A Quick Q&A with the TSA before You Go on Your Way

In an effort to streamline security at airports, as well as to alleviate the torrent of complaints regarding their rights-killing security measures, the TSA is now trying out another new security measure at Terminal A at Boston's Logan Airport. This screening will not involve pat-downs or X-rays (if you're lucky), but will instead be just a couple of questions about where you're from, and where you're going. Simple, right?

Here's the catch: they aren't interested in where you've been, they're just seeing how you answer the questions. If you sweat a lot when you're answering the questions, or if you don't look at an officer in the eye, you will have to go through extra screening, even getting the state troopers involved if you are a real basket-case.   While the TSA thinks this process, which should take roughly 20 seconds per passenger, will make life easier for travelers, it is not without its critics (shocking, I know).

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says that this method hasn't been scientifically proven to spot suspicious persons, and could let a lot of people who might be a threat will go by if they know how to keep calm. Also, as with every new TSA initiative it seems, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), says that it could still violate one's civil rights if they do so much as answer weirdly, which according to the process, could be so much as showing nervousness talking to a uniformed official about your personal travel patterns.

While this might be a well-intentioned middle ground in terms of security, it still has flaws that could be considered discriminatory. It's better than the pat-downs and X-rays, but if the TSA wants to install security measures that both provide Americans with the feeling of security and respects our civil rights, it still has a long way to go.

Originally posted at www.silverunderground.com.

A Quicker Way to Violate your Civil Liberties

If you’re a frequent flyer, you’re probably fed up with having to go through security each time you want to get on a plane and travel, especially when that security involves the potential for X-rays or pat-downs. Don’t you wish there was a quicker way of going through security? Well, the good people at the TSA sympathize with you, and are offering express security screenings to get you on the plane faster if you fly frequently.

This fall, the TSA will be testing out express security in Atlanta, Detroit, Miami, and Dallas. Intended for those who fly often, it will allow certain people to go through security without needing to take off your shoes or taking your laptop out of your bag, saving travelers a fair bit of time, and enabling passengers to zip right through security while everybody else fiddles around with their belongings.

However, this program comes with a catch. To qualify for the program, you need to give the TSA some “added personal information,” such as personal contacts and your travel history, to make sure terrorists aren’t “gaming” the system. What the trade-off comes down to is you give up more of your private information in exchange for speed, and you still might be subject to a pat-down. If this plan goes into effect, travelers will be faced with two options: go through the traditional pat-down x-ray security that takes forever, or go through the speedy, more invasive security that swaps privacy for convenience. It’s better than having just one option, but when the TSA is providing those choices, you’re merely choosing which is the more preferable assault on your civil liberties.

H/T Campaign for Liberty. Originally published at www.silverunderground.com.

More TSA Terrorism

The U.S. Department of Molestation...errr...I mean the Transportation Security Administration has saved the day again! This time the brave officers of the TSA stopped the dastardly plans of a 6-year old Kirkland, Washington resident who was carrying...gasp!...a Nintendo DS.  God only knows what havoc such an individual could have wrought with that blue plastic brick of death. 

If for some reason you believe small children with video games traveling to Disney Land aren't a threat to national security, be sure to check out Congressman Ron Paul's American Traveler Dignity Act of 2011 and the Americans for Travel Freedom:

Americans for Travel Freedom is dedicated to promote and uphold the freedom of Americans to travel within the United States, free from government abuse, harassment and exploitation. We further this liberty through education, civic action and demands for transparency. 

7 Simple Reasons to Axe the TSA

Originally published on my blog here.

The desire to end the TSA’s infamous abuse is at this point fairly cross-partisan, and anti-TSA sentiment runs particularly high among regular air travelers.  New outrages are a regular feature of the news cycle, but resistance to the Transportation Security Agency is far from universal.  So here, in no particular order, are seven variant reasons why the TSA has got to go:

1. Basic human and constitutional rights. A frail, 95-year old leukemia patient forced to remove her adult diaper. Children — even babies — subjected to invasive patdowns.  A bladder cancer survivor left covered in his own urine.  The list goes on and on, and new stories of TSA assaults on dignity and privacy appear almost daily. These are violations of very basic human rights — not to mention unconstitutional.  The Fourth Amendment guarantees our right to security in our “persons” — and it doesn’t have an “unless you want to travel by air” clause.

2. If you’ve done nothing wrong, you do have something to worry about. All those examples in #1? Entirely innocent people without terrorist connections of any sort. One of the most common arguments in defense of the TSA and the national security state in general is along the lines of “if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to worry about.” The TSA’s record of abuse pokes huge holes in this “No law is unjust if it isn’t hurting me” mindset.

3. The TSA doesn’t make us safer. The TSA has never stopped a single terrorist attack, and its methods are grossly ineffective. At the beginning of this month, it failed to halt a passenger using an expired, stolen boarding pass listing a name which didn’t match his ID. Actual attempted terrorist attacks (such as the Christmas Day underwear bomber) since 9/11 have all been halted by other people or government agencies; the TSA maintains a zero-win record.