Tyrants Of Supreme Arrogance (TSA) Versus We The People

The most recent symbol of the ongoing war between the rights of American citizens and the myrmidons of the great fetish, security, is a mild looking software geek named John Turner.  His confrontation, including the utterly asinine threat by a Tyrant to see Turner hit with a ten kilobuck fine, is covered here.  It is a hoot--and a glowing lesson in the disconnect between the TSA and its master, the Heimatsicherheitsamt on the one hand and the majority of the traveling public on the other.

The cause of the San Diego resistance as well as a growing surge of discontent is the increased use of imaging technology which purports to see all through one's clothing as well as its complement, the "enhanced pat down."  The virtual nakedness produced by the microwave or X-ray backscatter machines is objectionable to many people as an unjustifiable invasion of the most intimate of our personal regions.

The objectionable nature of the machines is no way lessened by the lies regarding the capacity of the system to store, retrieve, or transmit images which have been peddled by TSA for months now.  Depending on the mode selected, the system either can or cannot store, retrieve, and transmit images captured from the traveling folks.  The person in the booth being scanned has no way of knowing which mode is operative.  Nor can one be certain, beyond the assurances of TSA, that there is no way a specific identity can be linked to a particular image.

The option of bypassing the scan is available.  Exercise of this requires that the candidate passenger submit to "enhanced pat down."  This involves a rather firm set of very unpleasant encounters between a Tyrant's hand and the upper segment of the groin as well as a tap on the butt rather too robust to be considered anything other than distasteful.  People under arrest or enjoying the hospitality of the corrections industry are well acquainted with the procedure.  Most of the flying public is not.  Nor are most desirous of becoming familiar with the gloved and groping hand of Authority.

Confronted with the choice of being virtually stripped or materially groped, Mr Tyner declined, brusquely but politely.  The Tyrants present objected mightily to the objection raised by the peasant with the effect that reinforcements were called, the local police arrived, and the uppity peasant was ordered to depart, to go hence into the blackness from which he crawled.  Upon doing so, the unworthy mere civilian was threatened with a civil suit and a ten thousand dollar fine.  Fortunately for Mr Tyner and the rest of us, the entire exchange was caught in audio on his cell phone.

The wave of protest regarding the latest TSA outrage has the Tyrants and their sovereign, Janet Napoleon, in full double down mode.  According to the flacks, the intrusions are utterly essential for our collective safety and peace of mind.  And, we are assured, both the grope and the strip are conducted in a "professional" manner by well trained "professionals."  Well, golly gee, that sure makes me feel better; how about you?

First and foremost the claim that the "strip-or-be-groped" approach enhances safety is specious at best.  Even  if the backscatter or microwave virtual strip machines were up to the task of detecting a bomb such as that carried by last December's "Underwear Bomber," they would not have detected the "Anus Bomb" which came within an ace of dispatching the Saudi Arabian head of security several months earlier.

The grope the groin and slap the ass method is no more efficacious.  An anally deployed bomb would slide on by the Tyrants without the slightest risk of being found.  Does this mean the next step will be a drill in three parts: (1) Drop your pants and bend over, (2) Spread your cheeks, (3) Try not to scream as I ream you out.

As the "Anus Bomb" and the "Underwear Bomb" were the products of the same bomb maker, it may be presumed that the Mighty Warriors Of The One True Faith are aware of the deeper alternative as well as the ease with which a martyrdom seeker so equipped can pass on through the phalanx of Tyrants.  As the bomb-maker-in-chief of AQAP was willing to use his own brother as the delivery system for the world's first anus bomb, it can be presumed as well that the man is up to the task again.

It also deserves mention that the TSA strip-or-get-groped tactic and the very expensive machines employed for the first option will have no effect in stopping the shipment of bombs as air cargo.  It was only days ago that the same maker of infernal machines attempted that gambit only to be thwarted by Saudi intelligence and quick work by security personnel at two foreign airports.  It might be prudent for TSA to expend the money and manpower on the less glamorous but more exacting task of inspecting cargo of all sorts in lieu of herding and humiliating human passengers.

The Geek has had the opportunity to see the methods of American and foreign passenger screening methods from an up close and personal perspective.  While countries such as the Netherlands and Israel do possess genuinely well trained and quite professional security personnel on frontline duty, such is not the case here.  In airports large and small, crowded, and nearly deserted, the US version of frontline passenger security remains what it has been from the beginning--the preserve of poorly trained, excessively egoed folks some of whom have only the most nodding of acquaintance with standard English.  What they lack in intelligence, education, empathy, or the slightest vestige of any attribute meriting the appellation "professional" they more than compensate for with an inclination toward the temper of the bully.  Apparently unable to make the cut for the job of warder in a backwoods country jail, they have had no recourse for their personality and skills beyond joining the TSA.

