TSA announces “biometrics vision for all commercial aviation travelers”
papersplease.org
papersplease.org
(Not addressing GPs argument, just that the spaghetti & meatballs one doesn't hold water.)
Having Humanist-Centric politics makes the world a better place. Humans with shitty governments, parenting and environments which are shitty typically wind up being shitty humans.
Building walls, guns, bombs, cages, cops, totalitarian and authoritarian regimes are no substitute for actually working to be better humans
A small precedent was the widely flaunted "ban" on small electronic devices during takeoff/landing. A revolt among business travelers caused a rapid change in the rule.
EDIT: you edited your post after I posted. As long as you don’t make people uncomfortable on the plane, that is. Don’t take away their phones, laptops or headphones, and you can grab as many images as you want of their irises, retinas and fingerprints.
When have business people as a very large collective ever been particularly outraged about the surveillance state? Nothing about the NSA's activities have been fundamentally rolled back. They won, across the board and across party lines. I'm not talking about seven executives from some corner of tech lodging a twitter protest, I mean the millions of people that make up the "businesspeople" category. They have never widely protested the surveillence moves of the last 17 years.
Americans will resist this as much as 24/7 cctv surveillence has been resisted in other developed nations such as Britain. Not at all. Most people do not view it as a threat to their liberty, they view it as an isolated intrusion that is to their security benefit.
In many ways, Precheck feels like flying in the 90s. You know 24h in advance if you will be able to sail through security in < 5 minutes and can get to the airport much closer to departure.
[0]: https://universalenroll.dhs.gov/workflows?servicecode=11115V...
Travel in general is protected, and in addition the 9th Amendment clearly states:
>The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
The limits of the Constitution apply to government employees (or even private employees performing a service contracted by a government agency) whether they are on public or private property.
There also have been cases where the courts have treated private companies as state actors. See https://www.nyclu.org/en/publications/column-applying-consti...
If a private company is acting in ways normally prohibited to private actors, on the state's authority, then they are effectively acting as an extension of the state. The state obviously cannot grant a private company the authority to do something which both private actors and the state itself are prohibited from doing. However, it's still the government, not the private company, which is bound by the Constitution.
Quoting from the first paragraph of the ACLU link I gave: "With the notable exception of the Thirteenth Amendment’s ban on slavery, the individual liberties guaranteed by the United States Constitution protect against actions by government officials but not against actions by private persons or entities."
Quoting from https://academic.udayton.edu/race/06hrights/GeoRegions/North... : "the Thirteenth Amendment's prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude encompasses both governmental and private action. Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3, 20 (1883). The U.S. Supreme Court has held that Congress may regulate private conduct under sec. 2 of the Thirteenth Amendment, which provides that "Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co., 392 U.S. 409 (1968). Such power includes determining what constitutes the "badges and incidents of slavery and the authority to translate that determination into effective legislation."
Quoting from https://www.encyclopedia.com/politics/encyclopedias-almanacs... : "The Thirteenth Amendment is one of the few constitutional provisions that directly implicates private conduct. That amendment, the first of the three "civil war amendments," flatly bans slavery and involuntary servitude. It acts directly upon private entities; slaves were owned by private businesses and individuals. The Thirteenth Amendment, however, has not been interpreted to provide a significant source of constitutional proscription against acts of private discrimination."
Quoting from http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/PROJECTS/FTRIALS/conlaw/thirtee... "The Thirteenth Amendment, unlike most provisions in the Constitution, is self-executing, in that it directly reaches-even without action by Congress- conduct by private individuals (slave holders)."
I suspect the convoluted arguments proposed for why the 13th Amendment must be unique are a direct consequence of the tortured logic needed to reconcile the institution of slavery with the principles on which the Constitution was based. Faced with a choice between acknowledging the government's role in legitimizing slavery or else arguing that it was merely a "private" matter which the government had thus far refrained from regulating they chose the narrative which minimized their share of the blame. This is akin to how the Interstate Commerce and General Welfare clauses have been perverted to justify all manner of legislation outside the narrowly defined scope of the federal government's enumerated powers.
