TSA Blasted for Being "Bloated, Inefficient"

CNN: Ten years after its formation, the Transportation Security Administration on Wednesday got the type of birthday card no one wants to receive -- a blistering report from Republican lawmakers who said the agency is "bloated" and "inefficient" and has done little, if anything, to improve aviation security.

Rep. John Mica, R-Florida, a longtime critic who has fought to privatize TSA screening jobs, said Congress never intended the agency it created in November 2001 to "mushroom" into a workforce of 65,000 employees, "top heavy" with bureaucrats.

"I can tell you, in our wildest dreams ... no one ever envisioned 4,000 administrative personnel in Washington, D.C., making on average ... almost $104,000, and then nearly another 10,000 out in the field," Mica said.

But the most scathing comment came from Rep. Paul Broun, R-Georgia.

"Americans have spent nearly $60 billion funding TSA and they are no safer today than they were before 9/11," Broun said.

Pressed on the accuracy of that statement, Broun and Mica said the TSA has never stopped a terrorist attack, and gave credit to private citizens or others for terrorist plots disrupted thus far.

"Unfortunately, the focus has been diverted from security ... into managing a huge bureaucracy," Mica said.

Broun concurred. "We must focus on identifying terrorists and stopping them instead of patting down grandma and children. And we must stop worrying about political correctness," he said. "TSA needs to put their resources into intelligence and technologies that can be more effective when it comes to catching highly elusive and dangerous terrorists."

The lawmakers said they are preparing legislation to reform the TSA.

A TSA spokesman called the GOP report "an unfortunate disservice to the dedicated men and women of TSA who are on the front lines every day protecting the traveling public."

The country's aviation system is "safer, stronger, and more secure than it was 10 years ago," spokesman Greg Soule said. The agency has screened more than 5 billion passengers over the past decade, he said, and has prevented more than 1,100 guns from being brought onto passenger planes this year alone.

Mica and Braun released the GOP report at a news conference held in the main concourse of Reagan-Washington National Airport. Their remarks criticizing the state of aviation security were amplified over a loudspeaker, and drew sidelong glances from passengers headed to airport checkpoints.

One day earlier, TSA Administrator John Pistole stood in the same location to discuss holiday travel preparations, touting advancements in screening technology and saying passengers are happy with changes that have reduced the number of pat downs of children.

The report released Wednesday was prepared by Republican staffers on House Transportation and Oversight committees. It is largely a compendium of earlier critical reports of the TSA, looking at its deployment of failed technology, such as puffer machines; the failure to interdict terrorists, such as 2001 "shoe bomber" Richard Reid and 2009 "underwear bomber" Umar Farouk AbdulMutallab"; and the lack of card readers for the 1.8 million ID cards issued to transportation workers.

The report says the agency has grown nearly four-fold since its inception, from 16,500 workers to more than 65,000, while commercial passenger traffic has increased less than 12 percent.

But a TSA spokesman said the agency had approximately 56,000 security officers in 2002, the year it started screening, and has approximately 52,000 today.

The report by the Republicans contains 11 recommendations, saying the TSA must act with greater independence from the Department of Homeland Security, and the administrator's stature must be elevated. The TSA has become "lost" in the Homeland Security bureaucracy, Mica said.

It also calls on the agency to contract out more screening jobs to private industry. Currently, 16 airports, including San Francisco International, have "opted out" of federal airport screening and use private screeners under what is known as the Screening Partnership Program. The screeners wear the same uniforms, use the same technology and follow the same procedures.

Mica advocates the continued privatization of airport screening jobs, but administrator Pistole has been less supportive, at one point saying he would expand the program only if there was a clear advantage to doing so.

In other TSA news, a travel industry group Wednesday said the agency's screening procedures remain "inefficient and frustrating" for travelers.

The U.S. Travel Association released the results of an online survey it conducted last month of about 600 people.

According to the survey, "four of the top five air traveler frustrations relate to the checkpoint process," including the top frustration: "People who bring too many carry-on bags through the security checkpoint." But five of the 11 options on the survey pertained directly to TSA checkpoints, and the remaining options did not include some common irritants, such as excess baggage fees.

The survey says 66.2 percent of air travelers are "somewhat or very satisfied" with the TSA's overall performance as it relates to security, 21.2 percent are neutral, and 12.5 percent are "somewhat or very dissatisfied."

But frequent air travelers are less happy, with 54.6 percent "somewhat or very satisfied."

The group said that despite the TSA's new initiatives to improve passenger screening, an "overwhelming majority" have not recognized any improvements in checkpoint efficiency when compared to the previous year. It said 81.8 percent plan to arrive at the airport the same amount of time before a flight as they did last year.

The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

The TSA said it was pleased to see the vast majority of travelers polled believe the agency is moving in the right direction, and said checkpoint screening has gotten speedier, taking less than 20 minutes for more than 99 percent of passengers last year.

"The increased number of carry-on bags impacts our ability to further reduce wait times, but not the level of security we provide, which remains our priority," the agency said.

TSA to Expand Pre-Check Flyer Program

USA Today: The Transportation Security Administration plans to expand its pre-check program for airline passengers, who provide information about themselves in exchange for a faster trip through security lines, the agency chief announced Wednesday.

The experimental program began in October at airports in Miami, Dallas, Detroit and Atlanta.

John Pistole, the TSA administrator, told the Senate transportation committee Wednesday that the program will expand to Las Vegas in December, and to Los Angeles and Minneapolis-St. Paul in early 2012.

