(DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced that TSA will receive $355 million for more than a dozen airport security projects funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).The $355 million is going to be used for a lot of really nifty improvements to aviation security including:
Inline Baggage Screening Systems: Inline baggage screening systems help keep transportation safe. $254 million will be spent on inline baggage handling systems at six airports—including Washington Dulles International Airport, Mineta San Jose International Airport, San Antonio International Airport, Portland (Maine) International Jetport, Port Columbus International Airport, and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Watch this video about inline baggage screening at ATL.
CCTV: $38 million will be spent to support new and enhanced closed circuit television (CCTV) systems at six airports, including Chicago Midway International Airport, Little Rock National Airport/Adams Field, Kansas City International Airport, Omaha Eppley Airfield, Washington Dulles International Airport, and Tampa International Airport.
Backscatter Advanced Imaging Units: Backscatter machines use advanced imaging technology that allow our officers to better detect a wide range of threats in a matter of seconds, including explosives. More than $25 million will fund the purchase and deployment of approximately 150 backscatter advanced imaging units to airports across the nation. This deployment follows a successful pilot phase, during which 46 imaging technology units were deployed at 23 airports and passengers opted to use imaging technology for primary screening 98 percent of the time. It is important to note that this technology is always optional to passengers.
Next Generation Explosives Trace Detection: If you’ve seen our officers swabbing passengers and luggage with white swabs, that is our Explosives Trace Detection (ETD) machines. ETDs can detect even the smallest traces of explosives and are a very important part of our layers of security. $15 million will be spent on Next Generation Explosives Trace Detection (ETD) units.
Next Generation Bottled Liquid Scanners: $22 million will be spent on Bottled Liquid Scanners (BLS), a technology that screens medically necessary liquids such as infant formula and liquid medications to ensure they do not contain a threat.
Also, be sure to check out Tom Frank’s USA Today article on TSA’s purchase of 150 backscatter machines.
Blogger Bob
Backscatter Advanced Imaging Units: Backscatter machines use advanced imaging technology that allow our officers to better detect a wide range of threats in a matter of seconds, including explosives. More than $25 million will fund the purchase and deployment of approximately 150 backscatter advanced imaging units to airports across the nation. This deployment follows a successful pilot phase, during which 46 imaging technology units were deployed at 23 airports and passengers opted to use imaging technology for primary screening 98 percent of the time. It is important to note that this technology is always optional to passengers.
Next Generation Explosives Trace Detection: If you’ve seen our officers swabbing passengers and luggage with white swabs, that is our Explosives Trace Detection (ETD) machines. ETDs can detect even the smallest traces of explosives and are a very important part of our layers of security. $15 million will be spent on Next Generation Explosives Trace Detection (ETD) units.
Next Generation Bottled Liquid Scanners: $22 million will be spent on Bottled Liquid Scanners (BLS), a technology that screens medically necessary liquids such as infant formula and liquid medications to ensure they do not contain a threat.
Also, be sure to check out Tom Frank’s USA Today article on TSA’s purchase of 150 backscatter machines.
Blogger Bob
TSA Blog Team
67 comments:
So in addition to buying explosive trace detectorts (good) and bottled liquid scanners (good) you are still spending more money on your child porn machines (mmw)? Why? You are surely aware that congress is working on banning them.
Did you deliberately sign a "no refund no resale" contract in order to guilt congress into not banning the child porn machines? Oh, but it would be a waste of taxpayer dollars to ban them now, we've already paid for them.
It is important to note that this [backscatter] technology is always optional to passengers.
Except that if a passenger opts out of the procedure, they are subjected to a mandatory secondary search, including an invasive patdown.
Why are we going back to the backscatter? I thought we already moved forward with the production of WBI's.
Also, whatever happened to Checkpoint Evolution? A lot of the airports nationwide have none or nearly no components shown in Checkpoint Evolution. I'm not saying that all airports need calming music, small TDC desks, or automatic bin-returner (although that would be convenient) but why create & execute an idea thats not being used?
Does this mean that millimeter-wave radar is dead?
Blogger Bob said about Backscatter Advanced Imaging Units :
It is important to note that this technology is always optional to passengers.
And how will ALL passengers know this fact? What are the repercussions for not "voluntarily" going through this device?
And on to the USA Today article: TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee said the machines are "critical" to stopping terrorists with homemade bombs that may elude metal detectors
So how did the terrorists elude detection prior to this device coming on the scene? Oh, that's right, there were no terrorists with homemade bombs!!!!
You all should be ashamed of yourselves.
I wonder how much of the equipment TSA purchases under this program won't ever properly work? Wonder how much of this equipment will wind up in a warehouse when Congress forbids the use of WBI?
Ms Lee (TSA PR rep) is quoted in the USA Today article as saying ""Imaging technology is safe".
I also read Ms Lee's TSA bio page, and nowhere did I find any indications that would qualify her to make such a statement. Did she come up with that on her own, or was she feed that line?
Tell us just how much Ionizing Radiation we are being subjected to, and let us make the determination if it is safe or not, as it is US that you are making go through this contraption.
I am not your guinea pig.
Oh,Oh, Bob, you opened yourself up for it again. Did you read the comments in the article to which you suggested we read?
How many were favorable to the TSA and WBI? Not many, huh?
