Tuesday, March 27, 2012

An Ex-FBI Man Chops to Pieces the TSA

Here are key excerpts from Steve Moore's analysis of the TSA:

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was formed to ensure America’s freedom to travel. Instead, they have made air travel the most difficult means of mass transit in the United States, at the same time failing to make air travel any more secure.

TSA has never, (and I invite them to prove me wrong), foiled a terrorist plot or stopped an attack on an airliner. Ever. They crow about weapons found and insinuate that this means they stopped terrorism. They claim that they can’t comment due to “national security” implications. In fact, if they had foiled a plot, criminal charges would have to be filed. Ever hear of terrorism charges being filed because of something found during a TSA screening? No, because it’s never happened. Trust me, if TSA had ever foiled a terrorist plot, they would buy full-page ads in every newspaper in the United States to prove their importance and increase their budget.

I have a unique position from which to make these statements. For 25 years, as many of readers know, I was an FBI Special Agent, and for many of those years, I was a counter-terrorism specialist. I ran the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) Al Qaeda squad. I ran the JTTF’s Extra-territorial squad, which responded to terrorism against the United States or its interests throughout the world. I have investigated Al Qaeda cell operations in the United States, Pakistan, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Thailand, just to name a few. The FBI and the CIA provides the lion’s share of actionable intelligence on threats to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (the mother organization of TSA), so that they can tailor security screening to the actual threat.

I am, as I have said before, a political conservative, a law and order kind of guy and I get misty when the national anthem is played at a football game and jets fly over in salute. If anything, I am pre-disposed to support the United States government...

The entire TSA paradigm is flawed. It requires an impossibility for it to succeed. For the TSA model to work, every single possible means of causing danger to an aircraft or its passengers must be eliminated. This is an impossibility. While passengers are being frisked and digitally strip-searched a few dozen yards away, cooks and dish washers at the local concourse “Chili’s” are using and cleaning butcher knives.

While bomb-sniffing dogs are run past luggage, the beach at the departure end of LAX is largely unpatrolled, and anybody with a shoulder launched missile (you know the ones they regularly shoot down U.S. helicopters with in Afghanistan) could take out any plane of their choice. I am reticent to discuss anything further that would give anybody ideas. However, these two have had wide dissemination in the media but are by NO means the biggest threats...

I sometimes ruminate while standing in line waiting to take off my shoes, remove my belt, laptop, iPad, etc., etc., about the improvised weapons I saw in prisons and how hard they were to find. It’s fascinating what weapons prisoners can make out of plastic forks, newspapers and toothbrushes. Ask any prison guard if an inmate can make a weapon out of an everyday item, and how long it would take them. Approximately 99% of what the average traveler carries on a plane would be considered contraband in a maximum security prison, due to the fact that it can easily be converted into a weapon. Toothbrushes, Popsicle sticks, pens, pencils, anything with wire (iPod headset), any metal object which can be sharpened, etc., etc. is a potential weapon. Carried to its logical end, TSA policy would have to require passengers to travel naked or handcuffed. (Handcuffing is the required procedure for U.S. Marshalls transporting prisoners in government aircraft.)

TSA’s de facto policy to this point has been to react to the latest thing tried by a terrorist, which is invariably something that Al Qaeda identified as a technique not addressed by current screening. While this narrows Al Qaeda’s options, their list of attack ideas remains long and they are imaginative. Therefore, if TSA continues to react to each and every new thing tried, three things are certain:

1. Nothing Al Qaeda tries will be caught the first time because it was designed around gaps in TSA security.
2. It is impossible to eliminate all gaps in airline security.
3. Airline security screening based on eliminating every vulnerability will therefore fail because it is impossible. But it will by necessity become increasingly onerous and invasive on the travelers...

TSA screening, as it is now, is so predictable and known that Al Qaeda can know with absolute certainty what they can and cannot get through screening. That is valuable intelligence for them. In a word, TSA is predictable. This increases Al Qaeda’s chances of success....

Frankly, the professional experience I have had with TSA has frightened me. Once, when approaching screening for a flight on official FBI business, I showed my badge as I had done for decades in order to bypass screening. (You can be envious, but remember, I was one less person in line.) I was asked for my form which showed that I was unarmed. I was unarmed on this flight because my ultimate destination was a foreign country. I was told, "Then you have to be screened." This logic startled me, so I asked, "If I tell you I have a high-powered weapon, you will let me bypass screening, but if I tell you I'm unarmed, then I have to be screened?" The answer? "Yes. Exactly." Another time, I was bypassing screening (again on official FBI business) with my .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a TSA officer noticed the clip of my pocket knife. "You can't bring a knife on board," he said. I looked at him incredulously and asked, "The semi-automatic pistol is okay, but you don't trust me with a knife?" His response was equal parts predictable and frightening, "But knives are not allowed on the planes."...

