The Transportation Security Administration on Sunday announced changes to airline screening procedures and security restrictions which had been put into place Thursday in the wake of news of a foiled terrorist plot in the United Kingdom which had reportedly targeted U.S.-bound airliners.
Under the new procedures announced Sunday, air passengers will be allowed to bring up to four ounces of non-prescription liquid medication as well as solid lipstick and baby formula, breast milk and baby food, as well as prescription medications. Other liquids and gels of any kind remain prohibited since Thursday’s revelations that terrorists planned to smuggle liquid explosives aboard aircraft and detonate them in flight.
However, all passengers will now be required to remove their shoes and send them through an X-ray machine. In addition, the TSA is employing additional screening dogs and observers to look for suspicious behavior, an agency spokeswoman said.
“Since last week when the level increased, we have devoted extra resources to assist with the ticket checker functions to have that behavior observation going on at the front of the line,” an agency spokeswoman, Ellen Howe, said. “We are going to consider expanding it,” she said. — New York Times
But security expert Bruce Schneier said the government is going overboard, creating needless hassles for innocent Americans at the airport while missing real terrorist threats.
None of the airplane security measures implemented because of 9/11 — no-fly lists, secondary screening, prohibitions against pocket knives and corkscrews — had anything to do with last week’s arrests. And they wouldn’t have prevented the planned attacks, had the terrorists not been arrested. A national ID card wouldn’t have made a difference, either.
Instead, the arrests are a victory for old-fashioned intelligence and investigation. Details are still secret, but police in at least two countries were watching the terrorists for a long time. They followed leads, figured out who was talking to whom, and slowly pieced together both the network and the plot. — Bruce Schneier
Schneier wrote that focusing on single threat models is “shortsighted” and results in “security theater, measures designed to make us feel safer but not actually safer.”
“Airport security is the last line of defense, and not a very good one at that,” he wrote. “We can’t keep weapons out of prisons; we can’t possibly keep them off airplanes.”
Instead, Schneier says, we should focus more on investigation and intelligence, detecting and breaking up terrorist plots before they reach the airport, or the shopping mall, or the Krispy Kreme doughnut shop where all the police hang out. It’s this strategy that seems to have paid off in the U.K. this week.
We’ve heard of numerous “terrorist plots” broken up in the U.S., which turned out to be in very early planning stages, or simply impossible for the people arrested for them to actually commit. In those cases, according to news reports, they were broken up through traditional, pre-9/11 law enforcement investigative techniques. Even where the Federal Bureau of Investigation was assisting in the investigation of the U.K. plot broken up last week, it submitted numerous warrants to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court before conducting surveillance on suspects.
President Bush said in his radio address Saturday that we must ensure “that our intelligence and law enforcement personnel have all the tools they need” to combat terrorism. Be skeptical. The tools they already have, applied properly, and with the various government agencies actually cooperating with each other instead of fighting over bureaucratic turf, appear to work just fine. We likely don’t even need the Unpatriotic Act.
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tsykoduk
Aug 13, 2006
I do agree that a lot of the ‘security measures’ that we see are just plain silly. If some one brings a hat bomb on a plane, then we will not be able to wear hats at airports.
I also agree that leather on asphalt is just about the best tool that we have.
However, providing agencies with new tools that allow them to correlate data and act on it more accurately and quickly seems to me to be a great idea.
This will probably not happen, as it will not take a law being passed
Michael Hampton
Aug 13, 2006
They already had the ability to do that. They even did before 9/11. It was bureaucratic infighting, misunderstanding of the rules, and just plain incompetence which prevented them from connecting the dots. It still is.
Aug 14, 2006
Globalclashes
Jason
Aug 14, 2006
Well said, and too true (to everything thus far).
Bill McCabe
Aug 14, 2006
Michael,
Your cynical attitude is alarming. You think every warning is a waste and
and waiting in line or having a bag x-rayed is in violation of your
civil rights. Let me take a wild guess…you have never lost anyone
close to you in a terrorist attack.
How can any rational person witness the carnage of 9/11 as well as
notice all of the continued thwarted terrorist attempts and have such
blatant disregard and contempt for attempts to make us safer??
Everything with liberals is an “egregious violations of our civil
rights”. Doesn’t personal safety have a cost?! What good our civil
rights when your body is charred wreckage floating in the North
Atlantic?!
People demand SAFETY from their government. Our civil rights compared
to every other country on Earth are SCRUPULOUSLY guarded but you want
more even at the cost of your well being? Check my bag, make me wait
a little longer. Most Americans do it willingly. You, Michael, will
always be among those that never appreciate when things are being done
to safeguard your well being.
Instead of doing the worlds easiest job (bitching and then doing
nothing), what is YOUR SUGGESTION of how to make air travel much safer
to avoid a 9/11 incident AND ALSO keep all of your civil rights
intact?
Didn’t think so…
Bill
Michael Hampton
Aug 14, 2006
Bill, you must be new around here, or you wouldn’t have the mistaken impression that I’m some kind of bleeding heart liberal idiot.
