Tag Archives: John Pistole

It Takes an Attempted Terrorist Attack to Actually Test Backscatter Machines

By:  Monday May 7, 2012 4:35 pm

Long after rolling out backscatter machines without proving their efficacy and safety, it looks like the machines will finally be tested. As the AP reports, the government is now testing the underwear bomb Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula planned to use to conduct an Osama bin Laden death anniversary attack to see whether it would have gotten by airport security.

The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

If the machines wouldn’t have stopped the attack (note, the terrorist had not yet bought a ticket, so it’s not even clear which airports they’d be testing), then we can just take solace in the fact that Michael Chertoff will have a nice comfy retirement. If they would have, then the TSA will feel justified in all the gate grope they’ve been engaging in for years.

Of course, the real lesson is that we’d be better off relying on good intelligence to stop an attack–as it stopped this one–long before a terrorist gets caught at the gate.


DOJ Deems Plan to Attack Military Targets with a Drone, Terrorism

By:  Thursday September 29, 2011 6:00 pm

Last year, I tracked how TSA head (and former FBI Deputy Director) John Pistole used an FBI entrapment plot targeted at the Metro to justify increased TSA surveillance of the Metro.

Which is why I’m intrigued that the FBI’s latest entrapment product, Rezwan Ferdaus, is alleged to have wanted to strike the Pentagon with, effectively, a drone (with what Julian Sanchez, in a great post, calls a comic book plot). I wondered whether Ferdaus came up with his comic book plot himself, whether this was projection, or whether the FBI wanted us to fear being struck via the same means we’re striking others.

In the affidavit supporting Ferdaus’ arrest, the FBI emphasizes that Ferdaus came up with the idea of a drone himself (if you can call replicating our own tactics an original idea). They describe, for example, a March 29, 2011 meeting with two FBI undercover officers at which Ferdaus,

explained that he had this idea of attacking the Pentagon long before he met the [cooperating witness] (and by implication before he met the [FBI undercover officers--UCEs]). FERDAUS advised the UCEs that he had initially discussed his remote controlled aircraft plans with a friend from Dorchester. FERDAUS told the UCEs that his Dorchester friend had a “less complicated idea” — his friend’s idea was to “just get weapons and go after … a recruitment center.” The UCEs asked FERDAUS what was wrong with that idea, to which FERDAUS responded: “nothing.” FERDAUS indicated, however, that he wanted “to go bigger.”

But they don’t say how the FBI–rather, their cooperating witness–came to find Ferdaus.

Particularly given the FBI’s past misrepresentations about when one of their entrapments began, this seems relevant. All the more so in this case, given that the affidavit appears to support its claim that “FERDAUS told the UCEs that he realized more than a year ago from viewing jihadi websites and videos ‘how evil’ America is” based on an August 1, 2011 conversation with the UCEs (but again, not the cooperating witness) that his jihad,

started last year. I realized I should try to do something to attack them here. I should try to go down to Washington or something like that. I should try to get them here. That is the best thing.

There’s nothing in this quote that says it happened more than a year ago–only that it happened before January 2011. Given that the cooperating witness shows up in the narrative “last year” (in December), the seemingly unsupported claim about how long Ferdaus has been pursuing his comic book plot seems relevant–or perhaps an indication the FBI has reason to know his surfing on jihadi sites happened more than a year ago.

So what about that cooperating witness, who, the affidavit admits, “has a criminal record and has served time in prison”? The affidavit describes his involvement this way:

Initially, FERDAUS met and engaged in conversations with an FBI CW regarding his planned attacks against the United States. These conversations occurred between December 2010 and April 2011; the majority of them were consensually recorded. [my emphasis]

Yet the affidavit doesn’t say anything about what transpired between Ferdaus and the CW in December, neither how they met nor how many times they conversed or met before January 7, 2011, the first meeting described in the affidavit.

Nor do they tell us the circumstances surrounding that minority of conversations that weren’t recorded. There always seems to be a conversation that doesn’t get recorded, doesn’t there?

Nor does the affidavit explain how long they were monitoring Ferdaus’ participation in jihad chat rooms. They describe him saying that’s what radicalized him. But they don’t admit the obvious, that that’s probably what led them to send an informant out to cultivate him to the point where trained FBI agents would take over (assuming, of course, that Ferdaus’ friend from Dorchester wasn’t another informant, but who knows?).

