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A letter to my congressmen/women
Nov. 18th, 2010 10:38 amDear [Senator/congressperson],
I have been following closely the debate over the new airline imaging (AIT) X-ray machines, either the Backscatter machines or the Millimeter Wave machines, and the alternative measures that are being implemented across our nation's airports. I fly three to four times per year, and I am worried about the use of these machines.
I have compiled a list of questions that I would like the TSA to answer, and if you are in the position to ask the higher management, and to publicize the answers, please do.
Questions:
1) What is the procedure for persons traveling alone with babies/small children? My sister has to travel from the west to east coast over the Thanksgiving holiday. She is traveling alone with a seven-month-old child. She has a one-way ticket and is worried she will be singled out for AIT or extra screening because of this. She will refuse to take her baby through the x-ray machine, which I believe is a reasonable decision. But as I understand it, going through the machine requires persons to set their "belongings" aside, possibly even out of view. I also have read accounts that a person cannot undergo an "enhanced pat-down" while holding a child (please see this blog post http://www.ourlittlechatterboxes.com/2010/11/tsa-sexual-assault.html for a clarification). I hope that the TSA has a policy in place for dealing with this situation. As my sister says, 'it only takes a second' for a child out of view to come to harm. I note that people carry babies through the metal detectors all the time with no problems whatsoever.
2) What are the official guidelines for an "enhanced pat-down"? I have heard anecdotal accounts of policies (run hands under waistband, pat inner thighs with palms facing forward until meeting "resistance", open women's labia through their clothes, etc), but nowhere have I seen official guidelines and step-by-step instructions for an enhanced pat-down. I will be opting out, so I want to know what to expect. I want to know the legal and contractual boundaries, enacted and instructed by the officials in the TSA to their trained officers, that constitute allowable action in an enhanced pat-down. I have been unable to find any documentation for this. I think that this should be released to protect the rights and safety not only of passengers, but also of any TSA staff who are unlucky enough to have to perform these pat-downs.
3) How are the enactment and operational procedures of these new security measures going to be monitored? Will we be able to get measurements, conducted from an independent third party observer, for:
1) the number of people who are subject to body scans
2) the number of people who opt out of body scans when chosen
3) the number of people who consent to body scans when chosen
4) the number of people who consent to body scans and afterward are still subject to an enhanced pat-down because of a flagged anomaly on the screen
5) the number of people who file complaints against the TSA
6) the number of people who are dissatisfied but do not take the time to file a complaint
7) the percentage of airports that provide transparent, fully informative measures for the AIT screening procedures, either through signs or verbal communications
I do not believe that any of this information would be sensitive to national security; therefore I think it should be measured, publicized, analyzed and evaluated.
4) Frequency of pat-downs: Mr. Pistole said in the senate briefing on Wednesday November 17th, 2010, that the occurrence of pat-downs would be "rare". However, by the CBS polls it shows that up to 20% of Americans do not agree with these new techniques. This is a measurement of the American public who have phones, not of travelers who are coming into airports. I am curious as to what the survey results would be like for those who travel. Now for example, for random screenings, if one in every five people does not agree with AIT imagers, then it is not unreasonable to think that out of every 5 people singled out to be sent through the imagers,
a) One person will go through the imager under duress and coercion (as opposed to miss their flights, eat the monetary cost, or subject themselves to an invasive and possibly punitive enhanced pat-down).
b) One person will opt out, and subject themselves to an invasive and possibly punitive enhanced pat-down.
This is possibly a twenty percent rate of pat-downs for the AIT machines, not counting those for whom the machine flags an anomaly. I would like to see, or conduct myself, a scientific test of this hypothesis.
5) False positives. I am a statistician who works in network security. Our work is similar in that we monitor millions of "events" per day, looking for those rare occasions where an anomalous reading is also a threat. In this situation, false positives will vastly outnumber true positives, simply because the rate of true positives in the population is so low.