"This is an ongoing process," Pistole said, with expansions possible to other airlines and other locations. "The goal is to expand it as broadly as possible while maintaining the highest level of security, all on a voluntary basis."

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., welcomed the announcement.

"I've been calling for this for a long time," Boxer said. "No one who supports this ever wants to compromise security."

The pre-check program is part of Pistole's effort toward risk-based screening, to focus searches on passengers considered the largest potential threats. Other parts of this strategy include:

--An experimental program at Boston and Detroit airports, where TSA officers try to find wrongdoers through their behavior, by chatting with passengers while checking their identification and boarding passes.

--An experimental program for pilots to avoid screening lines at select airports.

--A move to significantly reduce the pat-downs conducted on children 12 years old or younger.

Eligible travelers for the pre-check program include frequent fliers with American Airlines and Delta Air Lines, as well as the U.S. Customers and Border Protection's trusted-traveler program.

Participants are able to use a different security line and take off fewer items, like keeping on their shoes and light jackets.

But TSA warns there could still be random security measures, and that nobody is guaranteed expedited screening.

About 45,000 passengers have gone through the program so far at the four existing airports, Pistole said.

The program applies only to domestic flights.

"We want to make sure we get it right domestically first," Pistole said.

TSA Expanding Surveillance to Nation's Highways

Jaunted: You missed it if you blinked, but there was an incident over the summer where TSA agents entered an Iowa Greyhound bus station and conducted a security sweep. For this they were roundly derided, which is what you'd expect given that many people, much of the time, don't particularly enjoy their encounters with the nation's airport security organization.

Now TSA is expanding its surveillance efforts beyond airports and bus terminals, and onto the nation's highways. The agency is launching a series of programs in Tennessee, deploying teams to 5 weigh stations and 2 bus stations in the state. Because if there's one thing Americans have been clamoring for, it's more TSA.

These operations will be conducted under TSA's Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response program, the abbreviation for which is VIPR, because giving things spooky names is fun. These are the TSA operations that revolve around highways, ports, tunnels, rest areas, etc. The sweep of the Iowa Greyhound station was a VIPR operation and the Tennessee highway stuff will be under VIPR as well. Given the program's increasing scope, you'll be glad to know—per Wikipedia—that "various government sources have differing descriptions of VIPR's exact mission." Terrific.

So if you're a conspiracy theorist who thinks that TSA is just a covert way to soften Americans up for a police state, it's a very good week for you (or a very bad week, depending). As for the rest of us—who just think that national security has become kind of a bumbling, bureaucratic, directionless mess—the prospect of dealing with the agency's notorious incompetence in more and more of daily life is also less than thrilling.

Not for nothing, the TSA recently missed its own deadline (again) on its promise to inspect 100% of passenger plane cargo entering the United States. Instead they're limiting themselves to only inspecting "identified high-risk" cargo, an approach that skeptical members of Congress will be asking them about. One additional question they might ask is how TSA has enough resources to patrol highways but not enough to check airplane cargo, which sounds like something that's closer to "doing their job."

Congressman Says TSA's Chat-Downs are 'Mindless'

Jaunted: Responding to criticism like ours over the failure of TSA agents to stop a loaded gun from being checked onto an LAX flight, the security agency leaped into action this week and declared that they will make absolutely no changes to airport security procedures at the airport.

TSA spokesman Nico Melendez explained that there's no danger of having loaded guns in checked baggage, because "no one has access to them." So as long as it's true that loaded guns never ever fire accidentally, you can all go back to feeling safe now.

Speaking of which. A day before we posted about how loaded guns on airplanes make us uncomfortable, we discussed our deep skepticism about the training that TSA agents in charge of "chat-downs" were getting. Chat-downs, remember, are the Israeli-style security line interviews that TSA has been testing out in Boston-Logan and now in Detroit-Metro Airports. Agents ask you personal questions, you give personal answers, and then they read your body language to see if you're lying. In theory.

In practice the agents in charge of pat-downs reportedly only get 4 days of classroom training and 1 day of live training, and the interviews they give reportedly last around a minute. Since the point of a chat-down is to read body language, and since reading body language takes a lot of practice and requires more than a minute per interview, we wondered what TSA was doing "other than pretending to make everybody safer."

Fast forward to a few days ago, when Congressman John Mica, chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, reported on what he saw when he recently toured Logan. All of this should sound very familiar to Jaunted readers:

Mica said when he stopped at Logan earlier this month he listened in on those conversations. 'It was mindless chat with every passenger,' he said — a far cry from the Israeli-style hunt the program is modeled after. 'The TSA has taken a good idea and made one of the most bureaucratic approaches you could possibly devise,' Mica said. 'It was not a thinking, risk-based approach.'

You'll be happy to know, though, that TSA responded by emphasizing how—contrary to previous reports—agents actually get five whole days of classroom training and "up to" 32 hours of live training. Again, you can all go back to feeling safe.

TSA Note Writer Removed From Screening

TheHill: A Transportation Security Administration airport security worker has been removed from checking baggage because of a note with sexual implications he left for a passenger at Newark's Liberty International Airport.

Jill Filipovic, a New York blogger who is also a lawyer, tweeted Monday that a note was left in her bag — which contained a sex toy, according to reports — that said "get your freak on." The note was written on a TSA notice of inspection form, leading Filipovic to believe it was written by someone at airport security.

TSA said on its blog Tuesday that it had conducted an investigation into the incident and removed the employee that was responsible from duty.

"That individual was immediately removed from screening operations and appropriate disciplinary action has been initiated," the agency wrote.