You cannot pick and choose which principles you like. The Constitutional principles include the support of slavery. The Constitutional principles do not include universal suffrage. The Constitutional principles said nothing against expanding westward and stealing Native American lands. The Constitutional principles didn't prevent us from ruling the Philippines as a colonial power, or using government power to suppress labor rights.
To the contrary, I believe federal power was strengthened in part to be able to suppress the rights of the poor. The rebels of Shay's Rebellion fought against monetary policies and court practices which caused their lands and possessions to be confiscated. The elites and merchant class wanted to be able to call out federal troops should their own power be threatened.
What does "natural law" say about the right to confiscate land and possessions for failure to pay debts? For failure to pay taxes? What if those debts and taxes must be paid in hard currency, and that currency isn't available, and the government refuses to issue paper currency and allow it to be used as a substitute?
...ownership "does not always mean absolute dominion." The court pointed out that the more an owner opens his property up to the public in general, the more his rights are circumscribed by the statutory and constitutional rights of those who are invited in.
In its conclusion, the Court stated that it was essentially weighing the rights of property owners against the rights of citizens to enjoy freedom of press and religion. The Court noted that the rights of citizens under the Bill of Rights occupy a preferred position. Accordingly, the Court held that the property rights of a private entity are not sufficient to justify the restriction of a community of citizens' fundamental rights and liberties.
Incidentally, this judgment could be relevant to questions around freedom of speech on monopoly online platforms (e.g. google search, youtube, twitter & facebook): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsh_v._Alabama
However, the issue in this case is not restrictions imposed by property owners on the use of their own property, but rather restrictions imposed by the federal government, which is bound by the limitations on government power written into the Constitution.
If it were otherwise, then what's to keep from having a company city, or company state? Sell off Seattle to Bill Gates, and make it his fiefdom.
Sure it does. Entering someone's land when they've told you to stay out is known as "trespassing".
> If it were otherwise, then what's to keep from having a company city, or company state?
Assuming the land is legitimately homesteaded and purchased? Nothing. And there's nothing wrong with that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam
That points out that "Ancient traces provide evidence of the freedom to roam in many European countries, suggesting such a freedom was once a common norm."
It's also been noted that the freedom to roam is strongest in those areas which didn't have feudalism and serfdom.
Just like feudalism and serfdom, company towns have a history of being controlling and exploitative .. and un-democratic. That's what's wrong with them.
SFO is owned by the City and County of San Francisco. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_International_Ai...
LAX is owned by the City of Los Angeles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_International_Airp...
ORD is owned by the City of Chicago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Hare_International_Airport
I rarely fly anywhere unless I absolutely have to. I've flown a lot outside the country and no other country is anywhere near as bad as the US/TSA. No other country makes you take off your shoes.
I feel like early on, Americans fought hard against TSA security theatre and nothing changed and people kept flying, so it's just stayed pretty much the same.
It's gotten a little better. TSA agent can't harass people as much and have to be nicer since everyone is recording, but everything they do is still worthless. Millimetre wave machines are filled with so many false positives you should just have people roll a six-sided die.
OTOH I've seen days where the precheck line was slower moving/longer if it's a time when lots of business travelers fly.
There is no reason why that should be required in order to fly without "harassment".
Can you explain why you think this way exactly? How does taking out your laptop and taking off your shoes count as harassment, exactly?
I submitted to a 10 minute in person appointment that included fingerprinting and answering questions about my criminal status (I'm not). That's it. It was super easy.
I have tsa pre-check, and I mostly enjoy it because travelers who have tsa precheck tend to pack efficiently and aren't surprised and hung up at various checkpoints during the security intake process. It's an added bonus that I don't have to take my laptop out or take my shoes off, but it's not that big of a deal.
I'm not a fan of the TSA but I have a hard time understanding why someone would be upset with the TSA precheck process.
