TSA Investigates Pilot Who Exposed Security Flaws 394
stewart_maximus writes "The TSA is investigating a TSA deputized pilot who posted videos to YouTube pointing out security flaws. Flaws exposed include ground crew clearing security with just a card swipe while pilots have to go through metal detectors, and a 'medieval-looking rescue ax' being available on the flight deck. Three days after posting the video, 6 government officials arrived at his door to question him and confiscated his federal firearm (and his concealed weapon permit)."
What I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Granted, I haven't seen all the videos this pilot made, but from what I have seen and read so far it sounds like what this pilot was pointing out was things that were already publicly known. Things like airport ground crews having access to restricted areas without themselves having to go through screening, no TSA agents searching them or anything they carry prior to having access to aircraft, etc. Anybody with an ounce of intelligence could have figured out what this pilot documented by just sitting at an airport and watching for a little while, or by getting chummy with airport employees at a nearby bar and asking a few basic questions.
And I certainly don't think this pilot was the first one to point out these flaws. It just sounds to me like the TSA is trying to make a scapegoat out of him.
more leaks (Score:4, Insightful)
The Nazi government of US of A has turned completely bat-shit insane. All it does is taking away personal freedoms from people:
Freedoms to speak (wikileaks), freedoms to think (public schools funded and guided by the dep't of education), freedoms to fair trial (Irwin Schiff, Guantanamo, private Manning...), freedoms to do business without harassment (Patriot Act, IRS, CIA, all the regulations and rules and subsidies and taxes), freedoms to deal in real money (Fed printing, 0% interest setting, destruction of currency).
The entire thing is rotten to the core, whether you agree with me on every point or not, but I am not interested in any consensus. My consensus is simple: gov't is cancer and it's killing the society through killing the economy and taking away people's freedoms.
Some justify the US federal gov't in what it does by bringing up the commerce clause, the general welfare clause etc., but since the gov't can justify anything it wants with those clauses right now it's time to ask yourself a question:
Is there a PURPOSE to the Constitution and what IS the purpose? Isn't the purpose of the Constitution to LIMIT the gov't in what it can do? If the commerce/welfare clauses allow the gov't to do whatever it wants, what is then the real purpose of the Constitution and why not just say: gov't can do whatever the fuck it wants and be done with the pretenses?
Classic TSA (Score:2, Insightful)
The TSA is clearly a firm believer in security through obscurity.
Doh (Score:2, Insightful)
Take Note (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Doh (Score:2, Insightful)
This is more than publishing the flaws.
It's about exposing the farce that is TSA's security theater.
Good thing (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a good thing those terrorists are stupid enough to document all of their pre-attack planning on Youtube, otherwise we'd never catch them...
Security through absurdity, America's greatest weapon again terrorism!
Re:Take Note (Score:5, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with terrorists winning, and everything to do with people who are friends and associates of those that are in power, taking advantage of a fictitious threat scenario, and cashing in on it. It's greed, plain and simple.
Idiots are getting more and more power granted to them, and making more and more cash in the process, all for dealing with this "threat" that they've manufactured. They will do anything and everything they can to perpetuate it, as long as they retain and grow that power base and make more and more money.
Security Theatre relies on keeping the public ignorant of what the real threats are, and of the proper ways to deal with them.
And the morons in charge are making laws to protect themselves and keep it all going.
The real terrorists are running the show.
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
I read an article on this about six months ago. It's public knowledge, yes.
The guy with the controls in his hands and a locked cabin door behind him needs to be searched to see if he's carrying a weapon. Makes sense, right?
Question Authority... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yet another example of that old saying:
Question authority and Authority will question you!
The Emperor has no clothes on (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow. Airport 'security' is a joke, and almost everyone knows it; a Google search for "security theater" turns up over a half-million results. Yet this guy tells us something that we're all aware of already, and gets put throught the mill because of it. It's bad enough when people get crucified for revealing some hidden truth, but when it happens to someone who is simply stating the obvious, that's just sad.
Just what ARE we paying these clowns for anyway? They should go back to allowing knitting needles on planes; pissed off Grandmas would probably deal with terrorists a whole lot more effectively than these clueless idiots.
Re:Doh (Score:5, Insightful)
Except the pilot is not working for the TSA, he is working for an airline.
And let's put it in another perspective: TSA is not a company (correct me if I am wrong), it is public: which means he is informing the owners of the company (the public)
about a problem with the management (the TSA policy makers).
Solved with dogs (Score:5, Insightful)
How much of this security theater can be solved with a bomb-sniffing dog? Instead of checking each new thing for a bomb and still not being able to find them, a dog can just smell the explosive wherever it happens to be hidden. But no, we don't want to do that, that's too obvious, cheap, and easy. We'd much rather have a 1000x more expensive, incomplete and cumbersome solution.