In medical screenings, this is a widely known phenomenon. In statistics, the specificity and sensitivity of the ELISA screening test for HIV is used ubiquitously in introductory courses as an excellent example of Bayes Rule. See for example this homework question:
http://www.brainmass.com/homework-help/statistics/all-topics/354850
**
The ELISA test for AIDS was used in the screening of blood donations in the 1990s. As with most medical diagnostic tests, the ELISA test is not infallible. If a person actually carries the AIDS virus, experts estimate that this test gives a positive result 97.7% of the time. If a person does not carry the AIDS virus, ELISA gives a negative result 92.6% of the time. Experts also estimate that 0.5% of the American public carries the AIDS virus.
Suppose that someone tells you that they have tested positive. Given this information, what is the probability that the person actually carries the AIDS virus?
**
The 0.977 rate is called the "sensitivity", or Pr(detected given disease)
The 0.926 rate is called the "specificity", or Pr(not detected given not disease)
the marginal probability of disease in the population, Pr(disease), is 0.005.
The question is asking the student to discover the probability Pr(disease given detected). This is done using Bayes rule:
Pr(disease given detected) = Pr(diseased AND detected)/Pr(detected)
Using the probabilities that are given, we can write this as:
Pr(detected|disease)*Pr(disease)/[Pr(detected|disease)*Pr(disease) + (1 - Pr(not detected|not disease))*Pr(not disease)]
The answer is startling to some: if a person is tested at random for HIV, then given a positive test, there is only a 6% chance that the person has the disease. That means that 94% of the time, when applied randomly, a positive result is actually a false positive. In the medical community, these kinds of results are why best practices suggest that screening be applied only when there are other risk factors that raise the marginal probability of HIV considerably. In contrast, the TSA has stated explicitly that "Everyone has to be scanned."
I would like to know the specificity and sensitivity of these AIT machines, specifically in their ability to detect terrorist threats to an airplane. If the false positive rate is too high, what measures will be taken so that ordinary citizens are not harassed unnecessarily on their way to board a plane?
6) Radiation exposure. I would like to see a peer-reviewed, public study of the radiation exposure and threat that the machines pose, when they are used as directed for scanning airport passengers. I believe that this requires that an independent third party observe the persons running the machines in practice, and measurements of radiation exposure as such, especially to the eyes and the groin area, which ostensibly is what the operators are supposed to focus on in scanning.
7) I would like to know what the procedures are for staffing the observation rooms. In my line of work, we work in a secure environment in which all cell phones, transmitters, wireless devices, and cameras must be removed and stored before entering the room. The door is locked during times when no-one is present in the area, and only security staff can unlock it. We badge in to the secure area and pass a security desk that is staffed during all hours when the room is open. We must disable microphones and web cameras from laptops before entering. I would ask that the TSA publicize their security requirements for the persons monitoring the AIT scan images. The machines ostensibly cannot transmit or store images as they are configured, but cell phones with cameras certainly can snap a picture of the screen to send to friends.
8) Public information. How will the TSA publicize the procedures and images that are used in AIT screening, to passengers in the security line who may not be informed? Will a brochure be available? Will passengers be able to see examples of the pictures that are rendered from the body scanners? Will passengers be informed explicitly via signs or verbal communications, that the procedure is optional and that they need say "I opt out" to instead be subject to a pat-down? Will they be informed that they have the option to discontinue all screening without punishment and leave the airport?
9) Policies for alerts. What procedures are taken when an alert is flagged? Are the images from the alerted scan stored, printed, or transmitted? Is the person subjected to an enhanced pat-down, luggage search or other measures? Are the procedures different than when a person is flagged by the metal detector? What happens if a person is discovered to have explosives on their body?
