Thursday, March 21, 2013

Does the TSA have a gun fixation?

 

TSA News


The road to hell is paved with the good intentions of the TSA

Posted: 20 Mar 2013 07:53 PM PDT


I hear this sentiment frequently from TSA apologists: "The TSA's intentions are good, so we ought to support what the TSA does." I can actually appreciate this argument.

It may well be true that every person working for the TSA sincerely believes that irradiating passengers, separating children from their parents and toys, confiscating shampoo, cupcakes, and plastic toy hammers, and sticking their hands down people's pants makes aviation safer. I'm willing to concede that point and continue with the assumption that the TSA is doing these things because someone believes that doing these things prevents terrorism.

But having said that, I want to argue further that (A) sincere beliefs can be wrong: the TSA is demonstrably failing to keep weapons off planes and failing to identify terrorists, and (B) measures taken to improve safety frequently backfire and either cancel out or in fact increase the risks they are supposed to address, and the TSA is a textbook case.

To point A: loaded guns, a five-pound block of C4, box cutters, and Adam Savage's 12-inch razor blades are all known to have been carried into the passenger compartments of aircraft since the TSA's offensive searches began. Just last week, the TSA failed to detect a stun gun in the carry-on of an accused rapist. The latest tests of which we are aware show results such a 70% failure rate to detect weapons and explosives, five out of five guns successfully carried through a body scanner in Dallas, and a man setting off a rather large explosion on German TV with the objects he carried through a body scanner.

The TSA cannot keep weapons off planes even if they could detect all weapons, because everyday objects like shoelaces and credit cards and even one's bare hands can all be turned into weapons.

The Government Accountability Office (p.46) says behavior detection officers failed to identify 16 known terrorists as they transited airports on 23 separate occasions, as against a success rate of *zero* terrorists identified. The TSA can't find terrorists or weapons with the methods they're using.

To point B: Yes, it's possible for the cure to be worse than the disease! Examples abound: adding road caution signs can increase cognitive load such that the accident rate rises; requiring bicycle helmets raised the accident rate in Australia because the law reduced cycling by one-third, and the smaller number of cyclists on the road were more surprising to motorists; and gated communities meant their gates to keep out crime but found they also compromised rapid emergency response. Security expert Bruce Schneier has written extensively about the unintended consequences of misguided "security." We've quoted him here repeatedly.

The TSA abuses people. Tens of thousands of people.

The TSA causes diversion from the airplanes to the roads, causing 15 deaths for every million passengers diverted.

The TSA endangers people's health by pressing on injured areas, removing bandages, and contaminating wounds, by demanding that disabled people walk or stand in stress positions — even double-amputees — by confiscating medically necessary supplies, and by breaking insulin pumps and other sensitive medical devices with their scanning machines.

The TSA trains children to let strangers touch their bodies, and re-traumatizes PTSD and rape survivors.

The TSA exposes people needlessly to carcinogenic radiation, of which there is no safe dose.

It's entirely possible to accept these two statements simultaneously: the TSA has only the best intentions when it searches passengers, and the TSA should be immediately disbanded or at least severely restricted in what it can do to innocent travelers.

(Photo: Claire Wilkinson/Flickr Creative Commons)

Does the TSA have a gun fixation?

Posted: 20 Mar 2013 06:08 AM PDT

Maybe the TSA hasn't ever caught a single terrorist red-handed, but it's given us something almost as good: guns. Lots of guns.

Guns are a hot topic today, and not just in Washington. The TSA
confiscated them in record numbers last year, and most of them were loaded. They make news, even in small amounts.

No one is going to argue that having guns on planes is a good idea, even after the TSA's surprise announcement that some knives would be allowed. But is it fair to connect aviation safety to the confiscation of firearms?

If the objective is to stop airborne terrorism, probably not. The weapon du jour isn't a gun. It's too obvious. Instead, the terrorists apparently prefer boxcutters (9/11) and plastic explosives (Richard Reid and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab).

During the last attempted hijacking, which happened in China in 2012, extremists reportedly used perfectly legal metal canes to try to take over the aircraft. They failed because passengers fought back.

Guns are rarely used to hijack a plane anymore. After a rash of firearm-related incidents in the '60s and '70s, loaded weapons fell out of favor with terrorists. The last time one was used was in 2009, when a lone gunman forced his way through security onto a Canadian aircraft in Jamaica. The standoff ended with no casualties.

There's probably a bad reason why terrorists don't pack guns. Fear of an "explosive" decompression, which was debunked on a popular cable TV show a few years ago. Thanks, Hollywood.

Also, it's just too obvious.

Permanent emergency?

And yet the TSA acts as if it's stopping planes from falling out of the sky by confiscating guns from passengers — almost all of which were inadvertently packed in a carry-on bag.

Consider, for example, the recent case of Robert Kellerman of Long Pond, Pa., who was arrested by Port Authority Police officers in Newark. His "crime"? Accidentally packing his gun in his carry-on luggage. Was Kellerman going to run the plane into a skyscraper or reroute it to Cuba? No. It appears he didn't even know he'd packed the weapon.

Same thing goes for 52-year-old Christopher Ledford of Kennesaw, Ga., who was arrested at the Atlanta airport for bringing a gun through a TSA checkpoint in early February. At the time, he was the ninth air traveler of the year whose gun was confiscated by agents in Atlanta.

These passengers are guilty of only one thing: being forgetful.

Time to stop looking for guns?

Should TSA stop searching for firearms? Of course not. Even before the agency's existence, firearms weren't allowed on planes, and with good reason.

But let's not lose our sense of perspective. The TSA treats every firearms confiscation as if it's just stopped a 9/11 sequel.

"26 firearms discovered this week!" it recently proclaimed on its blog. "24 were loaded and seven had rounds chambered. Here are pictures of some of the firearms."

The confiscations are a double-edged sword. With the public's attention fixed on guns, we're often reminded of the many weapons that get through, suggesting our so-called "gold-standard" airport security is a lot more porous than we're willing to admit.

But it's also a distraction from the real problem. If the flying public is led to believe that the TSA is making progress and stopping criminals from boarding a plane, then it can continue to justify its bloated $8-billion-a-year budget.

Truth is, the TSA is looking for a one-in-a-billion terrorist who wants to blow up a plane, and the rest of the time, it's supposed to be in the customer-service business, coaching passengers through a hopelessly convoluted and confusing screening process. (Though more often than not, it's bullying them.)

The TSA's gun obsession is just that — a pointless obsession that detracts from its real mission.

 

 

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