David J. Danto
Principal Consultant,
Collaboration/ AV / Multimedia / Video / UC
Dimension Data
Director of Emerging
Technology
Interactive
Multimedia & Collaborative Communications Alliance
eMail:
David.Danto@DimensionData.com Follow Video &
Technology Industry News: @NJDavidD
(Read David’s Bio) (See
David’s CV) (Read David’s Other Blogs & Articles)
It’s Time To Admit The Obvious – The TSA Must Go
There comes a point in time in every endeavor when one has to take stock
of reality and admit the obvious. We can point to the time
that the Tower Records chain realized that everyone was buying their music as
downloads and filed
for bankruptcy. Or we can go back
even further into our history and look at times when people were absolutely
convinced of something that turned out couldn’t be further from the truth - like
the world being flat; or that bloodletting could cure sicknesses; or that
smoking could soothe a sore throat. We now
know many things we used to think were helpful or correct were obviously wrong
or outdated. Today we’ve reached a
moment in time where we have to bite-the-bullet and come to a similar realization
about US travel – it’s time for the US Transportation Security Administration
to end and go away.
After
the horror of 9/11 we all knew that airport security needed to be
increased. It seemed obvious. Frequent travelers before those days were
well aware of how ridiculous airport security was. If one flew from a Washington DC airport one would
have to unpack and turn on a notebook computer to ensure that it would light
up. At other locations portable phones
and beepers would need to be powered-on and light up. Everyone knew that if a terrorist was
building bomb all they’d have to do is make it look like an electronic device and make it light up and no one would question
it. After 9/11 we all agreed that
security needed to have a central governance and be better than it was. Regrettably, instead of security, what we got
with the TSA was the illusion of security.
I
hate to be more cynical than I usually am, but the TSA must have come out of a conscious belief of its planners that if
enough people feel hassled at the airport they’ll think it is a secure
environment…and hassle people they did.
Their people made fusses about nail clippers, pen-knives, safety razors
and other things that couldn’t conceivably be a threat. They helped participate in what will eventually
be known as two of the greatest consumer rip-off conspiracies in modern history. The first (in cahoots with the airlines) being
that only the person named on a purchased ticket can fly on it. Before the TSA existed passengers sometimes
used to use only a first initial / last name as they purchased air travel - to gain more
flexibility than the airlines wanted their customers to have on a low priced
ticket. Whammo – paranoia and the TSA
stopped that, helping the airlines MUCH more than the traveling public. The second (in cahoots with airport vendors) will
be known as the great liquid prevention, where water bottles can’t pass the
security checkpoint, allowing airport vendors to charge $3-$5 on a single
bottle of water when one can get one or two cases for that price at any
supermarket or pharmacy.
Hassles
and rip-offs turned-out to be the least of the problems when a former TSA agent
pulled
proverbial shroud off how the TSA operates a couple of years ago. We learned such things as how the agency
fully well knew that their VERY expensive scanners didn’t work; that agents routinely
hassled people they didn’t like; that passengers were given nicknames based on
how they looked; that people were groped for no reason other than the whim of
the agents; and that the whole operation was a sham. No one was surprised. I’d like to say we collectively had the will
do something about it back then, but for the most part nothing changed other
than the cancelling of the contract to put in more of the useless scanners that
cost $150K each.
In
2011 the TSA finally announced something to actually help the flying public –
TSA Pre-Check. It was a fairly simple
concept – travelers would agree to full background checks in advance,
exchanging some of their privacy for a certification that they were obviously
not a terrorist. These pre-certified
travelers could pass through the security checkpoints with minimal screening,
speeding up their travel experience and freeing up agents to focus on the rest
of the non-cleared passengers. Only a US
Government agency could take a really good idea like that and destroy the
application of it as badly as the TSA has done.
The failures of this program have been well
documented many times by many people.
Basically, the TSA charged for a service with no guarantee they would ever
provide it. About a dozen things could
prevent a pre-certified, non-threat person from receiving the expedited
screening, including clerical errors on a ticket, TSA staffing levels, TSA
staff hours of availability (never printed nor announced anywhere) gates never
equipped to provide it, random checks, etc.
Then, to top that off, TSA agents shunted non-cleared passengers into
the minimal check lane whenever they felt it was necessary to balance the
waiting lines. That should have been
everyone’s first clue that the TSA was just a sham. If we say that all passengers need to be completely
inspected in case they are a threat, then say we have a program that will
pre-screen passengers so they don’t need that complete inspection, and then say it’s OK to send non
pre-screened passengers into the line where they won’t get a full inspection –
it doesn’t take a PhD in logic to see the critical flaws there. Clearly either nobody needed the complete
inspection in the first place or we’re letting a lot of unscreened threats into
the airport.
The
topper came this week, when it was revealed that the Department of Homeland
Security tested
a number of TSA security checkpoints and discovered that in 67 out of 70 cases
undercover agent were able to get weapons past security screeners. And we’re not talking nail-clippers and water
bottles here – we’re talking about mocked-up bombs. The acting
director of the TSA has already been “reassigned” because of the report,
but thinking a single individual is responsible for this abomination of an
agency is scapegoating at its worst.
This is a broken agency based on flawed logic and flawed execution, and
designed upon a flawed premise – that if enough people get hassled they will
buy into the illusion that the airports are secure.
What
we need now is the courage to admit the world is not flat – to admit the
reality that the TSA can’t be saved. We
need a new agency with a new mission and a new management that works off of the
simple concept that standards can be implemented and adhered-to at all
times. Pre-screened, background-checked
frequent travelers don’t need to be hassled at the airport - ever. Once their identity is confirmed they should walk
to their gate regardless of any variable equipment or staffing issues. If this worked 100% of the time then –
believe me – they would pay a premium for the service well over any amount
needed to do the whole agency’s job correctly in the first place. If we need coaching on how to implement a successful
risk based screening process just hire the Israeli government as advisors –
they’ve been doing it for years in a much worse climate and have never had an
issue. Heck, just hire the screeners we’ve
had all along in Hawaii that could find a banana buried twelve layers deep in
someone’s luggage – even we knew how to do it long before the TSA.
No
matter what we do, it is important not to just brush-over the latest revelation
as only needing a minor adjustment. We
all know better. It’s time to admit
that.
This article was written by David Danto and
contains solely his own, personal opinions.
All image and links provided above as reference under
prevailing fair use statutes.