Security, and ride home from airport

[danaeris]

The airline selected me for special screening. I had to take my shoes off, get wanded and patted down, and they went through my things. Sadly, I had no sex toys this time to scandalize them. :(

I can't help but wonder how they chose me. Was it because I bought through priceline? That my given name is often an islamic name? Or is there some list out there of progressives who Could Be Terrorists that I've somehow made it onto? Or was it random?

My flight comes in Monday evening around 9:30 p.m. Anyone feel a burning desire to pick me up from the airport?

This place is weird. Yet cool. Yet weird. The architecture is neat but not.

Being around MIT folks again is also weird. Especially since a large number of the folks here are people who I never knew very well. But. I'm having fun.

The birthday girl tried to lose $2 in the Casino and won $50. I think she has since lost $20 of it, but that's still amusing.

The suite we're in is HUGE. We've got ~15 people, with three toilets, two showers, four sinks... two queen sized beds, three full-sized couches, several almost-full sized couches (bigger than love seats). For Friday and Saturday the hotel room is going to come to less than $100 each.

Comments

[nathanjw]

I got extra-bonus screening on one of my recent trips. It was either entirely random or made more likely by the fact that I bought the ticket a mere 36 hours in advance. The fact that they bothered to screen a young Anglo-named white guy business traveler reassures me that it's not *all* about inappropriate profiling.

re: young Anglo-named white guy business traveler

[etherial.livejournal.com]

sounds like inappropriate profiling to me.

Re: young Anglo-named white guy business traveler

[nathanjw]

Please elaborate. Do you think I'm "obviously" not a risk based on my apperance? Hatred and suicidal/homicidal lunacy are not the sole province of brown people.

Only random screening is useful. Any non-random bias can be exploited by the next attacker, who will most likely come from an unexpected direction.

[auros]

Seriously. People seem to have forgotten that prior to 9/11, the most effective terror attack had been committed by a white boy -- Tim McVeigh.

[stollman.livejournal.com]

There's no way to find out why you were selected.

The TSA regulations define "sensitive security information" as, among other things, "[a]ny approved, accepted, or standard security program...and any comments, instructions, or implementing guidance pertaining thereto," as well as "[a]ny selection criteria used in any security screening process, including for persons, baggage, or cargo." 49 C.F.R. section 1520.7(a) & (c).

The regulations further provide that air carriers, among others (including the airlines’ attorneys), "must restrict disclosure of access to sensitive security information... to persons with a need to know and must refer requests by other persons for such information to TSA or the applicable DOT administration." 49 C.F.R. section 1520(a). As for who is a person with "a need to know," the regulations provide that "[f]or some specific sensitive security information, the Administrator may make a finding that only specific persons or classes of persons have a need to know." Otherwise, a person has a need to know sensitive security information in certain identified situations, including when the person needs the information to carry out security duties or be trained in such duties, or to supervise people carrying out such duties. 49 C.F.R. section 1520.5(b), section 1520.5(b)(1), (2), & (3).

There is definitely a list of suspected terrorist sorts, because I was on the list for years. Absolutely every single flight I've been on (since November 2001) I've been a "selectee" (at least two dozen trips in a row), I was shocked when I was not selected when I went to Seattle in August 2004 (although I still had to do the special screening because I didn't have ID with me) and a trip I made just yesterday confirmed that I'm no longer on the list. I don't know what happened to reassure the computers that I'm not a threat, but there it is.

On the other hand, you probably aren't on that list. They also select people at random some times, and when you buy your ticket with cash, or too close to the time of the flight, or one-way trips, etc.

[auros]

Tim Noah had an article a while back about the drawbacks of the current screening system. Personally, I think the biggest problem is the lack of accountability in the process of putting people on or getting them off the list. No one department or person is responsible for that, and this makes it easy for various arms of the gov't to target activists, with no way for the activists to identify who did it, and a cumbersome bureaucratic process to deal with if they want to get off. (This, of course, is why I voted against the DNA database thin on the CA ballot this year. Sadly, it passed. *sigh*)