Or are not eligible for any of the various 'pay more to be treated as a human' programs due to having the wrong citizenship (which is most citizenships).
Good luck out there! Glad you could save the 30 minutes, but I’d love a world where it wouldn’t require payment.
I think it’s theatre too, but too many people are comforted by the theatre and believe that the more that there is, the safer that they’ll be.
Maybe there are other considerations?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_tran...
The table seems to agree with you, however the text below it doesn't (at least not entirely).
After trying to decipher how they keep switching units (kg/km per passenger vs kg/mile per passenger), it seems as if the text shows .18 for long flights, .35 for average cars, .08 for long distance busses, and .19 for long distance trains (all units I put here are kg of CO2 emissions per passenger per mile).
And that doesn't take into account manufacturing or the impact of roads, but I don't necessarily think that changes the discussion at all.
I'm also not sure if those numbers are average capacity or peak capacity (planes are very often mostly full in my experience, while trains are not, and busses even less so, but that's all based on my own memory).
So I'm leaving this discussion with more questions than I started with, but my first statement was absolutely wrong!
This is going to be very dependent on the route/times. I've flown transatlantic flights where I've had entire rows to myself (on multiple occasions). Trains are regularly running at capacity, especially on commuter lines.
No offence, but that is simply not true.
At European airports one is not always, but regularly, asked to take off his shoes.
Usually I see it happening to those lucky ones carrying boots or shoes with thick sole.
It's annoyingly common, especially since I tend to wear boots, so it's a real hassle to take my boots off and then put them on again.
I've flow places with 4 laptops before, not because I think it's fun to inconvenience everyone in line, but because I needed them for where I was going.
If I was flying somewhere that I needed boots, I'd probably try to wear them to avoid having them pretty much take up most of my carry on space...
On the other hand, I don't really find it to be much of a bother. My boots stay on decently without tying the laces and I can usually do a proper lacing when I'm out of the way.
But yet... the electorate still believes in the safety they create because no legislator that I’m aware of has even broached the topic. I hope to see candidates with some sane opinions on this soon.
It's just like there can be no legitimate safety guarantee that software companies are unhackable. But you can make it really, really hard. Of course the TSA doesn't make it that hard, and mostly wastes a ton of money on things with little value, but in theory there should be some amount of physical security to prevent people from hijacking what are essentially missiles containing 100s of regular people
Few argue there should be no security, but rather that a few simple changes, like hardening cockpit doors for the cockpit and a change to the hijacking policy (based as it was on the assumption that the hijackers wanted to live and, for example, go to Cuba), were enough "physical security to prevent people from hijacking what are essentially missiles."
How does yet more biometrics help? Is the cost justifiable?
We could have 5 security guards on every plane. That would surely help prevent people from 'hijacking what are essentially missiles', yes? But the costs aren't worth it. Eg:
"An assessment of the Federal Air Marshal Service suggests that the annual cost is $180 million per life saved. This is greatly in excess of the regulatory safety goal of $1-$10 million per life saved. As such, the air marshal program would seem to fail a cost-benefit analysis" - https://ogma.newcastle.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repositor...
The "illusion of safety" comes from putting policies into place which aren't justified by a reasonable cost-benefit analysis, but exist mostly for cover-your-ass reasoning.
There is a very famous website about making serious weapons (shivs, bombs, even a homemade “gun”) for under $100 using only items purchased at the news stands and gift shops found airside.
There never can or will be another 9/11 style attack, ever. Why? Because no one will ever give control of a plane over to an attacker, even if they have a knife / gun / bomb.
Attacker: “We have a bomb, let us into the cockpit or we will kill all 300 people on board”
Pilot: “...why, so you can fly the plane into a building and kill 1000 people? lol no, just detonate your bomb.”
That’s it, plane attacks like this are over. They ended on 9/12, forever.
CLEAR is "skip waiting in line for a person to look at your ID and boarding pass". That's it. CLEAR by itself still sends you into the unpack-your-bag, take-off-half-your-clothes, body-scanner experience.
