The New, Terrifying, No-Electronics US Flight Security Rules | Hacker News Reader

The New, Terrifying, No-Electronics US Flight Security Rules

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37 pointsFlemlord58 comments

Just flew back into USA last night from a week in Cancun. I saw two differences in security:

1. Every carry-on bag was searched. Oddly, many people had those neck-pillow things, which were completely ignored. I bet you could pack a lot of semtex into one of those pillows.

2. The security guy at the entrance to the gates -- you know, where we routinely take off our shoes, empty pockets, etc., was holding a sign say NOT to take off shoes. This supports Schneier's theory that the TSA is only engaging in theater, making a show of defending against whatever the most recent threat was.

Yeah. In LHR today, my bag was hand-searched, and I was patted down. Except, they didn't pat my whole body, and they only opened the smallest pocket in my backpack.

It may or may not be theater, but it's certainly not security.

Don't get me started on how I wasn't allowed to use a blanket or jacket for the last hour of the flight. I wish I was joking...

After being subjected to these rules today, I almost want to be the legal test case for compliance with secret rules. Is refusing to comply with an unpublished rule a violation of the rules? (I am pretty sure the Constitution has something to say about this...)

Basically, this proves that the terrorists won. One nut with a fake bomb can change millions of lives.

I think if you refuse to comply with a flight attendant's directive, or the pilot's, you can be charge with interfering with a flight crew, or something. So whether a regulation is secret or not won't keep you out of jail; the regulation can be secret, but when the attendant tells you to do something you have to do it. My understanding.

IANAL

I think the wording is something like "reasonable instruction". Is it "reasonable" to say that you have to freeze to death because of a secret rule?

(My guess is "yes", because that is how the US federal government works. If there is not extremely strong wording saying something is your right in the Constitution, it's not. Of course, there is explicit wording along the lines of "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people," but that's a little too broad for lawmakers or the Supreme Court to understand.)

What people find Reasonable is extremely subjective.

A frequent flyer friend of mine suggested the naked airline. Basically you take nothing on board, get shoved in a box, but you get to avoid the TSA. The funny thing is he thought dealing with the TSA would be the hardest part of getting this off the ground. I often wonder how many other flyers would find this reasonable.

My guess/assumption is that "reasonable instruction" is intended to give the flight attendant flexibility in deciding what you should or shouldn't be doing, and not to give us a basis for refusing instructions.

The latest reports I've seen indicate that the bomb was not fake:

"A preliminary FBI analysis indicates the device contained PETN, also known as Pentaerythritol Tetranitrate, a highly explosive chemical."

http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/12/27/airline.attack.qanda/ind...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PETN

Not this time. Pretend to be setting off a bomb, though, and see if the TSA doesn't react.

I am looking forward to the "mp3 player bomber" and the "paperback book bomber".

Hah. You have to detonate PETN. Wasn't the guy trying to ignite it?

Frankly, most airport security is an absolute joke and exists solely to add a certain amount of discomfort to all travelers including potential terrorists. The new TSA rules (like most of the old TSA rules) are utter theatrics.

If anyone really wants to see how security should be done just go to an international terminal which ElAl flies to and watch how they screen passengers at their check in. The ground staff are not there to frisk you or ask you to take your shoes off. They work directly for the airline and have received extensive security training. What they do is actually ask you a battery of questions designed to flush out inconsistencies. ElAl also pays much closer attention to so called "no fly" lists.

I think it's safe to say, and I'm sure the majority of us would agree that ElAl knows a thing or two about how to keep their planes in the sky with a maximum degree of confidence in their security. Would it really be that hard for other airlines to take a page out of their playbook? If not for the profiling (which I'm sure they do) then at least the questioning by ground staff.

El Al is often cited as an example in these discussions, and it's a pretty flawed one. The reason why profiling works (or at least works better) for El Al is that the demographics of the average traveler to Israel are pretty consistent and predictable, which greatly reduces the search space.

For instance, many travelers to Israel go for at least tangentially religious reasons; it's common practice for El Al security to ask those folks some basic questions about the faith (logic: if the guy claiming to be making a religious trip doesn't know something any observant pre-teen would, that guy deserves a closer look).

That doesn't mean that everyone traveling to Israel is Jewish (clearly not the case!), or that it's really all about profiling. But having a more homogeneous and constrained baseline (in addition to a smaller country) makes the "let's ask you some questions and see if your story makes sense" approach considerably more scalable.

Why does country size matter? A guy says "I'm visiting friends... where? Comstock - it's near Sargent." Without Google Maps at the ready, it would be hard to know if that's a plausible travel plan; whereas in a country that's only 8,000 sq. mi., with fewer people than NYC - a security agent is more likely to know shenanigans when s/he hears it.

