Bruce Schneier on terror attacks post 9/11

Your reading comprehension skills really suck. Please point to where I stated that "pizza ads are the primary source for recruitment" or words to that effect.

 

Last evening I watched Craig Fugate, head of FEMA, speak from the Rose Garden at the White House on the impacts of Irene. He seems to understand something that perhaps DHS and TSA don't understand:

Note that neither the President nor Nappy mentioned anything about working for the people.

 

Reading comprehension is a marketable skill, which would presumably lead to non-TSA employment unless the applicant is really looking forward to the opportunities to steal things from passengers, grope children, and sniff granny's panties.

 

Do you think that Obama and Napolitano believe they're working for the people?

 

"It's definitely too important to be entrusted to a collective of dimwits hired from ads on pizza boxes supported by thieves and child molesters - as the TSA does."

This is the comment that prompted this line of discussion. If you're position is different, then say so. Otherwise, please share how many TSOs you truly believe applied as a result of these ads.

 

Irrelevant. It's obvious that the TSA believes that the current workforce is equivalent to what they'll get from hiring that way.

 

This is a perfect example of the hubris of the TSA. There is no reason whatsoever that a TSA employee should not provide some form of identification in the course of their job.

 

I hope you took the return card to your local postmaster to see if that is a federal violation of US Postal Laws. You may also have to go to the Postmaster General's Office to get a definitive answer or inquire about filing a complaint. Wishful thinking would put it in some sort of mail tampering category....
http://www.ehow.com/how_5040363_file-complaint-postmaster-general.html
"The U.S. postmaster general is the chief executive of the U.S. Postal Service. The postmaster general's duties include oversight of consumer complaints and investigations of mail fraud in its many forms."

 

How many pizza boxes did TSA buy?

 

Don't know and don't care. I'm not the one who is trying to perpetuate the belief that it's a significant number. This same belief is repeated in other threads in some attempt to give it validity. Makes me question the intelligence of those who post it with such conviction, but I'll play nice and respect that as an opposing opinion.

 

I went through a couple of airports recently and will be making the same trip again later this month.

I noticed a very young group of people at one airport. To young to have completed a tour in the military. To young to have college behind them.

I will say that the checkpoint was orderly and for the most part seemed to well run, except that I was placed in a manner I could not see my belongings while waiting for the screener to give me a rub down and that person did not provide any advisements other than asking if I had any sensitive areas.

 

That is your BEST warning of what's to come!

 

More of TSA's above the law attitude.

That 'proof of receipt' can be an important legal document. The sticker wasn't to protect the individual employee, that sticker was an attempt to evade accountability. That signed piece of paper may be all the proof you have that the document was received by TSA.

 

Bart, you point out that Pistole has a counter-terrorism background that is an asset to the job.

The problem I have with that is that most of TSA's face (and grope) time is with innocent pax.

In a perfect world, LEs treat everyone as though innocent until proven guilty, ie, with courtesy and respect for the pax's rights.

Pistole comes from a mindset that constantly sees everyone as a potential terrorist, ie guilty until proven otherwise, and then still subject to eternal sanctions because if the individual was truly innocent, he/she would never have come up on the radar.

As we have seen in the last decade (although it was true before), that mindset has no regard for truth, respect or Constitutional rights.

The agency continues to be completely lacking in leadership that acknowledges that the vast majority of TSOs will never encounter a terrorist at the checkpoint. And some who do will never know it, because the terrorist will be in 'safe travel' mode, not on a mission.

Acknowledging this and treating pax at the checkpoint accordingly would have made all the difference in the world in this agency. We might truly have had a 'partnership' between the travelling public and the people allegedly tasked with protecting their safety.

Anything beyond hardened cockpit doors and pax/crew education (to fight back) is all a joke. It has nothing to do with security and everything to do with being an all-encompassing LE dragnet that assumes everyone approaching the checkpoint is guilty of something. It has everything to do with trying to circumvent Constitutional freedoms in a single-minded pursuit of 'the big catch' that will make both one's government career and post-government private industry fortune.

 

In their feeble attempts at the big catch they seem to miss that the 'big catch' was never what their agency was tasked for in the first place. In their greedy haste they've lost sight of their primary mission.

 

I'm not entirely certain that the general public or any airport security screeners have ever been told what the TSA's primary mission really is.

Evidence suggests that their primary mission and what we've been told do not align very well.

 

The proof is looking you in the face. He ordered the strip searches and invasive groin and breast and butt rubs that have been done since October of last year. Nobody else has dared to go where this unmitigated *sshole has gone, and pushed the administrative search doctrine to the where it is simply carte blanche. Having gone to law school and passed the bar exam does not mean that you no longer have the potential to lie, cheat, steal, and hurt people. You are saying that because he went to law school he couldn't possibly violate the Constitution. Just like Richard Nixon, another noteworthy lawyer who never did anything to harm the Constitution.
This is pure nonsense.

 

It's like saying that a TSA employee has finished two weeks of training and passed a background check, so there's no possible way they could be a thief, rapist, child porn producer, or other type of criminal.

 

I agree. Every year I am legally obliged to inform my local School Superintendent of my intent to home school. I am also legally obliged to deliver my children's previous year's standardized test scores to the same. Each year I fulfill this obligation by mailing certified copies by registered, certified mail, with a return proof of receipt requested.

It is fairly common for school superintendents to terrorized homeschool families by claiming not to be in receipt of the documents we're required by law to send them. It's happened to me, but I had the signed proof of receipt. If I had not been advised by the Home School Legal Defense Association on how to get proof of receipt of legal documents via the U.S. Mail, I would have been in serious trouble.

I cannot understand how it can be true that TSA employees are not obliged by law to identify themselves. It seems to me that this is a deliberate attempt to avoid accountability, as is the refusal to sign receipt for mail. In the latter case, I think it is the postal employee who has been derelict in his/her duties. They are required to get that signature. I've never seen a stamp used in such a situation, much less a sticker. That sticker took time to affix, arguably more time than a signature.

 

In my case, it appears that DHS has a mail room into which the mail is directly delivered.

The first two letters I sent were sent to:

601 South 12th Street
Arlington, VA 22202-4220

On their instruction I sent a form they had requested back to this address:

601 South 12th Street
Arlington, VA 20598-6020

Note the only change is the ZIP code. Because my mom recently retired from the Post Office, I happen to know that in most cases larger federal agencies have their own ZIP codes and the Post Office simply delivers based on it.When I plug in confirmation codes for Certified Mail into usps.com it comes back as "Arlington, VA". The second address gives you "DHS, VA".

The efficiency of the Post Office (don't laugh!) shows explicitly what Elizabeth is saying. The DHS holds itself unaccountable, even to other federal agencies. The first address is processed through normal postal channels, and the Post Office will have them sign the document. The second address appears to be dumped into DHS's own mailroom where, like with everything else they do, they do as they please.