In short, the human dimension of security for the domestic air transport system is as flawed as the technological.  The circle-the-wagons attitude exhibited recurrently by the senior management and executives of both TSA and the Department of Homeland Security is an indirect but quite unmistakable indication that the folks topside in both organs are aware that for all the money and all the new hires, they have failed miserably.

The first line of our defense is today what it has been for years--offshore intelligence.  The last line is today what it has been for years and what was exhibited by the desperate heroism high over Pennsylvania farmland or on the approach to Detroit's airport--the passengers.  The very passengers who are seen by TSA as a type of scum to be threatened and humiliated.

Cheers for John Tyner.  And, boos to TSA

Raising The Ugly(?) Of Profiling

The matter of profiling prospective passengers on international flights (and perhaps other venues as well) is again under discussion. Well, to err on the side of accuracy, perhaps the word "discussion" is inappropriately mild. Acrimonious, emotional exchange of diatribes might be closer to the reality of things.

One ground truth on which all considerations of profiling is simple: It works. The experience of El Al airline over the past thirty years shows that conclusively. This ground truth is the single greatest reason in support of profiling.

The second ground truth regarding profiling is simply that it is offensive to all people who for whatsoever reason fall into the suspect category. The Geek is no stranger to this ground truth as there was a time in this country not that many years ago when all long haired men were viewed by security and police personnel as potential drug smugglers--despite the fact that no person would be so stupid as to use someone of an evident "hippy" appearance to run drugs on their behalf.

The Geek recalls with wry amusement all the times he was taken aside for "enhanced screening" even though he had valid ID up the ying-yang and was travelling on Official Business simply because he wore his hair in long braids in a form of tribute to his Apache ancestors. This sort of intrusive and often quite obnoxious secondary searching happened in a number of US airports as well as some in the UK, Germany, and even Luxembourg. To say the Geek was rankled is to engage in understatement.

Emotionally, therefore he is in sympathy with the views of those who are opposed to profiling as an insult to Muslims, Arabs, other people of color, and so forth. People would be insulted by the inevitable occurrence of profiling errors. The insult will be all the worse given that today's TSA employees are even more given to a species of arrogant rudeness far surpassing that exhibited by their predecessors of a decade and more ago.

Rationally, however, the Geek must go with the position that profiling is a valuable method of screening out potential threats even if it has a high false positive component. Considering both the problems of intelligence analysis pointing to a discrete, identifiable threat, and the exceptional vulnerability of an airliner in flight, the extra sieve of profiling is justified.

The first task is assuring to the greatest extent humanly possible that commercial airliners and other similar high value targets are secure from terrorist threats as the highest priority. A reliance upon advanced, expensive technology alone is insufficient. So is placing all hopes on the leak proof effectiveness of warning intelligence. Even a combination of the two is not sufficient guard to provide the appropriate level of safety for those travelling by air--or living and working on the ground below the flight path.

At the same time profiling is not an anodyne. It cannot and should not be used as the primary barrier in airline security. More, it is not a general purpose tool which can be used with equal effect to protect other high value targets such as sports arenas, concert venues, shopping malls, and office complexes. There are simply too many members of these target constellations with entirely too many of us bipeds coming and going for profiling to have any utility.

This set of considerations implies that the risks of alienating large segments of our own people or foreign populations is inherently limited. There is no real world based reason to conclude that the implementation of profiling will cause diplomatic difficulties with Muslim, Arab, or African nations. Neither, particularly if the matter is handled with any degree of sensitivity below that of purely barbarian, is their any realistic basis for the contention that racism, xenophobia, or any other manifestation of fear and hate will ripple through We the People.

The matrix of features which can be employed in a system of profiling is both well established and generally known. This implies that the utility of profiling is time limited as the Islamist jihadist groups will seek ways to fly below the profiler's radar in the same way the drug smuggling rings quickly learned what sort of person would be most likely to pass by the security and law enforcement surveillance without notice.

In the short term profiling would offer very real advantages in both the deterrence and interdiction of terrorist attempts to target flights to and from the US. Even a short term benefit would have longer term utility as it would provide the time necessary for the US and its allies to develop and implement more effective strategies and operational level doctrine for defeating the Islamist jihadist groups around the world.

There is just one major problem with profiling. It would require that the US government actually put a name to the enemy for the very first time. It would require the dropping of euphemisms like "violent extremist" and call it what it is: Islamist jihadist.

Telling it like it is might be too tough for the Nice Young Man From Chicago, and that means profiling will be dead on arrival forever.