The Debatable Land

Behind the Security Theatre Curtain

Airport security? A complete joke. This has been apparent for some time, of course, but all the "security theatre" nonsense at least makes it seem as though something is being done. And that is the important thing, isn't it? The Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg has a good piece demonstrating just how pointless the mania for "security" is. No chance of a return to sanity of course. That would mean the terrorists are winning.

Anyway, Goldberg successfully passes through the security checkpoints using a fake boarding pass:

We were in the clear. But what did we prove?

“We proved that the ID triangle is hopeless,” Schneier said.

The ID triangle: before a passenger boards a commercial flight, he interacts with his airline or the government three times—when he purchases his ticket; when he passes through airport security; and finally at the gate, when he presents his boarding pass to an airline agent. It is at the first point of contact, when the ticket is purchased, that a passenger’s name is checked against the government’s no-fly list. It is not checked again, and for this reason, Schnei­er argued, the process is merely another form of security theater.

“The goal is to make sure that this ID triangle represents one person,” he explained. “Here’s how you get around it. Let’s assume you’re a terrorist and you believe your name is on the watch list.” It’s easy for a terrorist to check whether the government has cottoned on to his existence, Schnei­er said; he simply has to submit his name online to the new, privately run CLEAR program, which is meant to fast-pass approved travelers through security. If the terrorist is rejected, then he knows he’s on the watch list.

To slip through the only check against the no-fly list, the terrorist uses a stolen credit card to buy a ticket under a fake name. “Then you print a fake boarding pass with your real name on it and go to the airport. You give your real ID, and the fake boarding pass with your real name on it, to security. They’re checking the documents against each other. They’re not checking your name against the no-fly list—that was done on the airline’s computers. Once you’re through security, you rip up the fake boarding pass, and use the real boarding pass that has the name from the stolen credit card. Then you board the plane, because they’re not checking your name against your ID at boarding.”

What if you don’t know how to steal a credit card?

“Then you’re a stupid terrorist and the government will catch you,” he said.

What if you don’t know how to download a PDF of an actual boarding pass and alter it on a home computer?

“Then you’re a stupid terrorist and the government will catch you.”

I couldn’t believe that what Schneier was saying was true—in the national debate over the no-fly list, it is seldom, if ever, mentioned that the no-fly list doesn’t work. “It’s true,” he said.

Whose interests are served by the security-mania? Not the public's for sure. The only winners are bureaucrats and, in some sense, the terrorists themselves. Clearly this means it's an indispensable sham.

Where's Scotland?

Notice what's missing from this Guardian scoop?

A third runway at Heathrow airport would be scrapped by a Tory government that would instead build a £20bn TGV-style high speed rail link between London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds.

In one of David Cameron's boldest moves on the environment, the party will today unveil plans to cut 66,000 flights a year from Heathrow by tempting passengers on to the first new rail line north of London in more than a century.

Well, working on the dubious presumption that this track will actually be built (let alone that it will be delivered on time and on budget), you'll notice that these new lines don't run as far as Glasgow and Edinburgh. Perhaps there's a sound economic case for restricting high-speed rail to the English midlands and Yorkshire and Lancashire. But politically, you'd have thought the Conservatives - still, supposedly, a Unionist party - would have seen the upside to including the great frozen north in their plans.

And it's not as though you couldn't have better transport links to the south. At the moment it takes, if you're lucky, 4 hours and 20 minutes to travel 394 miles from Edinburgh to London by train. By contrast, the 307 miles between Paris and London can be completed in as little as 2 hours 15 minutes, thanks to the high-speed Eurostar service.

The Glamour of the Skies...

For the love of god... When will these clowns learn that the only way to ensure total security is to prevent people from getting on the plane in the first place?

If you don't want to lose your spare lithium batteries for your camera, notebook or cell phone, you might want to pack carefully for your next flight.

New rules from the Transportation and Security Administration that take effect on January 1 ban travelers from carrying loose lithium batteries in checked baggage. Passengers are allowed to pack two spare batteries in their carry-on bag, as long as they're in clear plastic baggies.

Fortunately, you don't have to worry about the batteries that are already installed in the devices you're bringing. The TSA has said it's safe to check in items like a laptop or iPhone that already have the batteries in place.

The agency said that loose lithium batteries not installed in devices pose a fire risk to passenger planes.

Madness. And, yes, especially head-in-hands mad since I'm getting on a plane to Edinburgh this evening.

First they came for Winnie the Pooh, and I said nothing...

The Blasphemy of Paddington Bear: here

UPDATE: I forgot to ask - is Paddington Bear known at all, let alone famous, in the United States? If not then you've all had deprived upbringings, my friends.

But at least the trains ran on time...

Megan on the horrors of travelling in the United States these days:

You know, I never really understood why making the trains run on time was so important for Mussolini, but after last week, I can understand how that became one of fascism's main selling points.

She kids, of course. I've always thought, however, that improvements to the reliability of the Italian train service improved after Mussolini came to power were as much due to changes in timetabling as actual efficiency gains. In other words, by officially giving the trains more time to reach their destination they had a better chance of actually getting there on time even if the journey took as long as it did in the bad old days of a useless, inefficient service*. Psychologically this is doubtless a sound policy - reducing passenger frustration - but it also seems appropriate that even Mussolini's signature "achievement" was, like the rest of his regime, ridiculous and fraudulent.

Still, it's a tactic that has been copied by the airlines these days. I'm pretty certain that 15 years ago the Edinburgh to London shuttle was timetabled at a zippy 50-55 minutes or so. No longer: the congestion at Heathrow has, I think, pushed the official flight-time out to 75 or 80 minutes  - which means that occasionally a flight can actually be said to have landed "early"...

*Now that I type this, mind you, I find myself unable to recall when or how I first came across this notion of Mussolini's timetabling creativity. Is it even true? I would very much like it to be accurate - heck, it should be true - but a cursory googling is not especially helpful. Can anyone help?