How to do airport security *right*

[kengr]

http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/world/article/744199---israelification-high-security-little-bother

Comments

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Excellent article. I read the whole thing, which I don't often do online.

[tww1fa]

Unfortunately, even Bruce Schneier (who thinks the TSA is a security theatre joke) thinks that the Israeli security model wouldn't work for the US because of a matter of scale:

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/01/adopting_the_is.html

[seawasp]

It's not just scaling, although re-designing all airports to support that model would be... er... not cheap, but also the training of the screeners involved and the willingness to accept profiling as a *COMPLETE* justification for restricting travel.

And recognizing that your trained people would have to be trained somehow for all the different regions of the USA, where the customs and reactions are going to differ, or else recognizing that the screening would inevitably be highly prejudiced against certain groups and in favor of others.

We already have a lot of people worried/complaining about, with justification, the sexism and racism, etc., inherent in our own procedures. The Israeli model, applied here, would make that VASTLY worse.

Add to the current mix a process in which it is *SOLELY THE DISCRETION OF THE INTERVIEWER* -- any interviewer -- that will remove you from a flight, and try to make people ACCEPT it? I just can't see that working here.

Worse is the fact that since it's easily conceivable that profiling will change as time goes on, a group which wouldn't be pulled out NOW might find itself unable to fly a couple years from now.