Introduction

The horrible events of 11 September 2001 proved that security at American airports was fatally inadequate. The airlines entrusted front-line protection against terrorist hijacking to the cheapest, least qualified screeners the lowest-bidding outsourced security firms could find.

Airport security is exactly the same as it was on 10 September 2001. The only difference is that the screeners now work for a sprawling secretive federal bureaucracy called the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and bear the impressive official title of “Transportation Security Officers.” They’ve also added a facade of “enhancements” that greatly inconvenience every passenger. Screeners spend a lot of time bellowing commands at passengers while herding them like animals, checking and re-checking boarding passes, confiscating contraband nail files and toothpaste, x-raying shoes and belts, “randomly” selecting businessmen and elderly widows for special humiliating “secondary” searches. This all presumably impresses everyone in the checkpoint queue with a reassuring show of feigned thoroughness. And passengers spend a long time waiting at the airport. Does it make air travel safe? In the minds of officials, the answer is obvious: Hassle equals Security!

Before I go any further, let me say that if I believed the new airport security “enhancements” actually protected against fanatical mass murderers, I would not have written any of what follows. I would instead eagerly and gratefully submit to whatever officials decide is needed to keep the skies secure. But everything I’ve seen— particularly the reports of continuing airport audits by the Government Accountability Office and the Homeland Security Department Inspector General— consistently indicates that the “Enhanced Security” is worse than useless. Despite all the hassle and wasted time it adds to the increasingly trying ordeal of air travel, there is no reason to believe it actually makes anyone or anything safer. Rather, it makes large waiting crowds vulnerable to terrorism and exposes baggage to the risks of theft, loss, damage, and delay. And worst of all, it doesn’t even pretend to protect aircraft and passengers from the many threats that don’t walk through screening checkpoints.

It’s Not Just “Security”

Although my main focus here is on the many hassles dubiously perpetrated in the name of “security,” a combination of factors that first converged in full force during the summer 2007 travel season is continuing to eclipse “security” as the main reason to avoid the miserable ordeal of air travel.

In 2007, airlines briefly restored their financial viability through drastic reductions in both their capacity and their workforce, even as passenger volume rebounded to pre-9/11 levels. Generously-compensated airline executives reaped the benefits from operating fewer flights on smaller planes with every last middle seat occupied. But a system running at full capacity can’t readily accommodate the inevitable glitches. So the occupants of those middle seats suffer all the consequences when any of a number of conditions causes the delay or cancellation of their flights. Bad weather— anywhere in the world— is the airlines’ overwhelmingly preferred excuse for everything that goes wrong. Since weather is “beyond their control,” it absolves them of liability for whatever compensation they might owe passengers. A shortage of pilots (perhaps due to delayed flights) can be the hidden reason behind a canceled flight; and it’s sometimes possible that a flight supposedly canceled for “mechanical problems” actually had too many empty seats.

The antiquated air traffic control system takes much of the blame for lengthy delays. The system becomes overloaded when airlines schedule many flights at the same time. The proliferation of private jets carrying corporate executives and other VIPs entitled to exemption from airline misery is increasingly adding to this problem. It can mean hours of incarceration— possibly without food, water, air conditioning, or toilets— wedged into that middle seat awaiting takeoff. And the takeoff may not even happen if the wait drags on so long that the pilots would exceed limits on their work hours.

If you’re on a delayed flight and miss a connection, you may well discover that the next available flight won’t leave for several days. The airline, of course, has no obligation to provide anything beyond a middle seat on that flight, whenever it might be. So you’re on your own. Check yourself into a hotel if you can afford it. Otherwise, camp out on the terminal floor just like a third-world refugee! And if your checked bags don’t arrive when you do— an increasingly frequent occurrence— or if you have any other difficulty that requires what used to be called “customer service,” don’t expect much help from airline employees. The magic formula for airline profitability includes outsourcing functions that, in MBA-speak, are “outside the value stream.” That means you get to spend lots of time on the phone waiting for someone in Bangalore to tell you he doesn’t know where your bag is.

2008 was an even worse year for air travel, as the sky-high price of jet fuel forced airline executives to squeeze their employees and passengers— but not themselves, of course— even harder. They reacted to runaway fuel costs by further reducing capacity, and then by instituting fees for checked baggage. By 2009, those checked baggage fees generated so much revenue that “unbundling” became airline executives’ Magic Formula For Success. Things that had always been included in the ticket price now carry fees that are never mentioned in advertising, and too often aren’t disclosed until someone has nearly finished booking a flight. In addition to checked bags, there are now fees for advance seat selection, window or aisle seats, blankets, bottled water, travel during holiday periods, and checking in with a human at the airport instead of a kiosk or computer. Some airlines even charge a fee for the “convenience” of paying the other fees at the airport instead of at the time of booking. Even though the fuel prices that originally justified the fee frenzy have receded to normal levels, the fees continue to proliferate as fast as airline executives can dream them up.

