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Civil liberties and Privacy

Behavior-based solution keeps airports secure, passengers' privacy intact

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November 24, 2010

Behavior-based solution keeps airports secure, passengers’ privacy intact – Homeland Security Newswire
Some of the critics of tight security screening at U.S. airports say that rather than subject all passengers to the same security screening, TSA should unabashedly use profiling in order to concentrate on those groups in the population — presumably Middle Eastern-looking men between the ages of 15 and 45 — who, statistically (and, we should add, empirically and historically) are more likely to carry explosives on board.

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TSA scanners and pat-downs: How "why" could have made all the difference

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November 24, 2010

By Kate Kennedy
Oh TSA. In the current aviation security environment, that sentiment almost speaks for itself. We’ve got screaming toddlers, screaming more than usual. We’ve got publically humiliated cancer survivors, forced to remove prosthetics in public. We’ve got a passenger stripping to his underwear to prove he is not a threat, only to get arrested anyway. All of this could have been avoided. The national uproar over the Transportation Security Administration’s (TSA) new pat-down procedures and Advanced Imagine Technology (AIT) machines is a perfect example of what happens when you leapfrog over the necessary step of building and launching a strategic communications plan.

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A little empathy for the TSA: They are being told to do the impossible

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November 24, 2010

Let’s take a moment and view this patdown controversy through they eyes of the TSA. Nobody wants to be profiled. Nobody wants to go through scanners. Nobody wants patdowns. Frankly, nobody wants the TSA at the airports at all. And yet we all want the TSA to project us while we fly. The public is going to have to have a serious discussion about finding a balance between privacy and security. The obvious answer is profiling, despite the campaigns of professional privacy lobbyists against it.

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TSA Chief John Pistole Addresses the Public about Patdowns

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November 24, 2010

TSA Administrator John Pistole puts a video up on YouTube explaining security procedures and, subtly, addresses the patdown controversy.

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Security versus Privacy (redux) – TSA Scanners and Pat-downs

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November 23, 2010

America is once again going through one of the periodic dust-ups between security and privacy that mark our society as a truly free one. It was barely a year ago when the now infamous “Underwear Bomber” tried to ignite his chemically enhanced boxers to bring down an airliner over Detroit. At that time, nearly all the pundits and the most vocal citizens railed that TSA, DHS, and the President himself had let the American people down, and we had to do better. Now that TSA has done what “The People” called for, they are again vilified. Come on, folks, let’s get real.

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GOP: DREAM act would allow criminal illegals to gain residency

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November 22, 2010

GOP: DREAM act would allow criminal illegals to gain residency – Homeland Security Newswire
President Barack Obama and Democratic legislators push to pass legislation this year that would allow certain illegal immigrants to become legal U.S. residents, but Republicans are pushing back with details about the DREAM Act that have gone largely unnoticed.

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House Members Challenge TSA Policy on Pat Downs, X-Ray Technology

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November 22, 2010

House Members Challenge TSA Policy on Pat Downs, X-Ray Technology – CQ Homeland Security
At a time when the Transportation Security Administration’s use of “enhanced pat downs” is coming under increasing public fire, the Democratic leadership of one House committee and GOP leadership of another are asking the agency to reconsider the practice.

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TSA chief: Screening may evolve

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November 22, 2010

TSA chief: Screening may evolve – Mike Allen – POLITICO.com Heeding a sudden furor, John Pistole, administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, said in a Sunday afternoon statement to POLITICO that airport screening procedures “will be adapted as conditions warrant,” in an effort to make them “as minimally invasive as possible, while still providing the […]

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Jindal blasts Obama administration, calls TSA searches excessive

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November 22, 2010

Jindal blasts Obama administration, calls TSA searches excessive – The Hill’s Briefing Room
Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) blasted the Obama administration’s handling suspected terrorist and called the Transportation Security Administration’s controversial search procedures excessive during NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.

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TSA Blogger Bob Watched Closely By Readers

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November 19, 2010

TSA Blogger Bob Watched Closely By Readers – NextGov
The Transportation Security Administration came under fire from Internet users on Nov. 17 for being too slow to moderate and post readers’ comments onto its blog, a sign the site is being read closely.

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