TSA warns of implant bombers, prepares fliers for swab tests

The latest threat to America's skies -- explosive surgical implants that authorities have dubbed "belly bombs" -- poses a security challenge so bizarre that air travelers learning of the new danger Wednesday could only scratch their heads and wonder what's next.

If those fliers had collagen injections or dental implants, what's next may mean having their heads examined. Literally.

The Transportation Security Administration advised airlines that terror groups are believed to be experimenting with explosives that could be implanted in buttocks and breasts, allowing suicide bombers to pass through airport body scanners undetected.

[snip]

The TSA said it had no evidence of a specific plot, but intelligence sources indicated this new twist in bomb-proofing international air travel was likely the handiwork of Ibrahim Asiri, the al-Qaeda mastermind behind the Christmas Day attempt to bring down a Northwest Airlines plane by the so-called "underwear bomber."

Few Americans could have imagined when the first airport metal detectors were installed more than four decades ago that travelers would one day be expected to nearly disrobe before boarding their flights. The idea of implanting explosives in the same places plastic surgeons use to "enhance" many Americans does not strike Zoltan Prokay as far-fetched.

"If they do it properly, like a breast implant where the skin is stretched to accommodate the device, it could work," said Prokay, who spent two and a half years in Iraq working to detect improvised explosive devices as a member of a U.S. Special Forces team. He was flying out of San Jose as a pilot for a private airline, which he declined to identify, when word of the TSA advisory began to spread. "It could be set to go off at a certain altitude. If you get an altimeter implanted in your other breast though, maybe you would set off the metal detector."

Prokay sees it as a natural -- if horrifying -- progression from the Shoe Bomber and the Underwear Bomber. "This would be the Bosom Bomber," he said. "It's not funny. And yet it is kind of funny. The Bosom Bomber."

"If (terrorists) really want to attack, there is always a way," Renata Boudon, 47, said in French after arriving at San Francisco International for a two-week vacation in the western United States. "It doesn't scare me much." She and her two sons, 18-year-old Eric and 12-year-old Marc, live in Brazil and said they won't change anything about their travel habits because of the new information. "If it happens, it happens," she said. "There is nothing you can do."

Labels: security theatre, TSA, You can't make this shit up

The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

The TSA says that the records reflect math mistakes and that all the machines are safe. Indeed, even the highest readings listed on some of the records — the numbers that the TSA says were mistakes — appear to be many times less than what the agency says a person absorbs through one day of natural background radiation.

Even so, the TSA has ordered the new tests out of "an abundance of caution to reassure the public," spokesman Nicholas Kimball says. The tests will be finished by the end of the month, and the results will be released "as they are completed," the agency said on its website.

TSA officials have repeatedly assured the public and lawmakers that the machines have passed all inspections. The agency's review of maintenance reports, launched Dec. 10, came only after USA TODAY and lawmakers called for the release of the records late last year.

The agency posted reports Friday from 127 X-ray-emitting devices on its website and said it would continue to release results from maintenance tests for the approximately 4,500 X-ray devices at airports nationwide. Those devices include machines that examine checked luggage. Of the reports posted, about a third showed some sort of error, Kimball said.

Labels: just another outrage, TSA

Labels: police state, security theatre, totalitarianism, TSA

Last fall, as he had done hundreds of times, Iranian-American businessman Farid Seif passed through security at a Houston airport and boarded an international flight.

He didn't realize he had forgotten to remove the loaded snub nose "baby" Glock pistol from his computer bag. But TSA officers never noticed as his bag glided along the belt and was x-rayed. When he got to his hotel after the three-hour flight, he was shocked to discover the gun traveled unnoticed from Houston.

"It's just impossible to miss it, you know. I mean, this is not a small gun," Seif told ABC News. "How can you miss it? You cannot miss it."

But the TSA did miss it, and despite what most people believe about the painstaking effort to screen airline passengers and their luggage before they enter the terminal, it was not that unusual.

Labels: security theatre, totalitarianism, TSA

The paranoid environment created by the 9/11 attacks has allowed for a myriad of civil rights infringements under the guise of national security. Airport security especially ratcheted up racial profiling, marking any Middle Eastern sign or symbol a suspicious target, particularly the turban. Even turbaned individuals with no affiliation with Islam or the Middle East, such as Sikh men, have become “a superficial and accessible proxy for the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks” and a “target of discriminatory conduct,” including employment discrimimation, harrassment, and violence.

