In his post below, my co-blogger Ilya suggests that we should be skeptical of U.S. airport security measures because they are not used by Israeli airport security. Ilya writes:
many of the TSA’s most intrusive and annoying policies are not used by Israeli airport security, generally considered to be the best in the world; these include forcing people to take off their shoes and confiscating all liquids other than those in special containers. Interestingly, the measures used by the TSA, but not by the Israelis, tend to be highly visible and intrusive to the average traveler. That leads me to suspect that the TSA has adopted them for “security theater” reasons, so as to make it seem that they are making a great effort to combat terrorism, and make people feel more secure. If the public sees the TSA making a major visible effort, fear will perhaps decrease and the agency is less likely to be blamed for any security failures that may occur in the future.
It’s true that U.S. practices are different in some important ways than Israeli practices. But as a general matter, Isaeli airport security is dramatically more time-consuming and invasive than anything in the U.S. Here is Wikipedia on El Al airport security:
Passengers are asked to report three hours before departure. All El Al terminals around the world are closely monitored for security. There are plain-clothes agents and fully armed police or military personnel who patrol the premises for explosives, suspicious behavior, and other threats. Inside the terminal, passengers and their baggage are checked by a trained team. El Al security procedures require that all passengers be interviewed individually prior to boarding, allowing El Al staff to identify possible security threats. Passengers will be asked questions about where they are coming from, the reason for their trip, their job or occupation, and whether they have packed their bags themselves. The likelihood of potential terrorists remaining calm under such questioning is believed to be low (see microexpression). At the check-in counter the passengers’ passports and tickets are closely examined. A ticket without a sticker from the security checkers will not be accepted. At passport control passengers’ names are checked against information from the FBI, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Scotland Yard, Shin Bet, and Interpol databases. Luggage is screened and sometimes hand searched. In addition, bags are put through a decompression chamber simulating pressures during flight that could trigger explosives.
It’s true that passengers don’t have to take their shoes off, which a lot of passengers on U.S. flights appear to find annoying. But that’s because government security “profilers” ask extensive questions of each individual passengeruntil they are satisfied that a passenger does not pose a threat — making the removal of shoes quite beside the point:
They probe, as one profiling supervisor told CBS, for “anything out of the ordinary, anything that does not fit.” Their questions can seem odd or intrusive. . . . Only when the profiler is satisfied that a passenger poses no risk is he or she allowed to proceed to the check-in counter. By that point, there is no need to make him remove his shoes, or to confiscate his bottle of water.
Many passengers are fine with these practices. But as you might guess, some travelers complain that the Israeli practices are unacceptable, much too invasive, add too much delay, and are unnecessary. It’s also interesting to note that the Israelis have increased airport security in response to the Christmas attack for all flights to the United States.
JohnF says:
The real problem in adopting the Israeli approach is that it requires a very bright, clever and intensively trained staff. From the TSA representatives I’ve met, nice as many are, they would be unlikely to be able to handle the job to Israeli specifications.
December 27, 2009, 11:11 pmAndrew L says:
Having traveled to Israel on numerous occasions, I tend to agree with Prof. Kerr’s conclusion but not his reasoning.
I never found El Al security particularly invasive or time consuming. If you’re a normal passenger, then there’s really nothing that should make you uncomfortable. It doesn’t even take that long to finish everything up. If offered the choice between TSA theatrics and the Israeli model, I’ll take the latter, and feel much better.
But I don’t know if the Israeli model would work for American airlines. First of all, my distinct impression is that the El Al security agents employ racial profiling. I get through very quickly because they don’t think I look like a threat, but for others it might take longer. This obviously wouldn’t fly on American airlines (forgive the pun!).
Also – regarding the barrage of questions asked of passengers by El Al agents, in order to identify suspicious behavior – far fewer people enter Israel than enter America; furthermore, the people that DO enter Israel do so for a much more limited number of reasons than those entering America. Either you’re going for religious reasons (in which case they ask you questions to ascertain that you are, in fact, as religious as you claim), or you’re on business (in which case there are a limited number of places you might go), or both. Since America is so much bigger, and the reasons for entering it are so numerous, it just seems to me like it would be much easier to fake a reason for entering America than for entering Israel, and to maintain that fiction in the face of a security agent.