And by the way, where are the signs?
Wow. Bob, I've got to hand it to you - you direct us to an article on whole body imaging scanners at another site which isn't at all supportive of the TSA move. And the posted comments at the other site are even worse - if you are a TSA supporter, of course.
Nice job.
"passengers opted to use imaging technology for primary screening 98 percent of the time. It is important to note that this technology is always optional to passengers."
Bob, this is a dishonest statistic and you know it. Many passengers have reported here and elsewhere that airports that feature TSA's strip-search machines do not have appropriate signage and passengers are not told that they have the option to decline to be strip-searched. People who DO decline are subjected to retaliatory, invasive pat-downs. And all to protect us from 0.6 ounces of harmless lotion, the one and only success this misbegotten offense against decency has resulted in.
Meanwhile, you refuse to post, on this blog and at the checkpoints where TSA is using its virtual strip-search machines, images of the same size and resolution as seen by the operator of the strip-search machine. TSA as an agency, and you in particular, Bob, have shown a consistent pattern of evasion and dishonesty about these strip-search machines, and you should be ashamed of yourselves.
All that money and not a dime's bit of difference.
Nothing worse than politicians trying to stimulate something.
Why? Why? Why would you possibly choose to allocate funding to a program that may very well be prohibited by law? This clear blunder in allocating scare resources is only the latest example of your blatant disregard for the safety of travelers.
Oh, goodie, more expensive toys that I get to pay for -- and probably be abused by.
I have a novel idea....why not spend some money on training and upgrading the quality of your people on the front lines -- so that they never, ever have to utter the line 'do you want to fly today?' (which should be an immediate termination offense)
Well, $355 Million really isn't that much money, in terms of government spending. I hope it's put to good use.
Thanks for the picture from the backscatter that clearly shows genitalia. Post that before the backscatter gizmo and see how swiftly the 98% of travellers opt out.
What is the alternative to the backscatter machine? Public patdown including the TSO cupping a pax genitalia?
Stop backscatters as primary screening mechanisms, now!!
And wasn't this the time of the year in which the liquid ban would be abolished? Why then are you specifying that the detectors are for medically necessary liquids??
This is really good news. I hope the $ is used to help further secure our nation.
1/3rd of a Billion dollars on top of what is already spent just to protect passenger operations for a year? When does it become financially prudent to just shut down passenger operations in the US?
Bob, can your imaging machines detect and display an inserted tampon? Many people have expressed the idea that if the machines do, then they are too invasive, and if the do not, then the machines are not effective enough. Could you please comment on the tampon paradox?
Also, last year in the comments in response to TSA's "Pay For Performance; Good For Security" post, on July 23, 2008, I wrote:
"1. Do the electronic strip-search machines (both backscatter imaging and "millimeter wave" versions) show operators only still images, or animated/video images?
"2. If the latter, where can we see a sample of what that video looks like?"
Two days later, Lynn at TSA quoted me then responded:
"It's a still image, not video."
However, today, I saw a video of a September 24, 2009, KSL-TV news broadcast about Congressman Jason Chafetz of Utah and his experience with TSA staff at a TSA airport checkpoint. From 1:09 to 1:13 into the piece, we are shown a computer monitor displaying an image that looks similar to those you've offered as examples of the MMW machine output, except that it is not a still image, it is an animated loop. Picking a single image out of this video that operators apparently see is rather disingenuous of you, as it allows the viewer to perceive far less detail than the rotating 3D view does.
One of the following must be the case: 1) Lynn was mistaken when she wrote that the image operators see is still, 2) that which is shown to operators has changed since Lynn wrote this, or 3) the video in the KSL broadcast was not representative of what your operators see. Which is the case?
--
Phil
Add your own questions at TSAFAQ.net
From TS/S re WBI at IAH:
"When Terminal E is busy there are 4-5 different lines that one can go through, only one has the scanner. When the terminal is not busy, everyone uses the single line that has the scanner. The scanner does not have any markings saying what it is and since it is where the old "puffer" machine used to be, I doubt anyone notices that's it different."
Way to go, TSA. Deceitfulness at its very best.
Yes, where are the signs, Bob? And further, can you assure us that every single person who goes through the WBI has given informed consent? Guess what, you can't because you know that if every passenger knew what was really happening, your "acceptance" rate would plummet.
Why does TSA outright lie?
How about holding off on the purchase of strip search machines and other toys and using the funds to expedite the deployment of whatever technology will reduce TSA's (irrational) paranoia enough to abolish the absurd war on water?
Setting aside for the moment the complete improbability of an attack by toothpaste tube or attack by water bottle, if TSA had enough of the fancy new carry-on x-rays at most airports, and enough handheld bottle scanners to randomly scan 10-20% of bottles everywhere else, that would greatly reduce the "risk" of such a threat. How about doing that, *temporarily* going to an "all liquid bottles must come out of your carry-on" policy, randomly scanning suspicious-looking bottles, and returning to some semblance of sanity?
It really would be good PR too for TSA. The war-on-water (and shoe carnival) make millions of passengers hate TSA every time they go near a checkpoint. If you got rid of those two items, opposition to TSA would go back mostly to (legitimate) arguments about freedom of movement, government tracking of travelers, problems with a papers-please society, and nuances of virtual strip searches. As much as these things bother true patriots who know our history and care about preserving our liberty, none of these items are nearly as visible or offensive to the average passenger.