"The handwritten note was highly inappropriate and unprofessional, and TSA has zero tolerance for this type of behavior."

The TSA blog Tuesday also said the agency had issued an apology to Filipovic, who tweeted a picture of the note.

For her part, Filipovic joked in subsequent tweets about the notoriety the incident had brought her.

"Lesson learned: Don't tweet anything you don't want to appear on The View. #FML," she wrote Monday.

"Also, this twitter feed is now reverting to its usual content of wine, cheese, bacon and feminism. Unfollow away," she followed up in a second tweet.

Traveler Receives Personal Message from TSA

NY Daily News: What a creepster!

A New York woman claims that a skeevy TSA agent left a TSA slip in her luggage with a note reading: "Get your freak on Girl" after he found a "personal item" in her suitcase.

Jill Filipovic, the editor of the website Feministe, told the Daily News in an email that she flew from Newark International to Dublin to take part in a debate on abortion rights and found the note while she was unpacking in Ireland.

Filipovic said she just took it in stride.

"I'm traveling alone, so I didn't say anything when I found the note, but I did re-read it a bunch of times just to make sure I wasn't imagining things, and then I started laughing," she wrote.

She then threw it up on Twitter and her website (under the subject line: Your tax dollars at work) to share with all of her friends and loyal followers - who also found the incident to be nothing but hilarious.

"HAHAHAHHAHAHA," wrote one. "Pause to wipe tears from face."

Other readers offered to send her a replacement vibrator, while a conservative blogger accused her of planting the note herself, she said.

"I wish I was that creative!" she wrote.

Despite the humor, Filipovic said she found the incident to be incredibly invasive - and incredibly creepy.

"To the agent who wrote the note, I'd like to say that he has actually impeded me from getting my freak on, since I now have to dispose of the offending item, as I'm not sure what he did with it while it was in his possession," she wrote.

She also called the incident "wildly inappropriate". She said she suspected the note-writer thought she's be too embarrassed to go public.

"That probably would be true for most folks, and understandably so. Unfortunately, he picked the bag of a feminist blogger who writes about sexuality and sexual health regularly, and is awfully hard to embarrass (at least in that regard)."

She said she would most likely contact the TSA when she returned stateside. The TSA told the News it was investigating.

"TSA takes all allegations of inappropriate conduct seriously and is investigating this claim," a spokeswoman said in a statement.

Dog Pile on the TSA

Jaunted: We're almost beginning to feel sorry for the TSA officials. They spend much of their time dealing with what appear to be the world's dumbest passengers, and then at the end of it all they get yelled at by angry politicians. This week is proving to be particularly bad.

Top agency officials spent most of today facing withering criticism from Senators, up to and including the accusation that they show "arrogant disregard for real Americans who have to put up with this baloney." We're not really sure what that means, and we tend to cringe when politicians start posturing on behalf of "real Americans," but certainly TSA workers have been a little grabby lately with diabetics' insulin and cancer survivors' body parts and other people's stuff in general.

These Senate hearings are almost kind of Congress's way of piling on, given that House members were outright calling for investigations of TSA over the summer.

But just because TSA agents are sometimes really bad at their jobs, let's not lose sight of the fact that—apparently—the flying public has also been infiltrated by reckless idiots. Two recent incidents illustrate the point fairly well, and we're duly filing both in Jaunted's bad ideas archive:

Incident one, from earlier this month: a JFK passenger tried to check through four sets of brass knuckles, two stun gun flashlights and a sword in his luggage. It turns out that all seven of those weapons are prohibited, and he was arrested. Oops.

Incident two, from yesterday: a Southwest Airlines passenger tried to break into the cockpit of the airplane. It turns out that TSA and the FBI frown on that kind of thing, and the airplane was diverted to Amarillo, Texas (yes, they have an airport in Amarillo, Texas). He was obviously arrested.

Obviously the antics of morons and lunatics don't justify TSA's incompetence. But weekly passenger insanity does kind of put what their agents are going through into perspective.

TSA Moving From Pat-Downs to Chat-Downs

Tucson Citizen: As Ingrid Esser hands a Transportation Security Administration officer her identification and boarding pass for a flight from Logan International Airport to Washington, D.C., she faces a flurry of questions.

Where is she going? Why? How long is she staying?

“It was a new experience,” says Esser, 31, who works in public relations. “It doesn’t bother me at all. I understand their job, and it’s keeping America safe.”

In that exchange, Esser became part of an experiment that, if successful, could change how every passenger who seeks to board a commercial flight in the USA is screened: Besides going through a metal detector, and possibly a full-body scanning machine and pat-down, they’d first undergo a “chat-down,” or face-to-face questioning by a TSA officer. The tactic is similar to what air travelers in Israel face under a program aimed at averting terrorism in the skies.

Chat-downs, a play on the word “pat-down,” describing the physical screening that has angered some passengers as too intrusive, are part of the U.S. government’s effort to adopt a broader strategy of sifting out people who might pose a greater security risk among the roughly 1.2 million people who fly each day.

“It means moving further away from what may have seemed like a one-size-fits-all approach to security,” TSA Administrator John Pistole says.

Chat-downs already are controversial in their trial stage. Civil-liberties advocates and some critics of the TSA see them as another government invasion of fliers’ privacy, a hassle for mostly law-abiding passengers or ineffectual.

“They’re asking questions that people have a right not to answer,” says Mike German, senior policy counsel at the ACLU. “It’s nobody’s business — and certainly not the government’s business — where you’re traveling and why.”