For airline executives, adding fees is much better than raising fares because it lets them “compete” by advertising deceptively low fares. Fees also reduce what they have to pay in commissions and government fees, since airline fees are exempt from those charges. The fees are pure “ancillary revenue” for airlines, and give passengers nothing in return. Despite the fees for “unbundled” baggage handling, passengers get no more assurance that their bags will arrive intact on the carousel— and there’s no refund when bags don’t arrive! I’m waiting to see which airline will be the first to charge a fee for the “customer service” of tracking down and delivering a lost bag.

Neither the airlines nor the government show any signs of doing anything to correct the problems that made air travel so miserable in 2007. And the current economic mess guarantees that they won’t do anything in 2009 or 2010 either, beyond reducing capacity and increasing fees.

Air transportation in the United States seems to be melting down. But this time we can’t blame terrorists.

Continuing Ineffective Security

Although the TSA has replaced the outsourced security firms, the basic approach to airport security screening has not changed at all. In undercover tests in mid-2002 at airports around the country, the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General found that screeners missed prohibited items 48% of the time. The exact numbers from subsequent audits are (of course) classified, but the public reports consistently note that there has been no improvement.

In October 2003 Nathaniel Heatwole, a college student, smuggled box cutters, bleach, and simulated explosives (along with notes identifying himself and his intent) onto five airplanes. He even sent the TSA an e-mail detailing exactly where he hid the “contraband,” and explaining his intent to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the TSA’s “improved” security screening. The TSA had ignored the e-mail as “not representing a threat.”

After the story broke, embarrassed TSA officials predictably reacted with calls for vengeance. Prosecutors obliged by charging Heatwole with an impressive list of felonies. But by April 2004 the prosecutors had quietly reduced the charges to a few misdemeanors, to which Heatwole dutifully pled guilty. It seems to have taken TSA officials six months to figure out that a trial on the original charges would have given Heatwole exactly what he wanted, exposing the failings of airport security to highly embarrassing public scrutiny. Unfortunately for the TSA, the low-profile disposition of the Heatwole case coincided with the Department of Homeland Security Department Inspector General’s report to Congress. The report concluded that screening effectiveness has not improved at all since the terrorist attacks.

The Inspector General did follow-up audits at 15 airports between November 2004 and February 2005. According to their March 2005 report, those audits showed a “lack of improvement.” Undercover tests the Government Accountability Office (GAO) conducted between October 2005 and January 2006 showed that screeners at all 21 airports they visited failed to detect bomb-making materials. In further tests the GAO and Inspector General conducted at 15 airports in 2006, screeners missed guns and explosives 90% of the time.

The 2007 GAO undercover tests evaluated the effectiveness of the restrictions on carry-on liquids the TSA instituted in reaction to a foiled 2006 London bomb plot. Investigators improvised a firebomb with a liquid explosive and detonator made from inexpensive, ubiquitous parts. They concealed the material in their carry-ons, and possibly in their clothing. The results were predictably dismal: Not one of the screeners at 19 airports found any of it. (But the report singled out for special recognition one particularly vigilant screener who, despite missing the explosive, discovered and confiscated an unlabeled shampoo bottle. The TSA does not officially require liquids to be in manufacturer’s labeled bottles, but some screeners “interpret” the regulations to impose that additional restriction.) The GAO discussed these findings during Congressional testimony in November 2007 that also included allegations of cheating, in the form of e-mails from TSA headquarters alerting screeners to upcoming undercover tests.

Dubious Screening Compounds Baggage Woes

By Congressional mandate, the TSA uses specialized x-ray scanners to screen all checked baggage for bombs. Although these machines employ the most advanced technology and cost over $1 million each, they don’t work very well. They reportedly have a false positive rate of up to 40%, flagging as “explosives” such common and innocuous items as chocolate, peanut butter, books, cheese, and leather. The TSA’s only solution to this shortcoming is to advise travelers to “spread out” these items in bags.

Screeners thus need to open many bags, almost always out of the sight and control of passengers. Bags must be unlocked so screeners (and thieves) can open them. If screeners decide to open a locked bag they will break off the lock. The TSA and luggage manufacturers have addressed this problem with “TSA-Approved” locks, to which screeners have keys. But passengers too often find their “approved” locks broken off anyway. That’s perhaps because there aren’t enough screeners for the high volume of checked bags, so under pressure it’s faster and easier to break a lock than to squint at the little number engraved on the lock, find the corresponding key, open the lock, and then replace it properly after rifling through a bag. Since neither the screeners nor the TSA have any accountability or liability for damage they do to locks or bags, there is every incentive to do what’s easiest.