Phil said...
Bob, can your imaging machines detect and display an inserted tampon? Many people have expressed the idea that if the machines do, then they are too invasive, and if the do not, then the machines are not effective enough. Could you please comment on the tampon paradox?
Also, last year in the comments in response to TSA's "Pay For Performance; Good For Security" post, on July 23, 2008, I wrote:
"1. Do the electronic strip-search machines (both backscatter imaging and "millimeter wave" versions) show operators only still images, or animated/video images?
"2. If the latter, where can we see a sample of what that video looks like?"
Two days later, Lynn at TSA quoted me then responded:
"It's a still image, not video."
However, today, I saw a video of a September 24, 2009, KSL-TV news broadcast about Congressman Jason Chafetz of Utah and his experience with TSA staff at a TSA airport checkpoint. From 1:09 to 1:13 into the piece, we are shown a computer monitor displaying an image that looks similar to those you've offered as examples of the MMW machine output, except that it is not a still image, it is an animated loop. Picking a single image out of this video that operators apparently see is rather disingenuous of you, as it allows the viewer to perceive far less detail than the rotating 3D view does.
One of the following must be the case: 1) Lynn was mistaken when she wrote that the image operators see is still, 2) that which is shown to operators has changed since Lynn wrote this, or 3) the video in the KSL broadcast was not representative of what your operators see. Which is the case?
-----------------
Phil I watched your video and here is what I have to say.
1. I would just like to point out to EVERYONE that in that video there was at least 100 signs posted up all over that freaking machine. It looks like they are practically beating you with the signs lol.
2. That image was stilled, however as a tool function the TSO can spin the image to view other sides of the model which is what makes it 3-D.
3. What politicians will do to pass a bill? Like I said before I have never met a politician that did not believe he/she was above the screening process. Ted Stevens himself threw a very similar fit in Ketchikan a couple years back, of course I wasn't working here at the time. I am pretty positive this politician is just shooting for anti scanner publicity using the media. Everyone knows the media hits on TSA like vultures; we are the freshest piece of meat to them. For those of you getting all uppity going, "TSA is just hiding those tapes to be the evil lying corrupt people they are!" stop and think for a minute. An organization like TSA that receives so much flak all the time is going to take awhile to make sure they get every single detail about that situation in as best as they can (especially one as sensitive as this) before they release any information to the media cyclone and watch it all get scattered across the web in hundreds of different little perceptions and views.
On the flip side of things, I am all for supporting my fellow co-workers but since the TSA in Alaska will never see any of that money but will have to pay for it out of all of our tax dollars I am not too excited about it.
Still congratulations on the better screening technology down south but up here we are still under budgeted and running on ancient technology.
Anonymous said...
How about holding off on the purchase of strip search machines and other toys and using the funds to expedite the deployment of whatever technology will reduce TSA's (irrational) paranoia enough to abolish the absurd war on water?
Setting aside for the moment the complete improbability of an attack by toothpaste tube or attack by water bottle, if TSA had enough of the fancy new carry-on x-rays at most airports, and enough handheld bottle scanners to randomly scan 10-20% of bottles everywhere else, that would greatly reduce the "risk" of such a threat. How about doing that, *temporarily* going to an "all liquid bottles must come out of your carry-on" policy, randomly scanning suspicious-looking bottles, and returning to some semblance of sanity?
It really would be good PR too for TSA. The war-on-water (and shoe carnival) make millions of passengers hate TSA every time they go near a checkpoint. If you got rid of those two items, opposition to TSA would go back mostly to (legitimate) arguments about freedom of movement, government tracking of travelers, problems with a papers-please society, and nuances of virtual strip searches. As much as these things bother true patriots who know our history and care about preserving our liberty, none of these items are nearly as visible or offensive to the average passenger.
October 7, 2009 11:42 AM
--------------
The so called "shoe carnival" will not stop untill someone designs a cheap x-ray technology that will scan your feet harmlessly that would be affordable everywhere. The reason why is because you can effectively hide way more things in your shoes than you can in your jacket, hoodie, or even your carry-on.
As for the liquids thing, I am a strong believer in headquarters allowing us to make common sense decisions on the amount of liquids inside containers. Of course looking at things now, testing all oversized bottles and randomly testing little ones would seem like a good way to lift the ban right? But you need to understand that once the ban is lifted everyone is going to carry nothing but oversized liquids and ALL of them WILL have to be tested, there just is not enough man power in any government agency to make up for the amount of time that would take.
Seems it would be a better use of funding if TSA did what was needed to control access to the secure areas of airports.
Then perhaps 322 suitcases would not have been placed on aircraft while TSA walked around unaware.
How many other cases of items have flown without benefit of TSA screening?
Bob, could you document that 98% of travelers are in favor of being MMW STRIP SEARCHED?
I don't think so!
Reader's comment on Tom Frank's USA Today article are 4 to 1 unfavorable towards the use of the backscatter machines. So again where is the independent study showing it has a 98% acceptance use by passengers?
Being forced to do something under deception, fear, or not knowing is NOT acceptance.
You know that the ultimate goal is for these types of devices to completely replace the WTMD, and then no one will have choice.