Re:Take Note (Score:2, Insightful)
This has nothing to do with terrorists winning, and everything to do with people who are friends and associates of those that are in power, taking advantage of a fictitious threat scenario, and cashing in on it. It's greed, plain and simple.
I think you'll find that's the textbook definition of terrorism.
Re:Take Note (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know. bin Laden knows what he's doing, and his greatest weapon is fear. Fear drives people to act irrationally. What he wants is for the United States to become so fascist that the people outright rebel against it, causing civil war and the destruction of the USA. Were I in his place, I wouldn't be so optimistic. I doubt that people will engage in outright rebellion until it gets so bad, they can't even watch their television in peace. Also, even *if* the USA (as we know it) is destroyed, something very similar will probably take its place. It's not like we're suddenly going to become a feminist, socialist technocracy or an Islamic republic. We'll probably just rewrite the Constitution slightly and abolish a few of the worst aspects of today's government, then go on doing whatever it is that we were doing previously. Meet the new boss... same as the old boss.
Anyways, even if bin Laden is a bogeyman and our own government was behind 9/11 (or they consciously hijacked the tragedy for their own ends), it doesn't really change anything. The end result is the same. Fear, pseudo-change, and a new boss. Note that I'm not anti-Obama. I like Obama as much as the next guy who's apathetic about politicians and their promises. I just don't think that anyone who runs for political office can/will have much ability/desire to change the status quo, despite promises made. I meant "pseudo-change" in more of a grand sense, like how the French keep rewriting their Constitution and instituting new Republics. It's just the same old crap, under a different name.
Re:more leaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
The persecution of this pilot isn't for giving away security secrets. It is for making a popular video on YouTube that exposes the security theater. The purpose of the TSA is to make the public feel like they are protected. Pointing out real security issues breaks the illusion.
Re:Biometrics (Score:4, Insightful)
Ground crew have privileged access to secure areas of the airport that demands more security, not less. Make them do an iris scan and enter a passcode in addition to swiping their badge.
Unless the ground crew also go through the wonderful new nudey-scan machines (or are otherwise touched up and fondled) EVERY TIME they cross into air-side then there's a glaring hole in the process! Any one of the ground crew could be turned (I've got your daughter and you will carry this item through and hand it to my partner air-side) or simply go postal, or be a long-time plant or sleeper, which means they MUST be subject to searches to prevent them from carrying any of the otherwise disallowed items air-side. Hell, they don't even need to be suicide jockeys they can just plant the stuff for the suicide squad to pick up once they clear the security theatre as regular passengers!
Re:Solved with dogs (Score:5, Insightful)
So you hit the nail on the head, exactly *because* these measures are 1000x more expensive is why they are being pushed... The smell of fear smells like profit to some.
Re:So i love the sarcastic comments (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm going to do the same thing about it that we do about the 40,000 odd traffic fatalities every year: Nearly nothing.
We don't invade privacy and remove freedoms because so many people die in traffic accidents. Why should we because of some vague "terrorist" threat? Honestly, airport security never has and never will stop a determined terrorist. We need to simply have an adult conversation with the American people and perhaps increase the educational investment in mathematics education. Perhaps, if they understood statistics a bit better, then they wouldn't run around like idiots demanding that something be DONE about what amounts to a non-threat.
Yeah, I know....
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe he will get a lump of coal in his stocking tomorrow.
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:3, Insightful)
Same old story. You don't expose the idiocies of power and expect a jolly response for your helpfulness.
Not to make them feel protected at all (Score:5, Insightful)
The purpose of the theater is to make the public fearful, not protected. Our government needs a fearful public to enable the erosion of public rights. We gave up a bunch of rights with the Patriot Act that we would never have tolerated the loss of without the "it's for your protection" lie. TSA is part of the cover for this lie and others.
Re:Pretty sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the TSA wasn't aware of this flaw prior to this, we are even in more danger.
Re:Not to make them feel protected at all (Score:5, Insightful)
It does both. It gives those that didn't consider it a problem the idea that there is one (else, why would they search everyone like crazy) while at the same time calming those that are already properly hysteric (and make them feel protected by their wonderful government).
Re:Don't compromise ... (Score:3, Insightful)
ROTFL did "we"?
Do you mean in the purely participatory act of choosing which collection of puppet figure heads we wanted?
This government was formed by the aristocracy for the aristocracy for one purpose... to make the peasants FEEL like they have a voice, and basically, to use the same logic that you just did to shut up and take whatever they give us.
At least state government is small enough for the people to have some effect on them, if still not much. Secession would go a long way towards making the governments actually listen to the people
Re:Not to make them feel protected at all (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a CYA move "Look! We are doing everything we can to protect American lives." As far as any negative consequences? Well, as an elected official I would rather cover my ass from criticism than actually do the hard things. Hard things take time and I'm forced to focus most of my time on getting re-elected these days.