Despite good intentions, this baggage inspection may be the most absurd part of the “security” charade. It creates additional, often-lengthy airport queues that are all too vulnerable to terrorists. And the need to open bags behind the scenes exposes baggage to theft, loss, or damage— if not from the TSA then from baggage handlers, who can slip things into bags just as easily as they can pilfer. It also increases the chance of a bag missing a flight or getting misdirected.

Police have arrested TSA screeners for stealing from bags in Detroit (April 2004), Fort Lauderdale, Philadelphia, New Orleans (June 2004), and New York’s LaGuardia and Kennedy Airports (August 2004). And those are probably just the tip of the iceberg. According to the March 2005 Homeland Security Department Inspector General’s audit report, the TSA dismissed 37 screeners for theft, and paid $736,000 to settle 7,000 claims for items stolen from bags.

The situation doesn’t seem to be improving. In April 2009, a TSA screener in Philadelphia was fired (and a second one “suspended pending an investigation”) after being caught stealing from an unspecified number of checked bags. And in September 2009, airport police in Miami broke up an long-standing organized theft ring of at least six TSA employees. The TSA’s public relations department quickly responds to these reports by reciting the agency’s zero-tolerance policy for theft. But that appears to actually mean they immediately fire screeners who get caught by someone else, since there’s no evidence that the TSA themselves are doing anything to prevent the thefts.

One would think that the adverse publicity from screeners continuing to get caught stealing would provoke reactive measures beyond PR statements, since the thefts can only cast doubt on the TSA’s effectiveness. If the TSA can’t protect baggage from thefts committed by its own employees, why should we have any confidence in their ability to protect planes (and us) from fanatical mass murderers?

Those who blindly defend airport “security” practices may dismiss concerns about baggage theft, damage, loss, or delay as a price worth paying to keep airplanes safe. But whatever benefit that troublesome screening might provide is probably negated by all the unscreened cargo that also travels beneath the passenger cabin. In a September 2007 report, the Homeland Security Department Inspector General found that the TSA lacked adequate resources to verify the airlines’ compliance with federal regulations for screening cargo. Inspectors lack adequate training, the database for tracking violations is ineffective, and TSA regulations are too vague to provide any consistent security. The Inspector General concluded that the TSA’s inadequacy “increases the opportunities to put explosives, incendiaries, and other dangerous devices on passenger aircraft.”

A Call For Intelligence

A cause of much difficulty is that many airports were never designed to accommodate a security system. So officials have had to squeeze in a hasty patchwork wherever it would fit, and then rush further patches into place in reaction to each publicized breach. Effective security requires a complete and intelligent redesign of security practices and airports.

The practices need to be systematic and proactive rather than the reactive hodgepodge we now have, and focus on current and future threats. A repeat of the 9/11 scenario is now very unlikely, thanks to two genuine security enhancements that have nothing to do with passenger screening: Reinforced cockpit doors that remain locked and increased passenger vigilance. Even as terrorists are undoubtedly plotting other types of attacks, TSA officials remain myopically obsessed with retroactively depriving the 9/11 hijackers of their box cutters. And they’re not even doing a very good job of that.

The TSA’s reactive approach forces screeners to focus their attention on a continuously-expanding list of insignificant minutiae: yesterday shoes, today lip gloss, tomorrow...? As a result, they spend much of their time looking for and confiscating countless innocuous items from irate and incredulous travelers. This practically guarantees that they’ll miss many things that are significant. And if something they miss gets enough publicity, the TSA will eventually react by devising a new arbitrary and absurd restriction that’s inconsistently “interpreted” at checkpoints, imposing yet another permanent burden on millions of law-abiding travelers. By then the terrorists will have moved on to other things.

More importantly, the security system must process passengers and baggage efficiently to minimize congestion. A “security” bottleneck that accumulates a large crowd of waiting passengers is not merely inefficient and frustrating. It actually creates a very dangerous vulnerability to a terrorist attack, one that’s probably a far more serious threat than that of hijacking or bombing an aircraft. This problem is immediately obvious (and worrisome) to anyone who uses an airport, although TSA officials apparently prefer to ignore it.

Even if the TSA really can’t afford to hire enough screeners, simple measures that cost nothing could reduce delays. Airports might, for example, install longer tables at checkpoints so that more passengers can simultaneously unload carry-ons, shoes, cellphones, laptops, video cameras, clear quart-sized baggies loosely filled with small containers of liquids, and assorted metal objects into trays for the x-ray conveyor belt. Unfortunately, at too many terminals it’s impossible to install more screeners, longer tables, or anything else. There just isn’t any more room at checkpoints that have already been shoehorned and patched into places that were never designed for them. So the only “solution” is to make passengers wait.

