Dec. 21, 2008
Expert: TSA Screening Is Security Theater
TSA Head Disputes Claim, Tells 60 Minutes Measures Are Necessary Because "This Is A War"
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Screening The TSA
The Transportation Security Administration says passenger checkpoints are making flights safer, but a security adviser says those measures are "security theater." Lesley Stahl reports.
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Since 9/11, $40 billion has been spent to beef up airport security, with most of it going to hire 50,000 screeners who enforce rules often considered annoying and arbitrary.
Travelers feel so hassled by the screeners that their bosses at TSA, the Transportation Security Administration, have launched an image makeover and a public relations campaign to convince the public that there's a good reason for the inconveniences and indignities.
Read more about the TSA's high-tech full body scanning program, which has some privacy advocates crying foul.
Go to a checkpoint and you'll find passengers bellyaching about the undressing, the unbuckling, and the taking off of their shoes - which they don't have to do in Europe or even Israel, where airline security is especially tight.
There's a lot of stress, and griping about having to pack their little liquids into baggies. They resent that each and every traveler is treated like a possible terrorist, even little old ladies.
When correspondent Lesley Stahl asked Kip Hawley, the outgoing head of TSA, if all this is really necessary, he wanted us to know that the terrorist threat has not gone away.
"This is war. These people are trying to kill us. They got on the planes in September 11th, 2001, killed 3,000 people. And they will do it again as many times as they can," Hawley said.
"There's been a lot of criticism about people who clearly are not terrorists. The 90-year-old little old lady. …My mother, in fact…was patted down, and pulled aside. It doesn't make any sense. It's not common sense," Stahl remarked.
"You can't say to al Qaeda, 'If you give us somebody who looks like they're 90 years old or nine months old, you're going to get a free pass.' Because I guarantee you, they are watching. They notice it. And that's where they'll come," Hawley warned.
It's on the TSA's "watch floor" that analysts track thousands of flights, especially when there is a passenger on board that TSA suspects has links to terrorist groups.
At the time of Stahl's visit, Hawley said the analysts were tracking two such individuals in the air, fully aware which aircraft they were traveling on. "And we know what they were carrying with them. We know the whole scoop. Do they know? Maybe not," Hawley said. "And I think the public doesn't realize that this is for real. And that this happens every day."
But the TSA has a record of tracking and stopping innocent passengers, which has contributed to the agency's overall credibility problem. In focus groups, travelers questioned the TSA's ability to keep us safe and also complained about "pointless" security measures and rude and incompetent screeners.
"We're not out there to be fake security guards," said Ladonta Edwards, who like Gary Wilkes works at a Washington D.C. area airport.
They say screeners feel the public's hostility every day. Wilkes said he had never had anybody throw something specifically at him, but has seen objects thrown.
Passengers can be so surly, screeners feel abused and frazzled.
The TSA is sending every one of its 50,000 screeners back for retraining in how to treat the flying public. But from what 60 Minutes heard about how the public treats them, it's no wonder these guys need anger management.
"You hear, 'Well, I have a flight to catch. Hurry up. Do this, do that.' You know, you're taking your time to be nice and courteous to them, because that's your job, and they don't appreciate it," one screener told Stahl.
"Sometimes it can be so paralyzing, you can't do anything. You just want to bury your head somewhere," another said.
"The perception is we yell back. We scream. We get in combative mode. We're ready to fight," Ladonta Edwards commented.
"You're human!" Stahl pointed out.
"What do we do to change that perception?" Edwards asked.
"We're teaching people not to react to their emotions. Actually smile, still be pleasant, and send your positive emotions to that individual," Gary Wilkes added.
The price tag for all this retraining is $35 million. Then there are the new police-style uniforms to give the screeners a more authoritative look. It's all meant to help screeners deal with the challenges of the job.
"What's the most bizarre thing that you've seen someone put in their carry on and go through the screener?" Stahl asked.
"I can tell you the most bizarre [thing] that has gone through the x-ray machine. Passengers that have actually by mistake sent pets through and children, by accident," Wilkes said. "We…actually had to put signs on the machine….'Don't put your children through the x-ray machines.'"
"Infants in the carriers, they just take the whole carrier in, send it through," Edwards added.
Produced by Karen Sughrue
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See all 219 CommentsExpert: TSA Screening Is Security Theater
TSA Head Disputes Claim, Tells 60 Minutes Measures Are Necessary Because "This Is A War"
The war is in your head. It''s just another way to control the masses, and lets everyone know who''s in charge. And it gets everyone conditioned to government involvement.
what''s the success rate ... and the misread rate for this process? what''s that ... they have absolutely no idea?