Each time the TSA is publically called to account for their actions, they fight back with fear-based press releases which usually begin with “At a time like this….” Or “Al Qaeda is planning—at this moment …..” The tactic, of course, is to throw the spotlight off the fact that their policies are doing nothing to make America safer “at a time like this.” Sometimes doing the wrong thing is just as bad as doing nothing.

The TSA unions are now fighting against any reduction in staff, such as by implementation of more efficient protocols, hiring of contractors, or less draconian screening. It is simply not in their best interest for screening to get quicker or easier because that would require fewer screeners...

Just when I was getting to think that the backscatter x-ray images were humiliating, degrading or invasive, Susan Hallowell, Director of the TSA research lab eased my fear by consenting to have her backscatter image made public.







That’s Ms. Hallowell in the upper photo. And the two below--same day, same time.  See? What’s invasive or embarrassing about those photos? Obviously, I’m overreacting. Several things about these photos struck me; first, I of course noticed that the backscatter x-ray has cleverly detected the gun on her hip (it’s the black object just above her thong in the far left picture). That the gun would have been found by magnetometers in service since the 1970’s is likely not something they would like us to dwell on. Secondarily, I am struck by the similarity of this demonstration to the fable, “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” In that tale, a king is swindled by tailors who create for him a suit of clothes that are invisible to incompetent people. Of course, nobody would admit that they didn’t see the clothes for fear of being branded unfit for their jobs, and certainly the king wasn’t going to say anything.

Looking at these photos, I wonder if something similar isn’t going on here. It is as if patriotic, loyal citizens who care about security and the United States of America and the lives of their fellow citizens will not see this as an abuse of power. Anybody who views these images as dehumanizing, humiliating, unnecessary or abusive are obviously not against terrorism and care little if airplanes filled with families fall to the ground.  But in this situation, it is essential that we shout “the king (or in this case the queen) has no clothes!” Going along with the status quo is the exact opposite of protecting Americans, it is the opposite of saving lives, it is the opposite of preventing terrorism, and it is the opposite of freedom and personal rights.


Moore's full report is here.

51 comments:

  1. Steve Moore asserts the questionable premise that the TSA was created to "ensure American's freedom to travel."

    That is pure BS.

    Americans already have a common law right of travel that dates back to the Magna Carta. Not one single person in America needs the government's permission to travel. I have the liberty and freedom to travel anytime, anywhere I like.

    If anything, government and its agencies impede, thwart, and hinder travel. The TSA was purposely designed to deprive Americans of their rights, freedoms, and liberties.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ok so you read the first sentence,

      - quote -
      The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) was formed to ensure America’s freedom to travel.
      - end quote -

      formed an opinion and fired away.

      Did you read the rest of the FIRST paragraph?

      - quote -
      Instead, they have made air travel the most difficult means of mass transit in the United States, at the same time failing to make air travel any more secure.
      - end quote -

      Read the rest, you will find you agree

      Delete
    2. Indeed!

      Delete
    3. I agree, Michael P., 100%.

      Delete
  2. The TSA isn't worth what it's costing American tax payers and travelers?!? OK, what is it that supposed to be so shocking?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Whether you have the unfettered right to travel is moot, since you can't exercise that right in the U.S. So we all sit around and complain, maybe get a bit annoyed, but the beat down of our rights goes on and on...What are you going to do about? What can you do about?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow...you mean a piece of paper with our rights written on it doesn't stop the sociopath politician from violating them? Wake....see the farm!!!
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xbp6umQT58A
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P772Eb63qIY&feature=BFa&list=SP0629B97DDFA9C7DB&lf=list_related
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLCEXtpTNYU

      Delete
  4. It's more about the totalitarian state than security/protection, and to indoctrinate people that the loss of individual freedom is for the common good. With the passage of NDAA and the latest Obama E.O. the stage has been set for full martial law in the event of war or catastrophe. Don't think for a moment that they won't manufacture either.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are correct. We will in my opinion have to shed blood to ghet the Elite Ruling Criminal Class off our necks.

      Delete
  5. I am, as I have said before, a political conservative, a law and order kind of guy and I get misty when the national anthem is played at a football game and jets fly over in salute. If anything, I am pre-disposed to support the United States government...

