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Comment by rhino369 | Hacker News Reader

It's easy to say that TSA sucks (it does), but it's hard to propose a workable alternative. Well alternative 1, stop making us take off our shoes and taking out our laptops, its clear from pre-check that it's not really necessary.

You need some security. That was clear before 9-11. Airports had security and it was pretty similar to how TSA does it right now. You put your bags on an Xray machine, show your ID, and walk through a metal detector.

I'd suggest keeping the government in charge of what procedures to use, but then using private contracts to actually manage the airport security.

The real problem with TSA isn't that it is intrusive. It's that is terrible mismanaged and has no incentive to improve the experience.

Although apparently airports can opt out of the TSA.

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> it's hard to propose a workable alternative

No, actually, it's really easy.

> You need some security. That was clear before 9-11.

No, it was not clear then, and it is not clear now. There are two salient facts:

1. When tested, the TSA misses 90% or so of the weapons people try to smuggle past them

2. Notwithstanding #1, there have been zero successful terrorist attack on aircraft in the U.S. since 9-11.

So it is far from clear that there is actually a problem that needs to be solved (other than people freaking out about an insignificant risk, which is a real problem).

The problem with the "there have been zero successful terrorist attack on aircraft in the U.S. since 9-11." statement is they use that for their advantage. They say that because of them this is a fact. Ugh.

Except, as Bruce Schneier notes, there were zero 9-11 level attacks on the US prior to 9-11 as well. 9-11 was a statistical fluke.

Not quite a statistical fluke. The 9-11 hijackers took advantage of the fact that they could count on the passengers and crew to cooperate because they would assume that this hijacking was like all the others before and cooperation provided the best odds of survival. But the 9-11 hijackers defected (in the sense of the prisoner's dilemma). As a result, no one will ever cooperate with a hijacker again, and as a result of that, no remotely sane person will ever attempt to hijack an airplane again.

> "no remotely sane person". Sane probably isn't the right word. I'd argue the hijackers were indeed sane by definition. They were more so misguided than insane.

I don't really want to quibble over whether or not the 9-11 hijackers were sane. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. The point is that no sane person can fail to realize that you can do a 9-11 style attack exactly once. It will never work again as long as people remember what happened that day, TSA or no TSA.

Because people who hijack a plane are remotely sane...

I'd be interested to see how they got the 95% failure rate. If the TSA was sneaking in actual bombs that could bring down airplanes, that is a horrific. But if they were testing someone bringing in a nail clipper with a 1 inch blade tucked into it, a plastic gun, a disassembled "bomb" with no explosive residue, etc, then it's not that bad.

The fact that there have been attempts to blow up airplanes, and they all involved using explosives designed to get around TSA procedure suggests it works or terrorists think it works. The shoe bomber had to put a tiny bomb into his shoe without electronics. The underwear bomber had to build a crude bomb on board the plane.

If there was no security, they'd walk on with a prebuilt bomb and take out a flight.

In the 60's and 70's there was a goldenage of hijacking airplanes. If you could just walk onto a plane with a gun, people would do it again.

Maybe you think that risk is low enough per flight to not matter. Objectively it's still less risky than driving to the airport. But like you allude to, the people aren't going to buy that argument. "Just accept that al Qaeda or Isis will bring down a 747 or two each year, it's still safer than a roadtrip" will get you punted out of office in record time.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Security_Admini... "In July 2007, the Times Union of Albany, New York reported that TSA screeners at Albany International Airport failed multiple covert security tests conducted by the TSA. Among them was a failure to detect a fake bomb."

I wasn't very clear, but what is a fake bomb? some timer taped to a couple circuits like clockboy and with no explosive residue? Or a real bomb with the detonator removed but with a fake detonator?

How realistic the bomb was would radically change the test.

> How realistic the bomb was would radically change the test.

Not really - the screening is done by looking at x-ray images of bags on a conveyor belt. The visual representation of a 'bomb' on the agent's screen would not change one iota if a pipe bomb didn't contain a real detonator.

Detecting the presence or absence of a real detonator would require much more sophisticated techniques, equipment, and personnel than are in use at tsa checkpoints

A fake bomb is a real explosive with safe, inert detonators. You need the real stuff, or the bomb-sniffer dogs and gas chromatographs won't be able to help.

> If you could just walk onto a plane with a gun, people would do it again.

