One Tip Enough To Put Name On Terrorist Watch List 446
Frosty P writes "As a result of the US Government's complete failure to investigate credible warnings about 'Underwear Bomber' Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab from none other than Abdulmutallab's father, senior American counterterrorism officials say they have altered their criteria so that a single-source tip can lead to a name being placed on the watch list. Civil liberties groups warn that it is now even more likely that individuals who pose no threat will be swept up in America's security apparatus, leading to potential violations of their privacy and making it difficult for them to travel. 'They are secret lists with no way for people to petition to get off or even to know if they're on,' said Chris Calabrese, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union."
Re:TSA Agents (Score:4, Informative)
I hate to burst your bubble, but I seem to remember that sen. Edward Kennedy, wasn't able to board an airplane for some months when his name turned up on the no-fly list for alleged IRA connections. As it turned out, that was another Edward Kennedy. So being in congress or having the best know face in American politics will not get you on the plane. The list is always right, reality is often mistaken.
Re:Perhaps. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually shortly you won't have an option to avoid the TSA. No going by car won't help because they have bought vans with the full body scanners in them so they can scan cars & people without anyone knowing. You can't take a train, the TSA is already there. You won't be able to take a bus, because the TSA is already expanding to bus stations. The TSA has said they are going to be moving in to ports and such. So soon, you won't be able to even take a boat without running into the TSA. The TSA has starting putting a few people at the boarders as well, they have reported. The TSA just recently announced they want to have a presence at sporting events, and possibly even malls along with monitoring churches. The TSA has also said they will be moving in to the subway systems in cities to make sure they are protected.
So how exactly was it you suggest we avoid the TSA? It is or soon will be impossible to avoid them if you travel anywhere in the US. If they get their wish you won't even be able to avoid them even in your home town. It is probably more an issue of time, rather than if this stuff happens. Soon you can get the experience TSA experience everyday depending on where you go and how you get to work.
The TSA has not stopped one terrorist since they were created. You know who has stopped every terrorist? The passengers on the airplanes. So it it passengers - 2, TSA - 0. Seem to me like the passengers are doing far more to protect the public than the TSA. Maybe we need to do something to make it easier for passengers to deal with terrorists when they find them since they are doing a better job than the TSA. Spend money where it works, not on failed systems and failed government departments. Some have suggested letting every passenger carry a fire arm. While this is a funny suggestion, it might actually work better than the TSA. It does make a sort of perverse sort of sense, after all how many people could a terrorist shoot before everyone else on the plane shoots him dead. I don't think that is the best idea out there though. It is kind of funny to think about though.
There aren't just bad seeds in the TSA. The problem is systemic with the TSA. They have had serious problems listed in their last 3 yearly GAO reports. That is just the 3 I looked at and I didn't go further back. Problems of poor training still, problems of not following the advice of the "red teams" to help improve their security still. They are still failing "red team" test by huge percentages with some airports still having 100% failures still. They aren't following DHS policies like they are suppose to do. They have irregularities in their accounting and can't explain where some money went, and can't explain how much money they spent on other things. There is also the most recent report that questions their spending on new technology and issues of so much technology abandoned sitting in warehouses. The issue is the TSA isn't investigating and properly testing new technologies before they are purchased to see if they even work, let alone help security.
Every few days there is a report of how TSA staff didn't even follow their own rules and harassed a member of the public, or how they assaulted someone. The reports just keep piling up. This indicates a basic fundamental problem with the TSA. Normally you would suggest retraining to correct these type of problems, but we can't even do that since their training programs are a failure and not being done right according to the GAO.
Clearly the TSA is a failure and needs to disbanded. It was a nice idea that we tried but it is a utter and complete failure, and we shouldn't throw good money after bad with the TSA.
Re:Enemies of the State (Score:5, Informative)
I'd love to hear about Glenn Beck not being able to fly, or Sarah Palin strip-searched and groped at the airport. Now that might make FOX reverse some of their propaganda. If anything, when it comes to security theater, that's actually one of the very few things Glenn Beck and I agree on.
Don't get your hopes up.
The X-ray scans and groping procedures are applicable for the "small people" only.
I wish I was kidding, but if you are a government official or rich enough to have your own security people travel with you, you get an officially sanctioned bypass. It's literally in the rules.
At most what would happen if you try to troll the TSA by adding popular people on the lists is to get unwanted attention to your own persona.
The reason you can't play the system against itself is that, after all, the people on top work hard every day on changing the system to play you. They have the capability, head start and experience to make sure you follow the rules and don't yap or object too much, like all small people should.
