Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/business/security-check-now-starts-long-before-you-fly.html?hp

by chaostheory • 13 years ago

58 67 13 years ago

EGreg6• 13 years ago

I am not worried about it. People care about security and don't welcome the hassle. For the privacy advocates when it comes to public transportation like flying: what do you fear may happen as a result of greater background checks?

This article reminded me of this one from 3 years ago: http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/why_israeli_airport_securit...

(PS: I predict this comment will be heavily voted down just because people disagree with me, and I want to see whether HN users on aggregate punish opposing views or reward a willingness to reasonably discuss something.)

However, the below doesn't make much sense together:

"The prescreening, some of which is already taking place, is described in documents the T.S.A. released to comply with government regulations about the collection and use of individuals’ data, but the details of the program have not been publicly announced.

It is unclear precisely what information the agency is relying upon to make these risk assessments."

So what is the regulation about disclosing collection of info, if it's still unclear after disclosure what information they are using?

angersock7• 13 years ago

Fuck it, let's just argue the other way and save some time.

What evidence is there that we should ignore the well-known design principles of encapsulation and separation-of-concerns and thus allow the TSA to access data held by other agencies?

jamesaguilar6• 13 years ago

Those are programming design principles, not security principles nor natural laws. It does not do to assume that principles in one domain carry over to other domains.

EGreg6• 13 years ago

Encapsulation and separation of concerns does not mean that data is inaccessible to requesters when it is needed. It just means it's accessed through the proper interfaces and the right clearances are given.

If the TSA has MORE information then there will be LESS hassle and MORE accuracy. That, multiplied by the number of people currently affected and delayed by the security checks should also improve the experience by quite a lot.

dhimes2• 13 years ago

That's the way it was before 911; before the Department of Homeland Security. After 911, there was a clusterfuck of confusion about who knew what because Customs didn't want to talk to the TSA who didn't want to talk to the Secret Service who didn't want to talk to.... Or that was what we were told.

In part to alleviate this symptom, the responsibilities for 22 departments were thrown together under the DHS. So, at least the administration running things at the time thought they saw evidence that it was needed.

drcube• 13 years ago

For the privacy advocates when it comes to public transportation like flying: what do you fear may happen as a result of greater background checks?

False positives, increased harassment/inconveniece of innocent people, chilling effects, driving people away from airlines towards other, less efficient means of long distance travel, even as airlines are struggling to stay in business. TSA becoming more powerful, free citizens becoming desensitized to privacy invasions, increased rape-scans, crotch fondling, etc.

Generally, it makes our country a worse place to travel to/from/within. And what are the benefits, again? Because I'm not seeing any, and that is the question you should be asking, not simply "what's the harm?".

EGreg6• 13 years ago

I would argue that there are MORE false positives when you don't have enough information. After all, mathematically speaking let's say you sample X things versus X + Y things. Assuming there to be a similar probability distribution for the decision making (same first moments at least), a greater sample size would lead to greater accuracy and therefore less false positives, as well as less false negatives.

jnbiche3• 13 years ago

I downvoted you. Frankly, I would have upvoted you if not for your ridiculous meta comment about HN, including: "I predict this comment will be heavily voted down just because people disagree with me [...]".

I suspect that your comments about what HN is or isn't likely to do in response to your comment is why you're being downvoted, not because of your rational (if wrongheaded) discussion.

I rarely engage in meta debates, and it's possible you're just trolling, but I just wanted you to know.

blisterpeanuts• 13 years ago

Politically tinged comments seem to get downvoted quite a bit here, similarly to Slashdot and many other forums. I've experienced this myself. In my opinion, downvoting a comment for any reason other than flagrant trolling, personal attacks, or similar content that degrades the dialogue should be considered inappropriate use of the privilege, because it undermines the feature and renders it pointless. On a Slashdot political topic, I have to read at -1 to catch all the points of view.

EGreg6• 13 years ago

I appreciate that feedback, but I actually added that "prediction" after the value on the comment reached -2. So I am pretty sure it was because people disagreed with my stance, as I had provided a bunch of thoughtful reasoning besides simply stating my opinion and the comment was inviting reasonable discussion.

So I decided to call out this phenomenon and make this a genuine test of whether I would be downvoted simply because people disagreed with my position, WITHOUT discussing it first. But sadly it was contaminated by people like you downvoting because I had violated a guideline. I guess in retrospect it wasn't that productive to do it.

mindcrime• 13 years ago

People care about security

The TSA doesn't do anything to make us more secure. They might (maybe) make you marginally more secure on the airplane, but if you stop and think about it... a terrorist doesn't need to blow up an airplane to cause terror. All they need is a large number of people compacted into a fairly small space, where their destructive devices can cause large numbers of injuries or deaths.

Like, for example...

...

in line in front of the TSA security checkpoint.

Yep, by adding another chokepoint / bottleneck, the TSA have created a new target. They haven't done anything to solve the problem, they've only moved it.

DanBC• 13 years ago

You're not allowed to take stuff through that checkpoint because it might be an explosive, so they take the stuff off you, and put it in a big bin, next to the line of people.

mikeash• 13 years ago

"For the privacy advocates when it comes to public transportation like flying: what do you fear may happen as a result of greater background checks?"