No, they wouldn't. In the 70's the unwritten rule was: you hijack the plane, land it, make your demands, get your TV time, and then you surrender (or get away) but no one gets hurt. It is only because of that unwritten rule that you could get away with it because everyone assumed that the best route to survival was to cooperate with the hijacker.

All that changed on 9-11. Cooperating is no longer seen as a viable option, and so if you try to hijack a plane you can expect the passengers and crew to put up a fight. At best you can bring down the plane. But you won't get your TV time, which is what most hajackers really want.

Actually, you don't even need to look at the track record on airplanes. The TSA, by making everyone stand in line, is creating a nice soft target just outside the security zone. Any terrorist who wanted to make the headlines would set off a bomb in the TSA line at O'Hare. It would be trivial. The fact that no one has tried it is more evidence that our fear of terrorism is a vastly bigger problem than actual terrorism.

We're 2 steps further along than the passengers and crew resisting. Cockpit doors are reinforced and locked and wider adoption of a 2 person rule for the cockpit.

(Apparently the FAA adopted the 2 person rule along with locking the door. Germanwings Flight 4U 9525 made it clear to other jurisdictions that it was a good idea)

There have been a couple hijackings in recent years. I think trying to get cockpit access is probably impossible, but you could still take hostages and demand the pilots fly somewhere.

>Any terrorist who wanted to make the headlines would set off a bomb in the TSA line at O'Hare. It would be trivial.

Trivial, but less carnage than a full plane going down. Airplane bombings multiple the deaths by 10X.

...except in Brussels. They did it there.

Terrorists hijacked an airplane in Brussels? That's news to me. What I heard was that they blew up the waiting area at the airport, which any terrorist could easily do any time anywhere in the world. The fact that this is still such a rare occurrence is further evidence that ordinary run-of-the-mill terrorism [1] is not the serious problem it is being made out to be.

[1] Terrorists getting their hands on a nuke is a different matter.

If there was no security, you could walk into a movie theater with a prebuilt bomb and take out a room full of people. Or walk into a school, or walk into a mall, or onto a train, or walk into... well you get the idea. We have a few people do that with weapons, but no prebuilt bombs. Yet I can still walk into a theater with no security, but not board a plane. You are more likely to die in a plane crash due to a maintenance issue than you are to a terrorist bomb.

> 2. Notwithstanding #1, there have been zero successful terrorist attack on aircraft in the U.S. since 9-11.

How much is due to the TSA, as opposed to civilian and military intelligence work at home and abroad and simple measures such as having air marshals and preventing any access to the cockpit during flight?

I think it's pretty clear that it's because there are actually very few terrorists in most of the world, and certainly very few of them in the U.S. The fact of the matter is that a terrorist attack is trivial to conduct, especially if you're willing to die for the cause. There are just a ridiculous number of soft targets out there. It's simply not possible to secure them all. The only reasonable explanation (AFAICT) for why NYC doesn't look like Baghdad, with car bombs going off on a regular basis, is that the number of actual terrorists in the U.S. is indistinguishable from zero.

I'd argue the 2nd part has more to do with passengers simply paying attention. The underwear bomber and shoe bomber were both caught by fellow passengers (iirc), not by the TSA or the CIA/NSA/FBI/Military.

>> 2. Notwithstanding #1, there have been zero successful terrorist attack on aircraft in the U.S. since 9-11.

>How much is due to the TSA

I would say a large part of it is because a 9/11 style attack just wouldn't work anymore. 9/11 worked only because the passengers were thinking "hijacking", where there was some chance to live.

Once the passengers understand the consequences (as with United 93), they will fight back.

That totally changes the risk/reward profile for terrorists. Your chances of taking down the plane are lower, and your chances of aiming it at a high value target are almost nil.

Back when there was little to no airport security at all, hijackings were far more common than they are now. In the late 60s and early 70s, hijackings ran in the dozens per year. I see no evidence that TSA-style pat-downs and shoe removal and liquid bans are necessary, but it does appear to be useful to have some minimal level of screening so that a crazy person doesn't just toss an AK-47 in his bag and take it on the plane.

If your argument is that current airport security arrangements don't even prevent that, then why did attacks fall off so sharply once basic security was implemented?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11723190

I disagree with the premise that 9/11 ended the hijacking threat. It ended the threat with basic security in place, because 40 unarmed passengers versus four hijackers armed with box cutters means the hijackers lose. Let the hijackers bring semiautomatic guns and that equation changes radically.

