Posted on 08/03/2011 11:25:03 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Our Townhall colleague Katie Pavlich first spotted this story a couple of days ago, and now the Boston Herald has a fresh report on a new experiment for the Transportation Safety Administration. Instead of conducting random patdowns or irradiating all passengers, the TSA will try the Israeli screening approach to see whether they can more effectively spot potential threats. But will it work in the US, and does the TSA have the requisite skills and resources?
Boston’s TSA screeners — part of a security force whose competency has come under fire nationwide — soon will be carrying out sophisticated behavioral inspections under a first-in-the-nation program that’s already raising concerns of racial profiling, harassment of innocent travelers and longer lines.
The training for the Israeli-style screening — a projected $1 billion national program dubbed Screening Passengers by Observation Techniques — kicks off today at Logan International Airport and will be put to use in Terminal A on Aug. 15. It requires screeners to make quick reads of whether passengers pose a danger or a terror threat based on their reactions to a set of routine questions.
But security experts wonder whether Transportation Safety Administration agents are up to the challenge after an embarrassing string of blunders — including patting down a 95-year-old grandmother in Florida and making her remove her adult diaper and frisking a 3-year-old girl who screamed “stop touching me” at a checkpoint in Tennessee.
The “embarrassing string of blunders” came as a direct result of a misguided screening policy that relies on random sampling rather than threat detection. When security screeners are discouraged from using their judgment, use profiling to narrow threat detection, and are more concerned with appearances than results, then we get security theater rather than actual security. Taking a diaper off of a 95-year-old invalid didn’t make any flight one iota safer, but it made the TSA safer from criticism that they discriminate in security screenings.
However, the Herald quotes Glenn Reynolds as skeptical whether the TSA has the right people to use the Israeli approach on a large scale. I wrote about that issue when describing my own journey through Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv:
Israelis use a multi-tiered security system that relies more on psychology than technology. Travelers arrive and immediately get queued, bags in hand, to interview lines with security agents. They check passports and ask a few questions to test responses; if they don’t like the answers or if you fit a profile that indicates a higher risk, you get routed to a more intensive security assessment. If you get cleared, you then take all your bags to an X-ray station, where a few more questions may or may not be asked. Once cleared, you then take your bags to the airline ticket counter to check any bags needed — and since Israelis take a rather casual and aggressive attitude towards queuing, that can become quite an adventure.
You’re still not done by this point. Travelers then have to go through another security check, this one more like the traditional US model with metal detectors and carry-on bag X-rays, but no groping or backscatter scanners. Finally, travelers have to go through a formal passport review, which can mean another brief interview, and possibly another diversion if the answers indicate risk. All told, it took me more than 90 minutes to get to my gate, although a good portion of that can be attributed to the ticket counter.
This process works well, mainly because Israelis are looking for actual security problems and not simply sampling for problems. But the application in the US would be controversial on several points. First, as noted, Israelis have no qualms about profiling as part of this process. But perhaps more of an issue is the time and effort needed in this process. The Israelis have just three international airports through which less than 10 million people pass a year; the US system is much larger, with much heavier traffic. The 90-minute path to get to a gate would almost certainly be longer in the US (although perhaps not, if the ticket counters are more efficient), multiplied across hundreds of airports and the costs multiplied as well, and most airports in the US aren’t configured for that many people to be held up before the security checkpoints that are already installed. Travelers here are already frustrated by delays getting to gates; unless we’re really living in fear, I doubt that the Israeli model would be tolerated here.
That process is people-intensive, and training-intensive. It also requires more room than most American airports have, and probably more patience than most American travelers have. I’d like to see us adopt a version of the Israeli approach that works, and kudos to TSA for finally trying something new.
Racism! Racism! You can’t do this—it might actually WORK.
The fly in the ointment in this proposal is that Israel uses highly educated personnel, trained in surveillance and intelligence techniques. Whereas, on the other hand, the TSA...
I’m afraid our screeners have had too much P.C. sensitivity training and will not execute properly.
Interesting that they are doing this though. Maybe they have troubling data on radiation exposure from the porn scanners?
“The fly in the ointment in this proposal is that Israel uses highly educated personnel, trained in surveillance and intelligence techniques. Whereas, on the other hand, the TSA...”
Highly educated AND intelligent. In contrast, our TSA Brownshirts are only a government shutdown away from jobs checking receipts at Walmart.
I had this happen to me, but it wasn’t BOS, it was ABQ. The TSA “identity confirmer” took my papers, glanced at them, looked me in the eyes and said “You can’t get on the Chicago plane!”
I said, “Why not?” and he laughed and said, “Just kidding!”
The whole think seemed so set up that I figured it was a test, a reaction test of some sort.
You said it! The best methods in the world will be ineffective if executed by dimwitted union stooges who answered an ad they saw on a pizza box.
maybe the questions will be similar to voir dire by criminal defense attorneys.
you’re off the jury(flight) if you listen to El Rusho.
You just need to employ the appropriate number of personnel to handle the larger us travelling population. Yes, the US has more airports, so therefore we will have more screeners. I’m not sure why that’s mentioned as a concern.
Plus, since the profiling is behavioral, not racial, there should be no problem there. That problem is just folks making hay over the “P-word” since that’s how racially-based traffic stops are traditionally characterized by race-baiters.
In general, I always thought that if it’s ok for the TSA to suspend the constitution in terms of inappropriate search and seizure, it should not be a big deal to suspend equal protection.
I myself do not prefer to be treated like luggage and would rather go through questioning than gropes and scans. I don’t care if they xray my luggage, but not to xray me. That’s why I haven’t flown lately, even though I’ve had opportunity to.
I agree completely with your sentiments.
From my travels to Israel, Some finer points on El-AL screeners.
1. All screeners are trilingual at a minimum.
2. All screeners have served their duties in the IDF or civilian alternative programs.
3. All screeners are given wide latitude to discriminate based on gut instincts and rote training against any individual who causes a problem, especially white American Jewish guys who are hung over who start hitting on said screeners.
4. Tell a screener you are an Israeli citizen and went AWOL on your IDF deployment to attend college in the US and they’ll strip search you, just on the principle, let you on the plan, call the IDF Military Police ahead of time, and the MPs drag you off the plane in handcuffs on the tarmac when you arrive in Israel. Highly advise against declaring AWOL status until inside the country.
5. All screeners go through extensive self defense and threat mitigation training. The screening area is considered a soft target for terror attacks and the screeners are trained to respond as such. (Such as the recent attack at MOscow’s Intl Airport)
I don’t know how the US can afford to pay for a workforce of qualified air transit screeners, anyone with the brains and aptitude to be trilingual and a street smart psychologist with the confidence to make gut decisions on detaining or denying travel under the US EEOC legal umbrella can definitely get a better paying, more fulfilling, less stressful career in an alternative line of work.
I can see that our highly trained TSA screeners will pull out of line anyone who seems to be carrying any items that said screener may wish to “confiscate.”
I fly several times a year and, in my experience, the TSA screeners impress me as a bunch who couldn’t get jobs as door stops. I have also encountered a number of them who were obviously stoned and reeked of marijuana.
This is why we should encorage ex-military to apply, train them.
Thanks SeekAndFind.
The Israelis don’t use high school drop outs as security agents.
I’m stunned into near silence that the TSA would actually blunder in the right direction ... even once!
The proper response is: “Don’t bother me. I’m an American citizen and have the RIGHT to travel in my own country without answering a lot of nosy questions.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.