So far, only 48 travelers out of about 132,000 who have been questioned here at Logan have refused to answer the questions, and instead their carry-on bags were physically searched.

“If they refuse to answer, we (still) let them catch their flight,” says Ed Freni, Logan’s aviation director.

Rep. Paul Broun, R-Ga., says he sees chat-downs as another example of the TSA wasting time and money on “largely law-abiding citizens, for the most part.”

‘New situation for bad guys’
Chat-downs, which began at Logan in August, feature blue-shirted TSA officers for a few hours each day asking every passenger in Terminal A a series of questions.

TSA officers pose the questions when they check travelers’ IDs and boarding passes. The choice of location has changed slightly, after first trying the questioning while travelers were in line before the ID check, or after the ID check and before the metal detectors.

Travelers say the questions typically focus on where they are headed, for how long and the purpose of the trip. More probing questions include whether carry-on bags have liquids or why the traveler is holding so much cash.

The answers aren’t all officers are after. They’re looking for behavioral clues to possible deception, and hostility that warrants further scrutiny or a referral to law-enforcement officials. Authorities won’t describe the physical clues, but research has focused on liars averting their eyes, having an inconsistent head gesture or wringing their hands.

“By adding this level of security, we create a new situation for the bad guys that is much more difficult to overcome,” says Rafi Ron, a former director of security at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv, who was hired to help beef up Logan’s security.

Suspicious travelers can be diverted for further questioning, but only 10 people have been referred to authorities for alleged crimes such as drug possession — not as terrorist suspects.

Despite the low numbers, George Naccara, TSA’s federal security director for Logan, says the experiment is a good move by the agency to help narrow their search for potential threats. He says people found carrying fraudulent documents or large amounts of cash could represent terrorists testing airport security.

“We’re looking at moving away from such heavy reliance on technology, and now we’re looking at the human interaction,” Naccara says. “That is a very powerful tool.”

Some fliers found chat-downs less obtrusive than the prospect of physical searches they had to undergo on the other side of the metal detectors.

“They do it in Europe, I don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t do it here,” David Jones, a 73-year-old retiree from Shapleigh, Maine, who was heading to Spokane, Wash., says of questions about where he was headed and whether he was traveling alone.

Rich Szulewski, 40, says the questions about where he was from and what he had done during his recent trip reminded him of those he faced growing up in Buffalo, N.Y., when he crossed the Peace Bridge from Canada.

“You’re a captive audience, no pun intended,” says Szulewski, of Germantown, Tenn., who flies more than 100,000 miles a year peddling contracts for an orthopedics manufacturer to hospitals. “It clearly wasn’t just small talk.”

Others are offended. “It’s a waste of everybody’s time,” says Allen Crockett, 49, of Clayton, N.C., who travels 150,000 miles a year as vice president of sales for a wireless company.

The questions, he says, interrupted calls and texts he sends while waiting in line. Crockett is eager for development of a pre-screening program that would let him whisk around the long lines — and avoid last-minute questions.

“As a frequent flier, I’m going to take that lost privacy on the chin,” Crockett says. “I want to get there five minutes before my flight and get on my plane and go.”

TSA is experimenting with a pre-screening program akin to what Crockett says he’d like to see. That program, announced Oct. 4, is designed to expedite the security process for travelers who provide extra background information about themselves in advance. It is for frequent fliers on American Airlines and Delta Air Lines at airports in Atlanta, Detroit, Dallas and Miami.

Does it stop terrorism?
TSA expects to continue tweaking the chat-downs through November. If deemed successful, they could be expanded to other airports. But the value of the questioning is a matter of dispute.

Chat-downs are an extension of a program called SPOT, for Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques, that began after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks. It now fields 3,000 officers at 161 airports at an annual cost of $212 million.

From May 2004 to August 2008, 2 billion people boarded aircraft at SPOT airports and 152,000 were referred for secondary questioning, according to a Government Accountability Office (GAO) report in May 2010. About 14,000 passengers were referred to law enforcement officers and 1,100 were arrested during that period.

Rather than charging anyone with terrorism, the SPOT detentions included 427 arrests of undocumented immigrants, 209 for outstanding warrants, 166 for fraudulent documents and 125 for drug possession.

Meanwhile, GAO checked 16 people who had been charged in six terrorist plots during that period and found they had passed unhindered at least 23 times through eight airports where SPOT officers worked.

“Although outstanding warrants and the possession of fraudulent or suspect documents could be associated with a terrorist threat, TSA officials did not identify any direct links to terrorism or any threat to the aviation system in any of these cases,” the report said.

German of the ACLU says the program seems ripe for abuse because many people are nervous at the airport, many won’t look others in the eye, and some seem arrogant.

“They seem to be doubling-down on a program that has proven ineffective,” he says.

TSA and its consultants stand behind the program’s value in detecting criminal behavior, if not yet terrorists.

“You’ve got to realize you’re looking for needles in a haystack,” says Paul Ekman, a psychology professor emeritus at University of California-San Francisco, who helped develop the SPOT program. “They don’t appear very often. It’s going to take you a long time to know whether a program is being successful.”

Ekman says people’s noses don’t grow if they’re lying. However, he says, they give off clues beyond facial expressions when they’re lying or have hostile intentions. Physical tics from head to toe can emerge, he says.

“Concealment looks like concealment,” says Ekman, a consultant on the Fox TV show Lie to Me.

Is it profiling?
The TSA says it isn’t profiling passengers, but simply questioning everyone in line for several hours each day.

