Perhaps the most important tidbit from Bruce Schneier’s comprehensive roundup of “Guilty until Groped” is this:
Exactly two things have made airline travel safer since 9/11: reinforcement of cockpit doors, and passengers who now know that they may have to fight back. Everything else — Secure Flight and Trusted Traveler included — is security theater. We would all be a lot safer if, instead, we implemented enhanced baggage security — both ensuring that a passenger’s bags don’t fly unless he does, and explosives screening for all baggage — as well as background checks and increased screening for airport employees.
Then we could take all the money we save and apply it to intelligence, investigation and emergency response. These are security measures that pay dividends regardless of what the terrorists are planning next, whether it’s the movie plot threat of the moment, or something entirely different.
If the threat we’re afraid of is Al-Qaeda, that is an agile, networked organization. TSA is a top-down, lumbering, slow-thinking giant. TSA will never be a match for Al-Qaeda. We need to decentralize passenger security. Get the airlines, airports and passengers working together. Get organizations like Consumer Reports auditing the security procedures. Let consumers vote with their dollars. May the best solutions win. Right now TSA is humiliating and intimidating the security layer that stopped the underwear and shoe bombers: passengers.
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He is absolutely right. Being aware of our surroundings is a great way to stop terrorism. More security=more incentive for terrorists to be creative. Bags should be screened, packages should be screened, people’s bodies should not. When people are harassed and humiliated, they’re going to do their best to keep their heads down and ignore everyone else for the rest of that flight. That’s when the terrorists are going to strike, when they know that everyone is so beaten down that they’re going to ignore someone who might actually be a terrorist. TSA should be empowering travelers, not acting like everyone is a terrorist! Al-Quada wins more and more with every new “security measure”. THEY want to terrify us. THEY want to beat us down. TSA is doing their job for them.
Why would the TSA want to save money?
It’s a wonderful racket for employing the otherwise unemployable, the vast majority of whom would be lucky to work as burger flippers, as well as increasing the organization’s practical political clout by handing out political largess via legalized corruption such as federal contracts and jobs in strategic congressional members’ districts. They have no incentives to save money.
We are not safer. Just getting pregnant. TSA named in mass-paternity lawsuit by ACLU. “Their DNA is all over it, if you know what we mean.” https://bit.ly/ah1IiQ