One more point. The only times the affidavit describes Ferdaus accessing the Internet, he does so via public computers, at a library and internet cafe, though the affidavit also describes him using his own computer to show the UCEs his plan.

It looks very tidy, wrapped up in this affidavit, if you ignore the fact that when the FBI told Ferdaus not to play with chemicals he complied. But this is yet another entrapment that seems to obscure where the plot came from.


TSA’s Legal Justification for Gate Grope

By:  Monday December 27, 2010 5:50 am

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has been suing the Department of Homeland Security because it refused to engage in the public rule-making process before it adopted RapeAScan machines as part of the primary screening at airports. DHS responded to EPIC’s suit the other day. While I think their response will be largely successful as written, they’re playing games with the timing of EPIC’s suit so as to avoid doing any discussion or even administrative privacy assessment of giving passengers a choice between being photographed nude or having their genitalia fondled.

The key to this is that EPIC first requested a request for review of whether DHS should have engaged in rule-making on May 28, 2010, before TSA changed pat-down procedures. It then submitted its brief on November 1, 2010, after the enhanced pat-downs were being rolled out. But the issue still focuses on the machines and not the machines in tandem with the invasive pat-downs. So a central part of DHS’ argument is that passengers are given an alternative to the RapeAScan machines: pat-downs. But its filing never deals with the possibility that pat-downs are more invasive than even the RapeAScan machines.

TSA communicates and provides a meaningful alternative to AIT screening. TSA posts signs at security checkpoints clearly stating that AIT screening is optional, and TSA includes the same information on its website. AR 071.003. Those travelers who opt out of AIT screening must undergo an equal level of screening, consisting of a physical pat-down to check for metallic and nonmetallic weapons or devices. Ibid.

A physical pat-down is currently the only effective alternative method for screening individuals for both metallic and nonmetallic objects that might be concealed under layers of clothing. The physical pat-down given to passengers who opt out of AIT screening is the same as the pat-down given to passengers who trigger an alarm on a walk-through metal detector or register an anomaly during AIT screening. Passengers may request that physical pat-downs be conducted by same gender officers. AR 132.001. Additionally, all passengers have the right to request a private screening. Ibid. More than 98% of passengers selected for AIT screening proceed with it rather than opting out. AR 071.003.

And by focusing on this alternative with no real discussion of what it currently entails, DHS dodges the question of whether the two screening techniques together–RapeAScans and enhanced pat-downs–violate passengers’ privacy. Note, for example, how the filing boasts of two Privacy Impact Assessments TSA’s privacy officer did (plus an update just as EPIC was last complaining about this technology).

Pursuant to 6 U.S.C. § 142, DHS conducted Privacy Impact Assessments (“PIAs”) dated January 2, 2008, and October 17, 2008, to ensure that the use of AIT does not erode privacy protections. AR 011.001-.009, 025.001-.010. The second PIA was updated on July 23, 2009 and lays out several privacy safeguards tied to TSA’s use of AIT. AR 043.001-010.

Now, as a threshold matter, there’s something odd about DHS citing 6 U.S.C. § 142 here. Its requirement for PIAs reads:

The Secretary shall appoint a senior official in the Department to assume primary responsibility for privacy policy, including – (1) assuring that the use of technologies sustain, and do not erode, privacy protections relating to the use, collection, and disclosure of personal information; (2) assuring that personal information contained in Privacy Act systems of records is handled in full compliance with fair information practices as set out in the Privacy Act of 1974 [5 U.S.C. 552a]; (3) evaluating legislative and regulatory proposals involving collection, use, and disclosure of personal information by the Federal Government; (4) conducting a privacy impact assessment of proposed rules of the Department or that of the Department on the privacy of personal information, including the type of personal information collected and the number of people affected; and (5) preparing a report to Congress on an annual basis on activities of the Department that affect privacy, including complaints of privacy violations, implementation of the Privacy Act of 1974 [5 U.S.C. 552a], internal controls, and other matters. [my emphasis]

See how it says the department has to do PIAs “of proposed rules”? That suggests the Privacy Officer treated the plan to use RapeAScans as a rule and did a PIA accordingly. But this entire filing–which explains why DHS refused to accede to EPIC’s request to conduct public rule-making on the use of RapeAScans–argues that the implementation of the machines did not constitute a rule. But they did a PIA as if it was a rule!

