TSA actually spent only $47,000 on the random assignment app | Hacker News Reader

TSA actually spent only $47,000 on the random assignment app

arstechnica.com

18 pointscapote11 comments

I think all of the tech discussions misses the bigger picture of why a random app to begin with. It is to ensure racial profiling or other profiling is not the trigger to put people on one side of the line or the other. Frankly, I find this a bit too PC, and from my experience in life, a bit of common sense, and using your 'eyes' (judgement included) is needed here. You will have idiots using their own eyes and judgement sure, but you will have idiots using the TSA iPad app too without using their 'eyes'. I grew up in Sunset Park Brooklyn, NY. I could get beat up 4 times a week if I didn't simply 'racially profile', and cross the street when seeing a group of hispanic-looking guys drinking beer out of brown paper bags after school (a hint they had nothing better to do). Being white in a +90% Puerto Rican / Dominican neighborhood with platinum blonde hair until age 14 made me stand out to say the least. If I had used a random 'cross the street' | 'stay on this side', I could expect to get beat up 50% of the time ;) I learned how to avoid the common prejudices of some of the morons in my neighborhood, while maintaining some rational level of discrimination and common sense. Yes, sometimes you will miss the radicalized Nordic-looking or UK youth, but I bet the odds of the discriminatory eye will beat a random search any day in a large population sample.

There is a difference between racial profiling on the individual level and racial profiling on the government level.

On the individual level, a single person simply doesn't have that much power.

As a representative of the US border and custom institution, a TSA agent's poorly thought out hunch can have far ranging effects.

Additionally, TSA agents are not subject to stringent educational requirements nor tested for having good quality judgment. In reality, they have been shown time and time again to have shockingly poor judgment.

For instance, in one case they believed that a man who showed up to the airport without eating must have been doing so for Ramadan and, therefore, required 'enhanced scrutiny' which made him miss his flight. This resulted in a missed work opportunity, and over 2000 worth of costs in non-refundable plane and hotel fees at his destination. In reality, he skipped breakfast to catch his early flight for a tech conference, and had the poor luck of having a darker than caucasian tan skin colour.

So a random left|right arrow performs better? I wasn't really calling for 'racial profiling'; I was trying to convey that the use of a random arrow app totally removes human judgement no matter how flawed it may be. We need to address the abuses of people in powers of authority, but not remove the ability or tools to do the job they are hired for. There has to be some allowance for judgement without prejudice in perception. Yes, it sometimes results in ignorant and racist people making horrible decisions, and given too much power. We have to allow for some human common sense here, otherwise, bring on the robots and AI, and I hope they can achieve better (although, AI, or computational intelligence, is not at a level of a human's ability to synthesize untrained data into a 'hunch' or 'gut feeling' wired through experience). Regardless, I feel the whole TSA thing is a political charade, and this has been proven in the press countless times, and by the two times I forgot to remove my multi-tool from my carry-on before boarding, and it was not detected. I now live in East Java, Indonesia, and I am accused of having a 'darker than Caucasian tan skin colour.' who refer to foreigners (Westerners) as 'buleh'. I also awake to call-to-prayers each day, and hear it another 4 times in the day. Let's say my birth and upbringing in a predominantly Hispanic neighborhood, and now in a majority-Muslim region has even tempered my tolerance more than most average people in the world. Having lived in SE Asia, I can tell you that the level of prejudice reminds me of where we were at in the U.S.A. in the early 70s (Chinese to other 'dark-skinned' SE Asians, to white Westerners, etc...).

> bring on the robots and AI, and I hope they can achieve better

AI can also be biased, depending on the data it was trained on. The government employees might be biased, but they are a few. AI on the other hand has the potential to scale up discrimination to planetary levels, if we allow those who control it to do so. A lot of our life influencing factors will be decided by AIs in the future.

This whole story is so silly.

I can't get enough of it

You and the rest of HN, apparently. First it was 400k then some millions then this. I mean, honestly.

That's what makes it fun!

'Only'? There will be lots of rationalizing, of course, as to the final cost but this is real money that could have helped the tax payers it was stolen from. Instead, it's been redistributed to overpaid contractors.

The app was used at 100 airports. If you include the cost of the iPads then it's like $7000 for the actual app. Still high for a couple hours of work, but you figure most of that is overhead inherent in contract-style work. I never charge less than 1k for a project because it's not even worth the time it takes to place a bid and manage the paperwork, and I don't have to put up with government BS.

The ironic thing is that the person who made the FOIA request is complaining about lack of transparency when transparency is a perfect example of the sorts of perverse incentives that cause government projects have insane amounts of overhead. One of those spend a dollar to prevent a penny of fraud things. I don't really have any solutions, but there's no free cake.

'course the elephant in the room is that TSA itself is a waste of money even without expensive software contracts.

> If you include the cost of the iPads then it's like $7000 for the actual app.

These articles imply it was for the app development. $7000 is high, but not outrageous.

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