And while passengers stand unshod at those checkpoints, a continuous parade of airport workers walks straight into the “secure area” without even a glance at their shoes. In March 2007, airline employees in Orlando, Florida were caught smuggling weapons and drugs onto airplanes. They had run their operation right under the TSA’s nose until someone unconnected with the TSA tipped off police, who arrested a smuggler as he deplaned in Puerto Rico. What else has walked through that security hole and onto airplanes? And how will the TSA react to it?

Security Strategy or Security Theatre?

I recognize that the current approach might be the best the TSA can practically implement. Measures that could genuinely secure aircraft against threats would likely be so intrusive, inconvenient, time-consuming, and costly that they would render air travel completely impractical. So they’re left to rely on “security theatre” that provides a highly visible (and highly intrusive) appearance of security but affords little if any actual protection. The only definitive benefit of the airport screening ritual is to show those subjected to it that the government is Doing Something to Protect us from an Unspeakable Evil. Some people may find that reassuring. But others may view it as a shameful reminder of how we are allowing a few thugs armed with box cutters to transform our society (and not for the better).

When Kip Hawley took over as head of the TSA in 2005, he apparently decided that his agency could tolerate a few small doses of good sense. In December of that year, he announced that small scissors and tools— but not box cutters, of course— would be permitted in carry-on bags. The TSA determined that screeners (renamed “Transportation Security Officers”) should concentrate on looking for explosives rather than opening one out of every four bags to interdict those “high-volume, low-threat items.” In July 2007, Hawley gave similar reasoning for lifting the ban on lighters, originally a reaction to “shoe bomber” Richard Reid’s use of a lighter to unsuccessfully ignite his explosives.

But in exchange for allowing scissors and nail clippers, the TSA declared that Unpredictability is now an essential element of their “Security Strategy.” Hawley may have recognized that too many travelers have figured out that airport security is uncoordinated, inconsistent, and arbitrary. So he perhaps called in a marketing consultant who advised him to re-brand that inconsistency as a “Security Strategy.”

I’ll concede that the TSA’s “Security Strategy” might indeed complicate the terrorist’s job enough to provide some degree of improved safety. But if it does that, it’s more likely by dumb luck than smart design.

A Pause for Public Relations

Kip Hawley deserves at least some credit for recognizing the severe image, credibility, and confidence problems his agency has with the traveling public. In an opinion poll conducted at the end of 2007, the TSA ranked with the IRS and FEMA as the most despised of federal agencies. He has recently started taking some steps toward addressing the public relations problems.

It’s worth reading this interview with Hawley from July 2007. The interviewer is Bruce Schneier, a specialist in cryptography and computer security and a very outspoken critic of the TSA. He coined the term “security theater.” Agreeing to a biased interview with a harsh critic is certainly a daring move for a loyal appointee of an administration that has no tolerance for criticism and is incapable of admitting (never mind correcting) any mistakes. You can judge for yourself whether his responses to Schneier’s “hard questions” inspire either credibility or confidence.

At the beginning of 2008, the TSA started a blog “to facilitate an ongoing dialogue on innovations in security, technology and the checkpoint screening process.” I’m really skeptical of whether it’s meeting that intent— or whether that really is its intent— but it’s interesting to read.

Most of the TSA’s official posts tout improvements and successes. But sometimes they provide the Official Party Line responses to questions raised in previous blog comments, or “damage control” responses to embarrassing news reports. Posts get hundreds of comments, most of which are anonymous and negative (although there is a smattering of “The TSA makes me feel very safe and secure. We should thank them for everything they do for us instead of complaining”). Comments are “moderated,” but in contrast to what goes on at TSA checkpoints, the criteria for rejecting comments are very specific and clearly stated.

While it’s refreshing to see a secretive agency actually encouraging free speech, I don’t see much evidence of “dialogue” actually occurring. Many comments raise valid questions about TSA screening, particularly the bullying attitude toward passengers displayed by too many TSA employees at checkpoints, and also the inconsistent “interpretation” of the absurd rules on liquids and shoes. But if anyone from the TSA addresses them at all, it’s to defend and justify the absurdity. Questions about the reasons for what the TSA does receive the standard response about “Sensitive Security Information” or “it’s based on robust intelligence and you’ll have to trust us on that.” And there’s no response at all to those people who offer extensive, specific suggestions for improvements. So the questions tend to get repeated in the comments for each new TSA post, along with complaints about how the TSA is ignoring them.