But there’s another thing this filing doesn’t say about PIAs: that Congress demanded TSA publish a PIA on the enhanced pat-downs.

In the absence of an Executive branch level Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that would evaluate decisions such as this, it was crucial that the Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy Officer and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties thoroughly evaluate and publish written assessments on how this decision affects the privacy and civil rights of the traveling public. To date, the Department has not published either a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) nor a Civil Liberties Impact Assessment (CLIA) on the enhanced pat down procedures. Without a published PIA or CLIA, we cannot ascertain the extent to which TSA has considered how these procedures should be implemented with respect to certain populations such as children, people with disabilities, and the elderly. By not issuing these assessments, the traveling public has no assurance that these procedures have been thoroughly evaluated for constitutionality.

So while DHS boasts that it did PIAs on the RapeAScans before it rolled them out, it still does not appear to have done a PIA on the groping that serves as DHS’ much touted alternative to RapeAScans, much less a PIA on the two techniques offered together.

Now, DHS is using procedural complaints to object to EPIC’s inclusion of Nadhira Al-Khalili on the complaint, a lawyer with ties to the Muslim community. But their response to EPIC’s freedom of religion complaint seems to suggest they recognize they are vulnerable: suggesting that if a Muslim (or anyone else with documented reason to be opposed to having nude pictures taken and/or their genitalia groped by strangers) were to sue, the procedures would not hold up.

But for now, DHS is treating the RapeAScans separately from the groping so as to be able to argue that in conjunction with the “choice” of being groped, the RapeAScans present no big privacy problem.


Protecting DC’s Metro from the FBI and Facebook

By:  Sunday December 19, 2010 7:34 pm

While I’ve been in moving hell (one more day, a long drive, and then!!! relax), there have been two developments in the FBI’s efforts to fearmonger in the DC Metro.

As I first reported several weeks ago, TSA Director and former FBI Deputy Director John Pistole testified to Congress that we need to implement searches on public transportation because of the threat invoked by an FBI-invented plot.

We need to search people on the DC Metro, Pistole was basically saying, because the FBI chose to target the DC Metro in one of their stings.

On Thursday, the DC Metro announced they will–in conjunction with Pistole’s TSA–start conducting the random searches Pistole said we needed because of FBI’s sting.

Metro Transit Police today advised customers they will conduct random inspections of carry-on items, as part of the continuously changing law enforcement programs designed to keep the system safe.

[snip]

The inspections will be conducted in conjunction with Transportation Security Administration officials and are expected to take only minutes and are designed to be non-intrusive, as police will randomly select bags or packages to check for hazardous materials using ionization technology as well as K-9 units trained to detect explosive materials. Carry on items will generally not be opened and physically inspected unless the equipment indicates a need for further inspection.

Anyone who is randomly selected and refuses to submit their carry-on items for inspection will be prohibited from bringing those items into the station. Customers who encounter a baggage checkpoint at a station entrance may choose not to enter the station if they would prefer not to submit their carry-ons for inspection.

Since the time Pistole tried to use an FBI-invented plot to justify searches, a somewhat more real threat to the Metro did occur. On November 18, 2010, Arlington, VA resident Awais Younis boasted on his Facebook about the best way to maximize damage on–among other targets–the Metro.

The complainant recounted that during a chat with Ghilzai [aka Younis] in November 2010, Ghilzai described how to build a pipe bomb and what type of shrapnel would cause the greatest amount of damage. Ghilzai also stated that he could place a pipe bomb under a sewer head in Georgetown (assumed to be a reference to the neighborhood in Washington, D.C.) at rush hour to produce the greatest number of casualties. Ghilzai further stated that the third and fifth cars in the METRO trains had the highest number of commuters on them and he could place pipebombs in these locations and would not be noticed. Complainant responded by saying “you wouldn’t do that,”and Ghilzai replied by saying,”watch me.”

Mind you, there was little to indicate this was anything more than a boastful threat on the Toobz–Younis didn’t act on this threat. The FBI has as much as admitted that when they have emphasized that Younis wasn’t charged with any terrorism related charges.