Everything you mention is true including the readily apparent line of questioning for those traveling to Israel. What you should note, though, is not the acute subject of questioning but rather the method. A screener in any terminal in the world knows at the least two facts. One, the city of embarkation and two, the destination. With these two facts alone and not including any other known information, both overt and covert, a trained screener can weave together a battery of questions that would be quite difficult to answer untruthfully without rousing suspicion. I've had it done to me many times and no two times are the same. Always different.

Again, it is the method that is important. A specific answer to a specific question in itself is not important, rather the exchange as a whole is what paints a picture of the one being questioned. Lets take your line of questioning - A guy says "I'm visiting friends... where? Comstock - it's near Sargent." Now the screener may not know where that is so lets go with that... Oh, Comstock? Where is that from (lets say) New York? How are you getting there? Is someone picking you up or are you renting a car? Who is picking you up? Do you have a rental car reservation? Where will you be staying when you get there? And on and on. This is how screeners are trained to question. They use the answers that you supply to continue probing until they are satisfied with the story as a whole.

That would suck for people like me who love going to a country to visit without making plans whatsoever :-)

I believe at a minimum most VWF countries require you to have a place of stay while you are their. If you arrive without any hotel reservations, place to stay, or cruise itinerary, be prepared for 20 questions and an anal probe.

Sorry what does VWF mean? In my limited experience most asian countries don't really ask much when the address is not known...

If anyone really wants to see how security should be done just go to an international terminal which ElAl flies to and watch how they screen passengers at their check in.

From my anecdotal experience, El Al has security personnel that appears trained to a naked eye, but in reality is extremely ineffective, flawed, and unethical. I had the misfortune to go through El Al security four times. These all occurred in a span of two weeks, roughly in the same circumstances (I had to fly into Israel, fly out, fly back in, and fly back out). I can tell you that the outcome of their screening is heavily inconsistent and highly dependent on the prejudices of the particular agent doing the interview, and not necessarily on advanced training procedures.

I had the same answers for their questions every time. Two of the times the agents were Israeli jews who immigrated from Russia. Since we share a common background, both let me pass after very few questions because my trip details seemed perfectly reasonable to them. The other two times, I was interviewed by jews of clearly middle-eastern descent - both had no understanding of my cultural background, and both thought my trip details were extremely suspicious, subjecting me to a detailed search. So the outcome of the interviews was effectively random, which means they might as well perform random searches.

The interviews were highly unethical, inappropriate, and degrading. Even more importantly, they were completely ineffective, resulting in a random outcome highly dependent on each agent's personal prejudices. I don't know what good security looks like, but I can tell you that this most certainly isn't it.

I would argue that security at the gadgetry level still has its place. Millimeter-wave imaging and consistent explosive-detection swabbing, when combined with x-raying bags, would provide rather good protection.

Hanging out in YVR right now - the line that normally takes 15 minutes took 95 minutes today. It is the first time I've ever been told not to arrive so early for a flight. Apparently people showing up 3 1/2 hours early for a flight screws it up for other people somehow. Mea Culpa.

1. Every single person had their luggage opened and sorted through, item by item.

2. Every single person was being fully patted down. Including checking the soles of your (shoeless) feet.

The pat down was remarkably thorough - the seams of my pants were checked. The waistband, shirt cuffs, pants cuffs each carefully probed, hair was cautiously checked.

I was particularly impressed with what a good mood all of the screeners and passengers were in. Nobody was grumpy, and everyone was basically taking everything in a pretty good way, despite the inordinate delays.

Of course, it's all meaningless if you're just going to let people on your watch lists waltz on to your planes.

What value do watch lists have? If someone is a danger to society, then charge and convict them of a crime. If they are not guilty of any crime, though, it makes no sense to punish them.

The 9/11 hijackers had valid passports, visas, and were not on any watchlists.

There weren't "watch lists" prior to 9/11, The FBI was alerted to shady behavior by a number of them though which seems to be exactly what happened in this case.

Do you similarly think sex offender lists are a joke?

I think a 16 year old kid caught fucking his 15 year old girlfriend, or a drunk college kid caught pissing on the sidewalk, deserves a punishment that's a little less severe than lifelong registration and shame.

But it was sex. SEX!!!!

There absolutely were 'watch-lists' prior to 9/11 - in fact, I recall when I entered the US in 1995 watching as the passport control guy checked me against the watchlist - what there wasn't, was a 'no-fly list'.

Do you similarly think sex offender lists are a joke?