December 27, 2009, 11:38 pmMark Field says:
I’ve never flown into or out of Israel, but this description sounds to me like an improvement over the US system. A great part of the annoyance I feel about TSA (aside from their rudeness) comes from the fact that the things I’m asked to do (take off my shoes) seem unrelated to any serious threat. This lessens my confidence that they know what they’re doing and makes me feel therefore less safe.
In contrast, the Israeli system strikes me as directly targeted towards identifying potential threats and uses plausible methods to foil them. That gives me confidence in their security.
Now it’s true that I’d have to put up with an extra hour of travel at each end. However, this seems justified by the severity of the risk and thus tolerable. Moreover, the fact that the screenings don’t waste time and money on relatively useless measures makes me believe that the other practices really are necessary.
December 28, 2009, 12:07 amMSD says:
The problem with adopting the security practices at ben gurion is that it only has about 8 million emplanements per year — putting it just behind Cincinnati / Northern Kentucky International. Adopting Israeli security screening at Hartsfield would shut the system down.
December 28, 2009, 12:38 amGlen says:
I’ve also traveled to Israel several times and have never found their security to be more aggravating than other Western European airports (e.g., LHR, AMS, FRA, CDG), and not even close to the charlie foxtrot that characterizes U.S. airports such as LAX, JFK and ORD. And linking to a Skytrax Research website with a small handful (less than 25%) of critical comments on security at TLV does not constitute a qualified rebuttal of the widely acknowledged invasive annoyance that TSA inflicts millions of times per month.
I also disagree that an exceedingly high level of specialized and generally unavailable knowledge is required in order to intelligently comment on airline security practices. Of course, that lack of knowledge hasn’t stopped many of the Volokh Conspiracy contributors from freely offering their personal opinions. So when I add my opinion — an opinion echoed by millions of frequent flyers — it should not be discarded simply because I may not be a government employee or have access to classified information.
I see little evidence of Al Qaeda or anyone else repeatedly attempting identical or highly similar attacks. Yet TSA insists upon “fighting the last war.” Since one of the chief goals of terrorism is to scare a population and force them to alter their society in ways that limit the population’s freedoms and economic productivity, we have collectively allowed TSA to become Al Qaeda’s accomplice.
It also seems clear to me that between thorough screening of checked baggage and cargo, hardened flight deck doors and the decisive actions of passengers (the “unorganized militia” so aptly described by Randy Barnett), we have already deployed the most effective tactics against acts of terrorism targeted towards commercial airliners. Hardened flight deck doors now means that an airliner can never again be used as a “guided missile” — at least not without the willing participation of a member of the flight crew. Alert passengers who are willing (and encouraged) to take action can probably thwart most any cabin-based threat. And while we still don’t thoroughly screen cargo, there hasn’t been a bomb explosion in the baggage compartment of an U.S.-flag carrier since Pan Am 103 in 1988.
Everything else — whether restrictions on carry-on items or behavior aboard aircraft, prohibition of passenger movement about airports, insistence upon separate imaging of shoes, computers, jackets and bags, etc., etc. — is indeed “security theater.”
December 28, 2009, 12:51 amChris Travers says:
First, I think there are a couple points that need to be said going into this:
1) The types of threats that exist in the Israeli system are not likely to be identical to the types of threats that exist in the American system. There may be a great deal of overlap. However, think it is overly facile to assume that what is useful one place is not useful somewhere else.
2) A lot of the concerns about “security theater” in the US have to do with details of implementation more than the overall approaches (with the exception of these latest changes).
Nonetheless, I agree with Prof. Somin’s basic approach which is to ask what more experienced airports do and ask if they have found the same mechanisms useful. If the answer is no, it is not a decisive negation, but it should raise a red flag. Unfortunately this is about as far as lay people get.