I disagree; the equation only changes somewhat.

Passengers under a hijacking still don't expect to survive by cooperating, so the cost of cooperation is still effectively infinite high.

Guns still run out of bullets, and are somewhat difficult to wield in a close-quarters situation - it's not a magic first-person shooter. The cost becomes higher than fighting someone with a box cutter, but still lower than evaporating into mist.

I think you could hijack a plane if you just demand the pilot takes you somewhere rather than trying to get cockpit access. Making a move for the cockpit will cause everyone to rush you. But if you just take prisoners and demand that the pilot flies to Venezuela, I'm fairly sure it would work.

Maybe. But I don't think anyone argued for eliminating security altogether; pre-9/11 security prevented guns from being on airplanes as well as the TSA for $7b less per year. Bringing security back to post-1970's/pre-9-11 levels doesn't seem like it would cost us anything except a really shitty Basic Income program.

My comment is in reply to a comment that says exactly that you don't need any security at all. It quotes "You need some security" and replies with "No, it was not clear then, and it is not clear now."

If you think we need some security but only at pre-9/11 levels, then you and I are on the same page there.

I think we are on the same page, then, I think I misunderstood what you were saying. Carry on! (But only one carry on, everything else must be checked.)

OK, but only if I can pack my carryon full of ammunition for the gun I'm hiding in my pocket.

> it's hard to propose a workable alternative

How about recognizing that 9/11 was a troll, and we fell for it? The attackers hated the U.S.'s idea of freedom, but they were too powerless to take away our freedom. So they figured out a clever way to make us take away our own freedom ourselves. And yep, we did exactly that.

We honor U.S. military who defend our freedom with their lives. They value freedom more than personal safety, and we respect them for doing that. So why does the rest of our society pick the opposite and humiliate ourselves daily by choosing personal safety over freedom? Why have millions of us agreed to walk around in socks at airports just because some jerk tried to scare us 15 years ago?

A "workable alternative" would be what the Flight 93 people did: beat the living daylights out of people who act up. That approach has worked for tens of thousands of years. Yeah, sometimes you'll get killed, but most of the time you won't, just like our honored military. But most important you'll stop being trolled.

> How about recognizing that 9/11 was a troll, and we fell for it? The attackers hated the U.S.'s idea of freedom, but they were too powerless to take away our freedom. So they figured out a clever way to make us take away our own freedom ourselves. And yep, we did exactly that.

They didn't attack us because they "hate our freedom". Sure, they don't like western lifestyles or values, but that's not the primary reason we're enemies. Al-queda intends to establish a caliphate in the Muslim world, and part of that involves attacking allies of the countries that get in the way of that.

Please stop repeating this falsehood. The TSA is horrible for our freedom and completely ineffective at protecting our safety, but we can't evaluate how to deal with these issues if we subscribe to a flawed model of why terrorism is.

That's good feedback. I don't understand the dynamics of the Middle East well enough, and as a fallback, it's easier to think in us-vs.-them dichotomies.

Thanks, I don't mean to pick on your comment specifically, but enough people repeat that idea that I wanted to point it out.

All those problems you mention are real, but they're not the main problem. The real problem with the TSA is that it's explicitly unconstitutional, since the 4th amendment explicitly prohibits search and seizure without a warrant.

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

This does not at all describe the operation of the TSA's search and seizure. Notably, the statute's language makes no allowance for implicit consent based on location or attempting to use some private transportation system. A sensible compromise is to privatize airline security, since the constitution does not prohibit Delta employees from searching and seizing without a warrant.

Airport security was tested in the Supreme Court back in the 70s when it was new. Due largely to the fact that it reduced hijackings to almost nil, the court ruled that it was a reasonable exception.

That said, my personal opinion leans closer to your position.

It's reasonable to get searched walking onto someone's airplane.

Yes, by employees of the organization operating that airplane. Notably, the constitution does not prohibit search and seizure performed by airline employees who are unaffiliated with the government.

Buying a plane ticket implies a consent to search.

Huh?

Surely an organisation (i.e. an airline, an airport) can enforce searches as part of the conditions of travel.

It's not like the TSA is stopping people on the street, it's an agreement, if you want to enter the airport then volunteer for the search.