--------------
This list of questions is probably too short; I will most likely think of more. Currently, I have decided that I do not wish to subject myself to added levels of radiation, nor to a digital search of my body underneath my clothes, solely because I wish to board an airplane. This means that if I am selected to go through these machines, I will opt out. However, I also believe that I am being presented with a false "choice" in this matter, as I neither want to submit to an enhanced pat-down. I believe that this is an infringement of my fourth amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches. As such, I will be avoiding flying whenever possible, but sometimes it is a necessity for my work.
I am comfortable removing my shoes, throwing away my liquids, emptying my bags of pocketknives and tweezers, sending my belongings through an x-ray machine, and stepping through a metal detector to possibly be wanded afterward. However, I appear to have discovered a personal privacy "line" that the TSA has just crossed with these new imagers and enhanced pat-down techniques. The TSA may say "4 out of 5 agree with our policies", but the checks and balances in place in our government are there specifically to protect citizens' constitutional rights, not the majority opinion.
Sincerely,
[me]
ETA: Another question: What about those who opt FOR the body scanners to avoid being patted down? From what I hear if the machine "Doesn't capture a good image" (whatever the heck that means), then persons are automatically sent over for a pat-down instead. Anecdotally I've heard that this is not necessarily a "rare" event. Can you instead say "No, hold up the line, and take my picture over again until you get a clear image"? If there truly are only these two "choices" in the foreseeable immediate future, I imagine there are plenty of people who would choose not to be touched, for plenty of different reasons.
EATA: Oh, and I've found out that the reason one can't find information about pat-down procedures is because they are considered "SSI"-- Security Screening Information, considered some kind of sensitive information that isn't allowed to be released. So you are being subjected to a procedure for which you have no idea how much contact, or what kind of contact, is allowable. This sounds like lawsuit city to me. (on edit again): Does anyone know if there have been any FOIA filings to obtain pat-down procedures? I suppose it might count as "sensitive information" or as "internal information" but it might be worth presenting an argument; if a citizen who's broken no laws whatsoever is subjected to a pat-down, does the citizen have the right to know what the limits of these pat-downs are? Otherwise how can you make an informed choice? (The answer, from my friend who works at the GAO, is yes, and yes the requests are denied for the reasons I state).
Links:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331346/Cancer-survivor-forced-prosthetic-breast-TSA-agents-airport-pat-down.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rep/airport-body-scanners.html
http://lewrockwell.com/orig3/monahan1.html
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/national/screaming-toddlers-airport-patdown-111710
Interesting on that last video, they mention that for minors you can ask the ticket agent at the counter when you pick up your ticket if your child has been selected for extra screening, and if they have, you can ask that they be deselected. If only it would work for the rest of us too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/business/19security.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hpw
Young boy strip searched by TSA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skkCpnCm7iM
German "fleshmob" strips in protest against body scanners: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6kBn3cnOo8
MSNBC: The TSA has met the enemy, and they are us: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40298973/ns/us_news-airliner_security/
This one pisses me off: Obama stands by controversial air security screening methods http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/20/obama.tsa/index.html This guy will NEVER have to go through a scanner or a pat-down. Nor his family.
TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news/
Israel is the answer? I have had doubts about this; there are people parroting Bruce Schnier and that Israeli security expert all over the net without really knowing all that happens in Israel's layered security model either. http://ifamericansknew.org/about_us/etyt10.html If you visit Palestinians and non-violently protest, you will be detained, strip-searched and cavity searched. If you are of Palestinian descent, you run the risk of being detained and strip-searched.
More TSA horror stories: http://healthznews.com/tsa-pulls-pants-off-71-yo-man-with-knee-implant.html
http://pncminnesota.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/rape-survivor-devasted-by-tsa-enhanced-pat-down/
Letter of response to health concerns from people who actually sound like they know what they are talking about:
http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/SecuritySystems/ucm231857.htm
I am curious what the parameters were so as to ignore population effects. were the recommendations written with as widespread deployment as will likely be ramping up in the next few years?
I have been following closely the debate over the new airline imaging (AIT) X-ray machines, either the Backscatter machines or the Millimeter Wave machines, and the alternative measures that are being implemented across our nation's airports. I fly three to four times per year, and I am worried about the use of these machines.