That’s in contrast to Israel’s system of questioning passengers, in which Ron says Israeli security collects much more information before a traveler arrives at the airport to determine how much scrutiny a person should receive at the airport.

Israeli profiling explicitly labels a 25-year-old Palestinian from Gaza as a higher risk aboard a plane than an elderly Holocaust survivor, Ron says. He acknowledges that system wouldn’t work in the United States because of laws against racial and religious discrimination.

“They come in all colors, shapes and ethnic backgrounds,” Ron says of terrorists. He points to threats from John Walker Lindh, an American convicted of fighting for the Taliban; Jose Padilla, a Hispanic U.S. citizen convicted of aiding terrorists; and attempted shoe-bomber Richard Reid, a British citizen of Jamaican descent.

“I think personally in the United States it would be a grave mistake to use racial profiling,” he says.

Rep. Broun, whose subcommittee monitors the TSA, says that as a doctor he’s skeptical the agency can train workers to spot terrorists.

Naccara, TSA’s security chief at Logan, says chat-down officers get extra training after being chosen from among the 70 behavior-detection officers who each have several years of experience. “Those are the people getting the additional training, so they are not people off the street,” Naccara says.

Passengers haven’t been slowed by the extra layer of security so far. Lines backed up 20 minutes one day during initial testing because of a lack of staffing. Freni, Logan’s aviation director, says the problem was corrected the next day.

The vast number of exchanges are brief, with questions lasting about 40 seconds. “We’re not pushing people through,” Freni says, “but we can make an adjustment.”

Back in the security line at Logan, banker Russell Chong, 40, shrugs off the added security step as he heads to a flight home to New York City.

“No problem,” he says with a wink, “as long as it doesn’t slow things down.”

New Airport Security System Unveiled

Fox News: The airline industry presented a model of its vision for the future of check-in security on Tuesday, including high-tech color-coded scanning corridors and what they said was the use of risk assessment techniques to ease the burden of airport security for the common traveler.
Airline passengers will get to keep their shoes on and their bags in their hand -- toothpaste, nail clippers, laptops and all -- as they pass through the "checkpoint of the future."

"We spend too much time on the 99.9999999 percent who mean us no harm, when threat detection surely should be focused on those with greater potential to do damage," International Air Transport Association chief Tony Tyler said at a conference in Amsterdam.

"By making our checkpoints smarter, and using 'known traveler' programs, we can give everybody a baseline level of security ... and in the end get everybody through security much faster," he said.

The concept faces technical and financial hurdles, and likely will be opposed by people who object to profiling or believe passing through body scanners violates their privacy. But it indicates the direction the industry hopes to go, Tyler said. He added that many elements of the plan are already in place, and others on the way.

He argued the "risk-based approach" is not the same as profiling, since it doesn't use ethnic or religious data. It relies partly on preflight information submitted by passengers, partly on biometric scans and data stored in passports, and partly on human observers who would have the discretion to choose a more rigorous scan for someone acting suspiciously.

Under a mock-up checkpoint on display at the Aviation Security World Conference, passengers are guided into one of three corridors upon presenting their passports: blue for frequent travelers, purple for normal passengers and orange for those deemed to require enhanced vetting.

People don't have to empty their pockets, remove any of their clothing or subject themselves to pat-downs before walking through a 20-foot tunnel that scans metals, liquids, laptops and other potential dangers one by one. Security guards don't need to waste any time on small children or wheelchair-bound grandmothers unless they trigger an alarm. U.S. Transport Security Authority chief John Pistole said the checkpoint of the future idea parallels the TSA's own new emphasis on "risk-based security."

"It's an idea clearly worth consideration as technology develops," said TSA chief John Pistole. "Segmenting the passenger population for different levels of security screening is exactly what we're pursuing."

He cited an ongoing TSA trial where frequent fliers "who are willing to voluntarily share information with us before they travel" are allowed to pass security more swiftly at Dallas/Ft. Worth and Miami International airports, as well as domestic airports in Atlanta and Detroit.

Peter Hartman, CEO of Dutch airline KLM, a subsidiary of Air France, said he didn't think profiling on some grounds was objectionable. Separately, he called on governments to contribute to costs for rolling out the technology used in new checkpoints. He said at present airlines pay around $7.4 billion per year for security, which they pass on to customers, while security costs for events such as football matches are often borne by the police.

Tyler said elements of the 'checkpoint of the future' plan will be introduced first on most highly traveled routes, and will gradually expand to smaller airports over a period of three to seven years.

Pre-screened Flyers to Move in the Fast Lane

Miami Herald: Flying within the United States just became slightly easier for select American and Delta fliers at four airports, including Miami, who can now skip through security without — gasp — taking off their shoes or belt or removing their laptop from its carrier.

These privileged few even get their very own fast lane. But, don’t bother trying to sign-up: those who are eligible will be notified.

The pilot program, which kicked off Tuesday, is part of a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) effort to focus more specifically on fliers who may pose a danger, while scaling down security measures for a small pool of pre-approved passengers.

More than 500 million travelers fly domestically each year, officials said, noting the “vast majority” aren’t a security risk. Now, under TSA’s PreCheck, an estimated 70,000 travelers have signed up to skip some of the flying annoyances in Miami, Dallas/Fort Worth, Atlanta, and Detroit — the largest hubs for American and Delta, respectively. Hundreds of thousands more fliers are eligible, officials said.

“This will strengthen our security while significantly enhancing the travel experience,” said Robin Kane, TSA’s assistant administrator. The agency, the largest federal startup since World War II, was created after 9/11. Often, it has found itself bashed by angry travelers who feel officials go too far, invading their privacy. How to balance security interests while reducing the hassle for risk-free fliers is an ongoing debate.