But now, this long-permitted prejudice is creating diplomatic tension between the U.S. and India. Today, the Indian press reported on an incident last month in which Houston, Texas airport security officials detained Indian’s UN envoy Hardeep Puri in a holding room for 30 minutes because he was wearing a turban. As a Sikh, Puri is obliged to keep all hair intact and his head covered in public at all times. The turban symbolizes self-respect and piety — “touching of the head dress in public is not allowed” and can only be removed “in the most intimate of circumstances.”

However, as officials present during the incident told Turtle Bay, airport security officials ignored Puri’s religious requirements and long-standing protocol exempting dignitaries from such treatment and demanded to physically check his Turban themselves until Puri informed them that TSA regulations allow him to check himself:

Airport security agents in Austin pulled Singh aside into an enclosed glass holding room for questioning after he refused a request to remove his turban or allow inspectors to touch it, an Indian official who witnessed the incident told Turtle Bay. “He said no, you cannot check my turban,” according to the Indian official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. “I won’t allow you to touch my turban.”

The Indian official said Singh offered to touch the turban himself and to allow the security agents to run a check of his hands for traces of explosives, but he said that one security official refused. Singh insisted that the security official had no right to check his turban, citing TSA regulations for searches of foreign diplomats. “Obviously you don’t know your own rules. Please check your rules,” he told the security agent, according to the Indian official. “The person insisted that he had to do it. He said, ‘Don’t tell me the rules.’”

Labels: brownshirts, thuggery, TSA

Labels: civil liberties, security theatre, TSA

If you don't want to pass through an airport scanner that allows security agents to see an image of your naked body or to undergo the alternative, a thorough manual search, you may have to find another way to travel this holiday season.

The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) is warning that any would-be commercial airline passenger who enters an airport checkpoint and then refuses to undergo the method of inspection designated by TSA will not be allowed to fly and also will not be permitted to simply leave the airport.

That person will have to remain on the premises to be questioned by the TSA and possibly by local law enforcement. Anyone refusing faces fines up to $11,000 and possible arrest.

"Once a person submits to the screening process, they can not just decide to leave that process," says Sari Koshetz, regional TSA spokesperson, based in Miami.

Koshetz said such passengers would be questioned "until it is determined that they don't pose a threat" to the public.

Palm Beach Sheriff's Office spokesperson Teri Barbera said PBSO deputies stationed at the airport would become involved when requested by the TSA.

Labels: just another outrage, police state, security theatre, TSA

Here’s what took place… minute by terrifying minute…

I had Jackson in his stroller, his diaper bag, and a duffle bag which contained my mac book as I entered security. I placed all of these items on the conveyor belt to go through the metal detector. Jackson was in my arms, and in the midst of getting all of our gear on the conveyor belt, my mistake was neglecting to take off my son’s pacifier clip that hangs from his shirt, which is metal.

The instant I walked through the metal detector with Jackson in my arms, we beeped. I knew exactly why.

I told the TSA agent, who asked me to back up and walk through again, “It’s my son’s pacifier clip, can I put it on the conveyor belt?”

“Ma’am turn around and come back please,” I was told.

Of course Jackson’s clip went off again. Both Jackson and I were then escorted to a 6 ft tall plastic holding box because I was forced to wait for a female TSA agent to search me.

At this point in time, all of my belongings were sitting at the opposite end of the conveyor belt, thereby backing up every other passengers belongings because I was not there to gather mine.

A woman out of the kindness of her heart (and if you are out there somewhere reading this, THANK YOU) saw me just standing and waiting in my 6 ft plastic box and gathered my belongings for me. She waited with my stroller, my diaper bag, my duffle bag and my mac book. This woman motioned to me that everything (including my flip flops) was all together and then she left.

She must be a mother.

She understood.

I was so grateful.

4 female TSA agents stood at the end of 2 conveyor belts, gloves on their hands, none of them searching anyone, none of them doing anything but watching luggage pass through the conveyor belts.

It was at this point in time that I realized my flight was leaving in less than 45 minutes. I had not even been searched yet. I began to panic.