Until we have murder offender lists, traffic violation list, and credit-card-bill-underpayment lists, yes. Why only shame sex offenders when we can exile everyone for one mistake?

I think the next step is to require sex offenders to wear little stars on their clothing when they go outside. That way they can be recognized and treated appropriately. I hear that worked pretty well for getting rid of Germany's Undesirables.

We know sex offender lists are a joke -- because you can get on them for pissing in public, having sex with a fellow teenager, developing photos of you/your wife breastfeeding your baby, and, most ridiculously, for distributing naked pictures of your underaged self.

And, we know the no-fly lists are also a joke.

Unless the Penis Bomber also burned off all the memories of the "2-year-old Toddler Not Allowed To Fly" and "Senator Not Allowed To Fly" etc new stories from the past 6-7 years.

It's sheer populism, pandering to the worst impulses of everyone. Bad bad bad -- not to mention ineffective.

It's not binary. You may have enough evidence to suspect someone may be planning a crime, but not enough to go to court, or enough to go to court but not enough to get a conviction with any degree of certainty. In this case it might make sense to perform a more detailed security check. It makes sense for a minor inconvenience at the airport to require a different standard of proof from sending the person to prison. Of course with TSA watch lists "your name sounds fishy" appears to be a sufficient standard of proof, but that's a problem with the implementation, not with the concept itself.

You may have enough evidence to suspect someone may be planning a crime, but not enough to go to court, or enough to go to court but not enough to get a conviction with any degree of certainty.

So the solution is to create a secondary judicial system with no oversight so that anyone the government doesn't like can be punished for something they haven't actually done? Sign me up!

It makes sense for a minor inconvenience at the airport to require a different standard of proof from sending the person to prison.

Why wouldn't someone on the watchlist not just pay someone not on the watchlist to carry the bomb through security then? For enough money, this would be very easy to do. (It's easier if you ask, "can you smuggle these drugs in for me", though, instead of "can you help me murder 300 people".)

Everyone criminal commits their first crime. For someone, that's going to be blowing up a plane. A watchlist does not handle this case.

The simple, clear, undeniable fact (not theory of what could happen, but fact) is that in this case, placing extra attention on this person who was on the watch list would have kept him and his bomb off an airplane full of people.

His leader would have gotten someone else. This guy on Flight 253 was not the planner of the attack, he was just one of many people that wanted his 69 virgins or whatever.

So the solution is to create a secondary judicial system with no oversight so that anyone the government doesn't like can be punished for something they haven't actually done?

Look, you're reducing a very complicated issue with a huge amount of nuances and details to an easily refutable straw man argument. Life in a modern society requires recognition of different types of law violations, different types of punishments, and different acceptable response times. In order to operate in fair and effective manner, all of these require a different standard of proof. Putting a person in prison requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Having a person compensate someone financially requires 50% + 1 of the jury. A parking ticket requires a quick decision from a bench judge. You could set up a system where a parking ticket could be contested by a trial by jury, but this cannot be practically implemented without a huge strain on the legal system.

TSA agents have to make a simple decision - whether to do a detailed search or not. This cannot be done to every passenger, the decision must be made fast, and it can affect other people's lives. It is not in any way a "punishment", only a minor inconvenience. In this case suspicious activity is a reasonable standard of proof for a detailed search. If you want off the watchlist, you should be able to have a hearing to clear your name, you should be notified that you've been added to such a list (barring some exceptions that should require judicial oversight), etc. Nobody is talking about a secondary judicial system with no oversight. You're picking the worst possible implementation and shooting it down - this really isn't productive.

Why wouldn't someone on the watchlist not just pay someone not on the watchlist to carry the bomb through security then?

For any possible security measure you could come up with a countermeasure that would theoretically render it ineffective, but that doesn't mean that we should sit back and do nothing. It does mean that we should attempt to find a systematic, scientific way of measuring cost vs. benefit of any proposed measure, but this is a difficult, time consuming problem. Until we do, we should implement security measures that appear reasonable. To give a counterargument to your specific complaint, a watchlist significantly complicates the job of a potential terrorist. The more people know about the job, the higher the probability of a leak. I will conjecture that the probability of a leak with respect to the number of people that know about the job isn't a linear function, it's likely closer to exponential, which means forcing a potential terrorist to recruit someone not on the watchlist might be a cheap and effective way to ensure that a leak happens. I don't know how effective it is in practice (I'd be interested in seeing large scale studies), but until we find out, intuitively it seems like a good idea.

Just landed in SFO. Some observations:

o United has (for now) discontinued Channel 9 (the pilot/ATC channel)

o The Pilot said the following "The TSA has requested I notify you of the following - You will not be allowed to move around the cabin for the last hour of the flight, you will not be allowed to have anything in your lap in the last hour of the flight, no blankets, jackets, nothing. We will make an announcement 15 minutes prior to the last hour of the flight so you can use the washroom."