If you want to leave things in your carry-on, stay fully dressed and use the metal detector, you still need Pre (or another program which grants membership in Pre). CLEAR does not give you Pre.
CLEAR does not provide Pre. You can read their own documentation on that; they only get you past the podium.
I understand and agree with the fear of it being a slippery slope. I'm concerned about facial recognition becoming a regular part of surveillance in everyday life, and I hope that there is legislation around this TSA rollout that strictly prohibits their database from being used for non-airport related purposes.
Here's how the system is designed to work at full implementation. This is based on a briefing I had about 6 months ago, so I imagine it's still along the lines of what they're planning.
You get to airport security with your cary-on. You walk up to a kiosk to scan your face. When you booked your flight, they essentially did a background check on you, and if it was clean you just walk through to the terminal, with minimally-invasive scanning that doesn't require any stopping or removing anything from your bag.
If something did come up on your background check (mainly a conviction for a violent crime or a pattern of information that suggests possible ties to terrorism... one of the TSA's goals behind this system is do screening based on suspicious activity rather than profiling) you go through what essentially is the TSA experience today.
That's a pretty attractive sales proposition there; it's really hard for me as an individual to argue against the reduced hassle (and essentially a return to pre-2001 boarding patterns) in return for them having access to data they can realistically already get.
Japan takes pictures and fingerprints from people as they arrive; this doesn't seem too much different, just the direction.
I wonder if this could also be expanded to people without boarding passes. I know a lot of people mourn the loss of the ability to go directly to the gate to meet or see off family.
(Just informational without a huge rant about people having friends and family)
It's not a question, we're sliding down the slope.
This may be really cynical, but... I bet we'll get news like "our tests were based on our employees and we're surprised the system fails for black people / asians / ..." fairly soon after first implementation. So many large companies fail on this, I don't have high expectations for TSA.
To be clear, what you're describing is a system for triggering asynchronous, automated "background checks" (no doubt based on a secret methodology) against Americans, the results of which will then be applied at biometric checkpoints and used to justify taking individuals into custody for "further screening".
Do you understand the implications of a government using such a system against its citizens? Do you really think the TSA will effectively prevent other actors from using their database? Even if they do, do you think this model and precedent won't be exploited by other actors? FFS, they're already talking about ripping off the photos we have to have taken for our regular state-issued IDs.
This is exactly the current system, but the current system puts a human instead of the biometric system. See all the business of "SSSS" stamps on boarding passes.
If a bomb goes off in a subway train or bus, the people in that vehicle die. If an airplane crashes into a building, significantly more people could die.
I would argue that if they are going to use facial recognition/retinal scanning - then I shouldnt be stopped, searched or require ANY paper document to do anything and should be able to just walk through access-portals for which my ID can be tied to my ticket-of-passage....
Think about the implications for whistleblowers, journalists meeting anonymous sources, activists, immigrants, etc etc etc.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-million...
[2] https://www.aclu.org/issues/privacy-technology/location-trac...
[3] https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessm...
1: https://papersplease.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/biome...
Unless the terrorists board with machine guns, 9/11 wouldn't be possible today. No passenger would assume that a bunch of middle eastern hijackers have any other intention than to kill them all, and it would be impossible for the hijackers to control the passengers.
No one is going to give up the plans and turn their bomb into a missile ever again.
Orders of magnitude more terrorist attacks are targeted at crowds of people "out in the open" in cities than at airlines.
Wait wait, so let's use biometrics on people we already trust! I mean, not that TSA Pre-check is hard to get (airlines include it free for their best travelers after all) but give me a break government - you've already said these people are a-ok, so there's no point in this silliness.
How does this work in terms of consent? Was there some tiny line of text I didn't see that allows TSA to go through with this?
1) You now have to include a photo, same as you would for a passport.
2) They will have photo lines for TSA where they recognize you from these photos, nominally to help make the lines faster.