Through the 6 holes in the plastic box that contained Jackson and I, I began asking for help. I waved to all 4 female TSA agents, each of them looked at me and then looked away. Then I started speaking through the 6 holes, and said, “Can someone please search me? My flight leaves in less than 45 minutes.”

Each of the 4 women answered me using the same exact phrase…

“Ma’am you need to wait. I don’t care about your departure time.”

Eventually one of the four female TSA agents opened the door and let Jackson and I out of our plastic containment box. We were escorted to a chair that was opposite from where my belongings were. I asked if I could bring my belongings over or take a seat closer to where they were. I was told no and to take my seat.

At this point in time, my heart began to race, thinking we would miss our flight and I would be stuck in the Atlanta airport with Jackson for who knows how long until there was another flight to Baltimore.

The female TSA agent stood in front of me while I sat with Jackson and she continued to watch luggage come through the conveyor belt.

“Ma’am, can someone please just search me so we can be on our way? We are going to miss our flight,” I said.

The female agent then called an older gentleman, also a TSA agent over. The male TSA agent stood in front of me and said “I’m going to have to pat down your son.”

With Jackson still sitting in my lap (he was being so good despite all of this chaos) I said ok and continued to hold on to my son, expecting the male TSA agent to start touching Jackson.

He then told me, “I’m going to have to pick him up to inspect him.”

I rolled my eyes and sternly told him “It’s his pacifier clip that went off, can’t you just run that back through the belt and let us go. We are going to miss our flight.”

The female TSA agent, who had been standing there the entire time said to me, “You need to adjust your attitude and do as you are told.”

The male TSA agent repeated, “I’m going to have to pick him up to inspect him.”

I handed him my son.

I handed him my son and he walked away with my child.

Labels: insanity, security theatre, TSA

Cathy Bossi lives in south Charlotte and has been a flight attendant for the past 32 years, working the past 28 for U.S. Airways.

In early August Bossie was walking through security when she says she was asked to go through the new full body-scanners at Concourse "D" at Charlotte Douglas International.

She reluctantly agreed. As a 3-year breast cancer survivor she says she didn't want the added radiation through her body. But, Bossi says she did agree.

"The T.S.A. Agent told me to put my I.D. on my back," she said. "When I got out of there she said because my I.D. was on my back, I had to go to a personal screening area."

She says two female Charlotte T.S.A. agents took her to a private room and began what she calls an aggressive pat down. She says they stopped when they got around to feeling her right breast… the one where she'd had surgery.

"She put her full hand on my breast and said, 'What is this?'. And I said, 'It's my prosthesis because I've had breast cancer.' And she said, 'Well, you'll need to show me that'."

Cathy was asked to show her prosthetic breast, removing it from her bra.

"I did not take the name of the person at the time because it was just so horrific of an experience, I couldn't believe someone had done that to me. I'm a flight attendant. I was just trying to get to work."

An Amarillo woman is suing the federal government for intentional infliction of emotional distress after Transportation Security Administration agents allegedly humiliated the woman when her breasts were publicly exposed during an "extended search" two years ago at a Corpus Christi airport.

The suit, filed earlier this year in Amarillo's U.S. District Court, alleges the woman was singled out for "extended search procedures" while preparing to board an aircraft destined for Amarillo on May 29, 2008.

The Amarillo Globe-News has declined to identify the woman for privacy reasons.

"As the TSA agent was frisking plaintiff, the agent pulled the plaintiff's blouse completely down, exposing plaintiffs' breasts to everyone in the area," the lawsuit said. "As would be expected, plaintiff was extremely embarrassed and humiliated."

The suit said the woman filed an administrative claim against the TSA, but the agency never responded, sparking the lawsuit.

The suit also claims that other TSA employees continued to joke and laugh about the incident for an extended period of time. The woman was distraught over the incident and left the screening area so an acquaintance could console her, the suit said.

When the woman re-entered the boarding area, employees once again began joking about the matter, the suit said.

"One male TSA employee expressed to the plaintiff that he wished he would have been there when she came through the first time and that 'he would just have to watch the video,'" the suit said.

Labels: security theatre, TSA

Representative John A. Boehner, soon to be the Speaker of the House, has pledged to fly commercial airlines back to his home district in Ohio. But that does not mean that he will be subjected to the hassles of ordinary passengers, including the controversial security pat-downs.