So, when the announcement came that there was 15 minutes until lockdown in our seats - there was an immediate rush to line up for the washrooms, that spanned most of the cabin.

Interestingly enough, absolutely nobody paid attention to the 'Nothing in your lap' rule, and nobody policed it. People kept working on their laptops, tray tables were down, and nobody said anything. People kept wandering to the washroom.

One of the more ironic elements of the trip was as follows, the pilot announced "I will not be allowed to point out landmarks as we are flying" - and then 30 minutes prior to landing he noted "As you can all see on your left side, we are flying over the Golden Gate Bridge"

Definitely a bizarre experience.

I got in from Boston -> SFO about an hour ago. The only major difference I noticed was the lack of channel 9. The pat-down did seem a bit more thorough than usual, perhaps. I had no problem with electronic gadgets in my carry-on, passed through Boston security with no problems, there was no lockdown for the last hour, and I had my jacket on my lap for half the flight.

YMMV. I suspect things are pretty inconsistent between flights at this point.

The pilot obviously thinks the new security measures are stupid.

I am happy to report that this post is coming from 30k feet via an iPhone on virgin America.

Virgin America only flies domestic. Most of these restrictions will apply to the international flights to the US. (I guess the US doesn't really care about what happens outside, as long as everything coming in is checked)

It's probably that they have no way of doing so once the plane is foreign airspace. Lots of Americans are on the outbound flights so they care a great deal for the plane's safety.

Why don't they just anesthesize people at the gates and shove them into comfortable boxes to be carried by cargo planes.

It would certainly be more pleasant for the travellers.

> Why don't they just anesthesize people at the gates

Because the regime insists that citizens be reminded that they are cattle.

No, it's because drugs are evil.

i bought the domain 'iamnotacriminal.com' on my iphone post-security at SEA after a particularly nasty interaction with TSA - i just felt violated and tired of the treatment. at the time i thought it might be a great project to let off some steam - perhaps a community wiki of TSA incompetence.

more lucrative projects have always put it on the back burner but it's tempting to have a HN 'hack fest' made up of only disgruntled unwilling participants in the 'security theatre' that are also hackers and launch the site...

I was expecting problems, but I was surprised when I flew today. Jetblue, JFK to LGB (via IAD) had the exact same security checks and regulations as every other time I've flown them. I guess it just shows how inconsistently the rules are applied, which is frustrating in its own way.

I hate people.

Unfortunately, after having just spent a good few hours of my Boxing Day holiday (because Boxing Day fell on a Saturday, we get a Monday public holiday in leu) in a shopping centre, I'm inclined to agree

There is an elephant in the room.

The threat to US/Western Europe/Australasia is coming from muslims. They are by far the biggest terrorist threat to these areas. So we should have a 'no-fly' rule for muslims. A minority of current flyers would suffer inconvenience. As it is, the majority of flyers suffer both inconvenience and the possibility of being murdered.

I hardly fly any more because it is such an awful experience. It is only a matter of time before another plane comes down - in September Abdullah Asieri stuck a bomb up his ass and passed through 2 sets of airport security AND the Saudi security services, which shows us that there is no way to stop someone getting a bomb on board. Dealing with suicide bombers is the most difficult thing to do. They have no fear of any punishment, and they can take their deathly payload anywhere.

People should start reading sites like www.jihadwatch.org or www.thereligionofpeace.com instead of believing the politically correct media. Islam is the oldest form of totalitarianism.

I'm no racist (I don't believe there are races). For 15 years I have lived in the heart of the most muslim area of London. I've seen most non-muslims leave the area, and watched as the muslims have become more and more radical. I'm married to an asian, and I've had two muslim boyfriends in the past.

And how do you suggest that we go about identifying muslims?

By requiring them to register and wear an emblem on their clothing at all times. We can have the police visit everyone's house to see if the people living there have any literature sympathetic to the Muslim cause.

History has shown that this is a great idea.

Treating people with suspicion based on the fact that they are perceived as being in a particular demographic category is unacceptable. Essentially, it means that these people are having their rights infringed - freedom of movement and freedom of expression - in an ineffectual attempt to stop a very rare event (http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/odds-of-airborne-terr...) from occurring.

This sort of treatment is afforded only a few special categories of people: minors and people with criminal records. I don't agree with denial of rights in those cases, either.

You may not be racist, but you're a bigot. No matter whether or not Muslims tend to bomb airplanes more than anyone else, preventing Muslims from flying is both unethical and inconsistent with the principles of Western democracy.