I have compiled a list of questions that I would like the TSA to answer, and if you are in the position to ask the higher management, and to publicize the answers, please do.
Questions:
1) What is the procedure for persons traveling alone with babies/small children? My sister has to travel from the west to east coast over the Thanksgiving holiday. She is traveling alone with a seven-month-old child. She has a one-way ticket and is worried she will be singled out for AIT or extra screening because of this. She will refuse to take her baby through the x-ray machine, which I believe is a reasonable decision. But as I understand it, going through the machine requires persons to set their "belongings" aside, possibly even out of view. I also have read accounts that a person cannot undergo an "enhanced pat-down" while holding a child (please see this blog post http://www.ourlittlechatterboxes.com/2010/11/tsa-sexual-assault.html for a clarification). I hope that the TSA has a policy in place for dealing with this situation. As my sister says, 'it only takes a second' for a child out of view to come to harm. I note that people carry babies through the metal detectors all the time with no problems whatsoever.
2) What are the official guidelines for an "enhanced pat-down"? I have heard anecdotal accounts of policies (run hands under waistband, pat inner thighs with palms facing forward until meeting "resistance", open women's labia through their clothes, etc), but nowhere have I seen official guidelines and step-by-step instructions for an enhanced pat-down. I will be opting out, so I want to know what to expect. I want to know the legal and contractual boundaries, enacted and instructed by the officials in the TSA to their trained officers, that constitute allowable action in an enhanced pat-down. I have been unable to find any documentation for this. I think that this should be released to protect the rights and safety not only of passengers, but also of any TSA staff who are unlucky enough to have to perform these pat-downs.
3) How are the enactment and operational procedures of these new security measures going to be monitored? Will we be able to get measurements, conducted from an independent third party observer, for:
1) the number of people who are subject to body scans
2) the number of people who opt out of body scans when chosen
3) the number of people who consent to body scans when chosen
4) the number of people who consent to body scans and afterward are still subject to an enhanced pat-down because of a flagged anomaly on the screen
5) the number of people who file complaints against the TSA
6) the number of people who are dissatisfied but do not take the time to file a complaint
7) the percentage of airports that provide transparent, fully informative measures for the AIT screening procedures, either through signs or verbal communications
I do not believe that any of this information would be sensitive to national security; therefore I think it should be measured, publicized, analyzed and evaluated.
4) Frequency of pat-downs: Mr. Pistole said in the senate briefing on Wednesday November 17th, 2010, that the occurrence of pat-downs would be "rare". However, by the CBS polls it shows that up to 20% of Americans do not agree with these new techniques. This is a measurement of the American public who have phones, not of travelers who are coming into airports. I am curious as to what the survey results would be like for those who travel. Now for example, for random screenings, if one in every five people does not agree with AIT imagers, then it is not unreasonable to think that out of every 5 people singled out to be sent through the imagers,
a) One person will go through the imager under duress and coercion (as opposed to miss their flights, eat the monetary cost, or subject themselves to an invasive and possibly punitive enhanced pat-down).
b) One person will opt out, and subject themselves to an invasive and possibly punitive enhanced pat-down.
This is possibly a twenty percent rate of pat-downs for the AIT machines, not counting those for whom the machine flags an anomaly. I would like to see, or conduct myself, a scientific test of this hypothesis.
5) False positives. I am a statistician who works in network security. Our work is similar in that we monitor millions of "events" per day, looking for those rare occasions where an anomalous reading is also a threat. In this situation, false positives will vastly outnumber true positives, simply because the rate of true positives in the population is so low.