The War On Water, Toiletries, and Shoes

On 10 August 2006, British and American officials triumphantly announced that they had foiled a major terrorist plot in Britain to blow up aircraft using liquid explosives smuggled in beverage and toiletry containers. The British authorities reacted by banning all carry-on items and instituting additional security inspections that effectively shut down aviation in Britain for several days. The TSA reacted with an immediate ban on all carry-on items for flights to Britain. They also banned all liquids and gels in carry-on bags for other flights, and raised the infamous color-coded “terror alert level” for aviation to “orange,” the penultimate level where it still remains.

The incident demonstrated the TSA’s ability to react swiftly with immediate patches to their system. Never mind that the TSA had apparently identified liquid explosives as a threat years ago but ignored it. What matters is that their knee jerked with impressive rapidity once that hammer finally hit it! But it’s impossible to know whether those lightning-fast reflexes saved any lives. Nor can we know whether the plot to which they so speedily reacted was a genuine or viable threat. The frequency and opportune timing of dubious “terror alert” announcements gives reason for skepticism. The only thing we can know with certainty is that it added one more hassle of questionable value to the ordeal of air travel.

The total ban on liquids and gels persisted for just over a month. By forcing many travelers to check bags they would otherwise carry on, it overwhelmed the airlines’ understaffed baggage systems and the TSA’s baggage screening operation. It also exposed passengers to lengthy waits in crowded check-in and baggage claim areas— potential terrorist targets outside the areas supposedly secured by TSA screening. It caused particular difficulty for elite business travelers, who complained loudly about lacking the time either to wait for checked bags or to spend a few unproductive minutes buying shampoo, cosmetics, or contact-lens solution each time they fly.

For those reasons, the ban couldn’t last. So the finest minds of the TSA and law enforcement agencies convened behind locked doors to conduct extensive research. The resulting rules allowing containers of three ounces or less that fit loosely in one clear quart-sized sealable plastic bag set a new standard for arbitrariness. But I do have to give the TSA credit for creating rules that, regardless of their merit, were carefully designed to be clear and simple enough for anyone who bothers to pay even minimal attention. Too many people still don’t seem to get it.

While waiting in the security queue for a flight a few months after the TSA imposed the restrictions, I watched screeners roll their eyes in frustration at the parade of passengers who had gallon-sized bags, oversized containers, two or more quart bags, and forbidden items in their purses. All of these had to be dumped in large barrels to everyone’s obvious displeasure, even though most of the items would have been permitted had their owners packed them loosely in a single clear quart-sized sealable plastic bag. The screeners’ frustration at what they must surely regard as the public’s incorrigible inattentiveness or stupidity is understandable. But perhaps the poor compliance merely reflects a recognition that, much like the earlier ban on scissors and screwdrivers, the new rules are absurd, arbitrary, and probably worthless.

The Danger of “Over-Thinking”

Intelligent people who insist on analyzing and understanding everything may have as much trouble as those who are inattentive or stupid. I got a call from a highly-educated friend (and sometime travel companion), a physician who had earned three bachelor’s degrees by age 20, a medical degree, and two board certifications. His flight was the next day, and he was completely confused about what he could put in his carry-on. We spent the better part of an hour analyzing the disposition of items ranging from foot powder to fish oil capsules. The Security Luminaries who devised the rules seem to have overlooked liquid-filled capsules, as the TSA’s Web site makes no mention of them. So they’re presumably among the many items subject to the unpredictable whims of individual screeners.

Tripods also fall into that category. The TSA’s published list of prohibited and permitted items does not mention them at all, so you roll the dice each time you bring a tripod into a checkpoint. The screener on your outbound flight may have no problem with it, but the screener on your return flight could just as easily reject the very same tripod. That’s the TSA’s Security Strategy at work, assuring frustration if not necessarily safety. If you need a tripod, and you don’t feel like gambling with either the TSA or your airline’s checked baggage system, call some camera stores at your destination and ask about renting one.

The Important Lesson we both learned was that attempting to discern any logic or reasoning behind arbitrary “security” rules only causes frustration and difficulty. Indeed, the TSA Web site that explains Permitted and Prohibited Items specifically admonishes passengers to “follow the guidelines above and try not to over-think these guidelines.” The fact that the TSA makes such a statement says much about the real value and efficacy of the rules. And the sheer volume of verbiage about liquids on that Web page suggests only one thing. The Security Luminaries clearly worked very hard at reacting to the London plot with simple rules that surely seemed brilliant, elegant, and foolproof when presented to their bosses at classified briefings. But they severely underestimated the complexity of implementing those simple rules in real airports.