Randy wrote:
"Thanks for the picture from the backscatter that clearly shows genitalia. Post that before the backscatter gizmo and see how swiftly the 98% of travellers opt out."
Look at the picture even more closely, Randy, and you can see, in the frontal shots, leg bones!
I don't think that "low-dose" x-rays show bones with that amount of clarity.
Seriously....
"It is important to note that this technology is always optional to passengers."
If it hasn't been called BullHockey a dozen times all ready, I'm calling it here. There are WAY too many examples of limited or missing signage, passengers being told to step over here without explanation of what the machine does, lack of brochures that describe the technology, etc. that discredit your statement.
I hope the House and eventually Senate limit your powers to use this technology as a Primary screening tool. As an agency, your staff have proven that you can't be trusted.
Phil,
Can you show us some peer reviewed research validating the "tampon paradox"?
Thanks in advance!
How much of the new money is going to real training? I am a huge fan and technology, especially "sniffers", but I believe the best defense again threats are diligent officers. Heck, maybe we even pay them more and get the best people possible protecting us.
Phil said...
"Bob, can your imaging machines detect and display an inserted tampon? Many people have expressed the idea that if the machines do, then they are too invasive, and if the do not, then the machines are not effective enough. Could you please comment on the tampon paradox?"
------------
Same can be said for the walk-through metal detector, right? Yet I do not believe anyone here has much of a problem with that.
Phil, you seem intelligent enough to understand that people want different things, and expect different things. What level of security would be effective, in your opinion? Would there ever be a level of security that is 100% effective? I do not think so.
Isn't part of providing security about figuring out how to balance security needs with invasiveness?
A person with a medical implant might say a walk-through-metal detector is too invasive, yet another person say it does not do enough, right?
We can find arguments where ever we want to look. So I wonder at the point of your "tampon pardox" question. Sure, these machines are not perfect, and there is the possiblity to let things through, but doesn't that exist at all levels of security? To answer my own question, yes it does.
Note, I am not making the argument that TSA should use these machines. I am simply wondering why you are asking a question to which you already know the answer?
A sad day. More good money thrown after bad.
> And how will ALL passengers know this
> fact? What are the repercussions for
> not "voluntarily" going through this
> device?
Maybe its written right next to the secret rule that we all know makes us show ID before we get on the plane.
I was operated on for melanoma several years ago. Do not think, for one minute, that I will subject myself to x-ray radiation at the whim of TSA. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS AN ACCEPTABLE LEVEL OF UNNECESSARY X-RAY RADIATION. I also do not intend to submit to groping of my genitalia because I will not undertake an x-ray scan that my doctor says is unsafe for me.
Instead of wasting money on such pointless technology, when is TSA going to address REAL threats to aviation security, e.g. unexpected air cargo and U.S. mail that is placed aboard ALL commercial aircraft, lax screening of airport employees, and maintenance of a "No Fly" list that specifically excludes the most dangerous terrorists in the interest of "national security"? I've asked these questions repeatedly on this blog, and have yet to have an answer.
> Bob, could you document that 98% of
> travelers are in favor of being MMW
> STRIP SEARCHED?
Well we all know that 97.5% of statistics are made up on the spot.
Though, I still wouldn't be impressed. Such a stat should go right beside the number of Americans who refuse to sign a paper with the bill of rights written on it because they thought it was "a subversive document"
Or the percentage that thing Obama was born in Hawaii. Or that Glen Beck raped and murdered a girl in 1990. Or that the average number of spiders a person eats in their lifetime was ever studied (it came from an article lamenting that people believe whatever stats they read btw).
Or how about the percentage that believe 9/11 was an inside job. Or that terrorism is a bigger risk than heart disease. Or that texting while driving is a big deal.
Actually for example, lets take a look at that last one and assume 900 deaths a year from texting related accidents is true.
Compare that with toxoplasmosis. Being infected with it is benign and asymptomatic for most people, but it does slow reactions times enough to increase a persons chances of dieing in a car accident 2.5 times.
Those numbers translate into 1 million drivinf deaths PER YEAR due to toxoplasmosis infection. (drunk driving accounts for only 40,000 in the US)
Stick that in your text message and smoke it.
I have to admit having just flown through Atlanta-Hartsfield that I was VERY impressed with the signage. Had pictures of a scanned body and an opt-out message.
Seems like a fairly good mix of technology being brought in.
"The so called "shoe carnival" will not stop untill someone designs a cheap x-ray technology that will scan your feet harmlessly that would be affordable everywhere. The reason why is because you can effectively hide way more things in your shoes than you can in your jacket, hoodie, or even your carry-on."
Nonsense. The shoe carnival will stop once the leadership of TSA decides it's more interested in effective security than in pointless kabuki theatre that does nothing to make anyone safer.
Fact: Richard Reid failed.
Fact: From Reid's failure until August 2006, the shoe carnival was optional and no planes were brought down by shoe bombs.
Fact: In countries that do not have a mandatory shoe carnival, no planes are being brought down by shoe bombs.
Neither you nor any other TSA representative or apologist can dispute that these facts are incontrovertibly true.
And the logical conclusion that results from considering these facts is that no one, anywhere, has tried to use shoes as bombs since Richard Reid.
All TSA's shoe carnival does is waste the time of everyone involved and make us less safe than we'd be without it.
We know it, you know it, stop lying to us.
