FBI anti-terrorism expert: TSA is useless

[n2doc]

By Cory Doctorow at 11:07 am Wednesday, Feb 29
Steve Moore, who identifies himself as a former FBI Special Agent and head of the Los Angeles Joint Terrorism Task Force Al Qaeda squad, says that the TSA is useless. He says that they don't catch terrorists. He says they won't catch terrorists. He says that they can't catch terrorists. Oh, he also claims 35 years' piloting experience and a father was United's head of security and anti-hijacking SWAT training and experience.

Frankly, the professional experience I have had with TSA has frightened me. Once, when approaching screening for a flight on official FBI business, I showed my badge as I had done for decades in order to bypass screening. (You can be envious, but remember, I was one less person in line.) I was asked for my form which showed that I was armed. I was unarmed on this flight because my ultimate destination was a foreign country. I was told, "Then you have to be screened." This logic startled me, so I asked, "If I tell you I have a high-powered weapon, you will let me bypass screening, but if I tell you I'm unarmed, then I have to be screened?" The answer? "Yes. Exactly." Another time, I was bypassing screening (again on official FBI business) with my .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol, and a TSA officer noticed the clip of my pocket knife. "You can't bring a knife on board," he said. I looked at him incredulously and asked, "The semi-automatic pistol is okay, but you don't trust me with a knife?" His response was equal parts predictable and frightening, "But knives are not allowed on the planes."...

The report goes on to state that the virtual strip search screening machines are a failure in that they cannot detect the type of explosives used by the “underwear bomber” or even a pistol used as a TSA’s own real-world test of the machines. Yet TSA has spent approximately $60 billion since 2002 and now has over 65,000 employees, more than the Department of State, more than the Department of Energy, more than the Department of Labor, more than the Department of Education, more than the Department of Housing and Urban Development---combined. TSA has become, according to the report, “an enormous, inflexible and distracted bureaucracy more concerned with……consolidating power.”

Each time the TSA is publically called to account for their actions, they fight back with fear-based press releases which usually begin with “At a time like this….” Or “Al Qaeda is planning—at this moment …..” The tactic, of course, is to throw the spotlight off the fact that their policies are doing nothing to make America safer “at a time like this.” Sometimes doing the wrong thing is just as bad as doing nothing.

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/29/fbi-anti-terrorism-expert-tsa.html

But we've known this all along...

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. Pre TSA days, private security

at Lindberg Field

We were taking a patient to the plane... so I go though security and of course MY STEEL TOE BOOTS make the damn thing go off.

"You can't go into the airport with that!"

To make a long story short, boots staid by security but I boarded a plane with a 10 inch blade, trauma shears and a radio...

So this does not surprise me

[Warpy]

2. It's just another thing the Republicans did to get us used to the idea

that we have no civil rights.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

3. It was created by politicians who felt the need to "do something"..however harebrained.

[backscatter712]

4. TSA's purpose is not to provide us with security, but to condition us to compliance.

That's the true purpose of taking off your shoes, dumping your drinks, and making you go through the porno-scanners and grope-downs.

Not security. We all know that's just theater.

The true purpose is to condition us to obey. To lay the groundwork for totalitarian rule. To force us to submit, to pour fear down our gullets, to remind us that the state can fuck with you and ruin your life any time they want.

Anyone who works for TSA or Homeland Security this day and age is an unpatriotic, un-American, anti-democratic, authoritarian piece of shit. If you had the slightest thread of decency or concern for liberty, you'd turn in your badges and resign.

[libinnyandia]

8. Yeah, let's just allow insect pests, drugs, counterfeit medications, foreign criminals, fake watches

and clothing etc to come into this country without government intervention.

[Vincardog]

9. How exactly do TSA employees ogling nude images of women and men; feeling up

people and conditioning all of us to be submissive to authority prevent "insect pests, drugs, counterfeit medications, foreign criminals, fake watches and clothing etc" to come into this country without government intervention.
I think you have them confused with with Customs and/or Border Patrol.

[libinnyandia]

12. CBP ad Border Patrol are part of DHS DHS was being trashed.

[Vincardog]

16. I thought you were talking about THIS threat. The one titled "TSA" useless.

[libinnyandia]

17. response # 4 said dhs empoyees are traitors

[n2doc]

11. as if it is hard to do that now n/t

[libinnyandia]

13. TSA is getting a lot of attention now. CBP does a lot of good work.

[Dawson Leery]

5. To quote backscatter712:

"Anyone who works for TSA or Homeland Security this day and age is an unpatriotic, un-American, anti-democratic, authoritarian piece of shit. If you had the slightest thread of decency or concern for liberty, you'd turn in your badges and resign."

[JDPriestly]

6. The TSA employees tend to be very nice people,

but I suspect that all they accomplish is to slow air travel.

It probably makes a lot of people feel safer, but I doubt that any of us are.

I say they are nice people because on one occasion I got lost in an airport and a person I assumed to be TSA helped me find a shortcut to my flight.

They have always been nice to me personally, but then even though I think that some of the rules are silly, I try to follow them. Not following them slows everyone down. We already spend far too much time in the airport prior to flights.

I'd rather take the train.

[99 Percent Sure]

7. ITA. eom

[MrScorpio]

10. He's spot on

I recognized the pattern almost instantly

[HopeHoops]

14. I keep telling people - take-out chopsticks, 40 grit sandpaper, and 5 minutes in the bathroom.

If the chopsticks are in your sock or other tight clothing along the seem of the pants, they won't get picked up even with a patdown (don't put them in your naughty bits region - they DO touch that!)

40 Grit sandpaper, no problem - back pocket. Five minutes in the bathroom, nothing suspicious, and then WOW! You've got two long pointy objects that can in fact easily kill someone. When you're done being a terrorist with them, just leave them on the styrofoam lunch tray and your flight attendant will politely dispose of them for you - that is if you paid extra to get a meal.

Oh, and if you're flight or connecting flight is coming out of the Texas area, order a Shiner Boch at 30,000 feet. They foam over like a vinegar and baking soda volcano and very little is actually lost (mostly air), but then they'll give you a SECOND one to replace the defective one. This will do the same thing, but hey, it's not bad stuff (but will give you the fruity toots).

[librechik]

15. George Bush GREW the useless bureaucracy in DC--here's the proof

[Matariki]

18. My "false positive" experience.

I opt out of the backscatter machine because they haven't been properly tested and because a friend of mine who worked for 35 years as a nuclear physicist explained to me how the type of radiation being used is much more harmful than an x-ray.

Anyway, I opt out and get the f*#ing pat-down. I don't like it, but usually the person doing it is polite and friendly, so at least I'm able to momentarily put aside all my rage at the shredding of our collective rights to privacy and dignity.

The last time I flew, the first screening triggered a false positive when they ran the sample that looks for explosives. I've heard since that this isn't really that uncommon. I was taken into a private room, something I did NOT want to do - I want them to do whatever they are going to do out in the open, with witnesses. The second woman who took me in there kept saying, repeatedly, "you failed the screening, now you've got me" like she was some kind of bad-ass threat or something.

When she began her creepy litany of "I'm going to touch you like this, here, with my hands like this" etc, etc. I told that, please, she really didn't need to explain, just get it over with. No she says - she *has* to tell me all that. Well I think it's fucking creepy and I told her so. It sounds like porn. Like molestation. Ugh.

I was so angry that after it was over I had to get a drink and I sat there with my partner and just shook with rage and tears. I used to LOVE flying. Now I literally get sick to my stomach before heading to the airport and after that last experience I really don't feel like flying for a long, long time. Sucks. Really sucks.