TSA’s latest effort is a sort of compromise, and if successful, officials say they hope to expand the program across the country and to other airlines. The fliers — mostly business travelers — who are eligible for this program will pass through security about twice as fast as regular passengers. Shoes and laptops stay put, and travelers can keep on a light jacket. Liquids remain restricted to no more than 3.4 ounces for carry-on luggage. And participants will still be subject to random security checks.

Beyond the limited American and Delta frequent fliers invited to join, U.S. citizens who are members of the Customs and Border Protection’s Trusted Traveler programs are also eligible. Those passengers already pass more quickly through U.S. immigration after paying a $100 fee and going through the agency’s extensive background check.

Government officials already pre-screen each U.S. passenger, checking their names and birth dates against a terrorist watch list. But frequent flier and expedited immigration programs collect more detailed personal data on its members.

“It doesn’t mean the other people are a bigger threat,” said Mark Hatfield, TSA’s federal security director. “We just have more information on them. The more people we move from the ‘unknown’ category to the ‘known’ category, the better.”

Sari Koshetz, a spokeswoman for TSA in Miami, said as a frequent flier on American herself, she received an invitation to join the program a month ago. Not only faster, it is also more convenient, she said, especially being able to keep on your shoes.

Of all the gripes people have, Kane said, “that’s one of the biggest.”

Leave Those Guns, Knives and Grenades at Home

MSNBC: Should you pack your gun, your grenade or your carving knife in a carry-on bag when you go to the airport? Definitely not, but apparently a number of people do.

According to a recent post on the Transportation Security Administration’s blog, TSA officers have found more than 800 firearms in carry-on bags this year. And that number doesn’t include the countless knives that still show up at airport security checkpoints daily — it’s so many that the TSA doesn’t even keep count — or the many inert grenades that passengers try to take home as souvenirs.

Last week, for example, a passenger at the Orlando International Airport showed up with three pistols — a .25-caliber, a .40-caliber semiautomatic and a .357-caliber revolver — in a bag that also contained loose ammunition and a loaded magazine. In Baltimore, the TSA recently found three throwing knives in the carry-on bag of a Mexico-bound traveler. And on Monday, TSA officers at New York’s Albany International Airport discovered a loaded gun in the purse of a woman heading to Detroit.

The two passengers with guns were arrested; the traveler with the knives was cited, and his weapons were confiscated.

It’s unlikely that passengers plan to use their weapons during flight, but it's difficult to know for sure since people often respond to TSA questioning by saying, “I forgot that it was in my bag.”

Given how frequently illicit weapons are discovered, Overhead Bin asked TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein for advice on the proper way to fly with firearms. Farbstein said fliers may transport firearms, ammunition and firearm parts in their checked baggage even though those items are prohibited from carry-on baggage.

“Basically, travelers must declare all firearms, ammunition, and parts to the airline during the ticket counter check-in process,” Farbstein said. “The firearm must be unloaded and it must be in a hard-sided container [and] the container must be locked.”

You can read more about traveling on airplanes with guns, firearms, knives and other weapons on the TSA's website, but Farbstein adds that “airlines may have additional requirements for traveling with firearms and ammunition. Therefore, travelers should also contact the airline regarding firearm and ammunition carriage policies.”

TSA Agent Arrested in Phony Marriage Scheme

The Smoking Gun: A Transportation Security Administration agent was arrested this week on federal charges for her role in an alleged phony marriage scheme that sought to secure U.S. citizenship for her purported spouse, a Lebanon native.

The case against Krista Taha, 34, is, in part, based on information provided by two male TSA agents who told investigators that they dated her while she was reportedly married to Ali Taha, who was also named as a defendant in a felony criminal complaint unsealed yesterday in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Taha, pictured right, and one of the male TSA agents are the parents of a four year-old boy.

The federal criminal complaint does not detail Taha’s alleged motive for taking part in the sham February 2002 marriage (or whether she was paid in return for the marriage vows). Taha, charged with conspiracy and making false statements, has worked as a TSA agent at the Detroit airport since late-2002.

TSA Demands to Search Woman's Afro

Isis Brantley

Daily Mail: An airline passenger who had already been through airport security was left in tears after TSA officers insisted on checking her Afro-style hair in case she was concealing explosives.

Hairdresser Isis Brantley was stopped at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, Georgia, after she had passed a scanning device.

As she traveled down an escalator, she claims she heard someone yell: 'Hey you, hey you, ma'am, stop. Stop - the lady with the hair, you.’

Two TSA agents told her she could not go any further until they checked her hair for explosives, said Miss Brantley, of Dallas, Texas.

Reluctantly she allowed them to do it and the TSA staff patted her hair down right there instead of asking to return to a private area for screening.

‘And so she started patting my hair, and I was in tears at that point,’ Miss Brantley told NBC News. ‘And she was digging in my scalp.’

I was outraged,’ Brantley said. ‘I was humiliated. I was confused.’

After the pat-down, Brantley complained to a TSA supervisor at Hartsfield-Jackson who then apologized to her.

‘She said, "Ma'am, please, I promise you, I'm going to take care of it. I'm so sorry that happened to you,"' Miss Brantley said. ‘And I'm like, "OK, that's weird."'

Miss Brantley, who frequently travels across the U.S. to see clients, said has worn her hair naturally for 20 years and has never had her hair checked until Monday's incident. She said she is scared she will be harassed again the next time she flies.

