Since 9/11, air marshals have scrambled fighter jets in response to Indian guys swapping SIM cards after takeoff, shot to death a mentally ill man who ran off the plane at the gate yelling that he had a bomb, and played many, many video games on their government issued PDAs.   Meanwhile passengers and crew have stopped the shoe bomber, the undie bomber, the Canary Islands coffee-in-the-face gunman and countless drunk and mentally ill people who tried to rush the cockpit or otherwise acted out.

I’d rather the talents of the air marshals be directed elsewhere.

Your error lies in using the word “the.” The changes are not an indivisible unit. Yes, some security changes have been effective. Formally, reinforced and locked cockpit doors, and more air marshals. Informally, passengers who won’t sit idly bye during  hijacking.

But removing my shoes, using the rapiscan machines, and making me throw out a bottle of water and tube of toothpaste? Not so much.

“X acts as a deterrent” is unfalsifiable

Dave

Antinous,

I can’t reply to your comment directly, so I hope you see this. Apologies if I was being repetitive, but I only had one point to put across. It appears to have been viewed by people as having several meanings, hence several replies.

Cheers

Dave

“God acts as a deterrent”. Prove me wrong.

You *are* joking, right?

“we have stacked security measures from different risk models on top of each other rather than adding and subtracting security actions as we refine the risk strategy.” They are being as obtrusive as possible so that you never forget that they are in charge and they will do what they want.

I do think it’s a bit out-of-control at the moment, but some security is certainly needed. Airplanes are expensive, high-tech equipment, flying in “friendly skies” and filled with relatively affluent people who generally feel safe and secure but who have nowhere to run if something goes wrong. It’s obviously a terrorist favorite.

But before 9/11, Canada had the worst terrorist attack involving a plane, Air India 182, where 329 people died after a suitcase bomb exploded mid-flight in 1985. But Canada didn’t resort to stripping everyone of their constitutional rights (not to mention their clothes) just to fly in and out of the country as a result. It’s possible to strike a balance between security and being respectful of human rights and dignity.

You’ve said the same thing half a dozen times. If you have anything new to add….

I hope you didn’t intend/hope to coach Hawley toward a better showing, if we assume Hawley could not win a debate in any case.

Even if the details weren’t a winning hand, I’d hope you would agree that it’s better hear a serious discussion on the merits of airport security than just to get a regurgitation off the TSA pamphlet.

I believe the original premise of the TSA was to put airport security under government control so that they coordinate it with other federal law enforcement agencies (the whole raison d’être for the DHS) in a way that private screeners could not.

Instead, we have bottom-of-the-barrel rent-a-cops with no enforcement capabilities and who can’t collectively bargain thus ensuring the position is not attractive to someone with talent. The job made to demean law-abiding citizens who haven’t done anything wrong in the random search for someone who might, and requires you to examine people in an environment and manner that a doctor would find questionable (for that matter, why don’t they even have a doctor, or at least a nurse on staff if medical devices are an issue?)

There’s just so much about this that seems like a stopgap measure that never got out of holding the whole thing together with duct tape. Really expensive duct tape.

Quote from my earlier comment:

“Just to be clear. I’m not saying that the TSA does act as a deterrent, I’m saying that it’s wrong to assert that it doesn’t because you cannot know that. ”

I am criticising Schneier and, I suppose, you for not understanding that a lack of evidence for deterrence does not prove that no deterrence has taken place, any more than it proves that it has.

I am not suggesting that Schneier should state that the TSA is a deterrent, I am saying that he is wrong to state:

“The argument that the TSA, by its very existence, deters terrorist plots is equally spurious.”

When he cannot know for sure whether any plots have been deterred.

Dave

Now they need roughly twice as many people per checkpoint:  someone has to check ID, at least one or two more people are needed for the increased groping/swabbing/liquids-scavenging/wallet-rifling, someone has to move all the shoe and laptop bins back landside after they go through the x-ray, sometimes someone asks you innocuous questions to see if you answer like a terrorist, and a supervisor watches them all.   For checkpoints with a nude-o-scope, there are also a couple of blueshirts in a room somewhere checking out your junk. AND they need more checkpoints per passenger because it all takes so much longer.

Plus with all the additional equipment and procedures, they have armies of repair technicians, trainers and middle managers behind the scenes.

I’m ignoring checked baggage screeners, because I think we’d want to keep some version of that (at least the x-rays–I’m less interested in the actual bag-riflers, as they tend to steal things). 

And I’ll spare you my anti-air-marshal tirade. :)

1. There were security checks before 9/11, thereby your argument has no basis in or application to the proposition we are to debate.

2. There was no evidence of bomb usage or planning in the incident that was given as justification for the TSA, and in all subsequent incidents where explosives were present the TSA demonstrably failed to prevent their being brought aboard airliners. As your supportive argument fails, so does the statement you intended it to prove.

3. Is asking oneself a question to answer in order to replace the proposition up for debate proper? No, it is not. In my previous (actual) statements during this debate I called the record of the TSA into question in sharp relief and demonstrated it as smoke and mirrors, without substance. You as of yet refuse to answer properly.

I hope you didn’t intend/hope to coach Hawley toward a better showing, if we assume Hawley could not win a debate in any case.

Here, more concisely.

You criticize Schneier for not giving the TSA credit for deterring terrorist acts, while at the same time demanding that there is no evidence that this is the case. 

Effectively arguing that this lack of evidence is itself evidence.

Be honest now, Are you George W. Bush?

Kidding, but kidding aside please explain without the above flaw why Schneier should credit the TSA as deterrence with no evidence that TSA is deterrent.

You can’t. A lack of evidence is a lack of evidence, and Schneier would be a fool to postulate that the TSA is deterrent with 0 Zero 0 evidence to support the claim.

You say you respect Schneier, I suggest that one of the reasons may be that he would not do that thing.

Hawley’s response is instructive and nearly an admission that this is all merely security theater. “I pay a cost in convenience and privacy to get reasonable certainty that my flight will be terror-free.” Bingo! It’s not about safety, it’s about the illusion of safety.

“we have stacked security measures from different risk models on top of each other rather than adding and subtracting security actions as we refine the risk strategy.” They are being as obtrusive as possible so that you never forget that they are in charge and they will do what they want.

Playing whack-a-mole with attack vectors is similarly stupid.  It’s impossible to cover every possible form of attack on the security proceedures – just ask a prison guard.  Since we’re not stripped naked and handcuffed before flying (yet), the only thing you get with this viewpoint is an ever-increasing list of rules and false positives.  And since each passenger only has an infinitesimal chance of being a terrorist, there are a LOT of false positives.

Likewise, it’s rather stupid to waste time and money on attack vectors that cannot work either because they are stupid or because other, simpler methods have already negated their usefulness.  And yet, we still have bottles of water and fingernail clippers being confiscated.

It’s extremely easy to come up with new attack vectors that would either get through TSA screening or would bypass it.  But the simple changes that have been made would still prevent another disaster.

Erin W’s comment is funny, but specious. Tiger’s are fairly easy to recognise so you can reach a very high level of confidence that none are around. You can’t reach the same level of confidence about potential terrorists that have chosen not to act.

I find it hard to believe that there are people willing to give their lives to crash a plane but not willing to give their lives to drive a truck bomb into a concert hall or chemical factory.

I’m simply saying that you cannot be sure that the number of attacks deterred is zero.

That sounds a lot like Erin W’s tiger-deterring stone above.