Re: More Light, Less Touchy-Feely
Posted by
Carl Tollander on
Nov 21, 2010; 10:04pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/More-Light-Less-Touchy-Feely-tp5760933p5761071.html
Do we harass 10^6 people at a cost of $10^9
for one discovery of note, one which would stop an air-bomb?
Isn't that the terrorist's victory condition? If so, they don't
need to blow anything up anymore; it's way more cost-effective for
them to just publicly fail periodically.
Carl
On 11/21/10 2:31 PM, Parks, Raymond wrote:
Are we not scientists, engineers, mathematician, or interested
inthose fields? What is the best measure of effectiveness here?
How about bombs caught per billion dollars? Or bombs caught per
billion passenger hours wasted? By either measure, TSA has a bIg
fat zero. All of the bombs caught have come from passenger
intervention or intelligence actions. With the exception of some
early bomb plots stopped after enhanced interrogation, the
remaining intelligence catches have been from walk-ins, my
conclusion - train and arm passengers and buy walk-ins.
Ray Parks
P.S. The same logic applies to clearance investigations and the
Box.
From: Owen Densmore [
[hidden email]]
Sent: Sunday, November 21, 2010 02:16 PM
To: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group
[hidden email]
Subject: Re: [FRIAM] More Light, Less Touchy-Feely
I'd love to know what the risk-benifit trade off is. Do we harass
10^6 people at a cost of $10^9 for one discovery of note, one
which would stop an air-bomb?
As I understand it, the best info is not scanners etc but
community members reporting suspicious behavior. Maybe we
should ask help from the Islamic community? I realize they feel
victimized, but throw the same $$ at that sort of program would
likely create better results.
The last "event", the package bomb, was not meant to destroy
the aircraft was it? I think there were two packages sent to
"enemy" land addresses.
To tell the truth, I think I'm willing to risk it by tossing
the scanners etc, using sensible (and PC incorrect) social
methods, and hope the odds are not as bad as people think.
On Nov 21, 2010, at 1:57 PM, Russell Gonnering
wrote:
Because we are unwilling to do the only
sane thing and profile behavior, we sacrifice our
liberty on the altar of political correctness.
So, fellow FRIAMers, when they start doing rectal
exams to find the concealed explosives, what will
our response be then? What about the surgically
implanted explosives?
The choice is not between unpleasant experiences
and being blown up. The choice is between acting
like idiots or doing what actually is necessary to
prevent terror. So far, we have chosen the
former. Is it really worth it to spend billions
of dollars and terrorize the innocents to appear
to be “fair” to everyone?
I put my money on the idiots, as they always seem
to run things. El Al should expand into the
domestic US market.
Russ #3
Russell Gonnering, MD, MMM, FACS, CPHQ
<PastedGraphic-3.tiff>
I have followed the
correspondence on enhanced scanning
with usual mixture of shock and
incredulity. Do
people object because it’s offensive
or because it’s ineffective? It
would be unpleasant but, for me,
unpleasanter to be blown up by a
device that had avoided the enhanced
scanner. But
I haven’t enough info to make any
definitive judgment. In
particular on two matters. It
seems that new bomb compounds can be
concealed by flesh masses in exotic
parts of the body without detection by
the old scanners. I
thought that the Xmas underwear bomber
had proved this. It seems that old
folk, handicapped people, children and
infants are ideal subjects for planted
bombs, with no adverse fall-out for
the Bad Hats if detected. In this
wicked world the innocent are always
punished.
If correct this is pretty
awful news.
The strategy is for a bomber
to finesse that he’d be directed
through the old system, pass and end
up undetected on his planned flight. If
an enhanced scan is required, then he
should avoid this by all means while
offering to take the old, ineffectual
scan, and withdraw, undetected,
unidentified and with his powder dry,
to try again another day.
In such circumstances he
should behave like a gullible but
superior person (e.g. a Friamer) and
behave with all the histrionics
necessary for the exasperated TSA to
simply tell him to get lost. So
this dramatic response, that some
objectors seem to have chosen, and
others to approve of, would make the
objector highly suspect, and rightly
so.
Peter Lissaman, Da Vinci Ventures
Expertise is not knowing everything, but
knowing what to look for.
1454 Miracerros Loop South, Santa Fe, New
Mexico 87505,USA
tel:(505)983-7728
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FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
============================================================
FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv
Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College
lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at
http://www.friam.org