Bob wrote:
This deployment follows a successful pilot phase, during which 46 imaging technology units were deployed at 23 airports and passengers opted to use imaging technology for primary screening 98 percent of the time.
_________
Like others, I'm curious (and skeptical) about the 98% acceptance figure. Can you provide the details on how this number was computed? Did someone count the number of passengers arriving at the checkpoint counted, and the number who chose the WBI "for primary screening?" What were the individual acceptance rates at the different airports? How many passengers (over how many days or weeks) were counted? It is statistically unlikely that it was 98% at all of them. You must have the individual scores.
Did you count the people who saw the WBI and chose another line or checkpoint as part of the "2%"? Or just people who said "I'd rather have an invasive rubdown than a virtual strip search?"
Or was 98 just a nice round number you chose to convince Congress that there's no opposition to the nude-o-scope? Do you think Congress is more likely to believe your number, or all the comments on the USA Today site under Tom Frank's article?
In this post, dated 10/06/2009, Bob wrote:
Next Generation Bottled Liquid Scanners: $22 million will be spent on Bottled Liquid Scanners (BLS), a technology that screens medically necessary liquids such as infant formula and liquid medications to ensure they do not contain a threat.
_______
Bob, what's going on? In the blog post on 10/24/2008 "The path forward on liquids", Kip Hawley wrote:
Fall-2009: Size restriction removed, but all liquids will have to be placed in a separate bin. AT X-Ray software will be advanced enough to tell the difference between threat and non-threat but not yet proven to tell the difference when it is hidden in a bag.
Bob, my calendar says it's Fall 2009 about now. Kip promised that AT X-rays would be available so that size restrictions on all liquids could be removed and they could be scanned as long as they were out of a bag and in a bin. (He also promised that by this time next year it would work on liquids in bags and we could all go back to normal.) (In fact, Kip made similar promises in 2006 and 2007, where the solution was always "next year.")
So my questions, Bob, are these. Was Kip lying (or at least exaggerating) about using AT X-ray to remove the size limits on liquids? Have you given up on this path? Does it turn out that X-rays can't distinguish bad liquids from harmless liquids, regardless of the software? Why are the Bottle Liquid Scanners, which can only do one bottle at a time and are therefore only suitable for medically necessary liquids, being developed instead?
And if Kip was lying (or at least exaggerating) in his promises last year, why should we believe your promises this year?
carp said...
> Bob, could you document that 98% of
> travelers are in favor of being MMW
> STRIP SEARCHED?
Well we all know that 97.5% of statistics are made up on the spot.
..............
Carp, are you defending Bob's statement that 98% of people are accepting the MMW STRIP SEARCH machine or saying "figures don't lie, but liars figure"?
Question (serious, not trying to stir up trouble):
I have read a number of reports from people stating that they were forced to take a pat down after refusing the backscatter technology, even if they didn't alarm the metal detector. Yet the TSA's website states:
"The enhanced pat-down will be used only after all other screening methods have been used and the alarm remains unresolved... Passengers required to undergo this level of screening will be afforded the opportunity to divest all items that could be the source of the alarm before the protocol is used and private screening will be made available."
Can someone here please verify the above for me and assure me that I will not be subject to a patdown simply because I did not want to use the backscatter?
I sent the "contact us" folks a question and got a four paragraph answer that didn't address my question.
Thanks,
Mike
TSOWilliamReed wrote:
But you need to understand that once the ban is lifted everyone is going to carry nothing but oversized liquids and ALL of them WILL have to be tested, there just is not enough man power in any government agency to make up for the amount of time that would take.
No, they won't all have to be tested. That's the point that TSA keeps missing.
TSA doesn't test every carry-on item for explosives, doesn't pat down every passenger, and until 2006, didn't x-ray every shoe. Why do you have to test every bottle?
The whole idea of rational risk management, as opposed to paranoid irrational risk avoidance that TSA practices, is to find the most effective means to drastically reduce a risk without throwing the whole system into chaos (i.e., banning an entire state of matter). Security doesn't "work" by eliminating 100% of possible threats; that's impossible. Security "works" by making credible threats unlikely to succeed, deterring the bad guys from showing up at the airport in the first place.
Randomly testing 5% of non-factory-sealed oversized bottles would be huge deterrent to a terrorist trying the liquid-explosive approach. Just like randomly ETD swabbing a few carry-on bags is a huge deterrent against packing solid explosives.
Only in TSA's paranoid fantasy land do 100% of all items need to undergo the most invasive possible screening before they can be un-prohibited. :(
Here's my proposal: Abolish the liquid ban, but require all liquid containers to go out of bags into a tray. Reassign the x-ray loader (or roving barker, or useless BDO, or TDC who spends 30-seconds looking at IDs when it should take 2, etc.) to visually inspect the liquid containers for anomalies as they pass by on the conveyer. The beauty of the factory seals that have been produced ever since the Tylenol scare in the early 80s is that any 3rd grader, let alone a "highly trained TSO" can tell if a seal has been opened or tampered with.
Allow all factory-sealed containers to pass unmolested. Any unsealed container that looks suspicious, or container that appeared to have unusual tampering, could be tested. An additional 5% of unsealed containers could be tested in TSA's tradition of "continuous screening."