    Null and void in my book with this statement. It's absurd and childlike. The conditioning of the people to aquiesce to DHS and it's tentacles is the end game. Nothing "misty" about that !!

    ReplyDelete
  6. As everyone should know by now, only a new administration can have any effect on the continuous and pervasive reduction in individual rights. The TSA NEEDs publicity of possible foreign actions against
    US targets to continually enhance their efforts and expand their budget.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I like the backscatter pics - nice thong and hooters

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You're sick, man.

      Delete
    2. You must be a TSA thug.

      Delete
    3. Yeah, baby. Can someone give me an Amen?

      Delete
    4. Nah, I'm no TSA lover. I feel just like you folks. I just thought I'd throw in some off the wall humor. Gotta laugh at this crap or go nuts.

      Delete
  8. The purpose of TSA procedures is not to make air travel safer. The purpose is to get Americans accustomed to being treated like cattle, with no rights, no honor and no dignity.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Unfortunately I completely agree. What is it that this new aggressive TSA procedure achieves that older methods could not? Dehumanization and unthinking compliance.

      Delete
  9. TSA - Thousands Standing Around. This system does not work, it never worked. It is just smoke and mirrors. If you really want airline security, look to Israel, it's called PROFILING!!! Let's face it grandmother's, babies and little children are not terrorist's or bombers. It's Muslim, Arabic men who are 18 to 35, who strap bombs to themselves and kill themselves and unsuspecting people. The days of political correctness need to be deposited in the dustbin of history!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Amen, or is it politically incorrect to say "Amen"? Seriously you are correct. I'm an airline pilot and our company is so afraid of getting sued for profiling that it's tough to remove anyone off the plane.

      Delete
    2. Anon., 8:41 a.m.

      Read up on 9/11 and who the real perps were. They were not Muslims or Arabs; they were CIA/Mossad/U.S. military.

      The real enemy: U.S. government and its allies across the world.

      Delete
  10. Welcome to the Fascist State of America.

    ReplyDelete
  11. One thing that I have never seen mentioned in the "keeping us safe" argument, is the simple question; keeping us safe from what? Bad guys, bad mechanics, bad aircraft engineers. As Mr. Moore pointed out there are perhaps hundred of different ways that a bad guy could bring down a plane, regardless of the screening procedures, or lack thereof. The truth is that if you added up all the fatalities in commercial aviation from its inception until now (both from accidents and terrorsit acts), it wouldn't come close to the number of traffic fatalities in a single year. Where is the movement to ban cars, or have TSA screeners in your driveway. Oops, forget I said that, it may give them some ideas.

    ReplyDelete
  12. TSA is an ignorant over-reaction to the threat of terrorism, run by mindless bureaucrats, and staffed with minimum-wage types. Osama bin Laden must be laughing at us from Hell.

    Wouldn't a more effective method of airline security be a public program that instructs passengers in how to physically cope with terrorists? For one, I would never passively sit in my seat and let slime-ball(s) take over the plane. Recent incidents amply confirm that I am far from alone in this attitude. There are always more men-passengers than terrorists aboard and numbers alone, if promptly set in motion, would usually have an overpowering effect - I think.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Do you think Osama bin Laden could be laughing from hell? I don't. You can't laugh in hell, because if you did, you would feel happy. So theres no laughing in hell, since its impossible to feel happy in hell. Therefore Osama bin Laden couldn't be laughing in hell. Hahahahaahahaha!
      Speaking of laughing in hell, I think a public program in instructing passangers on how to physically cope with terrorists would be good. First they could learn how to organize ourselves like a football team-only you could mix offence and defense. There would be a quarterback and linemen and linebackers. At the signal, "Lets Roll! the quarterback throws the football in a bullet spiral that knocks out a terroist who may be holding a bomb. The linemen rush the victim and tackle him and the other terrorists who are with him. The linebackers and cornerbacks and safetys also blitz and pick up anybody who might have escaped. It might be a good idea to have bullet proof vests on, but then again, TSA people wouldn't let anybody on the plane who might be wearing one. On the other hand, i think a much better idea is to seriously think about getting rid of the real terrorists in Washington, who support Homeland Security and The Patriot Act and TSA.