The bigger issue though is that the larger issue is that the real complaints should be made on the basis of security theory in the same way that questions of whether requiring backscatter/virtual strip searches to fly is Constitutional should be based on theories of Constitutional Law. Red flags do not provide decisive answers.
A few better approaches are to ask the following questions:
1) What are the exceptions to the rule? Do the exceptions make the rule practically enforcible? Apparently for a long time wrt liquids, this was a real concern. Nowadays it is less so.
2) If you were a terrorist and these rules came into play, how would they change your plans? 1 hour of sitting?
3) What is the weakest link in the new regulations? What does this mean for the least secure screening checkpoint in the country?
4) What is the closest someone could come to abusing it and get away with it?
5) What is the impact if the regulation fails to catch someone? What secondary impact does it have?
There are compelling reasons to cover past threats and try to keep them from recurring. However, we shouldn’t assume competence of our nation’s leaders in this area.
Let me go through these 5 questions with the two new security revelations (no standing for last hour of flight, unpredictable security measures at checkpoints):
1) Neither one has clear exceptions but I have trouble imagining a no-bathroom-breaks rule will be strictly enforced. What are they going to do? Tell you to pee in your pants? In reality the cabin crew makes most of these decisions on a case-by-case basis and are typically fairly lax. Similarly I have trouble imagining that blankets will be carefully watched either or sleeping passengers roused to remove their blankets. With inconsistent security checkpoint measures one has to assume that every checkpoint is an exception.
2) On the hour bit, it makes sense to just detonate the bomb earlier. For the checkpoint issue, you probably just ask folk who recently travelled what their experiences were. However I would find it extremely unlikely that passenger-acceptable means would detect bombs like this.
3) For the hour regulation on staying seated for landing, I see it as entirely ineffective anyway for above reasons, so the weak links are earlier phases of flight. For unpredictability at security checkpoints, this means the possibility of terrorists waiting until the security measures rotate, or selecting airports with more desirable security characteristics. One has to assume that any nonstandard practice can be circumvented by driving a day or so.
4) I highly doubt that the regulation can stop this sort of attack in the future. I doubt terrorists would have to do anything different.
5) If they fail to catch someone, they have no positive impact on security. They may lead to increased risks of thrombosis, internal injuries during landing accidents (due to full bladders) and the like. If rigidly enforced they would cost lives, not save them.
December 28, 2009, 1:12 amFederal Farmer says:
Given that the failed shoe-bomber led to us having to remove our shoes at the TSA checkpoint, I shudder at the possibilities given this latest failed underwear-bomb.
December 28, 2009, 1:38 ampoul says:
this.
December 28, 2009, 4:28 amRicardo says:
According to Daniel Pipes, Israeli security measures increase the cost for passengers of flying by about an average of $70 per passenger. Israel has been at war almost continuously since its existence so perhaps that’s an acceptable price to pay for them. Are any Americans volunteering to pay an extra $70 per flight to lower their chances of dying while flying from around 1 out of 2 million to maybe 0.95 or 0.9 out of 2 million?
December 28, 2009, 6:21 ambearing says:
Quick question.
El Al terminals around the world apply Israeli-style security measures including profiling, correct? These security measures, it is argued by some (I have heard), could not be implemented by US airlines because of constitutional/equal protection challenges.
Is El Al at risk of being sued for unconstitutional race-based profiling when it operates its security in U.S. airports?
December 28, 2009, 6:23 amDavid says:
Having flown into and out of Amsterdam several times over the last 10 years or more, the security at Amsterdam has been essentially as described above for Israel. I am only talking about the visible part of the security since I do not know what goes on in the background with the luggage and the database checks. Everything else though is the same.
And this guy got past them.
December 28, 2009, 8:49 amLymis says:
It was touched on, but let’s repeat. It is illusory to say that “Israel” does this or that, so “The US” should consider it, as though it was a wash.
Scale.
I can’t help but think that it would be pretty straight forward to choose one or two mid-size US airports and make them effectively utterly safe, especially if they were not used extensively as stopover points for continuing flights (ie, every person is either entering the airline system or exiting it from that airport).