Yet coverage of the decision to search the Metro mentioned both the FBI-created sting and this Facebook boast to explain the threat:

The inspections have been in the works for years, and are not a response to any particular threat, Taborn said. However, in recent months various threats to the system have come to light. One man was accused of casing stations in what he thought was an al-Qaida plot to bomb and kill commuters and another man is charged with threatening on Facebook to detonate pipe bombs in the subway system.

So it all works out! Based in part on the FBI’s own manufactured “terrorist attack” DC’s commuters will experience the joy of random searches.

Who needs real terrorist threats when the FBI can invent their own?

Update: Joy for job fixed per zapkitty.


John Pistole: “What I Think Is Appropriate in Terms of Privacy”

By:  Thursday December 9, 2010 1:18 am

This entire interview between TSA Director John Pistole, James Fallows, and Jeffrey Goldberg is worth reading. But I’m particularly interested in what Pistole says about his role in finding the appropriate balance between security and privacy.

James Fallows: I’d like to start with a question both Jeff and I have raised, which is the whole question of the balance between security, on the one hand, and liberty and privacy concerns, on the other. Is it TSA’s job to set that balance? Or how do you think that balance is set?

John Pistole: The way I view it is for TSA to develop the security protocols that afford the best security, while recognizing that there is a balance. The best security would be something way beyond what we’re doing.

Jeffrey Goldberg: The best security would be to just not allow people on planes. That’s perfect security.

Pistole: That’s “risk elimination.” And we’re not in the risk-elimination business, we’re in risk mitigation, informed by the latest intelligence, informed by our friends [in the intelligence agencies], and informed by the results of our covert testing.

Those things inform judgments and actions and then we take that information — I take that information — and then ask the experts how can we address these threats? They come up with different things based on all the information they have, and then they make a recommendation, and then it’s up to me to say, OK, does that exceed what I think is appropriate in terms of privacy?

So that’s my responsibility. To say, does this give us security, without violating something that would be a Fourth Amendment issue? [my emphasis]

According to Pistole, it’s up to him–his responsibility–to determine what the appropriate balance between privacy and security.

Now, I appreciate that, at some level, it is up to him. He’s in charge of TSA and he’s got to make the final decision whether to implement (or discontinue) a controversial scanning technology.

But it’s not up to him.

It’s up to the entities that review counterterrorism techniques for their civil liberties and privacy impact. Specifically it’s up to the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which is mandated by Congress to do the following:

(1) analyze and review actions the executive branch takes to protect the Nation from terrorism, ensuring that the need for such actions is balanced with the need to protect privacy and civil liberties; and

(2) ensure that liberty concerns are appropriately considered in the development and implementation of laws, regulations, and policies related to efforts to protect the Nation against terrorism.

The PCLOB never got fully off the ground after it was passed in 2007. More appallingly, Obama hasn’t even nominated anyone to the board.

Absent review by the PCLOB, Department of Homeland Security is required to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment, which it appears not to have done either. And Pistole should know that these reviews should take place, since Bennie Thompson reminded him of the fact several weeks ago.

In the absence of an Executive branch level Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that would evaluate decisions such as this, it was crucial that the Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy Officer and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties thoroughly evaluate and publish written assessments on how this decision affects the privacy and civil rights of the traveling public. To date, the Department has not published either a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) nor a Civil Liberties Impact Assessment (CLIA) on the enhanced pat down procedures. Without a published PIA or CLIA, we cannot ascertain the extent to which TSA has considered how these procedures should be implemented with respect to certain populations such as children, people with disabilities, and the elderly. By not issuing these assessments, the traveling public has no assurance that these procedures have been thoroughly evaluated for constitutionality.

There is a means to conduct an independent review of where the line between privacy and security is–or at least there’s supposed to be, even if Obama refuses to fulfill that mandate.

I’m sure it’s nice for Obama and Pistole that, rather than having an independent board review gate grope before it gets implemented, Pistole just took it on himself to decide whether it’s constitutional and appropriate or not.

But that’s not how it’s supposed to work.


FBI Entrapment Leads to TSA Pat-Downs

By:  Wednesday December 1, 2010 10:53 am

A couple of weeks back, I pointed to John Pistole’s testimony that directly justified the expansion of VIPR checkpoints to mass transport locations by pointing to a recent FBI-entrapment facilitated arrest.