As he left Washington on Friday, Mr. Boehner headed across the Potomac River to Reagan National Airport, which was bustling with afternoon travelers. But there was no waiting in line for Mr. Boehner, who was escorted around the metal detectors and body scanners, and taken directly to the gate.

Mr. Boehner, who was wearing a casual yellow sweater and tan slacks, carried his own bags and smiled pleasantly at passengers who were leaving the security checkpoint inside the airport terminal. It was unclear whether any passengers waiting in the security line, including Representative Allen Boyd, a Florida Democrat who lost his re-election bid, saw Mr. Boehner.

At a Capitol Hill news conference after Election Day, as Mr. Boehner began laying out the changes he would make when he becomes House Speaker, he announced that he would continue to fly commercial airlines (usually Delta) back to Ohio. It was a not-so-subtle dig at the outgoing Democratic speaker, Nancy Pelosi of California, who had been criticized by Republicans for flying military airplanes when she returned home to San Francisco.

“Over the last 20 years, I have flown back and forth to my district on a commercial aircraft,” Mr. Boehner said at the time, “and I am going to continue to do that.”

And so on Friday, he did. But not without the perquisites of office, including avoiding those security pat-downs that many travelers are bracing for as holiday travel season approaches.

Michael Steel, a spokesman for the Republican leader, said in a statement that Mr. Boehner was not receiving special treatment. And a law enforcement official said that any member of Congress or administration official with a security detail is allowed to bypass security.

Labels: double standards, security theatre, TSA

Labels: security theatre, sex crimes, TSA

"They say the risk is minimal, but statistically someone is going to get skin cancer from these X-rays," said Dr. Michael Love, who runs an X-ray lab at the department of biophysics and biophysical chemistry at Johns Hopkins University school of medicine, according to a Agence France Presse story.

Love's comments, reported Sunday on the AlterNet website, came amid calls for a national revolt on airport body scanners, with plans firming up for a "National Opt-Out Day" set for Nov. 24, the day before Thanksgiving, in which airline passengers are urged to refuse a body scan and opt instead for a pat down in airport security lines on the busiest travel day of the year.

Travel experts are predicting chaos in the terminals. But I'm hoping the added attention sheds more light on the cancer question, because Love is far from alone in venting his health concerns.

[snip]

Dr. David Brenner, head of the center for radiological research at Columbia University in New York, told the London Telegraph in a June 29 story that considering the large number of people who frequent the nation's airports, wide-ranging exposure, even to minimal amounts of radiation, could add up to one big concern.

"If all 800 million people who use airports every year were screened with X-rays, then the very small individual risk multiplied by the large number of screened people might imply a potential public health or societal risk," he said. "The population risk has the potential to be significant."

Scientists with the University of California at San Francisco were so worried that they wrote a letter to the White House Office of Science and Technology in April raising "a number of red flags" on the scanners' safety.

"While the dose would be safe if it were distributed throughout the volume of the entire body, the dose to the skin may be dangerously high," the letter said in part, adding concerns that "independent safety data do not exist" and raising the potential for further harm if a high dosage was accidentally emitted.

"Any glitch in power at any point in the hardware (or more importantly in the software) that stops the device can cause an intense radiation dose to a single spot on the skin. Who will oversee problems with overall dose after repair or software problems?"

The Office of Science and Technology last month responded to the concerns with a nine-page letter assuring the UCSF scientists that the doses met safety standards and had been adequately tested.

"The potential health risks from a full-body screening with a general-use X-ray security system are miniscule," the government agency wrote. "Several groups of recognized experts have been assembled and have analyzed the radiation safety issues associated with this technology."

But one co-author of the UCSF letter, biochemist John Sedat, told AFP in Sunday's AlterNet story, that the government's explanation was "deeply flawed" and insufficient to ease scientists' concerns.

Labels: security theatre, TSA

Labels: security theatre, TSA

At the heart of the controversy over "body scanners" is a promise: The images of our naked bodies will never be public. U.S. Marshals in a Florida Federal courthouse saved 35,000 images on their scanner. These are those images.