The TSA said: ‘Our screening procedures are designed to ensure the security of the traveling public,’ TSA said in a statement. Additional screening may be required for clothing, headwear or hair where prohibited items could be hidden.

‘This passenger left the checkpoint prior to the completion of the screening process. She was offered but refused private screening.’

TSA Fires 28 Honolulu Screeners, Suspends 15

ABC News: Dozens of employees at Honolulu's airport have been fired or suspended after an investigation found workers did not screen checked bags for explosives, said the Transportation Security Administration.

The firings and suspensions amounted to the single largest personnel action for misconduct in the federal agency's history. The agency said in a statement that 28 workers were "removed," 15 suspended, and three resigned or retired. The cases of two other employees were still being decided.

TSA began an investigation at the end of last year after two Honolulu employees told officials that thousands of bags weren't checked properly or screened for traces of explosives.

The probe, which included interviews with more than 100 employees, determined that some checked bags during one shift at the airport were not properly screened.

The National Treasury Employees Union, which represents TSA workers, has said the employees faced pressure to make sure flights departed on time.

The workers can appeal the decision, the agency said. A TSA spokesman declined to comment because it involved personnel issues.

TSA to Announce New Policy for Children Under 12

CBS/AP: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano says the government will be rolling out a different airport pat-down policy for children under 12 in the coming months, and these children will no longer have to take off their shoes to be screened.

Napolitano says the traveling public can expect to see some of these changes in the coming months.

Some travelers and privacy advocates have complained that children, who don't appear to pose terror threats, are subject to intimate pat-downs that involve Transportation Security Administration screeners touching private areas.

Children under 12 will also be spared the hassle of taking off their shoes as they go through check point security, Napolitano said.

Napolitano was speaking at a Senate hearing Tuesday on the terror threat to the United States.

Last week, the Homeland Security Secretary told POLITICO that the shoe-removal rule may be ending for people in general, although she gave no timetable of when the policy will change.

"We are moving towards an intelligence and risk-based approach to how we screen," Napolitano told POLITCO's Mike Allen at the time. "I think one of the first things you will see over time is the ability to keep your shoes on. One of the last things you will [see] is the reduction or limitation on liquids."

Previous pat-downs of kids were met with criticism. Earlier this year, CBS News reported the case of a 6-year-old who went through an intense pat-down through security at New Orleans' Louis Armstrong International Airport.

"A 6-year-old child shouldn't be subjected to this kind of treatment in the first place if there's no reason to suspect her or her parents of being criminals," Marjorie Esman, executive director of the ACLU Louisiana, told CBS affiliate WWL New Orleans, at the time of the incident.

Shortly after that incident was a photograph alleging a TSA agent was giving a baby a pat-down at an airport in Kansas City. A spokesman wrote on the TSA blog that officers followed proper procedures and that the child in the photo received a "modified pat-down."

During a transportation security hearing by the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, John Pistole of the TSA had said the agency has been working on a new policy for the use of pat-downs on children.

TSA Update

Jaunted: Apparently it's "Please Don't Do That" week in the world of airline and airport security. We had that post earlier about the drunk douchebag who tried to push around flight attendants so they'd give him more alcohol, which went about how you'd expect. On Monday the TSA blog has its own post about trying to bring weird and exotic pets through airport scanners, which doesn't work since full-body scanners can detect living turtles and snakes (who knew, right?)

We're even more interested in a TSA post from earlier this month, about a graduate student who tried to get a science project through airport security at OMA. The gadget was a home-built device that measured blood oxygen content, which is admittedly kind of neat. It also had the secondary characteristic of looking exactly like a bomb. That part is less neat.

TSA workers of course immediately shut down the screening area and called in a bomb squad. TSA officials later defended that decision because - hey - that thing really does strikingly resemble a bomb. Our instinct is to criticize the agency whenever it de facto shuts down airports over false alarms, but we kind of see their argument here. We especially appreciate their broader, blogged point: don't bring bomb-looking things into airports. Come on folks.

In other TSA news from the last couple of months, an LAX worker is under investigation for stealing watches and debit cards, a Fort Lauderdale screener got caught stuffing stolen iPads down his pants, and the agency itself recently announced that as many as 900,000 of their security badges may be compromised.

So naturally the TSA union is focused on making sure that TSA supervisors get to use their government credit cards to buy workers bottled water. Because they've got their priorities straight, that union.

Tales of TSA Tomfoolery

AirfareWatchdog: Look, we all know that folks at the Transportation Security Administration have a tough job, they're there to protect us, and all that. But they could probably do a better job. Judging from recent events, it seems they think the real threat to national security isn't, say, a shifty businessman scamming his way onto a transcontinental Virgin Atlantic flight using a stolen and expired boarding pass (for the wrong date and flight, no less), as Nigerian national Olajide Oluwaseun Noibi did just a few weeks back (amazingly, law enforcement stopped him but let him go, only to arrest him when he pulled the same stunt on a subsequent flight).

No, the real danger comes from people like Jean Weber's 95 year-old, wheelchair-bound, Depends-wearing mother, who, just a few days before Noibi's joyride, attempted to board a plane from Florida to Michigan to see her family, perhaps for the last time before possibly dying of leukemia.

Agents in New York couldn't be bothered to read the boarding pass of a man that had no business boarding a plane to California, but their counterparts at the Northwest Florida Regional Airport had all the time in the world to ruin the day of a very old, very frail and frightened woman, pulling her aside for 45 minutes of additional screening and forcing her to remove her undergarments.

