What is the practical* justification / value of knowing the name of every air traveler? Literally how is safety in any way increased (or any other benefit obtained for that matter) for anyone, either traveler or non-traveler.
I can’t even reason about cost or burden to benefit trade offs without knowing a benefit, and I have never seen any clearly stated. Just vague handwaves (“obviously this makes us safer” or circular justification.
* I am not asking for legal justification, which is itself unclear as explained elsewhere on John’s site.
Well, if they removed checking identities as it doesn’t relate to “transportation safety” they’d likely just replace it by a check from one of those other agencies.
It's not. One of my friends has a name somewhat similar to a person formerly suspected of terrorist activities. His first and last name are both different from the actual suspect, but his email is kinda sorta close. He gets detained and questioned for hours every time he flys.
Well, the liquid ban was added because some terrorists were caught trying to smuggle liquid binary explosives onto airplanes (with the plan to mix them in-air, then detonate them). Some airports are repealing the liquid ban now that they've developed screening machines that can accurately identify the contents of water bottles etc.
> accurately identify the contents of water bottles
"accurately" -- rolls eyes.
Put a small bottle of silicone lube in your carry-on and watch the slapstick.
Apparently silicone lube comes up as a totally unusual color on TSA carry on screens. At least in Austin, TX--nobody recognizes it (I bet SFO wouldn't have this problem).
I had 4 fairly small, young ladies mulling over a bottle that I had forgotten about (normally my luggage is totally air travel optimized but I had been doing a lot of driving travel with my wife and didn't do a good enough purge). I was like, look, it's under the limits, but just throw it out. I'm not in a hurry but I also don't want to be held up forever and miss my plane over an $8 dollar bottle of liquid.
In spite of the quite obvious labeling, one of the young ladies decided to get a bit snippy and demand what it was. Erm. Okay. It's written on the side of the bottle, but you asked for it.
So, I got to explain in excruciating and visceral detail in my rather stentorian voice that small women like her and her cohorts often need a bit of help when they attempt to have sex with someone who has an enormous dong like mine. THAT was the purpose of the bottle that has the words "sexual lubricant" emblazoned on the side.
All four of the women blushed to the top of their ears. Quite a few people in line chuckled. My wife rolled her eyes with her "I'm so put upon" expression. They finally threw the bottle out and waved me through.
At the gate board, a Good Ole Boy Texan--hat, boots, and belt buckle-stopped us with a full drawl "That was great and they so deserved that. How bout I buy y'all a beer?"
That is a really stupid reason, because it doesn't make any sense. Why would the security agencies care how many concessions are sold? Why would airports provide free drinking fountains with bottle-filling attachments if there was some governmental conspiracy to sell more water?
The much more likely explanation is that there is some threat where the neer-do-wells would use X oz of something bad to mess up a plane or the passengers. Maybe X=5 and it is to prevent lone wolf attacks. Maybe X=21 and the argument is they would need to get 7 bad guys onto the plane to do it, which decreases the odds significantly that it could be pulled off without security agencies figuring out the plan.
I don't think they're convincing us but the employees. We think of security theater as theater because we're sitting in the audience.
But you need the actors on board too. The name list, which naturally gives lots of false positives because it's just a list of names, gives agents something to do. It fills their day and makes them feel the persistent threat.
Instead of "nothing happened last month, hmm, or the month before that" they actually get a calendar full of things. It's a really terrible setup if you have the same name as a terrorist, but without it they literally are just Thousands Standing Around.
I figured the idea was to join the list of travelers with the list of people who have somehow been red-flagged as a terrorism risk. Your physical scanning will fail some fraction of the time, your electronic system will fail some of the time, but it’s less likely that they will both fail. I’m not saying I agree with this idea - perhaps a dedicated attacker could get around both systems. And I haven’t put much thought into the downsides of this system, so I don’t have an opinion of whether the tradeoffs are worth it.
The premise is somebody might be so dangerous they can't be allowed to fly, but simultaneously so innocent there is nothing the government could arrest and convict them for.
It's total bullshit. The politicians who created this system should be prosecuted for subverting the constitution, but there is no conceivable way for that to happen.
