$100 to Fly Through the Airport
online.wsj.com
online.wsj.com
Sell a solution to that problem.
I'm so out of energy for this stupidity I can't finish my comment. Bye.
I signed up for Global Entry (the "backdoor" for this program, presumably with similar paperwork) sometime in early summer last year before this domestic flight security thing was available. My interview was a joke. I don't think they verified anything I put down in my application. The CBP officer just briefly glanced at my drivers license and papers and spent more time asking me if I wrote Angry Birds ("what is your job?" "I write iPhone apps...") while looking me up and down (it was a hot day, maybe a bad day to wear a low-cut summer dress). I walked out of there in 5 minutes with my angry birds/cleavage supported approval.
I fly domestic dozens of times a year and I consider this program to be utter bullshit on the part of TSA. I'm not really providing any more information than they can already discover by information they require you to enter for purchasing a flight. I'm exchanging a false sense of security at a cost I find stupid (even though my Global Entry app fee was free). I really don't know why people can't rise up and try to get rid of TSA security theater instead of being all excited that this kind of program exists.
TSA/DHS are a joke, and if you think they're honest and/or necessary, I suggest you follow the money. I'd say start with the companies who make full body scanners (millimeter wave, which uses ionizing radiation and causes cancer (ref: http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_X-ray ), but that's a whole other can of worms.)
Small correction: millimeter wavelengths are non-ionizing. X-rays are much smaller (0.01 to 10nm - Wikipedia).
There are lots of things wrong with the scanner...radiation is a very small part of it.
Each time you go buy a weapon you pay an extra 5 dollars (at least here in Illinois) to cover a background check (the results of which are instantly available). (You still have to wait 3 days in case other info hasn't yet entered the system, and then they check again, and give you your weapon).
Since my guess is most that most people who apply for this will not fall into the bracket where they do extensive background checks, they'll make plenty of profit off this.
Of course, it's also possible that the check will be a sham for all.
> Sell a solution to that problem.
Force everyone in the country, by law, to buy the solution.
I'm not even talking about the latest TSA BS; are we all forgetting that our taxes -- our money -- has been literally purchasing the TSA's nonsense from the very beginning?
> To qualify, frequent fliers must meet undisclosed TSA criteria and get invited in by the airlines. There is also a backdoor in. Approved travelers who are in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection's "Global Entry" program can transfer into Precheck using their Global Entry number.
Essentially, this program sends the following message: that a metal detector and commonsense analysis are sufficient for security purposes. If they didn't truly believe that, they wouldn't be offering it as an option. Clearly it's considered viable, and that fact alone negates the supposed necessity or benefit of the bodyscanners, the shoe-and-belt removal, the "enhanced" patdowns, and so forth.
The fundamental problem with the TSA's approach is that it's inherently reactionary and unstrategic. Terrorists try X, so let's design a countermeasure for X and subject everyone to it. Hey, now terrorists have tried Y instead of X. Let's build for Y! Terrorists are now trying Z, instead of X or Y? Crap, how'd they think of that? Better restrict Z, too. And on and on the game goes, with no rational end in sight.
Of course, the TSA counterargument here would be "...but 9/11 happened with the old system in place!!!11!" True. But, as we've seen, 9/11 was not a failure of screening technology. It was an analytical and personnel failure. If we're going to invest as heavily as we are in the TSA, then let's invest in selecting, training, and paying better people.
I'd give it 50/50 odds that the embedded 'code' in the boarding pass can be easily forged.
The TSA agent scanned the BP, there was a beep sequence similar to when you have exit row and they directed me to the other line.
all he has is a ultraviolet(?) lantern and latex gloves.
I had an international flight a few weeks ago and used a paper ticket. For the first time they scanned the paper ticket in the same way as the 2D barcode from the app.
I suspect the "embedded code" is in this 2D barcode and hence why not all airports can "support" this system. They have to have the scanners installed, which most airports don't.
Is there's still a huge hole between security and boarding - you can go through security on one ticket (which could be totally fake) and fly out on another, which could be used to get around the "code on the boarding pass" protection...
>The ID triangle: before a passenger boards a commercial flight, he interacts with his airline or the government three times—when he purchases his ticket; when he passes through airport security; and finally at the gate, when he presents his boarding pass to an airline agent. It is at the first point of contact, when the ticket is purchased, that a passenger’s name is checked against the government’s no-fly list. It is not checked again, and for this reason, Schneier argued, the process is merely another form of security theater.
