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Comment by tylermenezes | Hacker News Reader

The term "security theater" has been tossed around a lot, but I think it's pretty clearly coming to that. Asking the mainstream media not to cover something like this is completely indefensible from a security standpoint - what, terrorists only learn about security flaws from TV?. It's pretty patently only about keeping their budget.

Also, just going to throw this out there, but it is fairly possible that the email is totally fake.

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No. It's not "coming to that". We're well past the security theater stage, and into the nightmare stage.

Even hinting that any media not cover this or ANY story is so, so far beyond the purview of TSA that it is shocking (or should be shocking—it has become rather hard to be shocked by TSA) that they would even consider pulling this.

The Supreme Court should slap them so hard that their acronym gets mixed up. This is an outrage.

(edited to add snark) I thought of the perfect new acronym! STA: Security Theater Administration.

Hinting that media cover or not cover any story is so far beyond the purview of the TSA that no competent journalist would consider taking them seriously, making this a comparatively mild nightmare.

The Supreme Court can't "slap them" for anything; someone with standing would have to bring a case, and for that case to have merit, some journalistic outlet would have had to have its discretion actually impinged by the TSA.

There might be a suit brought on behalf of one of these reporters and/or their employer arguing that the implication of consequences from such a powerful entity without a court order constitutes illegal interference with their business, possibly entitling them to some damages, and more importantly, establishing some very important precedent which might prevent the TSA from ever attempting such a stunt in the future. I could certainly see many lawyers salivating at the prospect of winning a suit against such a well-funded target, not to mention the notoriety such a contentious issue would bring them in any event.

You are not familiar with Sovereign Immunity. No lawyer in the world salivates at the thought of suing the federal government.

Maybe you're not familiar with the Federal Tort Claims Act, which provides a waiver for the federal government's immunity in the case that a federal employee has been shown to have caused wrongful damage.

I am familiar with the Federal Tort Claims Act. No reasonable person would consider your original claim a tort. Where are the damages from one government employee making a hollow threat? What specific expenses or losses did the newspaper incur because a federal employee made a threat?

Your case is weak, otherwise lawyers would be fully employed.

What if they suddenly find all of their reporters have been added to the federal no-fly list?

Then they would have a case. Also if if jackbooted TSA thugs showed up to burn down the newspaper building. But since no one has even alleged that any of these things have happened, can we skip the wild and crazy speculation?

Except what actually happens (Hello, PATRIOT act!) is that all the evidence of harm is secret, and so the Supreme Court refuses to grant standing to any injured party, and so discovery never happens and the evidence can never be brought to light and the harm never proven in court. This story has been repeated over and over since 2002.

Real lawyers do. We don't have real lawyers.

Change "Administration" to "Department" and I think you've got a winner.

> No. It's not "coming to that". We're well past the security theater stage, and into the nightmare stage.

If you want to stick to the theatrical vocabulary while being pedantic, you could talk about security phantasmagoria

Would this be considered blackmail, if the media starts getting harassed by the TSA over covering such stories?

Civil Rights violations, like the Rodney King beating

I think they are betting on security through absurdity (I initially meant to spell obscurity but this makes more sense).

They're operating on the age-old wisdom of, "If you don't know where you're going, you're never lost."

On the plus side, they're making good time.

It's incredibly suspicious to allude to an e-mail from the TSA, but not actually include a copy of said e-mail.

I'll be requesting a copy by FOIA... will post on my blog whenever it comes :)

Thank you for your brave work on this issue, you are a true patriot.

"It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds." -- Samuel Adams, Founding Father

Was the expression "brush fire" current in the late 1700s? In fact, the whole sentence looks a little questionable.

Not really... http://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=brush+fire&...

As well as http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Samuel_Adams#Misattributed

sure but this only applies to a citizen's inalienable right to make beer (and seasonal ales).

Could you ask the journalist in question to forward you the entire e-mail as well?

He doesn't want to ruin his relationship with the source by doing so, but again, it should be a public record releasable under FOIA

It's supposed to take a month. But, the TSA ignored my last FOIA request, so I had to sue them for it.

Thank you, story is on the blog, including this post: http://tsaoutofourpants.wordpress.com/2012/02/01/confirmed-t...

Wow. That in itself is a great story which should be heard.

How long does an FOIA request of that sort usually take? If there are multiple steps, could you give us a timeline?

Probably depends on the request. I got a pretty quick turnaround (or at least it exceeded my expectations) on my request to the FBI for whatever they knew about my grandfather: About 3 weeks.

Sidenote: if you're interested in doing the same just go to http://www.getgrandpasfbifile.com/

What kind of relationship does he have with a TSA agent who is mildly threatening him or intimidating him at least?

The TSA as a journalistic source?

Is this the same source that's threatening him?

Also, I wouldn't be surprised if the email server suddenly lost a bunch of emails the day before the FOIA request went through.

It's not "incredibly suspicious", since the author is claiming that one of his media contacts was the recipient of the email. Also, I don't see how seeing a screenshot of the purported message from the TSA would be considered more valid evidence than the current screenshot.

Second source confirms in comments! SmarterTravel March 8, 2012 at 3:34 pm | #11 Reply | Quote | Edit We were also “strongly cautioned” not to cover the story. We did anyway at SmarterTravel: http://tinyurl.com/7te5wj8

For the cautious, the above tinyurl expands to http://www.smartertravel.com/blogs/today-in-travel/did-blogg...

So you're saying that screen shot [1] of the redacted email was manufactured, or that the source of the redacted email was maybe trolling Jon?

I'm one of those folks that when I see a redacted email like that with most of the identity cookie in it I wonder if one could track down the original. I mean mail.fourtentech.com actually has a web server sitting on it and all.

Anyway, it could be a viralish stunt, but sadly its pretty credible that the TSA might say this.

[1] http://tsaoutofourpants.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/caution_...

I'm confused. I see something that looks like an email referring to the aforementioned email from Sari Koshetz.

I do not however see an email that looks like anything from Sari Koshetz with or without redaction.

EDIT: I agree with the user "martey" below, though, that this wouldn't necessarily be evidence of anything. It's way too easy to fake this kind of thing. The FOIA request for the email is the way to go. It'll probably find itself conveniently deleted or something, though.

So you're saying that screen shot [1] of the redacted email was manufactured, or that the source of the redacted email was maybe trolling Jon?

Or an infinite number of other things. Don't get bogged down in what the alternative scenario is. What is important is that if something is true, we should be able to find corroborating evidence to support it. If we can't, then we have reason to doubt the initial claim - and we can do so without arguing for a particular alternate scenario.

Then again, this is arguably censorship theater. I thought the original post was blogspammy in the extreme, and this is more of the same.

This does not make me a cheerleader for the TSA.

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