> At a Senate oversight hearing today, Transportation Security Administration head John Pistole explained that TSA agents really do need to [encounter testicular resistance](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/10/assume-the-position-tsa-begins-new-ball-busting-patdowns.ars) when performing their newly enhanced airport pat-downs. Since switching to the new pat-downs in the last few weeks, “We have detected dozens and dozens of, let’s say, ‘artfully concealed objects'” that could pose a risk to flight, said Pistole. > > Indeed, the government’s own covert penetration testing of airports showed that it wasn’t difficult to get contraband into airports under the old regime, thanks in large part to this “artful concealment.” Those tests showed that the US was “not being thorough enough in our pat-downs,” said Pistole. When combined with 2009’s “underwear bomber” case, it became clear to TSA that something much more aggressive (though short of a cavity search) would be required. > > Pistole faced surprisingly gentle questioning from senators of both parties, even though most admitted that their own phones were ringing off the hook on the issue. “We’re getting hundreds of calls,” said Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). The public is “significantly upset,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), adding that much of the outrage focused on children being searched. > > Pistole said he “understood” the concern (and he added that children under 12 weren’t subject to the enhanced pat-down). When one senator asked if this “understanding” meant changes were coming, Pistole was direct. “Am I going to change the policies? No.” So kids under 12 aren’t subject to the enhanced pat down? Great. Let’s play a game. Let’s say I’m a terrorist. I want to get a bomb on board an airplane. What this guy is saying is that all I need now is a kid under 12?

You think terrorists don’t have kids?

We can play this cat and mouse game all day long. There’s always going to be a loophole that any person with a brain can get around. As long as you have to make exceptions to rules, people will exploit those exceptions. So what’s the point of the game in the first place?

And what is it about turning 12 that suddenly makes it ok for the government to legally molest you?

Should we be randomly searched when walking into a grocery store? After all, we might have artfully concealed objects on us then, too. What’s so special about an airplane that warrants this extra scrutiny?

If you were a terrorist, wouldn’t you just blow up your bomb in the terminal? Or on a train? Or in a Wal-Mart?

But let’s get back to these “artfully concealed objects.” What were they, exactly? They weren’t bombs, obviously, or it would have been all over the news. So what are they finding? Hash pipes? Plastic baggies of pot? Are those things illegal? Yes. Are they a threat to an airplane? I don’t think so.

Objects aren’t the threat. People are the threat. A small group of determined people. We need to be looking for suspicious people, not objects. Metal detectors and X-ray scanners can’t detect intentions. You need human intelligence, highly-trained professional detectives.

And and ounce or two of common sense wouldn’t hurt, either.

You can find all the illegal contraband you want, until you catch an actual person who was actually trying to blow up a plane, you aren’t succeeding.

The underwear bomber was caught by intelligent civilian passengers who detected his suspicious behavior. If more intelligence and less machinery had been deployed prior to his lighting his pants on fire, he would have never made it onto the airplane in the first place.

But as usual, we learned the wrong lesson from that incident, just like we learned the wrong lesson from 9/11. We added more machinery, and paid even less attention to behavior.

Meanwhile, we have a living example of an airport in Tel Aviv that faces ten times the threat, doing security in a completely different fashion, with minimal inconvenience to passengers, a much more effective track record of catching actual threats, and it doesn’t cost as much. Until the TSA can explain to me why what we have is better, everything else is nonsense.

> In the end, security escorted Tyner out of the airport, after American Airlines refunded his ticket. > > According to Aguilar, Tyner is under investigation for leaving the security area without permission. The TSA is so afraid of the recent backlash against their security puppet show that they are willing to have a press conference announcing an “investigation” into the actions of John Tyner, who resisted the body scan in San Diego last weekend.

Read his original story and hear the audio recording he made here: http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/these-events-took-place-roughly-betwee…

Anyone with a brain can read his story, listen to the recording, and see that he’s perfectly innocent. He didn’t want to go through the full body scan, and he didn’t want to be sexually assaulted by a stranger, so he opted to go home. The airline was smart enough to refund his non-refundable ticket.

Take a look at the two sentences I quoted above, even. He was “escorted” by security officials out of the area, and yet he’s under investigation for leaving the area without permission. How can you be escorted somewhere by officials without permission?

Yet the TSA wants us to fear the “investigation” so we won’t stand up for our own rights like Tyner did. It’s a classic intimidation technique. They even throw in an $11,000 fine, just to scare people where it really hurts: their wallets.

The last thing the TSA wants is for this to go to court, believe me. Any sane judge would throw the case out. Meanwhile, you’d turn this into a full-blown national story. So Tyner is in no real danger. The real motive here is to scare the rest of us into submission. Which was the point of the “enhanced” pat down in the first place.

There’s a movement underway to have an official “opt out” at airports everywhere on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. People are encouraging their fellow citizens to opt out of full-body scans on that busiest travel day of the year, to bring the security lines to a crawl and demonstrate that we’re not going to stand for the intimidation.