>To slip through the only check against the no-fly list, the terrorist uses a stolen credit card to buy a ticket under a fake name. “Then you print a fake boarding pass with your real name on it and go to the airport. You give your real ID, and the fake boarding pass with your real name on it, to security. They’re checking the documents against each other. They’re not checking your name against the no-fly list—that was done on the airline’s computers. Once you’re through security, you rip up the fake boarding pass, and use the real boarding pass that has the name from the stolen credit card. Then you board the plane, because they’re not checking your name against your ID at boarding.”
Meanwhile you have a struggling economy, attempts to ban scientific progress, shutting down the internet, inequality for minorities, the list goes on
We don't have the equivalent of the TSA here in Australia and I don't feel any less safe for it.
The measures that we're upset about are due to some prominent security failures of the TSA, mostly to do with private individuals using plastic explosives. The most prominent were the shoe bomber (thus now we take off our shoes) and the underwear bomber (thus now you must either let them take a naked picture of you, or else submit to the Freedom Fondling of your genitals to look for such things). However, other intrusive regulations like "don't take a bottle of Pepsi on-board, it will be confiscated" come from a failed "liquid explosives" plan which we caught before they put it into action. The underwear and shoe bombs got right through the TSA's security screening, and were defeated by passengers noticing that people were trying to set weird things on fire.
People have been upset about the stupidity of airport security since before 2001; George Carlin's rant on airport security was in 1999, you can find it on YouTube easily. His ringing words, "Haven't found anything yet, haven't found one bomb in one bag" still rings true, surprisingly enough. We even found plastic explosive charges in cargo planes -- but only because counterintelligence sources intercepted the information of the plan and told us where to look. These guys digging around in your bags never did.
Let me tell you what's wrong here, in one brief statement. You know what happened when I last went through a naked body scanner? It went off loudly. You would think that this means that I would be a very sorry person indeed. No. They lazily took me aside, looked at where the computer software had drawn a circle (around my head), decided that it was probably detecting my ponytail as a false alarm, and whisked me on my way.
Wait, you say, you mean their alarms went off and they yawned? That's correct. Your chance of being a real unidentified terrorist is probably smaller than one in a hundred million. Their machine's false positive rate is probably larger than one in a thousand. That means that even if their machine goes off, there's only a one-in-a-hundred-thousand chance that you're a serious threat. The officer who deals with you will be conditioned by the last hundred non-threatening people he has very thoroughly investigated, and has started to say, "okay, yeah, boring. This person looks as trustworthy as the last hundred. I guess I'll let them pass."
I don't know how al-Qaeda feels about our new TSA policies, but it's probably laughable when compared to their fear of our military drones. The TSA probably doesn't make any terrorist afraid.
Nothing has changed. There have always been terrorists. 9/11 was just the first time this particular kind of attack was used.
That vulnerability was patched out the very next day (or otherwise quickly) - locked cockpit doors and air marshalls. Add to that the bonus of any guy standing up to hijack a plane will likely be throttled by angry passengers.
These checks are _not_ a necessity. We could go back to private screeners and metal detectors and be safe enough.
Freedom is it's own end: true before, true now.
And never mind that the TSA does absolutely zilch to make us any safer anyway.
It's hard because we elect one representative and two senators to represent us on every issue. The highest-controversy issues get the spotlight, while other very important issues are ignored. There's no way to say "I like this about Rep. X, but don't like her stance on issue Y," in the voting booth.
That's not to say that interstate air travel is outside of the scope of the feds, but that there's so much scope creep in Congress that it's hard to focus on that come election season.
Section 8 specifically lists the powers reserved to Congress. Neither the Executive branch nor the Supreme Court is given this treatment. (Side note: patents are specifically listed here: "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;")
Section 9 deals with a few other things such as immigration, ex post facto laws, taxes and spending money. Section 10 is rules on what states can't do.
Furthermore, Amendment 10 reads:
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.
The government does have power to step out of this specific list, due to the "necessary and proper" clause, but in general this used to be considered a clause where the government can do whatever is "necessary and proper" to exercise their duty to govern within their enumerated powers. This is spelled out by Justice Marshall in McCulloch vs. Maryland: "If the end be legitimate, and within the scope of the Constitution, all the means which are appropriate, which are plainly adapted to that end, and which are not prohibited, may constitutionally be employed to carry it into effect."
However, later on in his opinion he also states: "This Government is acknowledged by all to be one of enumerated powers. The principle that it can exercise only the powers granted to it would seem too apparent to have required to be enforced by all those arguments which its enlightened friends, while it was depending before the people, found it necessary to urge; that principle is now universally admitted. But the question respecting the extent of the powers actually granted is perpetually arising, and will probably continue to arise so long as our system shall exist."