I'll play devil's advocate for the theory behind the no-fly list. (Though certainly not for the government's sloppy implementation.)
I think your argument is that the government simply cannot be justified in restricting someone who hasn't been convicted of any crime.
Wouldn't that reasoning also apply to restraining orders and personal protective orders? They do not require a trial, and the burden of proof is pretty low.
You could make a distinction based on how broad or narrow the restrictions are. Not being able to fly anywhere is more restrictive than staying 100 yards away from one particular person. But that's a different argument than there being something fundamentally wrong with the concept.
Someone can’t just show up and get a restraining order (would be quite handy if so, for prank value if nothing else).
You have to present evidence before a judge, evidence that could be admissible in court. Yes, the bar for most restraining orders is low (often simply the sworn word of the requestor plus some other evidence like police reports or testimony of others), but so is the level of restraint. The key fact is the subject of said order can fight it in open court and the claims or evidence raised by the requestor can be challenged.
One can reasonably argue as to the merits and drawback of such a system but at least they interlock with due process.
But a secret no fly list based on classified or otherwise inadmissible evidence is a completely unrelated and immoral thing.
Thanks for the point about judicial review. That's obviously very important. (And, if judicial review were added to the no-fly list, the list would probably get orders of magnitude smaller.)
But it would still be possible (with judicial review) to put people on a no-fly list who the government nevertheless has no grounds to arrest for anything, just as it is possible today to issue restraining orders for people who the government has no grounds to arrest.
That specific argument against the no-fly list is really the only thing I was trying to take issue with.
> Wouldn't that reasoning also apply to restraining orders and personal protective orders? They do not require a trial, and the burden of proof is pretty low.
Restraining orders and personal protective orders are court ordered according to the constitutional framework. They aren't things that are randomly assigned by airport employees.
To be fair, the issue is there's no judicial review at all to be put on the no-fly list. That's really the difference between it and a restraining order.
I’ve read articles about how the government will engage in elaborate sting operations to entrap people with some level of extremist sympathies into participation in terrorist plots [1]. From that perspective, it isn’t the case that the government will instantly throw someone in jail if they suspect them of being a potential terrorist. It wouldn’t be a good look if one of these people went and actually did some terrorism while the government was busy constructing the fake terrorism to convict them.
An intelligence agency can probably figure out that someone is associated with terrorists before evidence is available to convict them beyond reasonable doubt. Maybe it’s even appropriate that the legal standard to get secondary physical screening during air travel is lower than the legal standard to get thrown in jail? I welcome any opinions on that question - I feel it’s in the background of the original post and this discussion.
> Maybe it’s even appropriate that the legal standard to get secondary physical screening during air travel is lower than the legal standard to get thrown in jail?
No. That's a subversion of due process and politicians who support such systems are enemies of the American people.
It does seem a little odd, to me. If somebody tries to bomb a place, and the government screwed up the chain of custody on the evidence, of course they shouldn’t be imprisoned (see cases like Mapp V. Ohio). In addition, they have a right to a trial by a jury of their peers. Throwing someone in jail for years is the most severe of civil rights violations if unwarranted, justifying a very high standard of evidence.
Perhaps the evidence our suspect bombed a plane wasn’t quite strong enough for “beyond reasonable doubt”, but they did lose a civil case from the victim’s families under “preponderance of evidence”. Whence cometh the opinion that “beyond a reasonable doubt” must be the standard of evidence before someone is searched before boarding a plane?
When attempting to board an airplane, where different levels of physical screening take different amounts of time and resources to perform, and it’s not practical to fully screen everyone, we ought to apply the same legal standards of a criminal conviction to differentiate different levels of screening? Even if there’s “clear and convincing” evidence the person bombed a plane before, we ought to let them through anyway without even patting them down? Do we need a jury of peers at the ready at every checkpoint to make this determination? Would you also apply this same standard before someone could be restricted from admittance to the halls of congress, to Fort Knox, or to a warehouse in a major city storing many tons of seized fertilizer?
For reference, here’s a full list of the standards of evidence in the US, ordered from weakest to strongest:
How about just seeing if they are carrying a bomb? The additional scope creep reduces the chance of a bomb being detected.