I don't know that it's there, but it would be eminently possible to assign to the act of buying a ticket agreement to be subject to these rigors. Indeed, I'm guessing it is true, but just haven't looked it up.

"Persons, houses and effects" is domain-dependent and cannot be made absolute.

If cupping my butt cheeks is not a "search of my person" then I don't know what is.

Searches don't legally constitute a violation of security. I agree it's disgusting.

> In Davis and its progeny, we have established a general reasonableness test for airport screenings. “An airport screening search is reasonable if: (1) it is no more extensive or intensive than necessary, in light of current technology, to detect weapons or explosives; (2) it is confined in good faith to that purpose; and (3) passengers may avoid the search by electing not to fly.” Torbet, 298 F.3d at 1089 (citation omitted); see also Davis, 482 F.2d at 913; Pulido-Baquerizo, 800 F.2d at 901. (U.S. v. Marquez, 9th Cir. 2005)

You definitely don't have to agree with the correctness of this line of cases; you should just be aware that the courts have looked at the question and have a theory they've been pursuing for about four decades about why totally suspicionless searches are "reasonable" and hence constitutional in this context. A tricky thing about the fourth amendment text is that it talks about what the requirements are to get a warrant, but doesn't explicitly say whether searches without a warrant are exactly the same as "unreasonable" searches. Courts have interpreted this for a long time to suggest that some kinds of searches without a warrant are nonetheless "reasonable", although Davis was a pretty enormous expansion; I wouldn't be surprised if searches pursuant to it are an absolute majority of all the searches performed by the government!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Amendment_to_the_United...

These precedents are interesting, thanks for bringing them up.

This gives me an idea for a constituency that might have standing to challenge Davis: Active-duty members of the military flying commercial, on orders, to remote locations accessible solely by air, who explicitly cannot "...avoid the search by electing not to fly" by orders of the same government that is searching them.

And yet, we can't exactly avoid the search by electing not to fly, as TSA sets up its VIPR teams.

Of course there is the whole issue of whether the line of reasoning is correct.

I am not convinced you need more security for aircraft than a bus. As long as there is a solid wall between pilots and passengers, the worst a passenger could do would be to take down an aircraft which is much harder than you might assume.

Please don't give them ideas. I like relaxed train rides and would hate having to go through the intrusive time waste and annoyance anytime I step foot on a train station. I don't like flying because there are so many annoyances these days. The money grab is another problem. I cannot bring fluids through security but I can buy as many bottles of liquor and alcoholised fluids as I want before boarding. I'm surprised nobody sued to change that.

You can bring a water bottle: most airports now have water bottle filling stations alongside their drinking fountains.

Haven't seen those in Europe yet.

There's enough stuff sold after the security check which can be used for mixtures one could cause problems with. There's food, liquor, batteries, electronics, smokes, lighters, watches, power outlets, and many other things after the security check. You can even buy clothes there.

If I didn't know the outcome would be more restrictions, I'd love for an investigative journalist to go through there with an expert and have them build a chaos device of some sort just with elements bought after the security check. If somebody did this on media, it wouldn't help fix the theater, we would only get more restrictions, although I hope that wouldn't be the case.

>As long as there is a solid wall between pilots and passengers, the worst a passenger could do would be to take down an aircraft which is much harder than you might assume.

This is a pretty bad worst case scenario! That really only prevents a kamikaze scenario. Most terrorism against airplanes has been either blowing it up or hijacking for hostages.

Blowing up an airplane is a solved problem. It's been done many times.

> it's hard to propose a workable alternative.

No, it's not. The article proposed it, airports are already considering it, and even you proposed it (see next quote).

> I'd suggest keeping the government in charge of what procedures to use, but then using private contracts to actually manage the airport security.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/06/reassessing_a...

Workable alternative: Get rid of TSA, remove the screening process. Done. We will be as safe in the air as we are today. Just as many "terrorists" will get on the plane as get on today. The real problem with TSA is it doesn't actually solve the problem, and it costs money and time. There is no point to it, so get rid of it. The nation will save more money and time, and in the long run more lives.

The shoe bomb attempt, the liquid attempt, underwear attempt, all happened AFTER the TSA checkpoint, in the aircraft. All the new measures were applied as a reaction--after the fact.

The TSA didn't prevent those terrorist attacks--the people on the plain, luck/ineptitude did.

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