> It seems like the Intelligencia is leveraging the TSA to collect as much information as possible on all US Citizens that use an airport while the TSA pretends to keep Americans safe.
What information does the TSA collect?
I can't think of anything the airlines don't already collect when you buy your ticket.
> So someone gets a notification he has landed in Miami - are they going to race to the airport, hop the fence, run to his plane and confront him?
Even if congress shutdown ADS-B receiving or encrypting it somehow, people would just get out the long range camera lenses and take pictures of the tail numbers as the planes land and report it on a web site.
> There are many other high-human density targets for terrorism (buses, trains, buildings, etc.) none of which require security checks. Why are airports / flying any different?
Because airplanes are giant 600mph flying bombs that can destroy large portions of major urban centers.
I am as dismayed by the disaster that is the TSA as you or anyone, but let's not totally lose sight of the plot here.
>Did he get on their soil though? Usually, you stay in the international zone when between flights
for example, when US agents capture people outside US and load them on a plane to bring in to US they actually formally arrest and charge them only when the plane enters US airspace.
> Having to be scanned to get on a plane seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to have to do.
Even if that scan does little or nothing to actually improve your safety [1]? If I'm going to have my privacy taken away, I want something better in return for it than security theater and wasted taxes.
> AFAIK, while you have to deal with the TSA, you don't have to deal with customs/immigration for domestic flights.
Not routinely, but Border Patrol claims special powers and jurisdiction in a shockingly large portion of the country. Anything a hundred miles from a border (or a lake that touches a border, placing places like Chicago in it). https://www.aclu.org/other/constitution-100-mile-border-zone
> Did you know that there's a US customs & immigration + TSA counter at Abu Dhabi?! [...] [a]nd the aircraft will fly as a domestic flight into the domestic terminal of your destination in the US.
This is also the case when you fly out of Shannon airport[0]. Incidentally, if you're arriving at LAX, there's another way to "bypass" immigration & customs, but it'll cost you dearly[1].
> why is profiling bad in context of airplane security?
Why is airplane security different than other contexts?
> 100% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people of X country (Xians), and 0% of airplane terrorist attacks are carried out by people from Y country
That's not the real world. There have been white terrorists, christian terrorists, etc. There have been muslim terrorists from most countries. Sometimes they don't look culturally muslim at a glance - maybe we should bring back Fumi-e?
> I say profile the heck out of Xians. Stop and frisk 100% of Xians and 0% of Yians.
As an islamic terrorist, you just gave me a fantastic idea about how to beat your security. I won't go into detail, don't want to make it too easy in case some other terror group also figures out how to look like a WASP.
> I never hear about TSA thwarting terrorist attempts. Either they keep it under wraps or nobody is trying because they perceive the security to be too high. Or they get caught before they try.
One more possibility: the TSA is horribly incompetent and have a low detection rate for true-positives.
Airlines really do not want an entire aircraft refused landing because of one person. All the pre-departure paperwork procedures exist to prevent this from happening. Airlines won't go along with "just board them anyways" schemes unless forced to do so under threat. If they do cooperate (or are forced to) it gives the destination country cause to void that airline's licenses without risk of reciprocal sanctions against its own airlines. Dragging commercial airlines into a political dispute like this won't work.
> I really wonder what kind of pen testing certain people might try on this
After getting spanked by DHS OIG in 2017ish, TSA has really stepped up their testing program. They have an internal DHS red team as well as hiring outside experts for regular testing. Additionally they have a program called index testing where they take screeners from one airport and train them to do covert testing and send them to other airports, to both increase the volume of regular testing as well as exploit insider knowledge.
Despite all the shit they catch, TSA has gotten really good at detecting some of the stuff that I would covertly travel with.
> How is this worse, privacy-wise, than taking naked images of you with mm-waves when you try and get on a plane?
We don't have mm-wave scanners scattered across the country. We do, however, have cameras. Everywhere. CBP is under the Department of Homeland Security [1]. It's not a stretch to take the models, hardware, experience and scans CBP builds and use them in the interior.
> an international flight is extremely unlikely to include only a single non-American. In such a situation, it's absurd to claim that CBP would board and arrest a single non-American.
<sigh> I was wondering if you could read my messages as written.
It is not absurd to suggest that someone on the no-fly list, or someone previously refused a visa, or someone with an arrest warrant in the US would be arrested in such a situation.
> Your Quora link doesn't support your point. It makes it clear that there are sane procedures in place (ideally, passengers never deplane) and that CBP doesn't board planes and arrest people for accidentally entering the US.
It shows that people involuntarily entering the States are processed by the CBP.
To repeat my last question, which you side-stepped:
you're saying they have the legal right to arrest people, and people will land in the States when they are banned from entry, but that it (a) has never happened, or (b) never will happen?
Only someone with an entirely closed mind would deny that it would never happen.
The fact that I can't find which article I read (years ago) is almost irrelevant. The laws permit them to do this, and no reasonable person would deny that the CBP would always sit idly by while someone on the no-fly list, or someone previously refused a visa, or someone with an arrest warrant in the US was in front of them.
> I'm going to stop engaging with your FUD.
Yeah, showing that the CBP (a) has the power to do something, and (b) has used that power... is FUD.
How would it do that using this plane?
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