Another recent case highlights the importance of mass transit security. On October 27, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested a Pakistan-born naturalized U.S. citizen for attempting to assist others whom he believed to be members of al Qaida in planning multiple bombings at Metrorail stations in the Washington, D.C., area. During a sting operation, Farooque Ahmed allegedly conducted surveillance of the Arlington National Cemetery, Courthouse, and Pentagon City Metro stations, indicated that he would travel overseas for jihad, and agreed to donate $10,000 to terrorist causes. A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, returned a three-count indictment against Ahmed, charging him with attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, collecting information to assist in planning a terrorist attack on a transit facility, and attempting to provide material support to help carry out multiple bombings to cause mass casualties at D.C.-area Metrorail stations.

While the public was never in danger, Ahmed’s intentions provide a reminder of the terrorist attacks on other mass transit systems: Madrid in March 2004, London in July 2005, and Moscow earlier this year. Our ability to protect mass transit and other surface transportation venues from evolving threats of terrorism requires us to explore ways to improve the partnerships between TSA and state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement, and other mass transit stakeholders. These partnerships include measures such as Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams we have put in place with the support of the Congress. [my emphasis]

Now to be clear, as with Mohamed Mohamud’s alleged plot, Ahmed’s plot never existed except as it was performed by FBI undercover employees. In fact, at the time the FBI invented this plot, now TSA-head Pistole was the Deputy Director of FBI, so in some ways, Ahmed’s plot is Pistole’s plot. Nevertheless, Pistole had no problem pointing to a plot invented by his then-subordinates at the FBI to justify increased VIPR surveillance on “mass transit and other surface transportation venues.” As if the fake FBI plot represented a real threat.

And according to Gary Milano (who appears to be TSA’s Federal Security Director for Tampa), that’s what they’re now doing–telling the bad guys (among whom they include “immigration law violators” and “bulk cash” smugglers) they’re going to be searching Greyhound for them. (Randy Balko posted the YouTube here.)

Now, to be sure, these no-warning searches are more effective than the security theater Pistole has ramped up at airports.

But that doesn’t excuse the logic: John Pistole points to a plot the FBI–under his management–cooked up, as if it represents a “real” threat. He uses it to justify expanding VIPR to mass and surface transit venues. And then when TSA does set up one of those VIPR checkpoints, we learn they’re not looking for TATP (which is what Pistole implied in his testimony to Congress), but instead illegal aliens and cash smugglers.

I guess that all makes it okay, right? The plot justifying this checkpoint never existed, but then, they’re not really looking for the things they suggested they were looking for as defined by that plot. So it doesn’t matter that it was a fake terrorist plot, since the whole point of it seems to be to justify immigration and smuggling raids.


White House: Only 170,000 People Have Had Genitalia Groped by Complete Stranger in Last Week

By:  Monday November 22, 2010 2:01 pm

The White House has started a pushback campaign on gate rape that is reminiscent of “Recovery Summer” or “Mission Accomplished” for its credibility.

It consists of a number of things, in addition to the inevitable army of talking-point-people using the word “enhanced” the same way Cheney did.

First, there are statistics. Such as their claim that only 1% of people undergo pat-downs.

In airports where body screening technology is available, about one in every 100 passengers are given pat-downs, according to another official, Sean Smith, the DHS spokesperson.

Which may or may not contradict their other claim, that less than half of one percent of all air passengers have undergone “enhanced pat-downs.”

For instance, the administration noted that fewer than one half of one percent of the 34 million passengers who traveled on airplanes in or to the U.S. last week were subjected to crotch-area pat-downs.

So the White House’s idea of effective pushback against objections to this invasive scrutiny? “Only 170,000 people have had their genitalia groped by a complete stranger employed by the federal government in the last week. Big. Fucking. Deal.”

That sort of seems like a lot of junk-touching in just one week.

They’re also citing the polls and the numbers of complaints from before the junk-touching started in earnest so as to claim that no one much cares about being groped.

But here’s the thing I find most offensive.