Security Theater is a good compromise. /sarcasm
Re:more leaks (Score:2, Insightful)
The Nazi government of US of A has turned completely bat-shit insane. All it does is taking away personal freedoms from people
You're "bat-shit insane" if you think that that is anything like the Nazis. And you're totally ignorant of history if you think that the US is less free today than it was 50 or 100 years ago.
Yes, there are problems in the US, there always have been and there always will be; it's the nature of democracy and freedom. If we want to deal with those, citizens need to get smarter, more informed, and more politically and historicaly aware.
What we don't need is foaming-at-the-mouth lunatics like you.
Re:Classic TSA (Score:5, Insightful)
Fixed.
Re:more leaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Being realistic never meant you should just accept everything that is wrong. Compromising with evil makes you an accessory to evil.
All true, but that doesn't apply here. Laws like the US Patriot Act, organizations like the TSA, and wars like Iraq are ill-conceived and ineffective; they are not part of an evil master plan to subjugate Americans or take over the world. And if you treat them like that, you can't effectively work against them.
Educate yourself and others about politics and history, participate in the political process, donate, volunteer, write, expose, leak, whatever: that's the way things get better in a democracy. Dividing the world into "good" and "evil" is empty demagoguery.
Re:What I don't understand... (Score:5, Insightful)
It is how the authoritarian minds works. You are either with us, or against us. Basic intelligence doesn't play a role.
Re:Pretty sure... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:more leaks (Score:4, Insightful)
You - FUCK YOU
Manning is sitting in a solitary cell for 23 hours a day for 200 days now even though he hasn't been found guilty of anything yet.
He is being tortured by the US gov't, who is interested in one thing: find a way to charge Julian Assange with some sort of conspiracy, so they can prosecute him.
The torture of solitary confinement will lead to Manning's psychological health being compromised, this is a human rights violation right there and WHO in the US 'real media' is challenging the US gov't?
MSNBC did an interview [mediabistro.com] that's about the scope of it.
Manning is being tortured, he is not guilty of anything yet, he is being psychologically and also physically tortured, you can't hold a person hostage for 200 days in solitary confinement, deny them the right even to exercise in his own cell and expect him to be OK after that.
So
Re:Makes no difference (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, I think the point is to condition us to get used to intrusive "security" measures. Then turn it up another notch and take away a little more freedom.
Rinse and repeat.
Re:more leaks (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, fuck dignity, it's in the name of security. If you can't stand a single ball grab then you don't deserve to ride in a plane.
Every time I see someone say that I remember someone who is beloved by a large number of republicans. John Wayne. Would he let some smelly fat man give his coin purse a jingle?
Comment removed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:more leaks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:more leaks (Score:4, Insightful)
Compare what happened after 9/11 with the burning of the Reichstag. And what happened afterward. The parallel isn't perfect, but it's about as close as repeating history ever gets.
The federal government has been systematically destroying freedom in the U.S. for the past 100 years (at least). There have been a few advances, but, even with them, the government usually manages to take away at least as much as it gives (the civil rights movement led to things like enforced political correctness, busing, and racist hiring quotas).
It probably isn't fair to call America's government "Nazi," but it's well on its way to fascism. (And, no, fascism really isn't all that different from socialism...it's just one logical step further along the road back to feudalism).
"Foaming-at-the-mouth" lunacy doesn't really do any good to promote the cause of freedom. But I can understand the GP's frustration. I can't understand your complacency/collusion at all. Then again, America's always been an uneasy alliance between people who want to be free, the ones who want everyone to be slaves, and the ones who are determined to master everyone else.
Maybe it's time to admit that that alliance has failed, split it up, and go our separate ways. While we can still do so peacefully.
Re:more leaks (Score:2, Insightful)
Unless you're a veteran, you are not a "peer" to judge Manning.
WRONG. The military is there to serve the people, not the other way around, and the people are correct in judging anything they do. To believe otherwise is flying in the face of everything the US was allegedly founded on.
Now, if you want to make the case that a person who is not/has not been in the military is not familiar with certain things that make them participating in adjudicating charges error-prone, I can believe that. That sort of thing has been a problem for people with specialized knowledge in lots of areas when involved in legal proceedings.
So, if you want to figure out whether or not he broke the law/rules/his oaths, etc. then I agree that a military person has a better perspective. If, however, you want to judge whether what he did was right or wrong, any citizen can and should do that and should not be told to keep quiet about it.
Worship of the military and elevating those in it above others has absolutely got to stop. Those who serve honorably should be thanked and respected for the difficult job they do and the sacrifices they make, but they are NOT above everyone else. Blind obedience to anything, including oaths and superiors, is stupid and very dangerous in a complex world, especially for people with access to lots of weaponry. Whether "this kid is a disgrace to his uniform" or not rather seems to me to depend on what he actually did and what his motives for doing it were, which would be a lot easier to figure out if anyone ever gets the ability to ask him those questions in public.