“There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things.”
That’s a quote from one of my favorite political books, which remains as fresh today as when it was written in 1513. The Prince, written by Italian, Niccolò Machiavelli, is political satire at its best, a collection of contradictions, speciousness and the morally absurd.
Machiavelli tells us that change is hard, and that is clearly in evidence at TSA. This week, Homeland Security made a bold decision, in behalf of TSA, to change the way screening is conducted for airplane passengers headed to the US from abroad. Almost at the same time, TSA pointed out how they are clinging to their dependence on technology in the US to discover terrorist’s tools, not the terrorists themselves.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced last week that TSA has revised the way air passengers coming to the US are screened. They’ve dropped the draconian measures adopted after the unsuccessful Christmas Day bombing attempt (stopped by alert passengers), and are replacing them with “real-time, threat-based intelligence” based screening.
TSA will give airlines, and nations from which flights come to the US, information, gleaned from intelligence sources about potential terrorists, to use for the screening process, instead of merely subjecting all air travelers from 14 predominantly Muslim countries to additional screening, plus some other passengers chosen randomly. The random screening will continue.
Secretary Napolitano said,
What we have done is changed the way we screen passengers who are coming internationally into the United States. It is a more intel or information-based way to screen. It’s a stronger way to determine whether passengers should go through secondary examination and not just primary examination.
Did you hear me cheering Secretary Napolitano’s words?
Of course, just a few moments later, I was reading the comments of TSA Acting Administrator Gale Rossides, who said of TSA’s new full body scanners,
It is absolutely a tremendous improvement of what we can detect at the checkpoints. It is an excellent piece of technology that will significantly improve our detection capabilities
Did you see me shaking my head? TSA is still looking at belongings and for things. They’re not primarily screening passengers.
As evidence of the machines’ capabilities, Ms. Rossides released five photos of drugs or suspected drugs that airport screeners found, and mentioned they found a knife hidden in the small of a passenger’s back in Richmond, Virginia, and a concealed razor blade on a passenger in Phoenix, Arizona, plus a few large bottles of lotion, prohibited as carry-on items.
All this, from the thousands of passengers, full body scanned each day for weeks and weeks. Let this be a lesson to those who are trying to sneak extra shampoo and hand lotion through security.
I’m not even going to discuss the insane “random” overuse of TSA explosives’ detection swabbing, causing “nitro” wielding seniors and gardeners to endure secondary inspection.
Detecting that knife hidden in the small of the passenger’s back, and the concealed razor blade, probably made passengers safer. You don’t hide those items because you’ll need them to slice an apple on the plane. Finding the drug packets was a good test for the scanner. Nevertheless, I sincerely doubt these passengers’ modus operandi would be used by a terrorist to bring down an airplane.
The dichotomy between Secretary Napolitano’s statement, and Acting Administrator Rossides’ is startling.
Secretary Napolitano states, concerning using intelligence, “It’s a stronger way to determine whether passengers should go through secondary examination…” while Administrator Rossides is extoling TSA’s persistence in finding terrorists by looking for banned belongings, not who’s flying.
In fact, Rossides knows, just like any interested person, how stupid the passengers were who tried to get the drugs, blades, and lotion past TSA on their bodies, while the same items would have been undetected in their body. Wrap those drugs or blades or even an explosive in “Cling Wrap” and put it in one’s posterior body cavity and voilà you’re past the scanner.
Secretary of State, Clinton has said,
The challenges of change are always hard. It is important that we begin to unpack those challenges that confront this nation and realize that we each have a role that requires us to change and become more responsible for shaping our own future.
Apparently Secretary Napoliano has begun to understand the meaning of words like Secretary Clinton’s, but has not successfully “challenged” TSA and its administration to understand the concept.
Using “real-time, threat-based intelligence” is a hallmark of the Israeli security model. It’s looking at passengers themselves to detect terrorists.
Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano has taken the first concrete step toward a US version of the Israeli security model. I urge her to go the rest of the way, and bring along TSA with her, to finally dump TSA’s bankrupt security theater, and make the flying public safer.