But only Muslims commit terrorist attacks. Remember the Oklahoma City bomber? Muslim. Remember the Unabomber? Muslim.

Oh wait... they were both Regular Old White Guys.

"But only Muslims commit terrorist attacks."

I sympathize with your outrage when confronted with blatant bigotry, but this isn't what was implied. If you take a random sample of a 1000 terrorist attacks in the world, I suspect you'd have well over 85 % of them committed by Muslims.

Now, this in itself doesn't imply that you can (or should) discriminate against Muslims, because that is a very very small percentage of the total Muslim population, but there is some truth to the old saw "Most muslims are not terrorists, but most terrorists are Muslim".

I am not sure what the correct conclusion to draw is, but as a proto truth, perhaps just like Communism is a dangerous and suboptimal way to run a society, maybe a religion with millions of followers that advocates eternal war and subjugation of the Infidel should be carefully watched. In the Middle Ages this would be Christianity. In the 20th century, this would probably be Islam.

I also submit we may never be able to have rational discussion of this topic, except among very close friends, because it would veer rapidly into divisive topics and useless hairsplitting - a prime example of "things you can't say" (or discuss rationally). Besides this is politics - something that should rarely be on HN in any case.

100% of terrorist attacks are committed by terrorists. That sounds like a better filter than religious beliefs.

You have to look at it the other way. 0.00% of Christians commit terrorist attacks. 0.00% of Muslims commit terrorist attacks. Therefore, it doesn't seem too valuable to discriminate in this way.

a prime example of "things you can't say"

You can say it, but legalized discrimination goes against every value a Free society has. Liberty is more important than a little bit of temporary safety. It's that simple.

"You can say it, but legalized discrimination goes against every value a Free society has."

I completely agree. I was careful to make the point that discrimination is NOT ok even if 100% of terrorist acts in the world were by Muslims because the number of people who are decent citizens far outweigh the terrorists, just as the number of decent communists far outweighed the Red- Terror-kill-all-capitalists folks and McCarthyism was not an acceptable solution either.

I was reacting to your "But only Muslims commit terrorist attacks." That is an exaggeration of the claim made by those who would advocate legal discrimination. Mischaracterizing your opponents' arguments (no matter how distasteful their ideologies are) isn't the right way (imo) to refute their ideas. You do it again with

" 0.00% of Christians commit terrorist attacks. 0.00% of Muslims commit terrorist attacks. "

Most muslim terrorists are educated in madrassas where they study their religion for a long time. Saudi Arabia and Iran (and to a lesser extent, Pakistan), where much of Islamic terrorism originates are the terrorism originates are theocracies or hevaily theocratic. Their motivation, training, goals and methods are all influenced by religion are religious. To deny that there is a religious element to Islamic terrorism is an extreme position not justified by facts. You could argue that this isn't "True Islam", but that is a different argument.

Again I completely agree with your idea that "Muslims must NOT be discriminated against" idea. Such discrimination is against everything Western Democracy (and human decency) stand for.

I am still disturbed by Islam as a political and social ideology dictating how others should submit to the "true believers". I guess I just don't go to extremes in either direction. Some social visions are dangerous.

All that said, I will now follow my own advice of keeping politics off HN! Peace!

Even if this were ethical or politically viable, which it's not, how would you carry it out? How do you identify Muslims? By name? Skin color? Clothing?

Every attribute can be spoofed or mis-directed by someone motivated to do harm.

It's as impossible as it is unpalatable.

As it is, the majority of fliers suffer both inconvenience and the possibility of being murdered.

Similarly, I think cars should be limited to 5mph, because if they can go faster, a drunk (or just plain incompetent) driver could easily kill everyone on the road. So what if drunk drivers are a problem that only affect 1 in a million people, we need to take action at any cost! Any risk of death is unacceptable.

I've had two muslim boyfriends in the past

Clearly you are a terrorist sympathizer and should be added to the no-fly list. If you want to leave your country, apply for an exit visa and swim across the Channel. (It's too risky to allow you to take the train; you would probably blow it up given your tendencies.)

Pretty intelligent sounding, huh...

This sort of logic is why I'm glad I don't live in the UK.

You can always opt-out of civilization, just relocate yourself to the middle of nowhere, and nobody will bother you or be bothered by your racist rant. I doubt you'll have to worry about terrorists crashing at your place ever again.

http://crookedtimber.org/2009/12/28/political-correctness-go...

All the terrorists are engineers too, they are clearly ingenious and totally unmanageable. People should start reading sites like this one -- engineering is obviously the oldest form of prescriptivist demagoguery!

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