TSA

As someone who occasionally travels by air for business, I’m used to the chore of unpacking my computer at security for x-raying, as well as the regular worry that someone will walk off with my laptop or that it will be squashed in a luggage pile-up.

So, I was very pleased to see this bit of news in the New York Times:

The Transportation Security Administration has given the go-ahead for passengers to use newly designed carry-on bags that will let them pass through security without having to take their laptops out for the X-ray inspection.[…]

Two of the biggest luggage manufacturers — Pathfinder Luggage and Targus — say they are rushing to produce the new “checkpoint friendly” laptop cases and expect them to be available by late September or early October. […]

Pathfinder is making two models but plans others. One is a briefcase in which the attached laptop holder is exposed when the case is unzipped. The other is a wheeled carry-on with a removable laptop case.

OK…so that doesn’t sound too terribly different than some carry-on designs I’ve seen previously.  However, presumably we’ll need to have the magic TSA-blessed logo on our bags if we don’t want to have to bare our computers.   So, I’ll probably be shopping for a new bag this fall.

Seen in the Washington Times:

False identifications based on a terrorist no-fly list have for years prevented some federal air marshals from boarding flights they are assigned to protect, according to officials with the agency, which is finally taking steps to address the problem. [...]

“In some cases, planes have departed without any coverage because the airline employees were adamant they would not fly,” said the air marshal, who asked not to be named because the job requires anonymity. “I’ve seen guys actually being denied boarding.”

Having a no fly list is not necessarily a bad thing.  After all, it makes sense that you’d keep folks who might want to turn aircraft into manually-guided cruise missiles off those aircraft.

The problem with the no-fly list arises from the hassles faced by folks who are confused as being a suspect on the list.  It seems to be rather challenging to prove that you are you rather than someone with a similar name, in a manner to appease paranoid bureaucrat.

That folks working in a different branch of the air-security theater are getting snagged by the no-fly list, is just very amusing to me.

Seen in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer:

Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors.

TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program—called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique)—that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent.

But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions—a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA.

I’ve been calling Homeland Security folks the “Geheimstaatspolizei”, in honor of the authoritarianism they remind me of. However, now, I’m wondering if I might need to re-christen those “behavior-detection officers” as “thought police”.

In all seriousness, this is probably not a bad thing, particularly if it steers airport security theater away from hassling business travelers, frisking little old grandmothers, and seemingly pulling aside folks of middle-eastern and south-Asian descent out of an abundance of paranoia; and instead focuses security folks attentions into identifying folks with nefarious plans in mind..it will be a good thing.