new security measures by TSA

Some things just aren't easily quantifiable.

There's no evidence that locking your door at night has prevented you from having your house robbed, either.

 

That's like going to sleep with the ground clear and then waking up the next morning with it covered with snow. And then arguing that it didn't snow because you didn't see it.

Gimme a fucking break.

 

How's this then?

Eight years ago, Richard Reid tried to blow up a plane with a shoe bomb. Since then, we've been taking our shoes off at the airport.

This week, the Nigerian nutjob tried to blow up a plane using the exact same damn explosives.

The conclusions one can draw include: (a) any additional security measures were useless and (b) no matter what we do, we can't reduce the threat level to zero.

If two flights a decade -- neither of which actually suffered any damage, incidentally -- is too high a risk, then we have to reconsider air travel. Or, we can just accept that the risk is infinitesimal, but greater than zero, and largely get on with our lives.

Those are the real choices. Strip-searching everyone at the security line isn't a choice. Forcing everyone to sit on their hands for the duration of the flight isn't a choice. And strip-searching every Muslim male isn't a choice either -- if for no other reason than it will cause those factions to begin recruiting people who don't fit the profile.

Terrorists want two things: Us dead, and us afraid. One is easier to accomplish than the other. If a lone Nigerian burning his own legs on a plane is enough to accomplish one of their primary objectives, then we're rolling over like an overfed housecat.

 

(b) is correct. (a) is incorrect (or unknowable).

If the chances of a terrorist bringing down a plane were 1:1,000,000 10 years ago, then perhaps the first additional security measures increased the odds to 1:5,000,000, and perhaps the second measures will reduce it to 1:10,000,000.

Just because Reid did no damage doesn't mean that 100 future shoe bombers haven't been stopped from even attempting it.

 

But to look at it from a terrorist's perspective, they have to figure that anything they come up with is only going to be usable once. Whether Reid was successful or not, that was probably going to be the only shoe bomb, because they knew we'd start looking.

So while we're busy hopping around in our socks at the security gate, they're busy figuring out the next thing.

But that's the trouble with any effective security, I suppose. If it works, then people start figuring it's not really necessary after all. The flip side of that flip side, though, is that you have to have some boundary for security measures, and you're taking some level of risk at any given boundary point. There's always an unknown.

 

It would help if they didn't board before all the other passengers. It's always obvious who the FAM is when you're one of the first people on the plane and the big guy sitting in the aisle seat in first class is already comfortably seated.

 

Odds of being on a plane which is the subject of a terrorist incident (based on the past decade): 1 in 10,408,947.
Odds of being struck by lightning: 1 in 500,000.

To quote Nate Silver: "This means that you could board 20 flights per year and still be less likely to be the subject of an attempted terrorist attack than to be struck by lightning."

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/12/odds-of-airborne-terror.html

Odds that the TSA is overreacting yet again: 1 in 1.

 

I don't think you can point to any one security measure and say "this reduces the odds of attack by 0.XX%."

The only thing that prevents an attack is people noticing something unusual, whatever it may be, and stopping it. Security measures aren't so much effective because they keep people from bringing water bottles on the plane. To whatever degree they are effective, they are because they put people in a watchful, wary state of mind.

 

"the system worked"

Janet Napolitano - Transportation Sec.

Sure Janet anything you say.

 

Exactly right.

 

I have a friend who is a FAM. 5'9" and about 165lb.

 

The point still stands.

If you fly a lot, and have gained "status" which allows you to board ahead of everyone else, it's pretty obvious when you board and see two guys in suits/blazers already sitting in 1A and 1B.