{"id":19050,"date":"2024-01-22T12:10:24","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T17:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=19050"},"modified":"2024-01-23T20:34:04","modified_gmt":"2024-01-24T01:34:04","slug":"will-tsa-steal-your-mug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/01\/22\/will-tsa-steal-your-mug\/","title":{"rendered":"Will TSA Steal Your Mug?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Will TSA Steal Your Mug?<\/a>\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Dorothy Parker\u2019s signature line, \u201cWhat fresh hell is this?\u201d is the new the mantra for travelers at American airport<\/strong>s. TSA is rapidly expanding a program in which travelers stand in photo kiosks that compare their faces with a federal database of photos from passport applications, drivers\u2019 licenses, and other sources to see if people receive official permission to fly.<\/section>\n
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What could possibly go wrong? Aside from everything? Will Americans tolerate an out-of-control agency intruding ever further into their lives? The Washington Post <\/i>warned in 2019 that airport facial-recognition systems are \u201cAmerica\u2019s biggest step yet to normalize treating our faces as data that can be stored, tracked and, inevitably, stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experiencing the surveillance state<\/b><\/h2>\n

Flying out of Washington National Airport in February, I saw a special entry line for the CLEAR facial scan program that enables people who pay $189 a year to skip TSA lines. TSA promises that its new airport regime will respect Americans\u2019 privacy. Fat chance: TSA previously promised no traveler would be delayed more than 10 minutes at TSA checkpoints.<\/p>\n

I stood and watched semi-frazzled travelers enter a roped-off turf to get TSA approval for their visage.<\/p>\n

A skinny young woman with a CLEAR t-shirt and a clipboard was standing guard at the entrance of the biometric site. She looked like a cherub with long straight red hair and a welcoming smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow soon will they be making the biometric checks mandatory?\u201d I asked her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know anything about that,\u201d she replied, as if I\u2019d asked about the surface temperature of the planet Venus.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo people ever complain about having to do the biometric checks?<\/p>\n

\u201cNo, this is voluntary,\u201d she replied with a smile wider than a Kamala Harris grimace.<\/p>\n

She was a good Washingtonian: She could never imagine any federal agency flogging the hell out of the Constitution.<\/strong> I considered peppering her with another half dozen questions but wanted to keep my sarcasm fresh for dealing with TSA agents. My hunch was that the redheaded cherub was not a regular reader of the Future of Freedom Foundation website.<\/strong><\/p>\n

TSA is one of the most secretive domestic agencies.<\/b><\/h2>\n

In July, the Washington Post<\/i> reported that TSA agents at National Airport threatened long delays for any passenger who refused to be photographed, including U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.). Merkley noted that TSA falsely claimed that there were signs at National Airport notifying people that the facial scans are optional.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrust us\u201d is the TSA mantra for the new program. TSA is one of the most secretive domestic agencies and is notoriously noncompliant with the Freedom of Information Act. Washington Post<\/i> reporter Geoffrey Fowler notes that TSA has refused to disclose data on its new system: \u201cSo, we really have to at this point just take their word that it is a more accurate than people and speeding things up.\u201d That includes failing to disclose \u201chow often its system falsely identifies people, through incorrect positive or negative matches.\u201d<\/p>\n

What could possibly go wrong?<\/b><\/h2>\n

TSA will be relying on photo-identification systems with misidentification rates up to 100 times higher for blacks and Hispanics. When the ACLU tested facial-recognition systems in 2018 by running photos of members of Congress through a massive data of police mug shots, 28 lawmakers \u201cwere incorrectly matched to people charged with a crime.\u201d Actually, the number of congressmen who have committed criminal offenses is probably far higher, but the matches to those specific mug shots were erroneous.<\/p>\n

Nor is there any reason to expect the TSA to keep its personal data on Americans safe from pillaging. Federal records of citizens\u2019 photos were already filched in a 2019 \u201cmalicious cyberattack.\u201d<\/p>\n

TSA is already partnering with the Customs and Border Patrol agency to compel any American entering or leaving the nation to submit to being photographed for their database. That Trump administration initiative is named \u201cBiometric Entry\/Exit\u201d \u2014 a euphemism for \u201cNobody Leaves Without Uncle Sam\u2019s Permission.\u201d Since the program will rely on computer databases and facial scans instead of a Berlin Wall, there is nothing to fear. \u201cBiometric Entry\/Exit\u201d sets a precedent for federal controls over Americans\u2019 movement inside the United States.<\/p>\n

TSA will be capitalizing on vast federal poaching of state and local records, as well as online records. As Mike Maharrey of the Tenth Amendment Center noted, \u201cA 2019 report revealed that the federal government has turned state drivers\u2019 license photos into a giant facial recognition database, putting virtually every driver in America in a perpetual electronic police lineup.\u201d Techdirt reported, \u201cFederal investigators have turned state Department of Motor Vehicles databases into the bedrock of an unprecedented surveillance infrastructure.\u201d The FBI is regularly tapping into databases with more than 600 million facial photos.<\/p>\n

Pushing back against TSA<\/b><\/h2>\n

Five U.S. senators are seeking to slow the TSA facial scan stampede. In a letter to TSA Administrator David Pekoske in February, senators Ed Markey (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) called for TSA to halt its facial-scan program. The senators warned that \u201cAmerican\u2019s civil rights are under threat when the government deploys this technology on a mass scale, without sufficient evidence that the technology is effective on people of color and does not violate American\u2019s right to privacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The senators pressured TSA to provide the data by which Congress and private citizens could judge the program:<\/p>\n

Please provide data on the accuracy and volume of TSA\u2019s facial recognition technology program from 2020 to 2022 broken down by race, ethnicity, and gender that includes:<\/p>\n