When it comes to the TSA, one thing's for sure – they sure have no idea how to get the traveling public to like them. Since their creation in 2001, barely a week goes by that we don't hear yet another tale of agency dysfunction – often of the most hilarious kind. Here are ten memorable stories from recent years.

#1 DIPLOMACY IN ACTION Meera Shankar is India's ambassador to the United States. Shankar was invited to Jackson, Mississippi as a guest of Mississippi State University, where she met with Mississippi's Lieutenant Governor and gave a speech. As a souvenir, she took home an unhappy memory. While passing through security on her way out of town, Shankar was pulled aside for a very thorough -- and, despite her requests for privacy -- a very public pat down. Agents told the media afterwards that Shankar was singled out due to the fact that she was wearing a sari. Isn't that what all the terrorists wear? No? A shaken Shankar told her hosts that her first visit was probably going to be her last.

#2 THE CASE OF THE MYSTERIOUS NIPPLE RING When you head for the metal detector, maybe you want to remove your body armor. At least that's what Mandi Hamlin discovered, when she tried to board a plane out of Lubbock, Texas back in 2008. After metal was detected in her chest area, an agent informed her that if she wanted to get on the flight, she'd have to remove whatever was going on underneath her clothing. Which happened, by the way, to be nipple piercings. Hamlin requested a visual check, but the agent refused, instead handing her a pair of pliers. So she could remove the piercings. From her breasts. In the middle of the airport.

Click here to read the entire article

Another TSA Officer Indicted on Theft Charges

Los Angeles Times: A Transportation Security Administration officer has been indicted on five charges in the theft of four watches and a pre-paid debit card from luggage at Los Angeles International Airport, officials announced Friday.

A federal grand jury indicted Paul Yashou, 38, of Torrance, on two felony and three misdemeanor theft counts Friday afternoon.

Yashou is alleged to have stolen the items from luggage going through security at LAX’s Terminal 1, the U.S. District Attorney’s Office said. According to the indictment, one of the watches was valued at about $15,000, another at $5,000 and two at $1,000. The pre-paid debit card was valued at $1,000.

Authorities arrested Yashou on June 23 at his home after an investigation revealed the $15,000 watch had been sold to a jewelry store that had tried to sell the item on EBay. The owner of the watch noticed it was listed on the website, prompting the investigation.

Yashou faces the felony counts for the $15,000 and $5,000 watches. Each felony count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in federal prison. The three misdemeanor counts each carry a maximum of one year in prison.

Yashou is due back in U.S. District Court on Aug. 3 for his arraignment.

Woman Has Clothes Call on JetBlue Flight

New York Daily News: A Harlem financial consultant wants JetBlue to pay for booting her off a Florida-bound flight after an airline worker accused her of not wearing panties.

Malinda Knowles, 27, claims in a Queens Supreme Court lawsuit that a JetBlue supervisor put a walkie-talkie between her legs to see what she had on under her baggy T-shirt. "He said, 'I don't want to see your panties or anything but do you have any on?'" Knowles recalled yesterday.

"I didn't want to show him anything. He wanted me to basically show him my crotch. I was completely humiliated. It was vulgar. It was macho. It was rude." She said fellow passengers on the July 13, 2010, flight to West Palm Beach watched in horror as she was confronted.

The former fashion model said she was wearing a baggy blue T-shirt over a pair of dark denim short-shorts she had tossed on after waking up at 4 a.m.

Knowles said she was escorted off the plane at LaGuardia Airport. She was taken to a hangar, where she lifted up her T-shirt to prove she met the dress code.

"'Oh, she's wearing shorts,'" the JetBlue fashion police responded, according to Knowles. "It was really crazy," she said. "I've never had a corporate employee ask me about my underwear."

Her lawyer, Brian Dratch, is seeking unspecified damages in the civil claim that accuses the airline worker of assault and battery and intentional infliction of emotional distress. "This caused plaintiff great embarrassment and humiliation to be expelled from the flight for no reason at all in front of a fully booked flight," Dratch said in the suit.

A JetBlue spokeswoman declined to comment.

After showing off her shorts, Knowles returned to the plane, but was told by the same walkie-talkie-wielding supervisor that the pilot would not take off with her aboard. "He said, 'The captain is refusing to fly you today. We need to remove you from the flight,'" said Knowles, quoting the supervisor. "We need to remove you from the flight."

As passengers grew upset and grumbled about the delay, Knowles acquiesced. She was delayed four hours and put on a later JetBlue flight to Florida where she had a business meeting.

"'You should get a lawyer,'" a fellow passenger told her as she walked off the plane.

"I really feel like the guy just wanted to demean me in some way," she said. "Maybe he thought I was cute. Even so, it was totally inappropriate."

TSA Says New Software Will Protect Passenger Privacy

Air travelers soon won’t have to worry about feeling so exposed if they go through full-body imaging machines at security checkpoints. New software in the machines will produce only a “generic outline” of the traveler’s body rather than a specific image, according to the Transportation Security Administration. The TSA says it is updating the imaging machines at 40 airports in coming months.

The $2.7 million software upgrade comes in the wake of complaints over the machines’ technology and concerns that the images go beyond the level of detail needed to determine if the person is carrying concealed weapons or explosives -- in essence providing a naked image.

But one critic is questioning the effectiveness of the new software. Charlie Leocha, director of the Consumer Travel Alliance, said he thinks there are more false positives with the new software, leading to more of the pat-downs that some consider invasive. “We’re gaining more privacy in terms of the scanner itself not showing the full bodies. However, we’re then giving up the privacy” through more pat-downs, he said.

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