Millions of real people have individual needs and circumstances those few officials could not possibly have considered as they labored behind their locked doors. That leaves individual screeners to “interpret” the rules in their usual inconsistent, arbitrary, and frustrating fashion. If the TSA effectively admits that their rules can’t withstand what they condescendingly denigrate as “over-thinking,” how could the rules possibly protect us from terrorist plotters who don’t discourage thinking? The results of GAO undercover testing clearly show that passengers get no benefit at all from the burdensome restrictions.

One screener perhaps inadvertently confirmed the dubious value of the rules. When I presented my sealed quart bag loosely filled with small manufacturer’s containers, she looked genuinely thrilled and complimented me on my compliance. I thanked her and asked whether they used a hazardous materials contractor to dispose of the barrels of contraband. “Oh no,” she said, “the janitor just takes it to the dumpster.” Isn’t anyone worried about those barrels filled with presumed liquid explosives right in the middle of crowded airport checkpoints? Or is that just “over-thinking”?

More recently, I stood for several minutes at an uncrowded checkpoint waiting for someone to put about a dozen cases of bottled water through the x-ray machine. A visit to the concessionaire later confirmed my suspicion that they were destined for sale to captive passengers. So it appears that the TSA considers an ordinary x-ray inspection sufficient to ensure the safety of bottles of liquid that, when sold by an authorized airport concessionaire at an extortionate price, can be carried on an aircraft. But that procedure apparently isn’t sufficient to ensure the safety of identical bottles, purchased at a normal price, when carried by passengers themselves. Does that make any sense at all? Or am I again guilty of “over-thinking”?

In the future I’ll probably forget about the quart-baggie business and just buy whatever liquids and gels I need once I get to my destination. At the checkpoint I already have to keep track of a carry-on bag, a camera bag, and shoes (the mandatory removal of which is another dubious reaction to the liquid explosive plot), while keeping one hand free to present my boarding pass to four or five different officials. (There’s presumably a good classified reason for checking boarding passes so many times. But to me it just looks like the screeners are so poorly coordinated that they can’t rely on checking it only once before allowing a passenger into the checkpoint.) So that baggie is just another item to juggle.

The Lesson From London

The most important lesson from the London bomb plot seems to have been completely lost in all the hullabaloo over liquids and gels. If the plot was indeed real and viable, it was intelligent police work involving a narrowly-focused and quiet investigation of specific subjects that averted a catastrophe, not airport screening.

Preventing terrorists from getting anywhere near an airport would seem the only genuinely effective protection from threats to aviation. Once they walk into the terminal it’s probably too late. Screening might perhaps uncover a sloppy or inept criminal, but it’s unlikely to stop a clever and determined enemy. The much-vaunted “Security Strategy” of unpredictability is actually nothing more than a few minor variations on an unchanging and ineffective theme, sufficient only to confuse and annoy passengers. A system based on reacting to the minutiae of yesterday’s tactics will almost certainly miss today’s threats, no matter how rapidly officials can throw new patches into place.

That’s why, despite all the trouble and indignity it inflicts on millions of people, reactive mass screening has most likely never stopped a single terrorist. If the TSA crows so triumphantly about catching a passenger wearing a fake military uniform in a press release that says nothing about how that threatened aviation, we surely would have been deafened by all the crowing if they had ever caught an actual terrorist.

The No-Fly List: Safety in Numbers?

In October 2006, the 60 Minutes television news magazine ran a report about the “No Fly List” of individuals the TSA deems too dangerous to allow on an airplane, but not too dangerous to arrest. A copy they obtained in early 2006 had over 44,000 names, up from a mere 16 before 9/11. The list included Saddam Hussein, the 9/11 hijackers (better late than never, I suppose), the president of Bolivia, Nelson Mandela, and various dead or incarcerated individuals. The names of several well-known terrorists were conspicuously absent.

A separate “selectee list” identified over 75,000 people who are allowed to fly, but only after enduring “special” security hassles every time they check in. A much larger number of people endure extra hassles, or are even banned from flying, because their names are “similar” to those on a list. In an interview, the TSA official responsible for the lists valiantly defended them, but made vague references to a planned “quality review.” At the end of the segment was a note that she had since “joined private industry.”

If your name ends up on a list, the only recourse the TSA provides is a Traveler Identity Verification Program. If either a copy of your passport or three forms of identification convince the “Office of Transportation Security Redress” that you’re not the terrorist they’re looking for, you’ll get a letter attesting to that determination. Depending on the whims of airport officials and the current “terror alert level,” presenting the letter may or may not expedite the extra security rigmarole to which you will remain irrevocably subject every time you fly.