Sure, a trained person can probably kill with dental floss, but nowadays between the armored cockpits and the willingness of passengers to swarm a bad guy the risks of anything but a bomb are pretty low.
Yeah, it could well be the case that our scanning technology has improved to the point that we can efficiently screen everyone without any need to single out people that get flagged. Then again, there was also lots of resistance to the introduction of this improved scanning tech too (people seeing blurry monochrome outline of human genitalia is apparently a major civil rights violation). It seems like people are in opposition even to improvements in the screening process that make it more effective, and therefore fairer (less need to single flagged people out for a pat down).
> The premise is somebody might be so dangerous they can't be allowed to fly, but simultaneously so innocent there is nothing the government could arrest and convict them for.
What if they have illegal evidence that you’re dangerous and can’t arrest you because it wouldn’t hold up? What if they’re not ready to arrest because they think you might lead them to people higher up in your organization?
Think mafia. Sure the thug did illegal crap and you know it, but he isn’t worth arresting. You want the boss.
Or to use a more scifi spin: Data science says you are 99% likely to blow up a plane. But you have done nothing illegal yet. Now what?
edit: for the record I don’t think any of this is a good idea, I’m exploring what the reasoning might be
> What if they have illegal evidence that you’re dangerous and can’t arrest you because it wouldn’t hold up?
Then that is a civil rights violation right there. Police shouldn't have illegally gathered evidence. Police should not be making decisions based on illegally gathered evidence. Police should not be making an endrun around the courts to apply punishments (such as forbidding travel) based on illegally gathered evidence.
>What if they have illegal evidence that you’re dangerous and can’t arrest you because it wouldn’t hold up?
I think the point of disallowing evidence found those ways is to discourage investigators from using those ways. If they can use it, they will seek it.
>Data science says you are 99% likely to blow up a plane. But you have done nothing illegal yet. Now what?
Totally off topic, but my proposal: a social worker should reach out to you and help with whatever problems you have. Very few people harm others just for the thrill of harming others. There's usually some other cause (revenge, poverty, desire to be heard).
So basically you watched Minority Report and thought it was a great idea? I think you missed the point.
> Think mafia. Sure the thug did illegal crap and you know it, but he isn’t worth arresting
If there is evidence somebody might blow up or hijack a plane and they must therefore be kept off that plane, then that person should be arrested. Do you think forbidding them from boarding the plane but letting them walk free without being arrested won't tip off the rest of their organization? Give me a break.
> can’t arrest people for something you have evidence they might do if they haven’t done it yet.
If “might do” means actually planning to commit a crime and then taking some material action to further that plan, then they can be charged with attempt.
> Think mafia. Sure the thug did illegal crap and you know it, but he isn’t worth arresting. You want the boss.
I can't imagine a scenario where blowing up an airplane full of civilians would fall into the category of "not worth arresting".
> Or to use a more scifi spin: Data science says you are 99% likely to blow up a plane.
That's fiction for a reason--there's no possible way to know that from "data science". In the real world, you can know that from things like direct evidence that this person is involved in a plot to blow up an airplane, which is something they can be arrested for.
> I can't imagine a scenario where blowing up an airplane full of civilians would fall into the category of "not worth arresting".
If you are confident in your ability to stop them at the checkpoint if they actually try to board a plane, why arrest immediately when you can try to obtain more leads?
> What if they have illegal evidence that you’re dangerous and can’t arrest you because it wouldn’t hold up?
Then they shouldn't have resorted to illegal means to gain that evidence. Using it to prevent someone from flying or to subject them to "advanced screening" is no more justifiable than using it in court.
> What if they’re not ready to arrest because they think you might lead them to people higher up in your organization?
They would share responsibility for whatever additional crimes you end up committing in the meantime because they failed to act on the evidence which they had. Until they actually bring the matter up in court, however, you remain a free citizen and ought not be subjected to special restrictions or mistreatment without a trial on the basis of secret evidence.
> Or to use a more scifi spin: Data science says you are 99% likely to blow up a plane. But you have done nothing illegal yet. Now what?