Re:Enemies of the State (Score:4, Informative)
>>>I'd love to hear about Glenn Beck not being able to fly, or Sarah Palin strip-searched and groped at the airport. Now that might make FOX reverse some of their propaganda.
You don't watch FOX at all, do you?
Almost all the hosts are against TSA gropings.
>>>as FOX essentially created the "Tea Party"
And more misinformation. The Ron Paul for President campaign created the tea party in late 2007. They had multiple rallies and then it just keep growing, even after Ron Paul stepped back from it. I had joined Ron's tea party loooong before FOX ever talked about it.
Re:Perhaps. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually that number is wrong. The odds are much much higher.
The odds of dying in a terrorist attack on a plane in a given year are 1 in 25,000,000.
The odds of a Westerner being killed by a terrorist in a given year are 1 in 3,000,000.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703481004574646963713065116.html [wsj.com]
The odds of your dying in a 1 hour flight in a given year are less than 1 in 1,000,000.
http://planecrashinfo.com/ [planecrashinfo.com]
The odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are about 1 in 500,000.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703481004574646963713065116.html [wsj.com]
The odds of dying in a car accident within one year 1 in 18,585.
The odds of simply being in a car accident within one year are 1 in 5,889.
The odds of dying by an assault within one year are 1 in 16,421.
http://www.nsc.org/ [nsc.org]
I think, if I am not mistaken, I have a better chance to win a state lottery than die in an terrorist attack on an airplane. I am so much more likely to die from an assault than a terrorist, it is an order of magnitude that is just plain silly. So as you can see the odds are pretty slim to die by a terrorist attack of any kind. I think I can risk it, and have far less security at airport with no groping or radiation. If I get a choice, I choose my Constitutional freedoms, over being safe. If a terrorist kills me so be it. At least I died with all my freedoms, rather than beaten down by my own government.
Re:Perhaps. (Score:4, Informative)
That was Bruce Schneier on Security:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/tsa_backscatter.html [schneier.com]
There's talk about the health risks of the machines, but I can't believe you won't get more radiation on the flight. Here's some data:
A typical dental X-ray exposes the patient to about 2 millirems of radiation. According to one widely cited estimate, exposing each of 10,000 people to one rem (that is, 1,000 millirems) of radiation will likely lead to 8 excess cancer deaths. Using our assumption of linearity, that means that exposure to the 2 millirems of a typical dental X-ray would lead an individual to have an increased risk of dying from cancer of 16 hundred-thousandths of one percent. Given that very small risk, it is easy to see why most rational people would choose to undergo dental X-rays every few years to protect their teeth.
More importantly for our purposes, assuming that the radiation in a backscatter X-ray is about a hundredth the dose of a dental X-ray, we find that a backscatter X-ray increases the odds of dying from cancer by about 16 ten millionths of one percent. That suggests that for every billion passengers screened with backscatter radiation, about 16 will die from cancer as a result.
Given that there will be 600 million airplane passengers per year, that makes the machines deadlier than the terrorists.
(bold added for emphasis by russ1337)
Re:Perhaps. (Score:4, Informative)
The Israeli's use a high-tech heuristic approach to catching their terrorist viruses.
The result? The country in the most active terrorist region in the world and they haven't had a "close call" in a decade.
How long does it take an Israeli to get through security? No more than 25 minutes.
See, in Israeli airports they only do basic x-ray and metal detector physical searches. They don't have strange rules for laptops and batteries and liquids and shoes and whatever else. They don't care what you're carrying with you as long as it isn't something obvious like a knife or a huge bomb.
What they do instead of all of TSA's useless rules is ask questions at four different security checkpoints (integrated into the flow of the airport check-in process, so they hardly take any extra time), and based on the responses they weed out suspicious people. Those people get the ringer, but nobody else does.
The physical scanners are also enclosed in a bomb-proof area, so if someone does try to sneak a bomb on, they simply cordon it off and open another security line - no need to shut down the entire airport just because they found a bomb.
That's real security, the nonsense TSA does is just theater.
Case in point:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20023820-71.html [cnet.com]
Re:Perhaps. (Score:4, Informative)
Perhaps. (Score:-1, Troll)
by puterg33k (1920022)
Ahhh com'on guys. Even though I completely disagree with his post, that doesn't make him a "troll" or "ass". He's just sharing his opinion. He didn't deserve the negative karma hit nor the insult. Can't we all just..... get along?
This puterg33k posted a couple weeks ago, this tidbit [slashdot.org] about surrendering our freedoms - topped with the Ben Franklin quote. When someone posts two practically contradictory and controversial statements I tend to think "troll" instead of "multiple personality disorder".