So on one hand... you already have to provide a photo for a passport, so this is just bringing TSA Pre-Check into balance with that. But, on the other... could government waste anymore of my tax dollars? I mean - they already "trust" the people who receive pre-check AND the lines are never that long. So it's just more silliness.
The biometrics would eventually replace the ID check you have to go through now. People who are "trusted" don't get to just walk to their airplane today.
There was a lot of fuzz here in Italy some ten years ago about Ryan Air not accepting as ID some particular forms of ID cards because of some fine interpretation of the Law.
In Italy a number of documents (driving license, boat driving license, other kinds of government issued ID cards, such as police ID cards, gun carrying permit, or similar) are considered as substituting the national ID card for the identification of someone, but for taking a plane only the national ID card (or a passport) is considered valid.
From Ryan Air site: https://www.ryanair.com/gb/en/useful-info/help-centre/terms-...
>INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL - TRAVEL DOCUMENTS ACCEPTED :
A valid passport (Note: all non EU passport holders, travelling into a Schengen member country are obliged to ensure that their passport is valid for at least 3 months from the date of their departure from the Schengen member country. This requirement does not apply to holders of a Schengen issued residence permit or long term visas).
A valid National Identity Card issued by the government of a European Economic Area (EEA) country. (Only the following EEA countries currently issue National Identity Cards acceptable for carriage on Ryanair flights: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland. The validity of French National ID cards (issued for adults) has been extended from 10 years to 15 years ONLY for cards issued between 2nd January 2004 and 31st December 2013. ...
The request for passport probably derives from the UK seemingly not issuing a suitable national ID card.
No one has to show a passport as long as your ticket is going somewhere in the US. Even the state licenses that don't meet the federal standard have been grandfathered into it for a few years, so they can fix it at the state level rather than pissing off voters.
https://www.vision-box.com/solutions/travel-and-border-contr...
How do they come to be? And what strategy do they use to bootstrap the authority and support of the project? Puss in Boots always comes to my mind.
What data are they collecting? What are they using to for? Who do they share it with? How can I request a copy of all my personal data? What's the process by which I notify them of errors in my data, and how quickly will they correct them? How do I request that they delete all my data?
In Europe, even governments are subject to the rules of GDPR.
But it operates in a world where other entities might come in play and counter. The problem is that I don't hear the voices of these other entities. Is TSA that powerful on its own?
I know "America = Freedom", but pretty soon it's going to be the same situation as we have with gmail - you may not use gmail because you don't want Google hoovering your conversation to target ads with, but if anyone cc'd in the chain uses gmail, google gets it anyway.
Whatever country you traveled to or from is going to get your biometrics, and they're probably sharing that info with the US anyway. I get the point of protesting this, but it feels kinda academic now.
I'm not saying I like giving up my freedom for convenience, but I am fed up of standing for hours in lines for "security" checks that are just theater, when they've got the information from other sources anyway. The automated checks using the biometric information in my passport(s) feel so much quicker and less biased (e.g. Thai immigration officer getting into a long conversation with a Chinese tourist about what hotel they were staying at).
Sadly, it may take very major data privacy or biometric abuse for there to ever be action.
Seriously, though, I would love to know the actual motivation for this. Somehow these days I have trouble attributing changes like this to simple bureaucratic momentum.
I am personally furious every time I fly because these rules do little to protect us. I’m glad it is giving someone (you?) some peace I guess, but the cost is too much to bear.
Outside of rights, do you have any idea how much this costs taxpayers and how insanely run that organization is? I’d say it fails many, many rational tests.
What is your stance on field sobriety testing?
That’s a pretty clear example of trading liberty for safety.
* reading math textbooks while Indian
* wearing a turban
* praying
* talking to spouses in a non-English language
and worse.
So I guess we just disagree on the definition of "suspicious behavior".
In the context of OP's link, this is just funny. I find it hard to see how a person could legitimately be so ignorant and oblivious.