In medical screenings, this is a widely known phenomenon. In statistics, the specificity and sensitivity of the ELISA screening test for HIV is used ubiquitously in introductory courses as an excellent example of Bayes Rule. See for example this homework question:
http://www.brainmass.com/homework-help/statistics/all-topics/354850
**
The ELISA test for AIDS was used in the screening of blood donations in the 1990s. As with most medical diagnostic tests, the ELISA test is not infallible. If a person actually carries the AIDS virus, experts estimate that this test gives a positive result 97.7% of the time. If a person does not carry the AIDS virus, ELISA gives a negative result 92.6% of the time. Experts also estimate that 0.5% of the American public carries the AIDS virus.
Suppose that someone tells you that they have tested positive. Given this information, what is the probability that the person actually carries the AIDS virus?
**
The 0.977 rate is called the "sensitivity", or Pr(detected given disease)
The 0.926 rate is called the "specificity", or Pr(not detected given not disease)
the marginal probability of disease in the population, Pr(disease), is 0.005.
The question is asking the student to discover the probability Pr(disease given detected). This is done using Bayes rule:
Pr(disease given detected) = Pr(diseased AND detected)/Pr(detected)
Using the probabilities that are given, we can write this as:
Pr(detected|disease)*Pr(disease)/[Pr(detected|disease)*Pr(disease) + (1 - Pr(not detected|not disease))*Pr(not disease)]
The answer is startling to some: if a person is tested at random for HIV, then given a positive test, there is only a 6% chance that the person has the disease. That means that 94% of the time, when applied randomly, a positive result is actually a false positive. In the medical community, these kinds of results are why best practices suggest that screening be applied only when there are other risk factors that raise the marginal probability of HIV considerably. In contrast, the TSA has stated explicitly that "Everyone has to be scanned."
I would like to know the specificity and sensitivity of these AIT machines, specifically in their ability to detect terrorist threats to an airplane. If the false positive rate is too high, what measures will be taken so that ordinary citizens are not harassed unnecessarily on their way to board a plane?
6) Radiation exposure. I would like to see a peer-reviewed, public study of the radiation exposure and threat that the machines pose, when they are used as directed for scanning airport passengers. I believe that this requires that an independent third party observe the persons running the machines in practice, and measurements of radiation exposure as such, especially to the eyes and the groin area, which ostensibly is what the operators are supposed to focus on in scanning.
7) I would like to know what the procedures are for staffing the observation rooms. In my line of work, we work in a secure environment in which all cell phones, transmitters, wireless devices, and cameras must be removed and stored before entering the room. The door is locked during times when no-one is present in the area, and only security staff can unlock it. We badge in to the secure area and pass a security desk that is staffed during all hours when the room is open. We must disable microphones and web cameras from laptops before entering. I would ask that the TSA publicize their security requirements for the persons monitoring the AIT scan images. The machines ostensibly cannot transmit or store images as they are configured, but cell phones with cameras certainly can snap a picture of the screen to send to friends.
8) Public information. How will the TSA publicize the procedures and images that are used in AIT screening, to passengers in the security line who may not be informed? Will a brochure be available? Will passengers be able to see examples of the pictures that are rendered from the body scanners? Will passengers be informed explicitly via signs or verbal communications, that the procedure is optional and that they need say "I opt out" to instead be subject to a pat-down? Will they be informed that they have the option to discontinue all screening without punishment and leave the airport?
9) Policies for alerts. What procedures are taken when an alert is flagged? Are the images from the alerted scan stored, printed, or transmitted? Is the person subjected to an enhanced pat-down, luggage search or other measures? Are the procedures different than when a person is flagged by the metal detector? What happens if a person is discovered to have explosives on their body?
--------------
This list of questions is probably too short; I will most likely think of more. Currently, I have decided that I do not wish to subject myself to added levels of radiation, nor to a digital search of my body underneath my clothes, solely because I wish to board an airplane. This means that if I am selected to go through these machines, I will opt out. However, I also believe that I am being presented with a false "choice" in this matter, as I neither want to submit to an enhanced pat-down. I believe that this is an infringement of my fourth amendment right to be free of unreasonable searches. As such, I will be avoiding flying whenever possible, but sometimes it is a necessity for my work.