As a part time traveler (right now in the middle east), never have I seen people treated with such disrespect as in the US. It''s like cattle going to slaughter and the TSA keeps making things more constrictive for travel.
We have the marshalls aboard again, let''s do away with those TSA jobs and save some tax dollars....
________________
No kiding! I fly often and he is just now telling us what I have observed over the past two or three years. If you fly; next time you are screened just ask yourself, "Do I feel safer now?"
I trust myself more than those guys & gals in the maroon sweater.
To those of you who would criticize TSA because it inconveniences you: your convenience is not a measure of their efficacy.
This is CBS putting on "controversy theater."
Since 2004 I have traveled to Jamaica and Mexico twice. All of us tourists were treated like criminals in our own country every time. In Mexico and Jamaica it was totally different. We were treated with respect. In Mexico we did not have to take our shoes off. This is due in part to cultural differences. The Mexicans believe it is rude, bad manners, disrespectful, to ask a stranger to remove his/her shoes.
Oh yeah, even the airline crew will tell you that changing boarding gates at the last minute does not "stop terrorism." It just causes delays, makes people more mad than they already were, and their luggage ends up somewhere else.
As a white middle aged American with a valid passport, yes, I actually DO expect to be treated much better than Abdul and his buddies, traveling without luggage and a fake visa.
There will be problems as long as the TSA Storm Troopers treat their fellow Americans like criminals. They are killing the traveling industry.
If you think the TSA is bad you should experience Immigration. What a joke. I don''t travel but once a year to Europe and on my return, it is routine that I see them harassing people who do not even speak English and treating them like criminals. The TSA is great compared to these morons.
Comparing the TSA to security in the UK and Germany, there is little difference.
Arab looking guy, next young white guy, next Arab looking guy, Arab looking woman all got on the plane.
#5 was an old white lady about 80 years old. They pulled her aside for a surprise inspection. I was in line watching people making their way through a maze counting the number of people they were pulling aside. It was every 5 people regardless of their ethnicity or general looks.
Kip Hawley is a good man with a near-impossible task.
TSA: Too Stupid for Arby''s
True story: TSA agent leafing through an blue haired, old ladies PHOTO ALBUM! and everything else in her carryon.... now THAT has to make us ALL feel more secure.... RIGHT? And it has and IS costing us HOW MUCH???
Still, I''ll take the lines and checks any day over having a terrorist on my plane.
You buried the lead....
My thoughts are if a terrorist was to blow up the dam all he would have to do is go into the park behind the dam and go scuba diving (in the scuba section of the park - next to the dam) with a bomb. I doubt there is an engineer in all the world that would agree the dam could be blown from the top. Still years later we tax payers cannot walk on the dam.
okierebel
TSA security is worse than a fake show but it''s offering a sure target. I live in Atlanta and any brainless terrorist should show up on Mondays morning blowing up the endless line to go throught "security" (much more people than a single airplance can carry!!). My point is that if the mission is to offer security, it''s a bluff (we are offering a sure target with time and position!!).
The only benefit of the TSA is a bunch of jobs in a difficult moment. It''s a social program and I don''t have anything agaist that but please don''t call it security.
However, I also am on the side of previous post ''miglhe;'' The big elephant in the room that wasn''t mentioned by the press or our boss is that we are not allowed to do, in my opinion, more effective security screening due to political correctness in this country; basically profiling the terrorist and common security sense. Thus we have to put 90 yr olds thru pat downs in wheel chairs and make everyone, even in sandals, take their shoes off. The government, and therefore the liberal policies of not offending any one group, and therefore offending everyone, is only as good as the public votes for, and the liberal press advocates for.
We have entrusted our national security to people who have no other interests than their own profit, and we continue to be surprised by the results.
The bozos at Whackethut lost two laptops containing SSI numbers while under contract for the city of Nashville. These were eventually recovered, not by Whackenhut, the question remains.
They are still entrusted with many "security" contracts, and have NOT been held accountable for this lapse.
For whom does The Market work?
NOT us!
We have entrusted our national security to people who have no other interests than their own profit, and we continue to be surprised by the results.
The bozos at Whackethut lost two laptops containing SSI numbers while under contract for the city of Nashville. These were eventually recovered, not by Whackenhut, the question remains.
They are still entrusted with many "security" contracts, and have NOT been held accountable for this lapse.
For whom does The Market work?
NOT us!
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