A Gizmodo investigation has revealed 100 of the photographs saved by the Gen 2 millimeter wave scanner from Brijot Imaging Systems, Inc., obtained by a FOIA request after it was recently revealed that U.S. Marshals operating the machine in the Orlando, Florida courthouse had improperly-perhaps illegally-saved images of the scans of public servants and private citizens.

We understand that it will be controversial to release these photographs. But identifying features have been eliminated. And fortunately for those who walked through the scanner in Florida last year, this mismanaged machine used the less embarrassing imaging technique.

Yet the leaking of these photographs demonstrates the security limitations of not just this particular machine, but millimeter wave and x-ray backscatter body scanners operated by federal employees in our courthouses and by TSA officers in airports across the country. That we can see these images today almost guarantees that others will be seeing similar images in the future. If you're lucky, it might even be a picture of you or your family.

While the fidelity of the scans from this machine are of surprisingly low resolution, especially compared to the higher resolution "naked scanners" using the potentially harmful x-ray backscatter technology, the TSA and other government agencies have repeatedly touted the quality of "Advanced Imaging Technology" while simultaneously assuring customers that operators "cannot store, print, transmit or save the image, and the image." According to the TSA—and of course other agencies—images from the scanners are "automatically deleted from the system after it is cleared by the remotely located security officer." Whatever the stated policy, it's clear that it is trivial for operators to save images and remove them for distribution if they choose not to follow guidelines or that other employees could remove images that are inappropriately if accidentally stored.

Ah, the old "planting a fake bag of cocaine on a stressed traveler" trick—a classic! A recently released document reveals an idiotic TSA screener who, earlier this year, joked around with fake cocaine instead of doing his job.

The man, whose name has been redacted from the disclosed reports acquired by The Smoking Gun, was supposed to be testing expensive new screening gear from Northrop Grumman at Philadelphia International Airport. But that is totally boring! So the employee filled the time by harassing travelers passing through screening with a bags and vials of creatine—which looks a lot like cocaine.

Labels: security th, TSA

The X-ray dose from these devices has often been compared in the media to the cosmic ray exposure inherent to airplane travel or that of a chest X-ray. However, this comparison is very misleading: both the air travel cosmic ray exposure and chest X-rays have much higher X-ray energies and the health consequences are appropriately understood in terms of the whole body volume dose. In contrast, these new airport scanners are largely depositing their energy into the skin and immediately adjacent tissue, and since this is such a small fraction of body weight/vol, possibly by one to two orders of magnitude, the real dose to the skin is now high.

In addition, it appears that real independent safety data do not exist. A search, ultimately finding top FDA radiation physics staff, suggests that the relevant radiation quantity, the Flux [photons per unit area and time (because this is a scanning device)] has not been characterized. Instead an indirect test (Air Kerma) was made that emphasized the whole body exposure value, and thus it appears that the danger is low when compared to cosmic rays during airplane travel and a chest X-ray dose.

Our colleagues at UCSF, dermatologists and cancer experts, raise specific important concerns:

• A) The large population of older travelers, >65 years of age, is particularly at risk from the mutagenic effects of the X-rays based on the known biology of melanocyte aging.
  
• B) A fraction of the female population is especially sensitive to utagenesis provoking radiation leading to breast cancer. Notably, because these women, who have defects in DNA repair mechanisms, are particularly prone to cancer, X-ray mammograms are not performed on them. The dose to breast tissue beneath the skin represents a similar risk.
  
• C) Blood (white blood cells) perfusing the skin is also at risk.
  
• D) The population of immunocompromised individuals--HIV and cancer patients (see above) is likely to be at risk for cancer induction by the high skin dose.
  
• E) The risk of radiation emission to children and adolescents does not appear to have been fully evaluated.
  
• F) The policy towards pregnant women needs to be defined once the theoretical risks to the fetus are determined.
  
• G) Because of the proximity of the testicles to skin, this tissue is at risk for sperm mutagenesis.
  
• H) Have the effects of the radiation on the cornea and thymus been determined?
  

Moreover, there are a number of ‘red flags’ related to the hardware itself. Because this device can scan a human in a few seconds, the X-ray beam is very intense. Any glitch in power at any point in the hardware (or more importantly in software) that stops the device could cause an intense radiation dose to a single spot on the skin. Who will oversee problems with overall dose after repair or software problems? The TSA is already complaining about resolution limitations; who will keep the manufacturers and/or TSA from just raising the dose, an easy way to improve signal-to-noise and get
higher resolution?