People don't blow up planes by accident. You're either planning to blow up a plane, in which case you have already done a number of illegal things, or you're not, in which case you're 0% likely to blow up a plane.
> you have already done a number of illegal things
Fun thing I learned recently in a Netflix documentary: It used to be legal to be a mafia boss because you weren’t the one doing illegal things. Someone had to fight real hard in the 70’s to create a new law that made it illegal to tell others to commit crimes.
It was legal to own C4 that doesn’t smell until 1996. A new law after a series of bombings made it illegal.
Sure, but are those illegal things provable? Maybe someone is flagged based on suspicious searches about explosives and planes. That’s clearly not enough to arrest someone, however might be enough of a concern to stop them for a deeper search when boarding a plane.
The theater of everything right now is absurd, but there are reasons for using identity to narrow more narrowly search people who may have some probable cause. My concern with the TSA is that we search everyone, regardless of probable cause.
If you don't have enough to charge them or ask for a warrant, you don't have enough to restrict their civil liberties. That process exists for a reason.
> Think mafia. Sure the thug did illegal crap and you know it, but he isn’t worth arresting. You want the boss.
It's interesting that you bring up mafia in a conversation about the federal government. The federal government collaborated with the mafia dueing WWII and afterwards. So, no, that is not the government that should have power to manufacture evidence and pretend it was legally obtained.
I'll state that I think the cons currently outweigh the benefits with most TSA practices, but the justification is verifying that you are who you say you are. AFAIK this is the only area we do this sort of strict verification in addition to numerous baggage and personal item checks. Well I guess we also do this if you're going to see an important government official or visit the NSA headquarters or something.
Where it gets hazy to me is why this is a security add anymore. There was an initial scare of vetting that all travelers weren't secretly terrorists waiting to pounce on the cockpit. So you secure the cockpit (good, simple add-on there) and you add in metal detectors and X-rays for weapons and contraband (literally what we were doing pre-9/11). You need a passport to get into the country, so it's not like they don't have a record or a means to monitor suspected people coming into the country. Just seems asinine that they continue to do the ID checks and x-ray your entire body at this point.
Airport security is one of the vestigial organs of the military industrial complex. The purpose of these ID checks and X-rays are to drive funding to the companies that make these machines.
Now that these companies are sucking on the teet of Uncle Sam, there will be incredible amounts of whining at any attempt to remove them.
It's law enforcement over-reach, by requiring identification on all flights they make air travel an unappealing option for wanted people at the expense of everyone else. It does not make anyone safer, just their job easier.
If I recall, the requirement was put in place after TWA Flight 800 crashed into the Atlantic. Although the plane likely crashed due to wiring problems resulting in a fuel tank explosion, a variety of institutions blamed terrorism and Clinton wanted to be seen as doing something to prevent another disaster. Richard Clarke writes about this in his book, "Against All Enemies":
> What is the practical* justification / value of knowing the name of every air traveler? Literally how is safety in any way increased (or any other benefit obtained for that matter) for anyone, either traveler or non-traveler.
Having a giant government database that documents precisely the travels of all citizens.
This can be cross referenced to put names to de-anonymize cellphones and SIMs that have been bought in cash.
Flying used to be a great way to escape a crime that was just committed. By knowing the name and id of every traveler, we can stop criminals from fleeing their crime scenes.
But if they have just committed a crime the system wouldn’t know to look for them, would it?
However assuming that it takes a while for the suspect to decide to skip town, it’s perhaps useful. The next question is whether it’s worth spending the money on these machines, hiring people to run them, and inconveniencing the innocent travelers (presumably 10^9 X the number of perps collared) is worth the occasional arrest. Ignoring false positives of course. And especially when there are plenty of other ways to skip town.
I have a separate problem with scope creep.
But thanks for suggestions use case that can actually be considered. Is this reason ever used as a justification for the TSA?
I can’t even reason about cost or burden to benefit trade offs without knowing a benefit, and I have never seen any clearly stated. Just vague handwaves (“obviously this makes us safer” or circular justification.
* I am not asking for legal justification, which is itself unclear as explained elsewhere on John’s site.