      Delete
  13. Nothing beats individual common sense at keeping you safe. TSA has none! You are only safer today than before 911 simply because no one is going to sit idle and allow someone to complete a terrorist act any longer.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Concerning the failure rate (100%) of the TSA I have said exactly the same thing as the author in the past. Everytime that the terrorist is caught it is because of the public on the plane not the TSA who let them though. The TSA has a 100% failure rate...100%!!! Who would get on an airplane, car or boat if the KNEW FOR POSITIVE CERTAIN THAT THEY WERE GOING TO BE IN AN ACCIDENT!

    ReplyDelete
  15. BINGO!

    One of my more interesting assignments a few years ago had me designing and inspecting compliance with a physical security plan for an area of about 2,000-3,000 acres of real property, with warehouses, motorpools, massive amounts of materiel, and about 5,000 people.

    Steve Moore is spot on. Roving security teams, variable security methods, and a highly developed reaction force are what works.

    Predictable security is a placebo.

    TSA isn't even that. TSA is play-acting.

    The nature of the TSA's policies, their reactions, their methods, are infantile. This is not a criticism of their employees, though they have their faults too, but a criticism of their leadership.

    I wouldn't trust these people to provide appropriate and effective security at a Starbucks. How the h... did they get these jobs?

    Only a complete lay-person would define anything they are doing as security. To the rest they look like clowns.

    Airports would be much better off hiring their own security...but only if they can ditch the infantile TSA security measures.

    TSA has no business defining measures, when their measures have proven incompetent. They've also displayed rank stupidity by trying to fake it.

    TSA... Here's what to do:

    FIRSTLY:
    Define the outcome, not the process.

    Here are some examples of appropriate results to define:

    1- Airport security should prevent the use of aircraft or airport facilities in such a way that they can constitute credible security risks to non-travellers and off-airport facilities.
    (a.k.a. No turning airports or planes into weapons. VERY IMPORTANT - the narrower the defined outcome, the more achievable.)

    2- Airport security should provide a level of security within the airport/on aircraft for travellers and others commensurate with that found in other heavily populated public areas.
    (a.k.a. Enforce local laws on the premises.)


    SECONDLY, PERFORM OUTCOME BASED COMPLIANCE ASSESSMENT:
    This one is really simple.

    Have teams try to do one of the things they are not supposed to be able to do. Number one means NO BOMBS OR GUNS ON PLANES, for instance, because pieces of aircraft falling outside the airport are bad news to anyone under them.

    If they don't do a credible job, fines are in order for creating a public hazard.

    Understand! Security costs. Infinite Security costs infinitely.

    Methods to 'catch' terrorists are largely antithetical to preventing terrorist activities. (honey-pots, covers, etc.)

    As for preventing hijacking/on-board misbehavior by way of crew/passenger hostages or other violent behavior...

    Passengers are doing this pretty effectively now. Airlines could certainly put these kinds of passengers in the aisle seats...

    ReplyDelete
  16. These two keywords are probably most responsible for the ineffectiveness / incompetence: TSA unions. Once I came upon the paragraph in the article starting with those keywords, it then came together.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Looks to me like she has a good start on a spare tire. (are those allowed aboard airplanes?)

    ReplyDelete
  18. Anyone who thinks the reason for the TSA is to make air travel safer is naive. The push by the government to control us has been going on for decades and is accelerating as time goes on. The main reason for the TSA is to separate us from our dignity, and they are doing a good job of that. We now have fathers allowing their young children to be fondled by perverts. Mark my words, the TSA will be checking your, your wife's, your daughters and sons' anal cavities for explosives soon, and you will go along with it all in the name of safe travel.

    ReplyDelete
  19. All our suspicions are confirmed by all of the "Anonymous"comments.
    Big brother IS watching!

    ReplyDelete
  20. Yet another reason we know the TSA is BS.
    Every post 911 incident was on flights originating outside the US with non citzens as the bad actors. But that means back here at OK Corral, all the local yokels have to go thru security.
    Huh?
    If Americans can't figure this out, this ain't America any more.
    Beam me up Scotty.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Oh brother, is that an actual policy....

    My brother-in-law told me that they confiscated his folding knife even though he was travelling with his glock-22 (and badge). I thought for sure this has to be an isolated incident. I guess not...

    The agency is a joke, and will continue to be until they get someone killed with their security play acting.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Postulate #1)
    Anything which increases the number of GOVERNMENT jobs and GOVERNMENT union members will ALWAYS be pushed though by the GOVERNMENT.

    Postulate #2)
    Anything run by the Government and overseen by the GOVERNMENT will, in short order FAIL or PERVERT it's intended purpose due to Postulate #1.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Chertoff, the Homeland Security guru for Baby Bush convinces BB to buy those expensive porn-screeners and then ends up a principal in the outfit that builds them. What else is there to know?