Since the 60 Minutes report aired, I have seen other sources that claim the lists may contain as many as one million names. The actual number is, of course, classified— as is the unfathomable reason why disclosing this number would harm national security. In January 2007, the TSA announced a “quality review” of the watch lists that promised to cut the number of names in half. But that seems to have been an empty promise, or at least a very ineffective one. Reports in 2008 indicate that the TSA has been adding 20,000 new names to the lists each month. When Michael Chertoff was Secretary of Homeland Security, he admitted that the system produces 9,000 false positives every day for just one airline. Even federal air marshals have complained of being incorrectly barred from assigned flights.

Despite this admission, Secretary Chertoff dismissed any possibility of improvements or changes to a dubious system with such visible and embarrassing failings. Instead, he suggested that airlines should take the initiative of improving their reservations systems to let passengers volunteer additional private identifying information that might better distinguish false positives at check-in. This response is unfortunately typical of the Homeland Security bureaucracy, which seems to place a higher priority on deflecting challenges to its claims of infallibility than on improving its effectiveness or competence.

In September 2009 the TSA began implementing “Secure Flight,” which is supposed to improve the accuracy and effectiveness of matching passengers with the watch lists. Airlines now collect the full legal name, gender, and birth date of each passenger, which must exactly match the driver license or passport presented to the TSA officer (or contractor) who compares the documents before allowing passengers into the screening checkpoint. The TSA claims this “improvement” will reduce the number of false matches and reduce passenger hassles, but I honestly can’t see how that’s possible. Much will depend on how much tolerance individual officers who compare the documents have for the inevitable discrepancies. That’s bound to be as maddeningly inconsistent as everything else the TSA inflicts on passengers.

As for the claims that “Secure Flight” improves security, no press release says anything about requiring the various agencies that maintain the watch lists to update each of those hundreds of thousands of list entries with the full legal name, gender, and birth date. If they don’t do that, I can’t see how requiring passengers to provide that information will do anything to improve either the accuracy of the matching process or the effectiveness of the watch lists. But collecting more complete information on passengers does potentially increase the risk of identity theft. The TSA is addressing that concern in their usual fashion, by ignoring it.

Is there any reason to believe that the TSA can keep us safe by amassing a sufficiently large list of names? Probably not. But as with everything else about airport “security,” there is every reason to believe that a continually increasing number of people will be unnecessarily hassled (or worse) in the name of pretending that it does.

The Passenger As Consumer

The best reason not to fly is that the dubious “security” procedures are merely one item in a litany of hassles that make air travel a miserable experience. The list includes overbooking, full flights, canceled flights, missed connections due to delays, continually-shrinking seats and legroom, lost baggage, prolonged incarceration in delayed aircraft, inconsistent and arbitrary enforcement of “rules” by airline employees, impenetrable fare structures created by the rigged game of “dynamic yield management,” the continuing proliferation of fees, and the continuing deterioration of every other aspect of customer service. Every airline and airport employee now seems intent on reminding passengers that the word travel derives from the Latin trepaliare, which means “ordeal” or “torment.” It specifically refers to torture with a trepalium. In medieval times that was a three-prong pitchfork, but today it’s a row of economy-class seats.

As consumers, we should not put up with shabby treatment that the new “security” only exacerbates. If we accept it and continue to fly, we will only validate and make permanent the current deplorable conditions in the air transportation system. Executives of the major “legacy” airlines have been demanding ever greater sacrifices from employees and passengers, even as they award themselves ever more generous bonuses. Pervasive poor morale among airline employees can only erode all aspects of their performance, including passenger safety and security. If those executives truly believe they can prosper by making employees and customers bear the burden of their long-standing mismanagement, they deserve economy-class middle seats in bankruptcy court.

However, I am well aware (as, I’m sure, are airline executives and TSA officials) that there often is no alternative to flying. There is no other way to get to many places— you can’t drive to Hawaii, and it’s too far to swim. Even when alternatives exist they often aren’t practical. In most of the country, Amtrak’s long-distance train routes are too limited, time-consuming, inconvenient, and unreliable to be useful travel options. Greyhound buses, and their stations in dodgy neighborhoods, seem best suited for vagrants, released prisoners, and people who can’t afford any other form of transportation. Driving may actually take less time than flying for trips of 600 kilometers or less, though it’s much more dangerous.

Airlines thus enjoy a unique license to routinely abuse paying customers in ways that would quickly shutter ordinary businesses. Their executives are smugly aware that no matter how much they abuse their passengers, those passengers will soon be back at the airport to wait patiently in their stockinged feet, plaintively bleating “Please sir, I want some more.”