We were flying from Nashville to Orlando to go to Disney for my son's birthday. My son is 9 years old. Nashville has installed the new backscatter scanners, aka "naked" scanners. Now I am not a modest person and for me myself I don't care. To be honest, I had not given it much thought. We were given no option to opt out of the scans that I could see, no signage or instructions. I later found out you can opt out and choose the pat down instead. Well, we all three went through the machine. Husband and I were fine. They scanned the kid and then informed us they had to pat him down. I asked why, they said he moved. So I am thinking run of the mill pat down, wand over his body and light touch. He is 9 years old for the love of Pete but that was not the case. Had anyone but a physician doing a necessary medical exam touched my child in the places the TSA agent put his hands, I would have filed charges. He groped the inside of his legs and touched his genitals. He put his hands around my son's neck in a choking position, felt all the way down his chest area and his buttocks. He placed his hands inside my son's pants waist band and felt around his waist. The agent was loud and intimidating even for me, a 36 year old women. He barked at him to "hold up your pants" and "spread your legs, shoulder width." All I could think was my son looked like he was being frisked and how humiliating this was for him to be stared at by everyone as they passed by us. Now, this whole scenario was out in the open, we were not given the option of privacy. My son was scared and humiliated. I am not a momma hen or a wacko and we fly regularly and have never minded the security measures needed but this was a shocking experience. Shocking enough for us to forgo air travel (which we have always loved) until these new security rules change and come closer to something akin to reason. (LINK)

Last week, one of my flying partners (Captain with Skywest) was going through security at DEN with his 18 year daughter. As his daughter approached the detector, the TSO working the NoS said on his headset, "heads up, got a cutie for you." He then confronted the TSA clerk with what he said and that neither of us are going through the NoS. The TSA clerk said you must have misunderstood me. (LINK)

Some lady came over and grabbed my arm and pulled me into another area and I pulled away from her and I said, “Woah, what’s going on here,” and she said, "If you opt out I have to give you a full patdown.”

They put me in this little area which is directly after the body scanner and the WTMD and so everyone who goes through that has to go around this area that I’m in. I’m just standing there and this lady is screaming at me about the procedures, and I said "Can I talk to your boss?”

And so I’m sitting there and she brings out her manager and the first thing she says to her manager is, "This girl has all kinds of opinions about how we’re doing our job wrong."

And that’s how she introduces the situation. I try to ask a question and I don’t get 30 seconds into talking with this woman and she runs away and she comes back with a dozen cops. I sat there and counted them. I asked at one point if I could grab my camera and they would not let me touch my stuff.

I’m just sitting there…and I’m trying to talk to the one officer and anytime I ask him a question that he did not have an answer to, he would get really upset and start yelling at me some more, and then they cuffed me in the chair. And then the original TSA lady who was going to give me the patdown just kind of quietly, so no one else can hear, she says, “I can tell you one thing,” and then she rips my boarding pass in half. (LINK)

After removing my shoes and making my way toward the metal detector, the person in front of me in line was pulled out to go through the backscatter machine. After asking what it was and being told, he opted out. This left the machine free, and before I could go through the metal detector, I was pulled out of line to go through the backscatter machine. When asked, I half-chuckled and said, "I don't think so." At this point, I was informed that I would be subject to a pat down, and I waited for another agent.

A male agent (it was a female who had directed me to the backscatter machine in the first place), came and waited for me to get my bags and then directed me over to the far corner of the area for screening. After setting my things on a table, he turned to me and began to explain that he was going to do a "standard" pat down. (I thought to myself, "great, not one of those gropings like I've been reading about".) After he described, the pat down, I realized that he intended to touch my groin. After he finished his description but before he started the pat down, I looked him straight in the eye and said, "if you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested." He, a bit taken aback, informed me that he would have to involve his supervisor because of my comment.

