Stupid airport security III (Walter E. Williams)

Townhall.com ^ | April 20, 2005 | Walter E. Williams

[The Great Yazoo]

Several airport security screeners have sent me polite letters criticizing some of my comments in my last two columns, prompting this question to you: In managing our personal security, should we guard against possible or probable threats? Consider the measures and the resource expenditures I might take to guard Mrs. Williams and me against all possible threats to our security.

Even though I live in Pennsylvania, well outside of tornado alley, I'd construct a tornado shelter because it's possible for a tornado to strike anywhere. I'd no longer get into my car and drive off without doing a thorough check of my car's hydraulic brake system for leakage. I'd build an iron-reinforced roof to guard against the possibility of a meteor. I'd also purchase a metal detector to do sweeps of my property, to guard against the possibility someone might have buried a land mine. I'd hire a detective and forensic accountant. Even though Mrs. Williams and I have been married 45 years, it is possible that she might be stashing some of my money into a Swiss bank account.

Were I to take those measures, I'm sure the average person would label me as either paranoid or stupid. Why? It would take resources away from guarding against more probable threats to our security, such as burglary. While my focusing on all possible threats wouldn't be smart, it would make me a prime candidate to become a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) official. Their vision of airport security is to focus on the possible as well as the probable.

It is indeed possible for an 88-year-old man crippled with debilitating arthritis to be a terrorist. It's possible that one of our Marines returning from Iraq for stateside reassignment, carrying ID and official reassignment orders, is also a member of al Qaeda ready to take out an airplane. It's possible for a mother accompanied by her four children, or a 92-year-old woman, to be "mules" paid by terrorists to bring something on board to blow up the plane. It is also possible that a pilot plans to blow his plane up with a shoe bomb. That's reason for making him take his shoes off. It's possible that a blind person carrying a cigarette lighter will give it to a terrorist accomplice to light a shoe bomb in flight. There are other possible security threats. Women's stockings and underwear, as well as men's ties and belts, can be used as garrotes for strangulation. Soda straws can be used to blow poison darts.

While these are all possible threats, the question is, how probable are they? Resource expenditure on security threats just because they are possible means that those same resources cannot be spent on those far more probable. Moreover, if there were full implementation of the program to permit pilots to be armed, the more probable threats would become less so. In other words, arming pilots and some crew members would lessen a whole class of security threats.

The TSA's determined opposition to passenger profiling is in itself a threat to airport security. Take their additional screening. They have every incentive to be politically correct. But suppose the TSA had to pay $1,000 to each passenger they selected for additional screening who was found to be no security threat. You can bet they'd develop a screening method that made more sense, and it would include some sort of passenger profiling, including racial profiling. And, by the way, liberals shouldn't fret, because the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in several affirmative action cases that provided there's a compelling state interest, race can be used in decision making.

It's my opinion that sensible TSA security measures would allow us to reallocate resources away from policing against possible but improbable threats to policing the far more probable source of threats -- one being our border with Mexico.

©2005 Creators Syndicate, Inc.

[The Great Yazoo]

Consider the measures and the resource expenditures I might take to guard Mrs. Williams and me against all possible threats to our security...

...I'd hire a detective and forensic accountant. Even though Mrs. Williams and I have been married 45 years, it is possible that she might be stashing some of my money into a Swiss bank account.

[Real Cynic No More]

I am a very frequent flyer. I completely disagree with Williams' assertions. Once TSA quits checking wheelchairs and old ladies, these very items and people will become probable rather than possible vehicles for terrorists to use as a means to get explosives or other dangerous materials aboard airplanes, because not checking them makes them a security weakness. And it won't take bribing them either.

How many times has this current administration been criticized for not acting on possible terrorist activites prior to 9/11? It wasn't until 9/11 that the possible became the probable. I don't want me or my family to be victims of such a security weakness.

[libertylover]

There he goes again, using logic and common sense trying to fight the forces of Political Correctness. Why, you'd think he wants to protect the country from terrorists or something.

