What geniuses over at the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) thought it was a good idea to post their entire manual for airport security screening supervisors online? According to Gawker, TSA “simply drew little boxes over the secret stuff in the .pdf files. So ‘hackers’ – by which we mean ‘people with Acrobat Professional’ – simply removed the boxes and looked at what was underneath.”
What’s underneath is a helpful guide to gaming the system for every terrorist on the planet. Here’s a sample from the “Gawker Guide to Getting Past Airport Security This Holiday Travel Season” : (http://gawker.com/5420989/the-gawker-guide-to-getting-past-airport-security-this-holiday-travel-season).
1. “Don’t be from Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Libya, Syria, Sudan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen or Algeria… If you are from Pakistan, move right on ahead!” Presumably Venezuelans also get the red carpet treatment.
2. “Pack your ammo carefully…If it’s in your checked luggage, feel free to bring along any ammunition up to .50 caliber.” You should feel safer already.
3. “If the airline agent wrote ‘SSSS’ on your ticket, just turn around and go home.” This will save busy terrorists a lot of otherwise wasted time at the airport.
4. “Be a minor, Member of Congress, uniformed military member, or all three….who are exempted from special screening even if they’re marked for it.” Unlike your grandmother, none of them could possibly be terrorists.
5. “Better yet, be a foreign dignitary in CIA custody” who are “fully exempt from screening….TSA has helpfully presented an example of a CIA ID card. Doesn’t carrying one of these defeat the purpose?” One would suppose, but this is the federal government we’re talking about.
6. “If you get caught, just run: TSA officers are instructed not to ‘detain or delay’ anybody they suspect has presented them a fraudulent ID if they’ve already gotten past security.” So while you’re taking off your shoes and submitting to the indignity of having your possessions searched, TSA allows people they suspect of having phony IDs to board the same airplane you’ll be flying on! Incredible!
TSA’s negligence is even more egregious because of what the agency did to former federal air marshal Robert MacLean, a 10-year veteran with an impeccable military record, who was fired in April 2006 for publicly exposing the fact that TSA’s ridiculous dress codes and boarding procedures were inadvertently disclosing the identities of federal air marshals to would-be terrorists and hijackers. MacLean also complained that TSA refused to assign air marshals to the highest-risk long-distance flights to save money, an accusation that was confirmed by a March 2004 GAO report.
Four months after MacLean was fired for revealing classified information, TSA retroactively classified the same information he reported. His appeal was heard by the Merit Systems Protection Board on Nov. 9. If MacLean got fired for stating the obvious when it was still unclassified, what’s going to happen to the TSA officials responsible for spilling the entire can of beans online and tipping off every terrorist on the planet?
When asked to comment, TSA refused to answer questions, but released this statement:
“The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has become aware that an outdated version of a Standard Operating Procedures document was improperly posted by the agency to the Federal Business Opportunities Web site wherein redacted material was not properly protected.
“TSA takes this matter very seriously and took swift action when this was discovered. A full review is now underway.
“TSA has many layers of security to keep the traveling public safe and to constantly adapt to evolving threats. TSA is confident that screening procedures currently in place remain strong.”
Two questions TSA wouldn’t answer is why a document that was already classified needed to be redacted, and why there was no electronic password to keep unauthorized people from viewing it. For the safety of the traveling public, Congress should demand some answers.