But we have a hell of a lot more than that.
So, yes, there may definitely be some lessons we can learn and techniques we can use, but it is absurd to speak as though all we have to do is get a few Israeli consultants and retool the system overnight.
December 28, 2009, 10:03 amSean O'Hara says:
I just have one question for TSA — how many terrorists have they foiled? It’s not enough for them to say they may have discouraged terrorists — I want numbers on how many they’ve actually stopped.
December 28, 2009, 11:23 amChris Travers says:
There’s always hope that the person ahead of you in the line is a young, attractive member of the opposite sex.
December 28, 2009, 1:13 pmChris Travers says:
I think it is worth pointing out the obvious here. That is that AQ and similar organizations probably care less about the means than about the possibility of demonstrating that they can hit difficult targets. If they find an easy way to make an attack we probably shouldn’t leave that door open.
Having said this, the more professional allegations of security theater usually don’t come from broad outlines but from specific details relating to new security directives. For example, “no liquids or gells, except for liquids in contact lens solution bottles” is pure security theater. Even baby bottles are problematic because someone travelling alone could say “my wife forgot these and she is waiting for me at the gate. I had to come back and get them.” So unless the exemption includes requiring the baby also to be physically present it doesn’t add any burden to an attempt to bring liquids on board in unrestricted amounts. Now the liquid rule has gotten better since exceptions are now usually chemically tested, but before that measure was in place, it was just for show.
My advice is to look at details and ask yourself, “if I was trying to blow up a bomb using the same mechanism as before, how would this force me to make changes to my plan?” If the answer is “put the liquids in different bottles” or “detonate the bomb at cruise phase of flight in the restroom” then it is security theater. If the answer is, “well, it would require some additional help, maybe from a friend” then maybe it has a purpose.
December 28, 2009, 2:57 pmJohn Moore says:
If we had a real market in airline travel (rather than our strictly cost-based one), this would open a nice opportunity. You can travel on a TSA secured airline, or one which contracts its security out to El Al.
Thank you, I’ll choose the latter.
December 28, 2009, 11:41 pmJohn Moore says:
The comment keeps coming up that TSA is “fighting the last war.”
It would seem that so is Al Qaeda. They keep trying to attack public transport, which in the case of the US, is airliners.
What I don’t understand is why AQ doesn’t go after softer targets – say, school buses.
December 28, 2009, 11:43 pmjukeboxgrad says:
moore:
You’ll choose the one that requires you to arrive much earlier, and charges $70 more? You haven’t really answered Ricardo’s excellent question:
December 29, 2009, 3:23 amJohn Moore says:
As the commenters above have shown, it is the wrong question. The trends put El Al as less trouble than TSA, and when I’m on the plane, I might enjoy my flight a bit more with a blanket or a book or being able to go to the head during the last hour.
December 29, 2009, 7:19 pmjukeboxgrad says:
There are no comments that have shown that it’s the wrong question. However, you have shown that you intend to evade the question.
December 30, 2009, 8:35 amCharles Norrie says:
To the comment that there has not been a an explosion in the baggage compartment of a US aircraft sincle Lockerbie, you should add the remarks that (a) There were provably two explosions on that plane and (b) the CIA knows very well who did it.
December 30, 2009, 8:50 amOsborne Cox says:
I’m all for implementing the Israeli system because the logical extension of our current strategy is going to be so invasive and time consuming I really don’t care if I have to show up 3 hours early and pay $70 more. I think they can make it work regardless of how many more people fly in this country. Look at how much more security there is now when compared to the pre-9/11 days.
If we keep concentrating on only finding “the bad items” instead of identifying “the bad people”, we will always be a step behind the terrorists and they will continue to get past security. And then heaven only knows what awful and ineffective security measures the senseless morons in Washington will come up with. I’d rather be interviewed by a professional than strip and body cavity searched by some imbecile that should be working at a 7-11.
December 30, 2009, 2:36 pmLibrary: Round-up of Reading « Res Communis says:
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