Instead of rational risk management such as this, TSA has a tradition of paranoid knee-jerk reactions, absurd knee-jerk bans and restrictions on common everyday items carried by millions of non-terrorists (shoes, underwire bras, toothpaste, and who knows what's next), and overpriced expensive solutions that line the pockets of DHS contractors and look neat, but do little if anything to improve actual security but do a lot to invade the privacy, dignity, and liberty of law-abiding US citizens.
How well do these 22M$ bottled liquid scanners work on items that don't open? For example, permitted frozen gels/liquids like gel-packs?
If you can't open it, will it not fly?
Isaac Newton said...
In this post, dated 10/06/2009, Bob wrote:
Next Generation Bottled Liquid Scanners: $22 million will be spent on Bottled Liquid Scanners (BLS), a technology that screens medically necessary liquids such as infant formula and liquid medications to ensure they do not contain a threat.
_______
Bob, what's going on? In the blog post on 10/24/2008 "The path forward on liquids", Kip Hawley wrote:
Fall-2009: Size restriction removed, but all liquids will have to be placed in a separate bin. AT X-Ray software will be advanced enough to tell the difference between threat and non-threat but not yet proven to tell the difference when it is hidden in a bag.
Bob, my calendar says it's Fall 2009 about now. Kip promised that AT X-rays would be available so that size restrictions on all liquids could be removed and they could be scanned as long as they were out of a bag and in a bin. (He also promised that by this time next year it would work on liquids in bags and we could all go back to normal.) (In fact, Kip made similar promises in 2006 and 2007, where the solution was always "next year.")
-------------------
Well for one, kip doesn't work here anymore. For two, it took us 3 years just to get the locol government to allow us to put in a new baggage x-ray at our airport imagine how long its gonna take to contract installation for an at-xray at every airport in the US.
At least thats why I think we don't have AT-Xrays everywhere.
Anonymous said...
TSA doesn't test every carry-on item for explosives, doesn't pat down every passenger, and until 2006, didn't x-ray every shoe. Why do you have to test every bottle?
The whole idea of rational risk management, as opposed to paranoid irrational risk avoidance that TSA practices, is to find the most effective means to drastically reduce a risk without throwing the whole system into chaos (i.e., banning an entire state of matter). Security doesn't "work" by eliminating 100% of possible threats; that's impossible. Security "works" by making credible threats unlikely to succeed, deterring the bad guys from showing up at the airport in the first place.
Randomly testing 5% of non-factory-sealed oversized bottles would be huge deterrent to a terrorist trying the liquid-explosive approach. Just like randomly ETD swabbing a few carry-on bags is a huge deterrent against packing solid explosives.
Only in TSA's paranoid fantasy land do 100% of all items need to undergo the most invasive possible screening before they can be un-prohibited. :(
Here's my proposal: Abolish the liquid ban, but require all liquid containers to go out of bags into a tray. Reassign the x-ray loader (or roving barker, or useless BDO, or TDC who spends 30-seconds looking at IDs when it should take 2, etc.) to visually inspect the liquid containers for anomalies as they pass by on the conveyer. The beauty of the factory seals that have been produced ever since the Tylenol scare in the early 80s is that any 3rd grader, let alone a "highly trained TSO" can tell if a seal has been opened or tampered with.
Allow all factory-sealed containers to pass unmolested. Any unsealed container that looks suspicious, or container that appeared to have unusual tampering, could be tested. An additional 5% of unsealed containers could be tested in TSA's tradition of "continuous screening."
Instead of rational risk management such as this, TSA has a tradition of paranoid knee-jerk reactions, absurd knee-jerk bans and restrictions on common everyday items carried by millions of non-terrorists (shoes, underwire bras, toothpaste, and who knows what's next), and overpriced expensive solutions that line the pockets of DHS contractors and look neat, but do little if anything to improve actual security but do a lot to invade the privacy, dignity, and liberty of law-abiding US citizens.
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Ok how do factory bottles get sealed, with a big machine right? A machine that if you had enough money, you could buy it. I assure you, you can open any bottle you want put whatever you want in it and very easily reseal it. The problem with liquid explosives is unlike solid explosives, there are too many "copy cat" items. Just about any form of liquid whether its juice medicine or whatever will or can look like a liquid explosive, there are no physical markers to tell the difference between a liquid explosive and a non liquid explosive. Solid explosives however can be seen very easily, most of it looks like play do with a big hole for a detonator drilled through it. Lately Deta sheet has been a concern but I assure you if you ETD ANYTHING in a checkpoint that just had a whole chunk of solid explosives come through you are going to get an alarm. Therefore since you can't honestly physically examine liquids for tampering or the possibility of explosives they have to either be tested or banned. Since we can't deny people the right to shampoo then a restriction was placed and random screening procedures were put up.
And that is basically that, until technology for testing liquid explosives becomes cheaper and readily available then these are the rules that have to be kept in place. Oh and if you don't believe me about the factory resealing thing just ask anyone that has jarred jam in their life. You can reseal the same jar over and over again until the seal breaks.
Following up on Isaac Newton's questions re Bob's statement:
"This deployment follows a successful pilot phase, during which 46 imaging technology units were deployed at 23 airports and passengers opted to use imaging technology for primary screening 98 percent of the time."
Did every single passenger who "chose" WBI fully understand what was happening, Bob? Something tells me they did not.
