The country's in the best of hands: TSA screening manual posted on web

I've learned that redaction lesson with .pdf's the hard way, too. You actually have to tell it to print with the markups.

 

Barack HUSSEIN Obama continues with his lapses in national security!!!1

 

Logic is not exactly your strong suit.

 

but sarcasm is

 

Sarcasm meter malfunctioning. Abort thread. Abort.

 

Well, once the Senate finally approves Obama's TSA chief nominee, we can clear out the Bush-era leftovers who presided over this breakdown.

 

The whole department of homeland security should be shut down and those who created it forced to pay back the citizenry out of their own pockets.

 

This would have never happened under Cheney's watch.

 

racist

 

i sincerely believe that tsa agents are the lowest form of person there is - i have never had a positive experience dealing with them - they are for the most part power-tripping losers who just get off on bossing others around. i hate them all so much.

ive had a few hassles, but ill relate my worst experience w/ them - i was returning from a trip to europe and landing in detroit before heading to austin. i had a 2 hour layover, which will come into play later - i guess b/c i was coming from amsterdam and i flew alone i fit the profile of someone trying to smuggle drugs in, so after waiting in the dang customs line for about 1 hour...(i was in one line for 15 minutes and all of a sudden the woman goes "this line is closed, you have to find another")...i go to some screener who asks me all these questions and sends me to the tsa inspection line - i had to wait there for probably another 30 minutes. i get there and its this girl and guy who couldnt have been more than 22-24 - they both get about a foot from my face and start asking me all kinds of ridiculous questions - "how many pairs of pants are you wearing?", "did you party?", "whats in your socks?", "did you party?", "why did you travel so light?", "did you party?" - the tsa boy was really aggressive in his questioning, like he was elliot stabler or something - kept asking if i "partied?". obviously they were asking about what i did in amsterdam, but i just said "i did not go to any parties" - they made me lift up my shirt and they patted me down.

they dumped the contents of my bags out on a table and proceeded to go through everything. they dumped out the plastic bag filled w/ my dirty clothes and went through all the pockets, they took all books and reading materials, travel guides, museum brochures and went through every page - that was all bad enough, but it was the way they went about it - totally disrespectful - ive never been treated like that by any kind of authority figure and to have these high school drop-out glorified mall cops treating me like this was infuriating - but the worst thing was the tsa girl took my digital camera and went through all 200 or so pics i took on my trip - around 175 pics in i had taken a pic of a bag of pot i bought in amsterdam called 'willie nelson', which had won the cannabis cup that year - im texan, i had to take a pic of the dutch willie-weed! so tsa-girl, with a look of smugness says to tsa-boy "yeah, he partied - look at this" - so they both start looking at my pictures - when they are done and all my crap from 2.5 weeks of travel is spread out all over the table they just walk away and call the next person over - no "thanks" or "you can go now" - just walked away and left me to clean up my stuff - at this point my plane was leaving in like 10 minutes and there was no way i wanted to spend the night in detroit - i had to haul ass just to barely make it on.

so basically, im in favor of anything that hurts or embarrasses the tsa.

 

Yeah.

 

interesting, jo mama, I have heard that Customs in Detroit is more strict...

but that confirms that there is no rhyme or reson to the system. I can get a lighter on board in one airport, and another will tell me to throw it away. I can bring liquids and gels on some flights, but not others.

I have taken the gamble and thrown in items from the list of "do not check" and it gets past the X-Ray screener.

I bring a case of harmonicas on board, and they search my entire bag.
I'm allowed to hold my boarding pass, but I can't bring a newspaper through the metal detector...


I hate TSA

 

You can bring your laptop on board, with batteries capable of making a rather fun explosion.

You can bring on a small bottle of (duty free!) bacardi 151 and a lighter - combine that with this lovely oxygen making device above very seat and kaboom.

You throw away "dangerous" liquids into a giant freekin trash can at the security gate. you'd think if they were truly dangerous, maybe they should be better disposed of?

Better yet, we all get to wait in huge lines to take off our freekin shoes for high-school dropouts to look at, waste time and tax dollars stepping through miserably inaccurate bomb-chemical detectors etc. Not once has it ever occurred to the genius's at TSA that all a terrorist has to do now is just walk to security and detonate to kill several plane loads of people. No ticket necessary.

What a goddam waste of money for an utterly illusory sense of security.

 

The best way to prevent terrorism is to have nobody wanting to terrorize you.

 

Woops! I did it again.

http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=9403793

[rquoter]Another TSA Security Goof? Details of Air Marshal Guns
Law Enforcement Officials Blast Release of Sig Sauer Pistol Info
By ANNA SCHECTER
Dec. 23, 2009 —

With the approval of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the Sig Sauer gun company has released specific information about the model of pistol that Federal Air Marshals will soon be carrying  data that both current and former Air Marshals say puts the Marshals and air passengers at risk.