The president said this weekend that while he understands the “frustrations” that the policies seem to have caused, “at this point, TSA in consultation with counterterrorism experts have indicated to me that the procedures that they have been putting in place are the only ones right now that they consider to be effective against the kind of threat that we saw in the Christmas Day bombing.” [my emphasis]

Um, no. You see, after the underwear bombing, we had a whole bunch of studies that examined what went wrong and what might have been effective against the underwear bomber. And the answer–in the face of clear fuck-ups by the NCTC and CIA (and to a much lesser degree, the FBI for which John Pistole then served as second-in-command)–the answer was to stop fucking up and start sharing information. To claim that junk-touching is the only thing that would be effective at stopping the undie bomber, when we know that the intelligence community had already identified Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab but failed to stop him, is an out and out lie.

Mind you, crotch groping might be effective if al Qaeda or another terrorist organization decided to launch the same type of attack, this time from within the United States. Or it might be effective against another sort of attack we haven’t yet thought up. Then again, it pointedly wouldn’t be effective against an attack by an organization that has proven itself capable of adjusting and exploiting new weaknesses–that is, the organization we’re fighting.

But to claim crotch-groping in the United States is the only procedure that would have been effective against an attack launched by an identified terrorist flying from another country, which is, after all “the kind of threat we saw in the Christmas Day bombing,” when we know the procedure that would have been effective is in fact simply sharing the information we had already collected?

That’s a pretty brutal pinch of the ‘nads.


John Pistole Ignored DHS Advice to Warn about Gate Rape

By:  Monday November 22, 2010 9:59 am

Apparently, John Pistole not only promised to Congress–but failed to deliver–public education about why gate rape was necessary. But he ignored advice from DHS to provide a public explanation in advance, too.

In an hour-long discussion with reporters, Pistole said media officials at the Department of Homeland Security had urged him to “get out ahead” of the potential controversy by formally announcing plans for enhanced body searches and the use of new x-ray and radio-wave imaging devices at 70 airports beginning in November.

But doing so would have provided a “roadmap or blueprint for terrorists” to avoid detection by using other airports where the new technology wasn’t in place, Pistole said.

As you can see, he’s belatedly trying to do that education now.

Aside from being too little too late, consider what this says about Pistole’s relationship with the citizens who employ him. Regardless of his “risk based” assessment that he had to keep secrets from the terrorists, don’t Americans have the right to know what will happen to them at the airport?


John Pistole Wants Us to Be Afraid of His Shadow

By:  Monday November 22, 2010 4:44 am

I’m working on a longer post on John Pistole, the head of Transportation Security Administration who ordered the TSA to touch your junk.

But in the meantime I wanted to point out something appalling about his recent testimony to the Senate Commerce Committee. In it, he says the following to justify expanding the use of air marshal patrols at mass transit locations.

Another recent case highlights the importance of mass transit security. On October 27, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested a Pakistan-born naturalized U.S. citizen for attempting to assist others whom he believed to be members of al Qaida in planning multiple bombings at Metrorail stations in the Washington, D.C., area. During a sting operation, Farooque Ahmed allegedly conducted surveillance of the Arlington National Cemetery, Courthouse, and Pentagon City Metro stations, indicated that he would travel overseas for jihad, and agreed to donate $10,000 to terrorist causes. A federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, returned a three-count indictment against Ahmed, charging him with attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization, collecting information to assist in planning a terrorist attack on a transit facility, and attempting to provide material support to help carry out multiple bombings to cause mass casualties at D.C.-area Metrorail stations.

While the public was never in danger, Ahmed’s intentions provide a reminder of the terrorist attacks on other mass transit systems: Madrid in March 2004, London in July 2005, and Moscow earlier this year. Our ability to protect mass transit and other surface transportation venues from evolving threats of terrorism requires us to explore ways to improve the partnerships between TSA and state, local, tribal, and territorial law enforcement, and other mass transit stakeholders. These partnerships include measures such as Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) teams we have put in place with the support of the Congress.

Pistole suggests we need to be worried about mass transit attacks because Ahmed Farooque was arrested for planning what he thought was an al Qaeda attack on the DC area Metro.

But of course–as Pistole concedes–there was never an attack. Instead, there was an FBI sting, set up back when Pistole was still at the FBI. We have zero indication that Farooque would have targeted the Metro on his own, and even less that that’s what al Qaeda is currently targeting. Nevertheless, Pistole chooses to point to it–a planned attack entirely of the FBI’s own making–as a reminder of the threat to mass transit.

