[Infowarrior] - Clear common sense for takeoff

[Richard Forno]

Clear common sense for takeoff: How the TSA can make airport security  
work for passengers again

By Bruce Schneier
Special to NYDailyNews.com

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/06/24/2009-06-24_clear_common_sense_for_takeoff_how_the_tsa_can_make_airport_security_work_for_pa.html?print=1&page=all

Wednesday, June 24th 2009, 4:00 AM

It's been months since the Transportation Security Administration has  
had a permanent director. If, during the job interview (no, I didn't  
get one), President Obama asked me how I'd fix airport security in one  
sentence, I would reply: "Get rid of the photo ID check, and return  
passenger screening to pre-9/11 levels."

Okay, that's a joke. While showing ID, taking your shoes off and  
throwing away your water bottles isn't making us much safer, I don't  
expect the Obama administration to roll back those security measures  
anytime soon. Airport security is more about CYA than anything else:  
defending against what the terrorists did last time.

But the administration can't risk appearing as if it facilitated a  
terrorist attack, no matter how remote the possibility, so those  
annoyances are probably here to stay.

This would be my real answer: "Establish accountability and  
transparency for airport screening." And if I had another sentence:  
"Airports are one of the places where Americans, and visitors to  
America, are most likely to interact with a law enforcement officer -  
and yet no one knows what rights travelers have or how to exercise  
those rights."

Obama has repeatedly talked about increasing openness and transparency  
in government, and it's time to bring transparency to the  
Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Let's start with the no-fly and watch lists. Right now, everything  
about them is secret: You can't find out if you're on one, or who put  
you there and why, and you can't clear your name if you're innocent.  
This Kafkaesque scenario is so un-American it's embarrassing. Obama  
should make the no-fly list subject to judicial review.

Then, move on to the checkpoints themselves. What are our rights? What  
powers do the TSA officers have? If we're asked "friendly" questions  
by behavioral detection officers, are we allowed not to answer? If we  
object to the rough handling of ourselves or our belongings, can the  
TSA official retaliate against us by putting us on a watch list? Obama  
should make the rules clear and explicit, and allow people to bring  
legal action against the TSA for violating those rules; otherwise,  
airport checkpoints will remain a Constitution-free zone in our country.

Next, Obama should refuse to use unfunded mandates to sneak expensive  
security measures past Congress. The Secure Flight program is the  
worst offender. Airlines are being forced to spend billions of dollars  
redesigning their reservations systems to accommodate the TSA's  
demands to preapprove every passenger before he or she is allowed to  
board an airplane. These costs are borne by us, in the form of higher  
ticket prices, even though we never see them explicitly listed.

Maybe Secure Flight is a good use of our money; maybe it isn't. But  
let's have debates like that in the open, as part of the budget  
process, where it belongs.

And finally, Obama should mandate that airport security be solely  
about terrorism, and not a general-purpose security checkpoint to  
catch everyone from pot smokers to deadbeat dads.

The Constitution provides us, both Americans and visitors to America,  
with strong protections against invasive police searches. Two  
exceptions come into play at airport security checkpoints. The first  
is "implied consent," which means that you cannot refuse to be  
searched; your consent is implied when you purchased your ticket. And  
the second is "plain view," which means that if the TSA officer  
happens to see something unrelated to airport security while screening  
you, he is allowed to act on that.

Both of these principles are well established and make sense, but it's  
their combination that turns airport security checkpoints into police- 
state-like checkpoints.

The TSA should limit its searches to bombs and weapons and leave  
general policing to the police - where we know courts and the  
Constitution still apply.

None of these changes will make airports any less safe, but they will  
go a long way to de-ratcheting the culture of fear, restoring the  
presumption of innocence and reassuring Americans, and the rest of the  
world, that - as Obama said in his inauguration speech - "we reject as  
false the choice between our safety and our ideals."

Schneier, a security technologist and author, blogs at Schneier on  
Security.