"This is the last thing you want to give to anyone who wants to carry out an act of terror," said Frank Terreri, president of the Federal Air Marshal Agency, a trade group representing the Marshals. "Anyone who wants to take over a plane can be proactive and research that type of weapon, basically know everything about that weapon before going on the plane," said Terreri. "You really don't want to give that playbook out to your enemy."

John Adler, president of the National Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, which represents officers from more than 65 federal agencies, including the Federal Air Marshal Service, said the gun information was part of "an alarming pattern of disclosures" by the TSA that only serves to jeopardize the safety of the [Air Marshals]."

The disclosure comes on the heels of a massive security breach in which the TSA published online an improperly redacted manual that revealed sensitive information about air passenger screening.

The Sig Sauer company announced via press release late last week that it had signed a multimillion dollar contract to equip the Air Marshals with its .357 SIG caliber P250 Compact pistol. In the release, the company said the "innovative design concept of the P250 pistol is developed around a serialized modular frame and fire control assembly."

Bud Fini, vice president for marketing at Sig Sauer, defended the decision to publicize the deal. Fini said the release that he sent out was approved by the Air Marshals. "They changed it slightly, but there was no sensitive information in it," said Fini. "I don't think it's that big of a deal."

Weighing the Risk to the Air Mashals
Adler said that he disagrees: "The agency should make every effort to protect not only the anonymity of the Air Marshals but the equipment they use and their operational protocol."

A spokesperson for the TSA told ABC News that the release of the information did not create a risk for Marshals and travelers. "Publicizing the type of firearm a Federal Air Marshal uses does not provide a security advantage for those with ill intentions," said Greg Soule.

He also defended Sig Sauer's decision to publicize its contract. "The information in the Sig Sauer press release is based on publicly available information," said Soule. When asked where the information was publicly available prior to the press release, Soule said he meant that information about the Marshals' previous firearm had been published in the media, that the new contract was available via FOIA request to the public, and that Sig Sauer was not barred from disclosing data about the new firearm. A second TSA spokesperson was blunter. "It's not SSI," said Nelson Minerly, referring to the designation Sensitive Security Information. "I don't have to come up with excuses as to why it's not SSI." Much of the data revealed in the improperly redacted screening manual had been deemed SSI.

But Terreri, who became an Air Marshal after 9/11, said he believed an Air Marshal who revealed the same gun info as the Sig Sauer company would have been in serious trouble. "If a Federal Air Marshal had disclosed the same information, they would be fired for disclosure of SSI -- it would be a breach of our rules," Terreri said, adding that "there's no upside to releasing this information."

Critics say that identifying the specific gun carried by air marshals makes it easier to impersonate a Marshal and, more importantly, lets would-be attackers know what they're up against. They can learn the gun's capabilities, and how to operate it should they seize one in an ambush.

Terreri said that would-be attackers now can "determine if the weapon has any type of safety mechanism, how many rounds each magazine can hold, and the typical characteristics of the weapon." A former Air Marshal said the disclosure was a boon to potential hijackers. "Now they know which exact model to train with when they ambush a Marshal trying to stay alert in the most boring job in law enforcement." The TSA's Soule countered that Marshals are trained to retain their weapons in such situations. Said Soule, "The training and marksmanship [of marshals] is more sensitive information than the type of gun that they have." The improperly redacted Standard Operating Procedures screening manual that the TSA posted contained closely guarded secrets like special rules for diplomats and CIA and law enforcement officers. The 93-page document shows sample CIA, Congressional and law enforcement credentials that experts say would make it easy for terrorists to duplicate.

Damaging Information Leaked, Officials Said
The improperly redacted areas indicate that only 20 percent of checked bags are to be hand searched for explosives and reveal in detail the limitations of X-ray screening machines.

But officials say the most damaging information in the unredacted manual is what size electrical wire can go undetected by airport screening machines -- valuable information for a bomb maker.

TSA Acting Administrator Gale Rossides told Congress last week that the TSA manual posted online was outdated and therefore posed no security threat to holiday travelers. [/rquoter]

Actually, I don't see the problem here.

Terrorists could disguise themselves as Air Marshals? I would think forging the IDs and sounding credible would be bigger hurdles than picking the right gun. Chances are, most people wouldn't notice the type of gun you're carrying (people aren't supposed to see it at all, right?).

Terrorists would know how to operate the gun if they commandeered one? One, Air Marshals aren't supposed to lose them. Two, pistols aren't so different one from another; if they get the gun, they will probably know how to use it well enough.

 

Harmonicas must look like bombs, because the same thing happened to me. When it was over the guy said, "I didn't know people still played these things."

 

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to rhadamanthus again.