Now I’m not suggesting that our subway and rail systems aren’t exposed to attack. Indeed, that’s part of the reason why the “gate rape” to get on airplanes is so absurd, given how unprotected rail transport is by comparison. (Though a smart terrorist would probably choose another kind of venue entirely–like a football game or Wal-Mart on Black Friday–for an attack.)

But I am suggesting it is absolutely inappropriate for Pistole to point to the FBI’s own–his own–sting as evidence that we need to increase domestic surveillance. Next thing you know, the FBI will stage a sting involving Disney World so it can justify strip-searching children before they see Mickey.

Update: Pistole is out with a new statement suggesting he may back down.

We welcome feedback and comments on the screening procedures from the traveling public, and we will work to make them as minimally invasive as possible while still providing the security that the American people want and deserve. We are constantly evaluating and adapting our security measures, and as we have said from the beginning, we are seeking to strike the right balance between privacy and security.   In all such security programs, especially those that are applied nation-wide, there is a continual process of refinement and adjustment to ensure that best practices are applied and that feedback and comment from the traveling public is taken into account. This has always been viewed as an evolving program that will be adapted as conditions warrant, and we greatly appreciate the cooperation and understanding of the American people.

We cannot forget that less than one year ago a suicide bomber with explosives in his underwear tried to bring down a plane over Detroit. The terrorists allegedly behind the thwarted cargo attempt last month are out there bragging about how they will strike again.

We all wish we lived in a world where security procedures at airports weren’t necessary but that just isn’t the case. [my emphasis]

But his logic still amounts to “we need to feel up granny to try to find explosives worn by a terrorist entering the US from a place where they don’t feel up granny and because terrorists threaten to use the still-unsecured package shipping system.” That is, “because we’re not prepared to get the real terrorists’ flying or sending packages, we have to feel up granny.”


House Committee on Homeland Security Expressed Concerns about “Gate Rape” on September 22

By:  Saturday November 20, 2010 12:57 am

Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee Bennie Thompson sent Transportation Security Administration Director John Pistole a letter on Friday expressing concern that the TSA did not review privacy and civil liberty concerns before implementing the new “gate rape” procedures at airports. The letter demands additional information on the pat-downs and calls on Pistole to reconsider them.

But most troubling, it reveals that at a member briefing on the new protocol conducted on September 22, the Committee expressed concern about the pat-downs.

As you know, on September 22, 2010, the Committee on Homeland Security held a Member briefing on a pilot that TSA was conducting at Boston Logan International Airport and Las Vegas McCarran International Airport to evaluate enhanced passenger screening protocols. At that time, Members viewed a demonstration of the protocols and expressed concern about their intrusiveness as well as about the risk of inconsistent nationwide implementation and urged TSA to work to educate the traveling public on the need for these reforms. Subsequently, TSA, over a two month period, began implementing these new protocols at our Nation’s airports.

While some of this appears to be a belated attempt to raise privacy issues about the “gate rape,” Thompson rightly points out the Administration’s failures to fulfill privacy and civil liberties requirements.

In the absence of an Executive branch level Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board that would evaluate decisions such as this, it was crucial that the Department of Homeland Security’s Privacy Officer and Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties thoroughly evaluate and publish written assessments on how this decision affects the privacy and civil rights of the traveling public. To date, the Department has not published either a Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) nor a Civil Liberties Impact Assessment (CLIA) on the enhanced pat down procedures. Without a published PIA or CLIA, we cannot ascertain the extent to which TSA has considered how these procedures should be implemented with respect to certain populations such as children, people with disabilities, and the elderly. By not issuing these assessments, the traveling public has no assurance that these procedures have been thoroughly evaluated for constitutionality.

Now, Thompson has been successful in the past at forestalling abusive surveillance by raising precisely these kinds of privacy issues, notably when he prevented Michael Chertoff from implementing a satellite surveillance program in the US. But that was when the Democrats had a majority in the House. In just weeks, Thompson will lose his gavel and Peter King–who used to materially support terrorists in Ireland but now loves to fearmonger on terror–will take over.

Which means Pistole and the Obama Administration will probably just blow off this request for some proof that gate rape has passed constitutional review.

Sign the petition demanding Congress investigate the TSA’s porno scanners, aggressive groping, and abuses of power.