[Citizen Tom Paine]

Amen!!!!!!!to this post.

[The Great Yazoo]

Professor Williams' point is that TSA would more aggressively screen an 87-year-old woman in a wheelchair traveling with her four great-grandchildren from Fort Myers to Cleveland than five 20-something men of middle eastern origin wearing tee-shirts proclaiming "Death to Bush!" and "Allah Proclaims: Behead The Great Satan!"

[Wolfie]

The last time I flew (which was over 2 years ago) out of San Francisco, myself and another middle-aged white guy were detained for further searching by security, while the entire Al Qaeda Junior College soccer team boarded without so much as a second look.

[DJ Taylor]

I saw a young paratrooper the other day fresh back from Iraq trying to make his way through airport security while wearing his Class A uniform and my heart went out to him. The TSA security expert had detected metal on his body and was in the process of near strip searching him. You see, the paratrooper’s metal buttons, medals, dog tags, and the steel shanks in his jump boots were enough to make the metal detectors go insane, and the TSA weenie was diligently identifying every metal piece and part of the soldier’s uniform. I could tell by the expression on the soldier’s face that this public stripping of his uniform was, of course, extremely embarrassing to him.

My memory took me back to when those of my generation returned from the war in Vietnam and how we seldom wore our uniform while traveling. We too were harassed by our fellow citizens, but no one ever forced us to break uniform in public as they do now.

If you seldom see an Iraq War Veteran traveling in his/her dress uniform, you now know the reason why.

[toothfairy86]

A local radio/TV person here in Pittsburgh said "We have to pretend we're not looking for the people we're looking for."

[IncPen]

A local radio/TV person here in Pittsburgh said "We have to pretend we're not looking for the people we're looking for."

The other day I was thinking that one of the reasons that we won WWII {politically incorrect statement coming} is that we demonized ALL of those associated with our enemies, not just the ones who identified themselves as Nazis or Kamikazes. Did anyone believe there was such thing as a "moderate Nazi"? Of course NOT.

It must be demanded of ALL of Islam that the menace be eradicated or we are doomed

[An American Patriot]

"My memory took me back to when those of my generation returned from the war in Vietnam and how we seldom wore our uniform while traveling. We too were harassed by our fellow citizens, but no one ever forced us to break uniform in public as they do now."

Your half right: "we" seldom wore our uniforms while traveling in order to avoid being spit upon, harassed, having our character impugned; the "legitimacy of our birth" questioned, as well as many other unpleasant incidents.

Thank God, our returning "Heroes" today, (while perhaps inconvenienced by ignorant and over-zealous bureaucratic functionaries, while traveling) nevertheless, have (so far) been spared from a much more "humiliating" and disgusting, welcome, than we were subjected to.

As an aside, I wish someone would venture to explain why GW decided to keep one of the biggest, imbecilic (Dim/Lib)moronic, obstructionist, (Norman Mineta)as Sec. DOT?

[kevinm13]

I like Walter Williams and usually agree with him on most topics. I also travel frequently. I have been in enough airports to see how some have much better security than others. The TSA is doing a great job under very difficult circumstances. Security should not be made easier or screening lighter for some. ALL of us are suspects and should be given equal and clear screening and occasionally a more thorough check of bags, clothing and shoes. This should be randomly selected travelers whether they are white, black, Catholic, Muslim, young or old.

I am concerned about lazy security screeners who don't take their job seriously or travelers ranging from the one time in several years to frequent travelers who complain. I have seen them and how some people have gone around security at some airports -- not threatening passengers just trying to see if they can break through a wide net.

The security done at airports is for everybody's protection and the security of our nation. I don't like being selected to get the so-called special treatment or "quasi-strip search" but I always allow enough time for TSA to do its job and will thank the screeners when they are done.

Days when you could just walk up to an airport check-in counter half an hour before a flight and just walk on the flight are long gone. We are in a new reality after 9/11. Let us be thankful that the bad guys haven't taken advantage of us being kind to the elderly or other less likely terror suspects by using the weaknesses in the security system against us. A day may come when those weaknesses are exploited. God Help us if when it comes.