Has an independent outside agency surveyed passengers to arrive at an accurate acceptance rate for WBI? Something tells me that has not happened either.
Let's get some larger signage, Bob, placed appropriately. Actually, maybe you don't even need larger signage - all TSA has to do is put the signage with the images prior to the signage describing the virtual strip search machine and people will veer away from the strip search line in large numbers.
How much money did TSA spend on determining signage and placement that would assure that people didn't see it and/or understand it? Dollars to donuts some consultant was highly paid to do just that.
TSOWilliamReed wrote:
Ok how do factory bottles get sealed, with a big machine right? A machine that if you had enough money, you could buy it. I assure you, you can open any bottle you want put whatever you want in it and very easily reseal it.
An adversary with an infinite budget can do anything, including sealing solid explosive inside a shell of inert material and assuring it will come up clean on ETD, or buying off an un-screened ramp worker for unrestricted access to the aircraft.
Wine bottles, soda bottles, and commercial-grade canned products are not as easily resealed as you seem to think. Between the plastic capsule and the vacuum button (or cork) it's not that simple. Manufacturers have a strong motivation to ensure the integrity of their products that pre-dates the tampering scares of the 80s but was certainly enhanced then.
And mason-jar lids for home canning is a bad comparison. (Jars are irrelevant, it's the lid that matters.) Sure you can re-use the lids sometimes (i.e., seal a jar twice using the same lid), but the sealing material does degrade with use and time, which is why you're not supposed to reuse them for food safety reasons. And canning up some liquid explosives would be a sure recipe for failure, given that the procedure to get a vacuum seal is to boil (or pressure cook at even higher temperature) the jar for 10-20 minutes. Just about any nitrate or peroxide based explosive compound would inevitably self detonate under such treatment, doing nothing but blowing up the terrorists and their kitchen.
Just about any form of liquid whether its juice medicine or whatever will or can look like a liquid explosive, there are no physical markers to tell the difference between a liquid explosive and a non liquid explosive.
I give you credit for giving much sounder arguments than the TSA PR hacks, but nothing about what you say changed in 8/2006. The liquid explosive nitroglycerin was first synthesized a half century before the invention of the airplane, let alone TSA. Nitroglycerin was used to kill a Philippine Airlines pax in the mid-90s and was part of a broader plot. DHS knew about the London plot months in advance of 8/06. Yet none of these things was enough to trigger a ban on liquids. Instead, good police work disrupted the plots, and common sense prevailed instead of punishing innocent travelers with absurd bans. The irony is that the day the liquid ban took effect, the risk of a liquid attack had plummeted because the plotters had been disrupted/arrested.
The only thing that changed on 8/06 was PR-releated, and the hacks running TSA decided they needed to be seen as "doing something." So they instituted an overnight (literally) knee-jerk ban acting on intelligence that was months old that caused immediate and needless financial loss and inconvenience to thousands of passengers traveling those first few days. (Go read the stories about expensive Napa wine being destroyed at SFO.) One of the great ironies is that the hacks at TSA had known about the threat for months, but felt the need to over-react in a matter of hours, giving passengers no credible warning of the change.
Lately Deta sheet has been a concern but I assure you if you ETD ANYTHING in a checkpoint that just had a whole chunk of solid explosives come through you are going to get an alarm.
The day after a terrorist attempting to use Detasheet is disrupted, will TSA ban rubber-soled shoes and elastic garmets?
Therefore since you can't honestly physically examine liquids for tampering or the possibility of explosives they have to either be tested or banned.
Do you really think that the exterior of a bottle containing nitrated explosives, or the bag it was placed in, or the person who did the work, wouldn't test positive for nitrates on an ETD? Same concept for obscure high-concentration peroxide components.
Anonymous said...
TSA doesn't test every carry-on item for explosives, doesn't pat down every passenger, and until 2006, didn't x-ray every shoe. Why do you have to test every bottle?
Why? I don't know about you but I know that I have been able to take a lid off of a bottle with the "factory seal" still in place and put the lid back on afterwards. If the bottle has one of the pull off type seals those are not hard to "glue" back on for an industrious "bad" guy. So yes every bottle over 3.4oz would have to be tested. Talk about slowing down the screening process. I still have individuals who come through security with the family size bottles of shampoo, body wash, ect. when they are only travelling for a few days and expect for it to be allowed to go through. If the size ban was lifted this would be 10 times worse! I can't say much for large airports but I know that in my airport we don't have the personell to screen that volume of liquids.
It comes to a choice folks complain all you like, but it is either security or customer service. Which would you rather have? If you want security for air travel than don't complain about the small inconveniences you may encounter, if you want customer service than don't complain when something bad happens. Anyone with prior law enforcement or military training will tell you the two just will not work hand in hand with much success. It is fine to be nice, polite and professional, but it is either security or passenger convince, you can't have both and make it work 100%.
You want TSA to screen better, more efficiently but you don't like the technology they come out with. Or, you don't want to pay for said technology. Even when new technology does come out it is only sent to large airports not to every airport. You want better screeners, but you, or your elected officials don't want to pay better wages to get the best people. As the old saying goes, "You can't have your cake and eat it too"
carp said...
A sad day. More good money thrown after bad.
