Moving the TSA beyond reactionary security

In print | Published January 21, 2010

Since the terrorist attacks on Sep. 11, 2001, U.S. aviation security has changed dramatically. The Transportation Security Administration, or TSA, part of the newly created Department of Homeland Security, received large sums of money to improve security. The most visible method the TSA employs to try to keep us safe is preventing dangerous objects from being carried onto airplanes, but there is also behind-the-scenes intelligence gathering to prevent terrorists from flying. Over the past decades, we have repeatedly seen that both sides of this policy are flawed and that there has not been an appreciably lower risk of attacks on airplanes.

STAFF EDITORIAL

There is no hard evidence regarding the effectiveness of these separate measures, but it is imperative that the public know precisely which are effective and which are not. We recommend that an independent organization execute a comprehensive study on aviation security that examines each part of the security stack and judges whether it is successful and whether the trade-off between an increased burden on travelers and marginally extra security is worth the time, effort and funds required.

Last month, an outdated procedural manual of the TSA was published on the Internet. While the leak posed no immediate threat to aviation security, it should not have occurred. The public should not know the exact procedures the TSA uses to secure aviation because this could play into the hands of terrorists. That is not to say that the public should not be informed about the TSA’s procedures: in fact, the opposite is true. The public has a right to know why the TSA implements particular security features and from there on should have faith in its proper execution.

Onerous and reactionary

Today’s airport security is onerous and unnecessarily discriminates against various population groups. On top of that, the TSA spends too many resources reacting to yesterday’s threats, rather than on preventing tomorrow’s. It also over-emphasizes preventing items rather than people from traveling on airplanes. To counter the last problem, we believe that maintaining an up-to-date no-fly list and shifting resources from confiscating a vast range of items to monitoring potential terrorists will be part of such a strategy.

Being reactionary may be convenient for politicians, who, after an attack — whether it succeeded or not — want to appear tough on terrorism, but it only helps us prevent previous attacks from recurring rather than avoiding new threats. An embarrassing example is the reaction of the TSA after the shoe bomber’s attempt to detonate explosives in an airplane in 2001. Pundits at the time suggested that the next move would be terrorists hiding bombs in their underwear, an area not screened by security, and this is precisely what happened last Christmas Day on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit.

Bruce Schneier, a systems security expert, has coined the term “security theater,” which is a fitting description of the state of aviation security. Due to various types of attacks on airplanes, security is currently composed of a stack of procedures that are designed to prevent a particular terror scenario from unfolding.

Country profiling

Racial profiling is abundant in law enforcement activity, but the TSA’s practices are particularly egregious. While it is unclear whether the TSA engages in racial profiling — although anecdotal evidence certainly suggests this is the case — it definitely employs country profiling on a wide scale. Travelers from countries that are “state sponsors of terrorism” or “countries of interest” are automatically subject to “intensified screening”. Currently, the countries on this list are Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Cuba, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Somalia and Yemen.

Such profiling unnecessarily targets innocent travelers from these countries and may well increase their feelings of hostility toward the United States, so the system is counterproductive. Researchers at the University of Texas in Austin determined last year that racial profiling is no more effective at catching wrongdoers than randomly checking travelers because under racial profiling additional resources are spent screening huge numbers of innocent people. In effect, many more travelers are screened with no measurable increase in security. It is virtually certain that country profiling is just as ineffective. Consider, for instance, the United Kingdom, which has a significant Muslim population with extremist elements. It is inconceivable that the TSA would put the UK on its list of “countries of interest” because of the many political ties the country has with the United States. Country profiling then is also arbitrary, further decreasing its effectiveness. And how could profiling protect the U.S. from home-grown terrorists?

But any system is only as secure as it is at the point of minimal security, and this applies to racial profiling. Just as forbidding passengers to carry particular items onto airplanes will lead terrorists to hide bombs elsewhere, increasing security for travelers from particular nationalities will only increase terrorists’ incentives to recruit elsewhere. What point is there in having various levels of security when it is easy for attackers to circumvent the additional security?

Improving traveler confidence

The federal government owes us a review of the TSA’s security practices and their relative effectiveness. Rather than being reactionary out of political convenience, the TSA must implement only those security measures that are effective and that respect the privacy and other rights of travelers. Ultimately, the TSA’s goal is to make flying safe. The review that we propose will help the TSA do this by investigating which measures work and which do not. Ultimately a review like we propose, rather than security theater, will make travelers feel safe and comfortable with the security measures in place, knowing that they are there for good reason.

Discussion

Anonymous
Over 2 years ago

Not a bad editorial. What happens, though, if an independent report concludes that certain types of racial or country profiling really ARE effective? It’s certainly easy for us to sit at home and say that profiling is bad, but if I had been on Abdulmutallab’s flight I would be inclined to see it as the lesser evil. Also, it seems strange to call for less profiling, and, at the same time, for more reliance on no-fly lists and “monitoring” systems. Profiling will inevitably play a role in who gets put on the list in the first place, since the list uses “risk scores” to generate names. There are 400,000 names on the list, and the number of “false positive” identifications will continue to grow the more heavily we rely on it.

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