Possible? Sure. It’s just not very likely.

Take Something Away

Taste Stifling Authority

Tacitly Sacrifice Autonomy

Terribly Shameful Actions

Take-downs Seem Arbitrary

Torture Some Arabs

Tactile Senseless Advances

Truly Seeks Abrogation

Padster123 @22, they already are. Last year I was scheduled for a flight out of an airport terminal that had exceptionally incompetent security procedures. The only way I got to my plane on time was by bribing one of the employees.

Takuan @26, the Clear program’s problems only start with the institutionalization of bribery.

First: it punches a huge hole through our airport security systems. Giving up two pieces of gov’t ID plus your fingerprints and iris images, and passing a quick background check, is no guarantee that you aren’t a terrorist. The guys who carried off the 9/11 attacks would all have been eligible for Clear registrations.

Second, if it’s supposed to yield quicker security checks for Clear registrants, they can’t be taking fingerprints and doing iris scans at the security checkpoint. Therefore, the actual checking mechanism will be that the person getting checked through looks reasonably similar to the person on the Clear documentation, and holds passable specimens of the government ID listed on it.

Third, I strongly doubt there are going to be adequate security measures protecting the registrant info. If the system leaks, which it likely will, it’s going to be a cornucopia of high-quality information for identity thieves and other impersonators. An additional piece of fallout will be that everyone with a Clear registration will have their ID permanently compromised. You can get a new driver’s license or a new passport, but you can’t get new fingerprints and irises.

Fourth, if the Clear system catches on, it means the full weight of the TSA’s inconvenience, irrationality, and petty tyranny won’t fall on the powerful, important, knowledgeable, or well-connected. It’s much harder to correct abuses that don’t fall on those groups.

Fifth, having private contractors keep our security lists is a thin fiction. If the government laid down the criteria for the list, and has constant access to it, then the government is keeping lists of who is and isn’t allowed to travel. They’re just keeping them in a place where normal oversight and regulations don’t apply.

This is troubling. All you’d have to do is declare we’re in imminent danger of attack, then crank up the security to eleven, to turn our airport security system into one where only people who’ve been given clearance by the government are allowed to travel freely. It would be quasi-legal. You aren’t keeping people from traveling if you make them wait in a security line for three hours, then tell them they’re now required to show a notarized copy of their birth certificate, then tell them they can’t be allowed past that point because they have to have a valid gate pass, and the one they’re holding is for a flight that left hours ago.

The TSA already has a Human Resources department. What reason is there for them to contract out their HR work to Lockheed, if not to put it outside normal governmental oversight?

AFO @41: That’s a good point. If the guy’s not on the no-fly list, but the airlines say they were following a list provided by the TSA, then the TSA is maintaining and using lists the public isn’t being told about.

Ken Hansen (58), I’m sorry you missed our discussion of the TSA numbers just the other day, in particular the complete unreliability of that specific quote from the TSA.

Spare us the heavy-handed sarcasm. We don’t trust the TSA because they’ve demonstrated over and over again that they’re not trustworthy.

Meanwhile, the quotes from Kip Hawley in that article Takuan linked to are appalling:

TSA has screened 3.5 billion passengers since the start-up of the agency, Hawley said, adding, “That’s more than the population of the world. That means that our officers, when they’re not focused on the Standard Operating Procedure and they’re not going through our checklist, that they’re going through information in their own subconscious. This is incredibly valuable information that allows them to pick up on cues if we train them on it and encourage them to use it.” The Checkpoint Evolution training means getting away from the mentality of, “Did I complete the checklist? If I did, I’m done with my job,” Hawley said. “We have to do our job of not letting prohibited items through, but my job is not finished until I’ve stopped an attack.”

If he thinks that’s stopping an attack, he’s incompetent. What he’s talking about doing is training and encouraging screeners to depart from whatever guidelines they’ve been using, and give free rein to “information in their own subconscious.”

That’s insane. The reason you have guidelines for security personnel is to keep them from operating on that basis. The subconscious is good at putting odd clues together and telling you when to flee, but it’s neither just nor consistent. Your subconscious can help inform your implementation of guidelines, but it can’t be allowed to supersede them.

Stop worrying! They’re only after the bad guys, right? *wink wink*

It was not the 3.5 Billion passengers screened that I was questioning, it was his assertion that it was more than the population of the world.

Per the World Population Clock the current world population is ~6.68 Billion, almost double his 3.5 billion figure.

(Apropos of nothing, I just think trombones sound awesome.)

I guess we can fly those flags at half-staff, freedom is dead and we the sheep were fully complicit in the homicide

But don’t worry, the bad ole islamofascists won’t get you, who needs liberty when you’re safe

You are safe?

Because you sure as hell aint America anymore

Enjoy the journey

WarLord

Assuming he has to do something we don’t, I’m wondering how significant 11 flights is. What proportion of his airline flights is that? It seems like a lot, but perhaps he’s been flying three or four times a week, and the pattern is just confirmation bias. How many times had this happened to him before the article?

“Sometimes” the person at the counter has to make a phone call. How many times is that? How many times had this happened to him before the article?

I hate the TSA as much as anyone, but I’m not convinced something funky is going on here.

The Slow Autocracy