Stop looking for false positives.
I took a flight back from LAX to SFO last week. I had a small carry-on bag with three days' clothing and some toiletries, including a tube of hair gel. I wasn't sure whether the bottle was above or below the limit, so I figured I'd just put it through the machine to see what happens.
Apparently they didn't like it, and they started searching my bag. It was a backpack with a lot of internal pockets and the bottle was in one of the middle pocket-inside-pockets - the tube was easy to see on the x-ray but hard to locate. It took the TSA agent about three or four minutes of rooting around and two more trips through the machine as his co-workers started giving him funny looks. When he finally found the tube of hair gel he held it up for everyone to see, beaming in triumph. I've never seen someone so happy about a false positive.
The problem with profiling is the same whether it's applied to people or objects. Even if we say that most terrorists are Arabs, most Arabs are not terrorists. Even if we say that most bombs look like hair gel and shampoo, most hair gel and shampoo are not bombs. The TSA crew at LAX do not understand this, which is why they couldn't find 75% of the actual bombs sent through their station. They've been told to look for shoes, laptops, and hair gel and as a result they spend nearly all their time looking for things which are not threats. You don't get good at your job and you don't end up doing a good job if you're not concentrating on doing the part of your job that actually matters.
Unfortunately, there is a reason why this happened. I know a guy who is a senior executive in the FAA. He described a meeting shortly after September 11 in which security officials from El Al were briefing them on their security procedures. Many of the measures including some of the most effective measures were rejected because the measures weren't obvious. Directly after 9/11 there was a lot of nervousness about civilian air travel, the public needed to be assured that the FAA was Doing Something. The FAA could use better low-profile security, but nobody would know the FAA was using better security. The shoe checking, the hair gel, the nail clippers - these measures are not designed to catch terrorists. They are designed to reassure you, the traveling public, that the TSA is Doing Something. There was a meeting where they decided this. And one of the reasons why they decided this is because they knew that sooner or later there would be another incident. When it happens they don't want anyone to say that they could have done something more. They want to be able to say "We're already taking your shoes and nail clippers - you want us to get even more invasive, or do you want to agree that we're doing our jobs?" They're covering their ass by pre-framing the issue.
No you're not doing your job, and no the answer to doing it better isn't getting more invasive. Stop looking for false positives. Start looking for actual threats.
Apparently they didn't like it, and they started searching my bag. It was a backpack with a lot of internal pockets and the bottle was in one of the middle pocket-inside-pockets - the tube was easy to see on the x-ray but hard to locate. It took the TSA agent about three or four minutes of rooting around and two more trips through the machine as his co-workers started giving him funny looks. When he finally found the tube of hair gel he held it up for everyone to see, beaming in triumph. I've never seen someone so happy about a false positive.
The problem with profiling is the same whether it's applied to people or objects. Even if we say that most terrorists are Arabs, most Arabs are not terrorists. Even if we say that most bombs look like hair gel and shampoo, most hair gel and shampoo are not bombs. The TSA crew at LAX do not understand this, which is why they couldn't find 75% of the actual bombs sent through their station. They've been told to look for shoes, laptops, and hair gel and as a result they spend nearly all their time looking for things which are not threats. You don't get good at your job and you don't end up doing a good job if you're not concentrating on doing the part of your job that actually matters.
Unfortunately, there is a reason why this happened. I know a guy who is a senior executive in the FAA. He described a meeting shortly after September 11 in which security officials from El Al were briefing them on their security procedures. Many of the measures including some of the most effective measures were rejected because the measures weren't obvious. Directly after 9/11 there was a lot of nervousness about civilian air travel, the public needed to be assured that the FAA was Doing Something. The FAA could use better low-profile security, but nobody would know the FAA was using better security. The shoe checking, the hair gel, the nail clippers - these measures are not designed to catch terrorists. They are designed to reassure you, the traveling public, that the TSA is Doing Something. There was a meeting where they decided this. And one of the reasons why they decided this is because they knew that sooner or later there would be another incident. When it happens they don't want anyone to say that they could have done something more. They want to be able to say "We're already taking your shoes and nail clippers - you want us to get even more invasive, or do you want to agree that we're doing our jobs?" They're covering their ass by pre-framing the issue.
No you're not doing your job, and no the answer to doing it better isn't getting more invasive. Stop looking for false positives. Start looking for actual threats.