Why should we waste time at airport security, screening people with U.S. government security clearances? This perfectly reasonable question was asked recently by Robert Poole, director of transportation studies at The Reason Foundation, as he and I were interviewed by WOSU Radio in Ohio.
Poole argued that people with government security clearances, people who are entrusted with U.S. national security secrets, are trusted enough to be allowed through airport security with only a cursory screening. They’ve already gone through background checks, he said, and it would be more efficient to concentrate screening resources on everyone else.
To someone not steeped in security, it makes perfect sense. But it’s a terrible idea, and understanding why teaches us some important security lessons.
What starts out as a simple idea — don’t waste time searching people with government security clearances — rapidly becomes a complicated security system with all sorts of new vulnerabilities.
So the politicians and public servants,
(who make the rules that impose the security screening on you)
don’t have to be screened themselves.
That sounds fair, and makes us all safer – HA
When these same people review procedures and consider compulsory internal cavity searches, of the rubber glove and and bend over variety………
well just bend over plebs
It makes perfect sense
Those people that fill out their SF-86 and have every part of their life inspected deserve a little respect. I highly doubt those people really are of any threat; let alone would be dumb enough to bring anything to the airport.
Why go through the trouble of scanning these people when they get intel briefings before they go places, have inspectors talking to them after trips , counter-intel and the like.
Lets use some common sense for once
This is too much. I’m ordering a Gulfstream IV right away. Limo to Jet to Limo, the only way to fly.
The reporter who wrote the article really should learn a little more about the security system before writing a poorly informed article like the one in wired. Knowledge once again takes a kick in the pants.
I believe I too will order a Gulfstream.
You should get the G550. They have a very nice cappuccino maker option.
All the searches seem like a waste of time to me. Drug smugglers swallow condoms full of cocaine (or so I read). Doesn’t anyone think a suicide bomber would do the same with explosives and detonators? How small would a bomb be that could down a plane?
Note to suicide bombers – don’t read this.
The reason is the “KISS” methodology. Keep it simple stupid. The workers running those security systems are the equivalent to the minimum wage government worker. Which means if it has more then 2 buttons and requires thought they don’t qualify.
Saw a cartoon the other day – a lecture at the Dept. of Homeland Security. Chalked on the board was the basic equation: Inconvenience=Security. They’re doing a wonderful job of inconveniencing poeple. Does everyone here feel safer?
Does the name Robert Hannsen ring a bell? He was an FBI agent with security clearance that passed highly classified information to the Soviet Union for 15 years. Having a security clearance doesn’t make you automatically a “non-threat”.
Make those that make the laws, Incurr them.
Make the rich suffer along with the poor…
Equal is equal…There is NOT supposed to be favoritism in this country.
…I would rather take the hundreds of millions of dollars this kind of system could cost and spend it on more security screeners and better training for existing security screeners. We could both speed up the lines and make them more effective.
Makes sense to me.
Why spend the money on a system to correctly identify people with some kind of clearance.
i.e. When I was in the Navy, I had a “Confidential” clearance due to working on Nuclear propulsion systems – and before the Walker spy scandal – everyone on Submarines had a “Secret” or “limited-Secret” clearance. A select few had “Top Secret” clearance [radio operators handling crypto traffic, Commanding Officer, etc]
Nice if they would have let me through screening – when I was on Active duty… 🙂
——-
“limited-Secret” was for the cooks & non-specialty junior guys who lived/worked in a closed environment peopled by shipmates with Confidential/Secret clearances… they didn’t have a “need to know” anything classified, but were unavoidably exposed to it just by living/working on a submarine.
This is worse then the Grocery store, and 1 register…
WOW, maybe thats that problem…
MORE checkers…