We both stood there for no more than probably two minutes before a female TSA agent (apparently, the supervisor) arrived. She described to me that because I had opted out of the backscatter screening, I would now be patted down, and that involved running hands up the inside of my legs until they felt my groin. I stated that I would not allow myself to be subject to a molestation as a condition of getting on my flight. The supervisor informed me that it was a standard administrative security check and that they were authorized to do it. I repeated that I felt what they were doing was a sexual assault, and that if they were anyone but the government, the act would be illegal. I believe that I was then informed that if I did not submit to the inspection, I would not be getting on my flight. I again stated that I thought the search was illegal. I told her that I would be willing to submit to a walk through the metal detector as over 80% of the rest of the people were doing, but I would not be groped. The supervisor, then offered to go get her supervisor.

I took a seat in a tiny metal chair next to the table with my belongings and waited. While waiting, I asked the original agent (who was supposed to do the pat down) if he had many people opt out to which he replied, none (or almost none, I don't remember exactly). He said that I gave up a lot of rights when I bought my ticket. I replied that the government took them away after September 11th. There was silence until the next supervisor arrived. A few minutes later, the female agent/supervisor arrived with a man in a suit (not a uniform). He gave me a business card identifying him as David Silva, Transportation Security Manager, San Diego International Airport. At this point, more TSA agents as well as what I assume was a local police officer arrived on the scene and surrounded the area where I was being detained. The female supervisor explained the situation to Mr. Silva. After some quick back and forth (that I didn't understand/hear), I could overhear Mr. Silva say something to the effect of, "then escort him from the airport." I again offered to submit to the metal detector, and my father-in-law, who was near by also tried to plead for some reasonableness on the TSA's part.

Your lifetime odds of dying of a particular cause are calculated by dividing the one-year odds by the life expectancy of a person born in that year. For example, in 2003 about 45,000 Americans died in motor accidents out of population of 291,000,000. So, according to the National Safety Council this means your one-year odds of dying in a car accident is about one out of 6500. Therefore your lifetime probability (6500 ÷ 78 years life expectancy) of dying in a motor accident are about one in 83.

What about your chances of dying in an airplane crash? A one-year risk of one in 400,000 and one in 5,000 lifetime risk. What about walking across the street? A one-year risk of one in 48,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 625. Drowning? A one-year risk of one in 88,000 and a one in 1100 lifetime risk. In a fire? About the same risk as drowning. Murder? A one-year risk of one in 16,500 and a lifetime risk of one in 210. What about falling? Essentially the same as being murdered. And the proverbial being struck by lightning? A one-year risk of one in 6.2 million and a lifetime risk of one in 80,000. And what is the risk that you will die of a catastrophic asteroid strike? In 1994, astronomers calculated that the chance was one in 20,000. However, as they've gathered more data on the orbits of near earth objects, the lifetime risk has been reduced to one in 200,000 or more.

So how do these common risks compare to your risk of dying in a terrorist attack? To try to calculate those odds realistically, Michael Rothschild, a former business professor at the University of Wisconsin, worked out a couple of plausible scenarios. For example, he figured that if terrorists were to destroy entirely one of America's 40,000 shopping malls per week, your chances of being there at the wrong time would be about one in one million or more. Rothschild also estimated that if terrorists hijacked and crashed one of America's 18,000 commercial flights per week that your chance of being on the crashed plane would be one in 135,000.

Even if terrorists were able to pull off one attack per year on the scale of the 9/11 atrocity, that would mean your one-year risk would be one in 100,000 and your lifetime risk would be about one in 1300. (300,000,000 ÷ 3,000 = 100,000 ÷ 78 years = 1282) In other words, your risk of dying in a plausible terrorist attack is much lower than your risk of dying in a car accident, by walking across the street, by drowning, in a fire, by falling, or by being murdered.

"I don't know why everybody is running to buy these expensive and useless machines. I can overcome the body scanners with enough explosives to bring down a Boeing 747," Rafi Sela told parliamentarians probing the state of aviation safety in Canada.

"That's why we haven't put them in our airport," Sela said, referring to Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport, which has some of the toughest security in the world.

Sela, former chief security officer of the Israel Airport Authority and a 30-year veteran in airport security and defence technology, helped design the security at Ben Gurion.

[snip]

Sela testified it makes more sense to create a "trusted traveller" system so pre-approved low-risk passengers can move through an expedited screening process. That would leave more resources in the screening areas, where automatic sniffing technology would detect any explosive residue on a person or their baggage.

Behavioural profiling also must be used instead of random checks, he said.

Labels: america R.I.P., Department of Homeland Security, TSA