October 7, 2009 4:16 PM
I hope you're just as bothered with the democrats spending stimulus money on making road signs claiming roads were paid for by stimulus moolah. Personally, Im getting sick and tired of wasteful spending. Its not just a TSA problem either.
"I hope you're just as bothered with the democrats spending stimulus money on making road signs claiming roads were paid for by stimulus moolah. Personally, Im getting sick and tired of wasteful spending."
Roads serve a useful purpose. Machines that take naked pictures of minors do not.
Anon-
It doesn't take a huge budget to reseal cans, bottles jars etc... or there is always the problem of the tactic employed by the London plotters, a pin hole in the bottom and a syringe used to refill it with a new liquid.
Now sure, a careful examination would reveal the pin hole, I get that. But how long would it take to carefully examine every bottle for a pin hole? Or how about the kids juice boxes? Easy to reseal and shrink wrap machines are available for $100 at an office supply store.
Further, the notion that "Banning a whole state of matter has thrown the system into Chaos" is exageration. Was it problematic and inconvienent for the first few days? Sure, but if you are still showing up at the checkpoint with liquids now, quite frankly thats a "you problem." I have flown hundreds of times since the ban went into place and have not had to abandon/have confiscated a single item.
I took a few minutes, familiarized myself with the rules and went on with my life.
And spare me the whining about "the secret SSI rules", when I go through the checkpoint the stuff I see being discarded is all stuff the people should have known better. There was no secret rule they didn't know about concerning bottles of Coke and water.
How is it possible that TSA has still not addressed the Cong. Chaffetz issue?
After reading through all these "informed" comments it seems to me that no one really gets it. Please stop flying.
TSO William Reed...
Ok how do factory bottles get sealed, with a big machine right? A machine that if you had enough money, you could buy it. I assure you, you can open any bottle you want put whatever you want in it and very easily reseal it.
I can see it now. Terrorist organizations are buying bottling companies, either hiring hundreds of fellow terrorists to work there or buying off hundreds of non-terrorist employees, all to get liquid explosives bottled in sealed containers so that one guy can try to sneak it past the TSA.
If they have that many resources it would be far easier and cheaper to simply send someone through flight school, get him hired to work for an airline, and have him fly the plane into a building without any attempt to take over the airplane.
"TSA friendly laptop bags" are a waste of money. Even if you have one, you still get yelled at (not asked, not told, yelled at) for not taking your laptop out of its case at most of the TSA checkpoints. I was expecting to get harrassed when I flew through Seattle recently, and was pleasantly surprised when the TSO actually asked if it was a 'x-ray friendly' bag. So there is actually a few TSO's out there paying attention during the 'death-by-powerpoint' training sessions.
Just not as many as there should be.
"And the logical conclusion that results from considering these facts is that no one, anywhere, has tried to use shoes as bombs since Richard Reid."
I love this logic. We should go on to say since no one has used nuclear weapons since WWII, we should get rid of them.
'Couse tons of people still want them...
If they have that many resources it would be far easier and cheaper to simply send someone through flight school, get him hired to work for an airline, and have him fly the plane into a building without any attempt to take over the airplane.
October 11, 2009 9:08 PM
So you've never heard reports of ordinary people reporting to the FBI of students seeking information on how to take off and fly an airplane, but not wanting to learn how to land them? There have been such reports and those "students" never enrolled.
Sounds like they have tried your idea sir.
Hey, great blog…but I don’t understand how to add your site in my rss reader. Can you Help me please?
"I love this logic. We should go on to say since no one has used nuclear weapons since WWII, we should get rid of them."
What does that have to do with the incontrovertible fact that no one, anywhere, has tried to use shoes to harm a flight since Richard Reid, regardless of whether or how their shoes were screened?
Shoes are common and pretty much universally harmless. Nuclear weapons are dangerous. Your comparison makes no sense, much like TSA's mandatory shoe carnival. Indeed, it's amazing to watch a TSA employee or apologist try to avoid acknowledging the fact that no one has even tried to use shoes to harm an aircraft since Reid, and that countries without the shoe canrival have not suffered any ill effects as a result.
Anon said… “Your comparison makes no sense…”
The fact is that no one has even tried to use Nuclear Weapons to harm an aircraft, ever, and countries without screening procedures in place to look for them have not suffered any ill effects as a result. So by your logic we should not be screening for nuclear weapons.
Anyone care to explain why, in the face of all this money being thrown around, and the claimed 98% acceptance of advanced imaging, ROC has removed, yes, removed its AI machine?
I hope someone really thought and had some deep concentration because there is a lot riding on this.
All this and our Borders on land are STILL NOT SECURE!!! Who are they kidding..Jeesh!!!!
Airports will always require larger and larger budgets, as security is always being tightened, and as a result more staffing levels are required, and infrastructure for an increasing number of travlling passengers. Somethings can not be compromised on.
The fact is that no one has even tried to use Nuclear Weapons to harm an aircraft, ever, and countries without screening procedures in place to look for them have not suffered any ill effects as a result. So by your logic we should not be screening for nuclear weapons.
And on to the USA Today article: TSA spokeswoman Kristin Lee said the machines are "critical" to stopping terrorists with homemade bombs that may elude metal detectors
So how did the terrorists elude detection prior to this device coming on the scene? Oh, that's right, there were no terrorists with homemade bombs!!!!
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