This has always been a tricky question. There is a limit on Congress' power. While it is not limited simply to those listed in the Constitution, everybody that I know thinks Congress has overstepped their boundaries countless times.
The trouble is that we the people are no longer invested in our government and don't properly hold them to account. We elect people who benefit me the most, as opposed to the country. This is normal, but when you couple that with a court system that is overloaded and an executive branch that is, frankly, out of control and insanely drunk with power, bad government happens.
Imagine being able to break things down so that we elect economic & taxation reps separately from the people who make laws. Sure, there's already some split between the House & Senate, but they're not exactly compartmentalized in the way I'm envisioning right now.
Only a very small portion of Americans are on Hacker News, so don't assume the TSA is universally loathed.
A democracy would indeed find it easy to change such things as the TSA. Unfortunately a democracy would also find it easy to, say, change the rules of evidence governing proof of your guilt, because their perception of you is that you are bad and need to be punished, and the court system is one way to do that.
It is the tragedy of democracies that it is easy to make major decisions hastily whose consequences are either not understood well or understood all too well by a few for their own advantage.
Protection of minorities include at least freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, property rights, the rule of law and strong, independent institutions to enforce these.
Voting is mostly useful for facilitating peaceful periodic transfers of power, as opposed to chaotic, even bloody, revolutions.
The US government has now decided that rich citizens get easier treatment than poor citizens - isn't this a moral issue? Shouldn't all citizens be treated equally?
You don't have a constitutional right to fly on an airplane.
You ARE supposed to be protected from unreasonable searches though. If $100 means that you no longer need to be frisked/scanned, when then that kinda proves that those are unreasonable searches, they certainly are unnecessary.
* It seems reasonable to be able to pay the airline more for better treatment by the airline (first class, lounges, etc...).
* It seems moderately unreasonable to be able to pay extra (either directly or through the airline) for shorter lines at the checkpoint (first class lines).
* It seems entirely unreasonable to be able to pay extra to avoid safety procedures, as I'm sure a terrorist organization with global reach can find an accomplice who can pass a background check. Either the intrusive screening procedures are necessary or they're not.
Things that inconvenience the rich tend to get changed. Consider public transportation in most large European cities compared to most large US cities. The rich do not ride the bus in Miami. This is an attempt to avoid the change by making the system more convenient for the rich without fixing it for anyone else.
This type of program is par for the course for the TSA: introducing yet another layer of theatrics for no meaningful security benefit. The US civil air system is still no safer than it was in 2001, and that's a crying shame.
I was only a kid in the 90s but I still remember the stark differences of flying back then compared to now. These days the only joy I get from flying is asking specifically for a can of soda and receiving a can instead of a cup that only holds about a third of a can.
Here I thought it was because I was so clever for drinking tonic water, and they're giving out entire cans of Coke.
1) Domestic precheck clearance is free, not $100. 2) International precheck is $100. 3) It is a slight return to 'normalcy' (for some definition of normal), albeit for only a few people for now.
It is at least SOMEWHAT a step in a sort-of right direction (not #2, paying $100 for this is bullshit), instead of the typical step in the complete wrong direction we've been seeing from TSA.
I can hope, at least, that it will allow some of the people at TSA to see a graceful exit from their strategy of pointless security theater, and a return to cheaper, similarly effective screening.
There is a major creep factor with the application you have to fill out though. It's essentially all the information you have to give for a basic background check - 5 years of address and employment information, the works. Also their website is unbelievably poorly formatted, slow, and seems to randomly crash. Bleh.
Boss: "Gentlemen: The $1B investment in TSA nude body scanners we made is worthless. Suggestions?"
Tom: "We could monetize the old way, call it a fancy name, and pretend we actually do something extra, so that people still feel safe."
Boss: "Good idea, Tom. Get to it."
Phase 2: ????
Phase 3: Profit!
I am by no means a frequent traveller but only for a few flights a year that €70 is totally worth it.
In fact, in previous HN discussions, we've cried out for a more Israeli style airport security..
Yes. They are the best at religiously driven oppressive racism. You want to find people that think non-kin aren't fully human in 2012? Hey, I used to work in a room full of them; but never on Saturday of course ;-)
Boss: "Guys, the $1B investment in body scanners is worthless. Suggestions?"
Tom: "We could monetize the old way, call it another name, and pretend that we would actually do some extra security check to keep people from panicking."
Boss: "Good job, Tom. Get it done."
While I'd much rather sit in some miserable lobby than stand in line for two hours, this means you save exactly zero time unless you're happy to miss X% of your flights..