First off, I was fortunate that everyone I know escaped the twin towers safely (or hadn’t arrived that day yet). Personal safety has a cost, of course, but people aren’t bearing it. Instead they’re being liberal cry babies and asking daddy government to take care of them. Under this system, the costs of personal safety go way up, and the real safety you get goes way down.
Schneier calls it “security theater” for good reason: It looks good, even though it is completely useless. You want me to pay for that? I’ll pay for real security, but this government has delivered precious little of it. It’s not their job to protect you, and even if it were, they would be allowed not to do it, thanks to various Supreme Court decisions.
When the government starts doing something to safeguard my well being, I might appreciate it, but I would never count on it. They can change their minds at any time, and I have no recourse. Ultimately, the responsibility for your security falls to you, and if you abdicate it by passing it on to the government, where you have no recourse if they fail, then you’re probably going to die sooner or later.
As for how to make the country safer, you really must be new around here, for I’ve talked about that many times. The first thing you do is listen to the military when they tell you that bad foreign policy is the root cause of all this terrorism. But don’t think a propaganda campaign will help; it won’t. You can’t win the hearts and minds of these people while keeping the bad foreign policy.
It’s time for the U.S. to disengage from its Middle East entanglements. Only by doing this can it truly discourage terrorism by removing the reasons for terrorists’ hatred.
skroo
Aug 14, 2006
This post isn’t intended as a reply to anyone in particular; I’m just briefly sharing some thoughts I’ve had in relation to the events of the past few days as well as some of what’s been said here.
I grew up in a country with a terrorism problem. I very nearly lost one friend to terrorist actions, and very actually lost another. And while I would by no means EVER diminish the events of September 11th, we cannot allow them to diminish or eliminate the freedoms that are our inalienable right. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, not perpetual legislation and attendant restriction.
We’re fighting a war of both conventional and unconventional means – and we’re having a hard time dealing with the unconventional war because it’s not how we fight. Those who would destroy us seek to do so by undermining our freedom, one small hit at a time, knowing that in a conventional engagement they wouldn’t stand a chance.
Look at the events at Heathrow this week for an example of that: a very real threat to human life was in place and about to be executed via thoroughly unconventional means. Should we heighten our vigilance? Absolutely. But to do so in a way that would fail to address the root causes of the problem and ultimately punish those who are patently not part of the problem means we’ll lose, plain and simple. The psychological and political ramifications of terrorism can be far more effective than the casualties it inflicts. I’ve never been a fan of the, “because one person did x, we’ve all got to suffer” mentality.
A friend of mine recently posted something to a mailing list I’m on that made a lot of sense: twenty years from now, we want our kids to be able to look back at this time and say, “man, you guys sure had it rough back then” instead of, “yeah, and look at how easy it was in your day”. We need to evaluate why what were are doing is not working and adapt accordingly. Appeasement is not an option, but as Einstein noted: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is an indicator of insanity. If we fail to adapt accordingly, we’re basically doomed.
mr.ed
Aug 14, 2006
Are they still allowing matches/lighters? You know, something that lights fuses or makes an aerosol into a torch?
Dumbdumbdumbdumb!
Aug 21, 2006
Dangerous banned liquids given to homeless - Homeland Stupidity
Aug 28, 2006
Stress » The War at Home
Sep 15, 2006
Aircraft ban on liquids, gels ignored - Homeland Stupidity
Sep 25, 2006
TSA allows small amounts of liquids, gels - Homeland Stupidity
Barrett Lyon
Oct 13, 2007
I’m just sick of this harassment while traveling. Airport security is a farce, if we were serious about Airport security we would have to show up to the airport without any luggage, be required to use the bathroom, put on government issued clothing, and not have any access to food, services, or beverages while traveling.
If someone wanted to, they could use a breast implant and make “bombs” with their breast implants, or simply inject C4 into their rectum. Also, how do you think they cook and prepare food in all the airport kitchens, or all the blunt objects that can be turned into weapons at stores like Brookstone. Is the government checking every item sold in airports for bad items? Is the government scanning each burger patty?
I’m sick of this! I am now personally raising my voice each time I go through airport security and telling them exactly how I feel about this. They try to react to me with authority, but I am an American and I am not breaking any law. I should be treated with respect and I should be able to enjoy rights of being treated with dignity while traveling.
I watched a woman stuck in a wheelchair have her think sweater ripped off of her and forced to walk without shoes past a metal detector in SFO last weekend. It was awful and i felt so embarrassed for her.
I think it’s time that we take our duty as Americans and speak out against this treatment. I think we should all band together and when we go through airport security, we should have something to say and something to say LOUD. If every American simply spoke their minds as they are subject to their freedom stripped and the abuse of the TSA, something may change.
I’m not sure of the wording of this, maybe someone can help me refine this, but when I travel next time I will be reading this each time I go through security:
“As my duty as an citizen of the United States of America, I think what the TSA and the Federal Government is doing here goes beyond my level of comfort, I think that each person working here should question their ethics. This is treating each American as a criminal and as Americans we should not accept this treatment. We should require better treatment and better accommodations for Airport screening. Until then I hope you cannot sleep at night with your unethical job.”
Anyway, I am sorry about this rant, I just find this disgusting! Anyone else with me? Maybe we can make a web site and create a movement for our rights.