TSA and the Department of Homeland Security, of course, are scared out of their minds of this.

I wouldn’t be surprised if two things happened by Thanksgiving.

1. We hear about more arrests and very public “investigations”, complete with their own press conferences, into innocent citizens who take a stand;

2. Cell phones or other hand-held devices that can record audio or video will need to be turned off throughout security checkpoints, suddenly. They’ll make up some nonsense about why.

I, for one, won’t be flying this Thanksgiving, because I’m not nuts enough to travel on that crazy weekend, even without the latest TSA nonsense. I encourage people to either not fly on that weekend (causing airlines to lose revenue), or force the TSA to do their “enhanced” pat downs, or find some other small way to indicate that you don’t approve of this process.

And by all means, spread the word. We’re being violated here, and it has nothing to do with our safety.

> In the video, a demonstrator from RIM’s Web browser development group shows the comparatively petite PlayBook and the iPad side by side, caches cleared and connected to WiFi. He loads a couple of websites simultaneously on the devices, and the PlayBook completes the load first by a large margin, beating the iPad soundly. Videos like this remind me of how pathetic Apple used to look doing its famous “Photoshop shootout” contests on stage. They’d pit the “latest” Intel PC running Windows against the new PowerMac of the day to demonstrate that Apple’s machine could perform a series of controlled scripts a few seconds faster. Of course, that was several years ago, when processing speed was the only thing that mattered to people, and the most important product in Apple’s lineup was the PowerMac.

And it was still pathetic.

The idea that RIM thinks this is going to matter in 2010 is absurd. Here’s some advice, RIM: Ship your PlayBook, and then we’ll see how fast it is in the real world, when you’re not picking the sites to load in your own little controlled experiment. And then maybe five or six people will care.

> Because the X-rays only make it just under the skin’s surface, the total volume of tissue responsible for absorbing the radiation is fairly small. The professors point out that many body parts that are particularly susceptible to cancer are just under the surface, such as breast tissue and testicles. They are also concerned with those over 65, as well as children, being exposed to the X-rays. Breast tissue and testicles. Enough said.

And even if these scanners were safe, that still wouldn’t take away from the fact that they are ineffective. Yes, they might prevent an underwear bomber, but they won’t stop the “bomb in my ass” guy. So what’s the point?

Are we going to wait until the first bomb smuggled in someones cavity explodes before we start cavity searching five-year-olds, or should we just start now? Oh wait, there’s no million-dollar machine that can be sold to the government to do that, so forget it. No contract, no money, no need to pretend it’s a problem.

Terrorists need to be caught BEFORE they get to the airport. Take comfort in the fact that people willing to do this are rare, hire trained behavioral specialist detectives instead of rent-a-cops to detect them with their brains and eyes instead of machines, and stop subjecting us to harmful radiation for the delusion of safety.

Seriously, this game has to stop. We’re on to you.

I understand that Steve Jobs is a Beatles nut. I understand that a lot of other people are, too. Heck, I love the Beatles as much as the next guy.

I also understand why this is an important business deal for both the Beatles and Apple, and why it took several years to settle all the contracts with the lawyers.

But a day I’ll never forget? Let’s get serious.

Like I said yesterday, the Apple hyperbole marketing machine is known for this sort of thing. But I think this time they really did go a bit too far. The day the iPhone was announced was a day I’ll never forget. But even that, most normal people can’t remember.

I doubt anyone will remember this day a few weeks from now.

The problem with blowing an announcement like this way out of proportion is that if you do that too much, the press will stop giving you all that free publicity next time you want to announce something. Apple usually understands this, which is why it can send out a few measly invitations or change its home page and get the press all in a tizzy without spending a dollar of advertising. Step over this line more than a few times, and you’re asking for people to stop getting excited next time.

As far as the Beatles on iTunes itself—well, all I can say is that the true believer fans have already bought the original LPs, the CDs, and the Remastered Box Set on CD, in both mono and stereo. Will they buy it all again? Some will, sure. But that doesn’t make it right. Like George Lucas, the Beatles are starting to want to get paid once too often for their past artistic achievements. It feels like a cheap ploy, rather than a celebration of the eternal contribution the Beatles made to humankind.

I have my original CDs that I ripped into iTunes long ago. That’s good enough for me for the time being.

The best thing I can say about this announcement is that finally, after MANY years, Apple can have special events without someone in the rumor mill reading into the invitation and saying “IT’S THE BEATLES ON ITUNES!” I couldn’t wait for that rumor to die, and now it finally is dead.

Now if we could just get people to stop yelling “Freebird!” at live music shows, I can die a happy man.

(Side note: I have to give Apple credit for finding what has to be the best picture of the Beatles ever taken. Even Ringo looks less than atrocious in this photo.)