I fear that some mistake, perhaps just data corruption in some gigantic database somewhere, will affect my government file and permanently ruin my life.

ape4• 13 years ago

Of course, when they scan your passport (drivers license) into their computer at the security desk they are looking you up. That data was gathered before you arrived at the airport.

jevinskie• 13 years ago

For instance, an update about the T.S.A.’s Transportation Security Enforcement Record System, which contains information about travelers accused of “violations or potential violations” of security regulations, warns that the records may be shared with “a debt collection agency for the purpose of debt collection.”

This is absurd. So now the government is snitching on citizens who are traveling domestically.

malandrew3• 13 years ago

Wait, WTF does airport security have to do with debt collection?

dmix• 13 years ago

What does 99.99-% of phone call records have to do with Terrorism/National Security?

Mass data collection doesn't discriminate. These organizations are in the business of collecting everything about you. "Debt collection" is just their primary business.

For ex, most American pharmacies sell what prescriptions people are buying [1] to data mining companies. But they at least "de-identify", due to federal regulations. TSA operates outside quite a few laws/regulations protecting individual rights. We can now add information privacy to that list.

http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2011/06/pharmacies-selling-presc...

weland• 13 years ago

Well, who knows if someone's gonna be so pissed off at tax collectors that he's gonna blow a fucking plane out of the sky. I mean, really pissed off.

Sorry, I couldn't find anything better :(. I've taken the Devil's case pro bono, he's probably gonna fire my ass.

chiph• 13 years ago

So if you aren't allowed through the checkpoint, you may not even be able to rent a car to get to your destination?

gohrt• 13 years ago

The patriot thing to do is to opt in to all the physically invasive screenings and opt out of all the data collection.

The more time spent on searching you at the airport, the more everyone else is delayed (shared sacrifice) and the more visible these security theatrics are.

EGreg6• 13 years ago

What baffles me is how come the subway system has never seen major terrorist attacks despite having very low security and carrying millions of New Yorkers (or citizens of other cities) a day.

I am very thankful for this, but wondering why. If someone wanted to cause a massive amount of damage it would not be difficult to do.

lazyant• 13 years ago

er.. London?

AlisdairSH• 13 years ago

and Tokyo?

PilateDeGuerre• 13 years ago

Perhaps terrorism isn't quite the threat to us that the US state makes it out to be.

frank_boyd3• 13 years ago

It increasingly looks like the "ruling 1%" are preparing for social unrest, respectively for the protection of their power and wealth which will be questioned.

seszett• 13 years ago

There were attacks in London, and a while before that quite a few bombings in the Paris metro. The US don't have a lot of terrorist attacks overall, so I suppose that simply makes it less likely that any particular target might be bombed.

frank_boyd3• 13 years ago

Police State v1.0

angersock7• 13 years ago

Please don't make this sort of comment without more useful things to say.

auctiontheory• 13 years ago

So many cold-war era US criticisms of the Soviet bloc are coming true in this country, except that the surveillance here is more effective than what we saw in The Lives of Others.

MrZongle2• 13 years ago

"Papers, please" has been replaced with "Wait while we review our database containing your personal information".

This is the road to a police state.

fijal• 13 years ago

That does not make the "papers please" part disappear btw. Last time I checked, the queues were long anyway.

JonSkeptic• 13 years ago

The T.S.A. has emphasized its goal of giving 25 percent of all passengers lighter screening by the end of next year, meaning they can keep their shoes and jackets on, wait in separate lines and leave laptop computers in their bags. But travelers who find themselves in the higher-risk category can be subjected to repeated searches.

So if we are good Citizens, we will be rewarded. Only bad Citizens have something to hide and they will be molested for it.

Somehow this does not comfort me at all.

fibbery• 13 years ago

bad citizens and brown people...

malandrew3• 13 years ago

Worse yet, I was under the impression that only citizens that have been arrested and fingerprinted had their fingerprints on file. Now with this, they are creating a reason to get a completely law-abiding citizen's fingerprint on file. We've been successful in avoiding a national ID system, but it looks like one is now being implemented via the TSA under the guise of a "convenience program" that you are coerced into participating in by increasingly making your live a living hell if you don't.

It would be valuable to bring something like this to the attention of the NRA, because they are one of the few groups that does a lot of work to prevent a national ID program and centralized databases of biometric markers.

thex86• 13 years ago

Question for the Americans: what is still keeping the TSA in business, even in spite of all these draconian practices? Why can't someone fight the TSA in SCOTUS?

Things like this make me really glad to be living in Canada. At least there is some - if not a lot - expectation of privacy and protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

refurb• 13 years ago

What makes you think Canada isn't working hand-in-hand with the TSA?

As we've seen over the past couple of months, the only difference between the US and rest of Europe is that the US intelligence system is on the front page of the news right now. Everyone else is doing similar stuff, just not in the spotlight.

contextual• 13 years ago

The US government is racist. It's as simple as that. And their fixation with people who look of Arab descent is only going to get worse as citizens shrug their shoulders in resignation and accept that too[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shifting_baseline

znowi• 13 years ago

Privacy groups contacted by The New York Times expressed concern over the security agency’s widening reach

At this rate of government's lust for control and power, it is time to express outrage already.

I'll enjoy watching when they introduce random body cavity search at the airports. By that time, people will be conditioned enough to comply. After all, it's for our own protection.

jessaustin3• 13 years ago

I'll enjoy watching...

Rule 34?

Security Check Now Starts Long Before You Fly

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