I am comfortable removing my shoes, throwing away my liquids, emptying my bags of pocketknives and tweezers, sending my belongings through an x-ray machine, and stepping through a metal detector to possibly be wanded afterward. However, I appear to have discovered a personal privacy "line" that the TSA has just crossed with these new imagers and enhanced pat-down techniques. The TSA may say "4 out of 5 agree with our policies", but the checks and balances in place in our government are there specifically to protect citizens' constitutional rights, not the majority opinion.
Sincerely,
[me]
ETA: Another question: What about those who opt FOR the body scanners to avoid being patted down? From what I hear if the machine "Doesn't capture a good image" (whatever the heck that means), then persons are automatically sent over for a pat-down instead. Anecdotally I've heard that this is not necessarily a "rare" event. Can you instead say "No, hold up the line, and take my picture over again until you get a clear image"? If there truly are only these two "choices" in the foreseeable immediate future, I imagine there are plenty of people who would choose not to be touched, for plenty of different reasons.
EATA: Oh, and I've found out that the reason one can't find information about pat-down procedures is because they are considered "SSI"-- Security Screening Information, considered some kind of sensitive information that isn't allowed to be released. So you are being subjected to a procedure for which you have no idea how much contact, or what kind of contact, is allowable. This sounds like lawsuit city to me. (on edit again): Does anyone know if there have been any FOIA filings to obtain pat-down procedures? I suppose it might count as "sensitive information" or as "internal information" but it might be worth presenting an argument; if a citizen who's broken no laws whatsoever is subjected to a pat-down, does the citizen have the right to know what the limits of these pat-downs are? Otherwise how can you make an informed choice? (The answer, from my friend who works at the GAO, is yes, and yes the requests are denied for the reasons I state).
Links:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1331346/Cancer-survivor-forced-prosthetic-breast-TSA-agents-airport-pat-down.html
http://www.lewrockwell.com/rep/airport-body-scanners.html
http://lewrockwell.com/orig3/monahan1.html
http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/dpp/news/national/screaming-toddlers-airport-patdown-111710
Interesting on that last video, they mention that for minors you can ask the ticket agent at the counter when you pick up your ticket if your child has been selected for extra screening, and if they have, you can ask that they be deselected. If only it would work for the rest of us too.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/19/business/19security.html?pagewanted=1&_r=3&hpw
Young boy strip searched by TSA: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skkCpnCm7iM
German "fleshmob" strips in protest against body scanners: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6kBn3cnOo8
MSNBC: The TSA has met the enemy, and they are us: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40298973/ns/us_news-airliner_security/
This one pisses me off: Obama stands by controversial air security screening methods http://www.cnn.com/2010/TRAVEL/11/20/obama.tsa/index.html This guy will NEVER have to go through a scanner or a pat-down. Nor his family.
TSA pat-down leaves traveler covered in urine: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40291856/ns/travel-news/
Israel is the answer? I have had doubts about this; there are people parroting Bruce Schnier and that Israeli security expert all over the net without really knowing all that happens in Israel's layered security model either. http://ifamericansknew.org/about_us/etyt10.html If you visit Palestinians and non-violently protest, you will be detained, strip-searched and cavity searched. If you are of Palestinian descent, you run the risk of being detained and strip-searched.
More TSA horror stories: http://healthznews.com/tsa-pulls-pants-off-71-yo-man-with-knee-implant.html
http://pncminnesota.wordpress.com/2010/11/08/rape-survivor-devasted-by-tsa-enhanced-pat-down/
Letter of response to health concerns from people who actually sound like they know what they are talking about:
http://www.fda.gov/Radiation-EmittingProducts/RadiationEmittingProductsandProcedures/SecuritySystems/ucm231857.htm
I am curious what the parameters were so as to ignore population effects. were the recommendations written with as widespread deployment as will likely be ramping up in the next few years?