When you do have a choice, consider visiting places accessible by car, train, bus, bicycle, or foot. Try a “staycation” close to home. If you must fly, choose one of the new “low-fare” airlines. Their executives seem to have figured out how to run an efficient and profitable operation that values employees as essential contributors and values passengers as paying customers. Their fare structures are more transparent, and they’re likely to provide a less unpleasant travel experience at a lower cost. Unfortunately, those airlines have limited routes that may not include where you need to go.

I truly believe that “voting with our feet” by seeking alternatives to flying whenever possible— and letting the appropriate executives, stock analysts, and elected officials know why— may be the only way to encourage long-needed improvements that could ultimately make air travel less unpleasant and genuinely safer.

Epilogue

I first wrote this Web page early in 2002, and I’ve been updating it whenever I see a major news story about air travel or “security.” The original title was “Why I Avoid Flying,” because I did avoid flying for all the reasons I enumerated. I never felt I was depriving myself of anything other than aggravation! Rather, I welcomed the opportunity to visit some great places I had previously overlooked in and around the Los Angeles area, where I live. But after doing that for five years, I found that the traffic congestion for which Southern California is famous was making my solo explorations more stressful and frustrating than enjoyable.

Driving to places beyond Southern California did not seem a practical or appealing option. For example, a solo drive to Yellowstone at a reasonable and safe pace would take three days in each direction. That assumes straight freeway driving, stopping only to stretch my legs, eat, and sleep. And it doesn’t include any time in Yellowstone itself. Even if I had enough vacation time to do that, I doubt it would be particularly enjoyable. After thoroughly investigating Amtrak’s limited routes and user-hostile schedules, I reluctantly concluded that entirely avoiding flying no longer made sense if I ever wanted to travel outside Southern California.

What I’ve seen confirms my belief that the TSA’s “security theatre” is a costly sham(e) that wastes incalculable amounts of individual travelers’ time while providing only illusory security. The majority of Transportation Security Officers are noticeably more efficient, professional, and courteous than the minimum-wage flunkies they replaced. But that doesn’t make them any more effective. They’re still preoccupied with fighting the dubious War On Water, Toiletries, and Shoes, and they’re given wide latitude to “interpret” the rules inconsistently and arbitrarily. Unfortunately, the minority of Officers who are arrogant, incompetent, ignorant, stupid, or outright bullies is large enough to give them all a bad name; and the TSA seems to have no interest in eliminating those “bad apples.” There’s no way to know which kind you’ll get when it’s your turn to be screened.

The traveling public understandably demands Something, and the TSA is providing it. Irrespective of whether it actually provides any effective protection against terrorists and criminals— and the reports of audits and undercover testing consistently suggest that it doesn’t— this Something is now a permanent fixture of the air travel “experience.” That “experience” is now, at its best, an ordeal to be endured with as much grace and good humor as possible when flying can’t be avoided.

I do not in any way advocate simply eliminating airport security measures and opening up planes to terrorists. Rather, I believe that the only effective way to defeat this very real threat is through intelligent, proactive measures designed from the outset to identify and interdict the very small number of terrorists and criminals— preferably before they get to the airport— while minimizing the inconvenience to the millions of law-abiding travelers. But everything I’ve seen about the current approach suggests that it’s doing exactly the opposite. Since the TSA seems utterly incapable of identifying actual terrorists, they can only impose a continually-increasing (and probably ineffective) burden on all passengers because that’s all they are capable of doing.

The real problem with the TSA is that it’s a persistent remnant of the administration that created it. The Bush administration compiled an execrable record of incompetence in its handling of all aspects of “homeland security.” That was combined with an even more deplorable record of arrogant contempt for civil liberties, privacy, Constitutional separation of powers, the rule of law, the truth, and seemingly anything that impeded their efforts to establish a unitary executive with unfettered power. While I did not intend this to become a political diatribe, politics is at the root of what’s wrong with airport “security.” The arrival of a new administration offers hope for improvement; but “change we can believe in” takes time, especially when it comes to reforming a large bureaucracy that has taken full advantage of its special “security” exemption from the constraints, oversight, transparency, and accountability required of ordinary government agencies. And the Obama administration understandably has other higher priorities.

We aid terrorists when, out of fear, we meekly surrender cherished liberties and unquestioningly accept an escalating burden of intrusive, costly, and dubious “security” measures that our leaders impose on us. But we strengthen our country against enemies who seek to destroy it by insisting on the best “value for money” whenever we agree that it is genuinely necessary to pay for effective, well thought-out security measures with a sacrifice of some rights, freedoms, privacy, or convenience. By this standard, airport “security” is a fool’s bargain. For what it’s costing us, we should demand that the management refund our money and give us a better deal. Until that happens, our only practical recourse is to not buy the product.