[fireforeffect]

I stopped flying, if at all possible, because of these very points. Airport security is generally a joke. As others have noted the easiest way to get by security is to grow a beard and mutter in arabic or wear a night shirt.

First you identify the threats. Then you asses the threats. Then you rank order them by probability. Then you institute protective measures. Then you start the process over again.

Try entering a military installation some time. There if you are a service member/family or a DOD employee you show your ID and drive on in. Non DOD types get searched. About one in ten DOD types get searched too.

Look at the armor on a battleship. Thick in some places and thin in most others. You can not protect against ALL threats and build a ship that will float. TSA tries to prevent all possible conceivable low probability imaginable treats and thus defends against none.

By you logic we should just nuke the rest of the world, they might be a threat.

[fireforeffect]

The real reason the terrorist do not hijack planes any more is the passengers will kill them. Not that they can not get by TSA.

[kittymyrib]

Did you hear about the two new reports coming out that show airline screening has made NO difference in airline safety? The evaluators got 100% of their weapons through the security system. The worthless TSA has cost billions and inconvenienced the traveling public for absolutely nothing. If you need to feel psychologically safe, take a security blanket with you. It will be just as effective as what is currently in place, and it will save billions of tax dollars.

[The Great Yazoo]

Again, Professor Williams' point is that screening efforts are misplaced because of political considerations. Screening is not something of which there is an inexhaustible supply. Intensive screening of one passenger necessarily precludes intensive screening of some other passenger.

For political purposes, the TSA has chosen to subject certain classes of people (white elderly women, for example) to scrutiny at frequencies above and beyond their propensity to commit acts of terror, while subjecting other classes of people (20-something middle eastern descent males, for example) to lesser levels of scrutiny.

If I were running Al Qaeda, I'd take advantage of TSA's lax scrutiny of "suspect" ethnic and religious groups.

Furthermore, if TSA considers "little old ladies" prime suspects, why doesn't TSA subject every "little old lady" to extensive scrutiny? If only one-in-five "little old ladies" is extensively scrutinized, then Al Qaeda has only an 80 percent chance of getting its bomb (or whatever) through TSA's security with a "little old lady" but a 100 percent chance with a wild-eyed, 20 year old recent madrasa graduate on his way to flight training school or a CAIR convention.

[The Great Yazoo]

If you need to feel psychologically safe...

Too bad Congress feels the need to feel "psychologically safe" by being percieved as "doing something." Maybe someday Congress would do the "right thing" than merely be seen as "doing something."

Whether the issue is campaign finance "reform," steroids in baseball, untrustworthy public company accounting, or transportation safety, Congress's first reaction is to "do something."

[zeugma]

Here is a photograph of the post 9/11/01 American Flying Public...

[Phantom Lord]

Airport security is a joke and the TSAs rules are a joke. Recently lighters were banned, but you can still bring on matches.

There have been more than one occasion where persons allowed to bring firearms on planes had their nail clippers taken as a security threat, but because they had clearance they could still bring their firearms on the plane.

Pilots, who have complete control of the aircraft are having items like nail clippers confiscated as a security threat because they could use them to take control of the plane.

The TSA and its security is a joke.

[nightdriver]

"The real reason the terrorist do not hijack planes any more is the passengers will kill them."

What you said!

BTTT

[Just another Joe]

I tend to agree with Mr. Williams assesment.
I akso fly frequently. Probably not as much as some but much more than others.

The TSA security is a joke. Nail files, small (3") scissors, cigarette lighters, steel shanks in the shoes (send ALL shoes through the x-ray machine), I have never, I repeat, never, seen a middle eastern looking male between the ages of 10 and 80 pulled for extra screening.
This is madness of an extreme nature. It's called political correctness and it will eventually come back to bite us in the butt.

It doesn't take James Bond to get an explosive or a weapon on an aircraft. It's been done time and time again by various individuals and organizations.

The only thing the TSA is good for in the airline industry is to make the sheeple feel safe.