    ReplyDelete
  24. I love this article, but i'm afraid the battle is already lost. The best indication i've seen of that?

    At George Bush Airport in Houston, they have a message that plays on the loud speaker not so politely reminding people that it is a crime punishable by jail time to criticise or make jokes about TSA.

    We have entered the era of thought crime.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So where is the ACLU in all of this?

      Delete
  25. I had a friend once who purchased a local trailer court and the first thing he did some 30 years ago was to rename the court streets comming off the main road as follows. Burocrats the next one was Cause & the third was changed to Expense. So as you drove down the main road past his trailer court the street signs read Burocrats Cause expense. True 30 years or more ago as it is today. You can not vote burocrats out of office but you can vote the people who create their jobs out of office. If we vote every election, sooner or later big government will start getting smaller. We need to decrease the size of the Governments which should make them, the people we vote into office, more responsive to what we want. We should cut their pay & give them the same bennies as the public they serve get. Quit the BS & start Voting each & every election.

    ReplyDelete
  26. correct the spelling while you see if it meets your standards too please.

    ReplyDelete
  27. This is something I have said from the beginning. Right after TSA was started my granddaught was brought to visit and they made her take off her shoes she was five years old at the time. We went on a cruise and had to go throught all the security every time we got on and off the ship. We might have become terroists while on shore! Writting letters, putting forth your opinion and trying to do something about it doesn't work only gets you on a nut list. My letter to the editor about the invasive screening above was published, it matters not what you think any more as most people do not think any more just do as they are told. Unfortunatly for me I have to speak out. Notice all the Anonymous comments (mine being one) its because we know we are losing the fight and do not want to get thrown in jail because we speak out.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Does anyone know if Congress persons (House and Senate) have to go through the TSA shakedown? Or if there is any exemption for anyone? An interesting fact: on a recent trip to Austria and Germany, I flew via Lufthansa from Dulles outside DC in Ecomnomy class (cattlecar). After getting on board the 747 after the TSA roust each passenger got a clean pillow and blanket; all drinks were free, and the dinner was a full meal, quite satisfying, and the silverware with the meal was real stainless knives, forks and spoons.

    Upon return to the U.S. the security procedures in leaving both Austria and Germany were pretty much the pre-9/11 type. Have you noticed how many Austrian or Lufthansa planes have been hijacked using silverware? Hah!

    I would suggest the U.S. airlines use plastic implements as a cost cutting measure rather than any security concerns.

    ReplyDelete
  29. The same thing could be said for the FBI. How come they didn't prevent 911? Are we wasting money on them.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Our Government created this asinine monstrosity called the TSA to make us compliant with Government goons. As Americans we are 750 times more likely to be killed by our own doctor's malpractice than a terrorist. http://stpeteforpeace.org/real.threat.html

    So where do they spend billions of printed dollars we don't have to spend? Wars all over the planet. Leave it up to the morons in our federal government.

    ReplyDelete
  31. The TSA makes typical Rent-a-cops look like Special Forces.

    ReplyDelete
  32. If we stop flying....someone will take notice and maybe....they will be out of a job....and we can save gazillions of dollars.

    ReplyDelete
  33. It's not about security. It's about conformity. And it's not about us now. It's about the next few generations as they're gradually desensitized to Big Brother with every passing year. A case in point would be the after-effects of 9/11 on different generations. While you are almost certain to find members of the older generations to balk at the obvious loss of liberty since, you also almost certainly cannot find very many members of the younger generations that think of it as anything but absolutely necessary for our safety and well-being. Just like any other ire-inspiring changes; Sooner than later everyone gets used to and accepts them

    ReplyDelete
  34. A year or so ago, I saw a TSA hiring poster at a Gas station in one of the worst areas of Richmond. They were offering the wonderful starting salary of $12/hr. in a neighborhood full of homeless people and drug dealers. And you wonder why TSA "officers" have an attitude and want to exercize their "authority"?

    ReplyDelete
  35. get rid of tsa now, before it spreads like the cancer it is.

    ReplyDelete
  36. More fuel for the fires of contempt. With a socialistic president reelected now this agenda will proceed rapidly. I will stick to driving, four wheels on the ground until they outlaw it.

    ReplyDelete
  37. One of my greatest fears is that the government with authorize firearms and/or stun guns to TSA. Research hopw Hiltler's Brownshirts got started. It's all "for the safety & good of the people".

    ReplyDelete