I got to fly this week, again sampling the finest cuisine and security of Canada’s Airports. The cuisine I can address in only a few words: Unavailable Crap on the planes, Readily Available crap in the terminals. The security, well, that’s a different show.
It set me to thinking about airport security now that we’re five years out from 9/11. What lessons have we learned and what can we do better?
I think we’re all agreed that there is a need for airport screening before you get to the airplane. I think we’re all agreed that people carrying on knives, box cutters, propane torches, guns, machetes, handcuffs or grenades is not in the best interests of increased security in the air. I think we’re all agreed that we want to feel vaguely safe when we fly and that the likelihood of someone hijacking the aircraft is reduced as much as it can be. How we get there is another story.
Rentacops doing security screening is not the way to go. That was the system in place before 9/11. The FAA said that there must be security screening for anyone going airside and the airlines had to pay for it, so the airlines and the airports did it as cheaply as possible. That meant rentacops being paid minimum wage to be on guard against all the potential badness that could converge on an airliner. Post 9/11 the forming of CATSA and TSA was government-mandated and the training was extensive, at least on paper. Salaries for the screeners? Minimum wage. We’ve substituted rentacops from private security firms with federally employed rentacops.
Which explains a scene I saw in an airport that shall remain nameless. Two screeners, both ostensibly looking at the X-ray output of the various bags, were arguing over who was going on break and when. The image in front of them received exactly three seconds of their attention. I timed them. The only way they could have spotted something illegal would be if it had burst into flames in front of them, or had a bright orange flashing label that said "GUN".
I don’t buy the ‘they’re trained professionals’ line. To examine an x-ray of a bag takes more than three seconds. Nobody is that good. Nobody highly motivated is that good. Most certainly nobody arguing about breaks and being paid minimum wage is that good. To do a proper physical pat-down search takes 15 seconds on a handcuffed subject. To X-ray inspect a bag should take at least that long, if not longer.
After I collected my stuff, I saw a man sitting near the supervisor’s stand, wearing a CATSA ID and looking like a supervisor. I approached him and asked about the x-ray displays. In many airports the actual output of the x-ray is shielded from the passengers. At this particular airport, I could watch all the output screens at all the security lines. I said so. He told me that it wasn’t an invasion of privacy and it had been checked out by the lawyers.
I explained that I could care less about someone seeing what was in my bag. I was concerned that everyone can see exactly what level of detail the screeners see. By knowing what the screeners can and cannot see, a potential bad guy can figure out where to hide and how to hide things in a carryon bag. The supervisor pointed out that the second floor mezzanine surrounds the x-ray area and anyone can sit up there for hours watching the x-ray screens and the screeners to find the patterns and holes in the system.
Since Buddy the Supervisor wasn’t getting it, I suggested either a small hood over the x-ray display to preclude shoulder surfing, or the 3M privacy filter that adheres right on the CRT itself. Both would stop prying eyes, the hood being the cheapest and fastest. He said he’d "bring it up." Or "Fuck off and die."
I left the immediate area and hung around a little bit to watch the show. Off to one side, just standing there, watching the screening process. Nobody on any of the three lines spent more than four seconds looking at the x-ray images in the ten minutes I spent watching the watchers. It wasn’t like I was subtle either. I was never challenged or approached by either CATSA or anyone else asking what I was looking at and why.
I also watched the security swabbers too. That swab of your laptop is supposed to pick up any explosive residue and the Kenner Easy-Bake Oven they slip the piece of cloth into is a gas detector and stripped down chromatograph. It looks for the basic chemical signatures of explosives and alerts the screener. The idea is explosive residues mean the human in front of them has been near something bad and should immediately be questioned more.
I don’t know the exact protocol, but using the same swab on eleven different laptops means the results from the swabbing of the surfaces are so cross-contaminated as to be meaningless. It would be like your doctor using the same needle on eleven different patients in a row. Not good.
Which brings up two interesting stories. One from www.slashdot.com where a certain Christopher Soghoian had successfully posted a way to reproduce a NWA Boarding Pass on his blog, inserting whatever damn name you want to see.
In February of last year, Senator Chuck Schumer D-NY, did more or less the same thing at http://www.senate.gov/~schumer/SchumerWebsite/press_releases/2005. Needless to say Sen. Chuck Schumer did not get his front door broken down by the FBI. As for Christopher Soghoian? He did get an unfriendly visit from the FBI. Yesterday.
Based on what I’ve seen as a frequent flyer over the years and these two stories, the whole TSA and CATSA system is broken. It is bullshit theatre to make us think we’re safe. It has nothing to do with actually capturing potential bad guys trying to get on airplanes. It has everything to do with posturing.
Since I don’t mind poking a red-hot needle in the eye of the authorities, I am obligated to tell them how to fix their little scam. Which I will do in the next post, if only to be fair to the idiots who run our "security" infrastructure.
RoadDave 