a great deal of metal in my body. Recent flights have been made in a great deal of pain due to the highly intrusive “pat downs”. Even though I offer to show them the are where a tendon is on the surface the then proceed to vigorously attack this area of my body. Purposly attacking a disabled American is not only unconsttutional it is against Federal law (ADA). BHO and Janet allowing this to happen is inexcuseable!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf memory serves (mine often does not), Lt. Col. North took a bit of heat for his testimony on Al-Qaeda from Sen. Gore.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSuper interview. Indeed, "We really need to fundamentally rethink the strategy of how we do this". If only the politicians would do this.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFirst, he's quite wrong about the "Underwear Bomber". Clearly, he has never looked at what these things show. They show anything under clothing.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecond, to "add randomness" is an ivory tower suggestion. This does nothing to screw up terrorists. They have specific needs, and mostly they are very primitive in capability. It is not the KGB we face. It is a bunch of people socked into a rote memorization world of rules. Creativity of that kind does not come easy to them.
Third, behavior is not a guide. There are plenty of drugs that make people calm, no matter what happens. The Underwear Bomber used drugs to calm himself. That is easy.
Last, the one thing we can do better is to target our searches better by profiling.
Aside from that, sooner or later, there will be successes. He is completely right about the debate. Because a major part of Al Qaeda strategy is to get the dinosaur to bankrupt itself. They saw it happen to the USSR. They want it to happen to us.
Is it truly rational for us to spend over $1 trillion on wars in response to 2,977 deaths and damage to buildings? Influenza kills 10 times that each year, and at least twice that many people under 50. But it is very hard for us to be rational about these things.
I am sure many Americans preparing to travel on Thanksgiving are having second thoughts about flying, because of the well publicized new so called security procedures implemented by the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Clearly, the groping of babies and grandmothers for explosives is a waste of resources.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo-called "security measures" at airports are nothing more than PR to reassure the irrational public that they are safe from terrorism methods that have been used in the PAST(not necessarily now or in the future). The only airport method that might actually catch terrorists is profiling. This is because no terrorist can know or anticipate whether he/she fits the profile. The public could be reassured by using traditional, screening methods (such as metal detectors, patdowns, explosive sniffers, etc) but on a random basis. Sometimes every passenger would be examined, sometimes every second person in the morning, every tenth in the afternoon etc. These are just examples. The pattern could be changed at any time quite quickly and easily.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBoth a secret method (profiling by unidentified profilers) and a public method (metal detectors, etc.)are needed. No public method will ever be prospective, i.e., predictive of future terrorist techniques. Hence, they are basically useless except as PR. Besides, these public techniques need to be 100% reliable . It takes just one false negative (a failure to identify a successful terrorist) and the system will lose all credibility with the public.
I have a NEXUS card and am still subjected to inane and useless questioning on the US side (Where am I going? Why am I going there? How long will I be? Who cares? I'm a low risk and shouldn't be questioned at all.) What good is the card as a security device if I am still being questioned? On the Canadian side, after swiping one's card and displaying the card with one's photo on it, one is just waved through. US take note!! An airline card should work just the same way.
Since the US seems to have trouble getting anything right: education, prison, health systems are all in trouble. Is it any surprise that the "security" system is in trouble, too. And, sadly, it won't or can't be fixed.
I am very sorry about your troubles. My son's mother-in-law was (who wears a steel brace on her knee was strip-searched! A lot of this is simply "cover your ass" behavior and to seem to be thorough at one's job.I bet this method has yielded zero terrorists and a lot of people just like you.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe TSA cannot exempt any category of person from examination. As soon as terrorists know that a category is exempt, that's where they could easily place a bomb.What you intend to say, I think, is that each of us is a profiler.It doesn't take a genius to figure out that the people in line with us at the airport are not terrorists.
No, the "groping" of babies and grandmothers is worthwhile. Most people don't remember that a while back a woman in England was married by a muslim jihadist. He got her pregnant, and put her on a plane with a bomb that she did not know about. The bomb was found because the brits had informants that tipped them off.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe woman had no clue that the whole thing, the marriage, the baby, everything was just a ruse to get her to carry a bomb onto a plane and blow herself up.
The best person to get a bomb through airport security is a person who has no clue that they have one.
Could have sworn I saw a DARPA report that said not only were trained dogs still the best detectors of explosive materials, they are by far the cheapest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDogs and Hogs. Use their incredible sense of smell to whiff out explosives.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnother solution is to revert to the Delta style of aircraft and design them structurally to absorb an explosion midair. We don't need windows when we have individualized video screens that also could show different views out of the aircraft.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA question: Is it possible for a reader to actually submit a question for the "Experts", or are the topics determined by the writers on Scientific American?
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